Metcalfe just nodded. “I’m getting the picture now. That’s why you wanted to know about Kundrov. You weren’t sure whether Soviet intelligence was on to you. You were afraid he might have blown your cover.”
Nolan shrugged. “There was only one way to be sure. I had to meet you myself and look into those puppy-dog eyes.”
“Which means we must be alone,” Metcalfe went on, half thinking aloud. “You’d never show yourself to the rank and file. Not you. You just might be the Reich’s most highly placed asset in the United States intelligence services. There’d be too many possibilities for exposure.”
“You’re right that I’d never allow myself to be seen that way. No, if I had any backup, it would have to be someone I had complete confidence in. Someone I’d worked with personally. Discretion is all-important, naturally. But you know us G-men. We’re great believers in the buddy system. Not like your gasbag Corcoran, with his fucking compartmentation. Christ, what a phony he was. A goddamned phony, and a menace.”
“Was?” Metcalfe said weakly.
“Ah, the past tense. Right. I’m afraid my friends paid him a visit a few hours ago. I’m afraid he’s no longer with us. I hear the old man pissed his pants. Pity about his housekeeper, Frau Schibli, but she was just in the way.”
“You goddamned bastard!” Metcalfe roared.
Nolan released one hand from the weapon and made a slight signal.
Metcalfe heard a movement from behind, like the whispery sound of a striking snake, and suddenly something drew tight around Metcalfe’s neck. He couldn’t breathe! Some sort of wire sliced into his throat.
“Thanks, Herr Kleist,” Nolan said. He made another gesture with his hand, and the wire suddenly loosened.
Metcalfe coughed. The pain where the wire had cut into his throat was intense, like a band of fire.
“My German friends have a few more questions for you,” Nolan said. “We’re just going to have to go through them. Now, one more time: What were you doing in Berlin?”
“Drop dead, you miserable bastard!” Metcalfe’s voice was gravelly; the wire had already bruised his larynx.
“After you, kid,” Nolan said, giving him another grotesque wink. “After you. Listen, you can forget all the game playing. The noble defiance? Duly noted. But you’re performing to an audience that isn’t here. You ever see a calf that’s got itself caught in a fence, and finds itself slowly strangling? Guess not, not where you come from. But it’s a horrible sight. There’s something primal about it—it’s like you’re drowning ever so slowly, and you’re panicking, and it’s just the worst thing. A horrible way to die.”
At a hand signal from Nolan, the wire around his neck grew incrementally tenser. Metcalfe felt his face grow red, as if blood were being pumped into his head but couldn’t leave. It seemed that tiny cluster bombs of agony were being detonated inside his skull.
I just point the SD in the right direction . . . They have people who do the . . . housecleaning.
It was the assassin from Paris, from Moscow! The one who’d killed Roger Martin, Amos Hilliard, the men in the Paris wireless station . . .
Nolan’s voice sounded far away as he spoke in a voice of inexorable calm. “Just let it all go, Stephen,” he said, almost tenderly. “Everything you ever did, and everything you never got to do. All the women you screwed, and all the women you never got to screw—you’ve just got to let it all go.”
Another hand signal: abruptly the wire loosened and the agony began to drain away. “You begin to see what I’m talking about? Understand, I hate to do this. I truly do. But like I say, you’ve gotta choose sides, and you chose the wrong one. Now, you gonna level with me? No?” A sorrowful look. “Herr Kleist, kindly resume.”
“Wait!” Metcalfe blurted out.
“I’m sorry, Metcalfe. I take no pleasure in this. But there’s the greater good to be considered.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Metcalfe gasped. “I have been used. I’ve been a tool.”
Chip stared back suspiciously. “Forgive me if I take this deathbed conversion with a grain of salt.”
“Truth is, it’s been on my mind for a while now,” Metcalfe said. Speaking was painful, but he forced himself to go on. “Guess you can’t lie to yourself forever. I just didn’t know what Corky was getting me into. He sent me over to Russia to enlist certain influential government officials in a plan to attack Germany. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
Nolan peered closely at Metcalfe’s face and nodded fractionally. “Go on.”
“That’s what I’m here working on. I—Jesus, Chip, what the hell did I know? I was just a kid fresh out of college with stars in my eyes, I was going to save the world, and this wise old mentor takes me under his wing. Jesus! I have been blind.”
Now Chip seemed to hesitate. He didn’t lower his weapon, but Metcalfe could see the tension in the FBI man’s trigger finger slacken just a bit. The bait was irresistible to Chip; he couldn’t pass up the lure. “Tell me about the plan,” Chip said.
“God, it’s brilliant. I mean, really amazing,” Metcalfe said confidingly. He glanced to one side, then the other, as if making sure he wasn’t overheard. Action’s always twice as fast as reaction, Metcalfe thought. The sudden, unexpected movement. That’s the only way. Yet where was the assassin behind him? The angle of the grip around his throat suggested that the killer was approximately Metcalfe’s height, and the fact that he couldn’t feel the warmth of the man’s breath suggested that he was standing at least two feet away—and, given the mechanics of the garrote, probably no more than two feet away. Metcalfe went on: “This guy Kundrov that I met with earlier today? Obviously you know he’s GRU, right?”
Chip nodded.
He’s not aiming now, Metcalfe thought. He’s listening raptly, paying attention to what I’m saying; he can’t focus well on two things.
“Well, here’s the clever part.” He leaned in toward Chip, a natural motion of a man confiding a secret, felt a warning tug around his throat. Suddenly, with lightning speed, he shot out his right hand and grabbed the barrel of the gun close to the trigger guard, abruptly shoving it upward. At the same instant, he jackhammered his left elbow backward, in the anticipated direction of his strangler’s solar plexus. A sudden expulsion of breath from behind him confirmed the accuracy of his powerful blow. Now he spun his body away from the line of fire before lunging forward, diagonally, at Chip. The Colt exploded deafeningly, echoing in the vast space, the bullet pinging against the corrugated-steel ceiling, just as Metcalfe threw his weight against Chip’s body and slammed the FBI man to the floor.
Crumpled on the floor, a few feet away, was a handsome, aristocratic-looking man with finely wrought features.
“You bastard!” Chip roared as the two men wrestled for control of the gun. With one final thrust of his hand, Metcalfe managed to wrest the Colt from Chip’s hand, but it went flying into the air, then clattered to the concrete floor fifty feet away. Chip turned to see where the weapon had gone, and at that moment Metcalfe slammed his knee into Chip’s groin. “Goddamned Nazi!” Metcalfe shouted, then kneed Chip again once more for emphasis.
Chip screamed in pain and doubled over.
Metcalfe turned toward the second man—Nolan’s “Herr Kleist”—who had bounded to his feet and was now racing like a jackal toward the Colt. Metcalfe had to get it first. He withdrew his own gun from the small of his back and bounded after the assassin, his eyes alert for the telltale glint of metal. Where was it? The gun was nowhere to be seen. And where was the German? Both had seemingly vanished.
Metcalfe looked around him. There were too many hiding places, too many pieces of heavy machinery that could conceal an armed assassin. And the gun in his hand gave him no advantage.
He had to get out of there. Now.
Metcalfe raced down the nearest aisle and out into another area of the lot. He ran, his legs pistoning, for what seemed half the length of a football field before darting into another enclosed sounds
tage. He had to make a plan—had to turn himself from prey to predator.
The consequences of failure were too great. The rendezvous point would be turned into an ambush, ensuring not just his own death but Lana’s as well.
He slid to the floor, beside a papier-mâché Alpine peak, breathing heavily. Probably the two were fanning out, each covering half of the lot. But had either one of them seen him enter?
A faint noise, then a louder one, provided his answer. He heard footsteps and immediately recognized Chip’s lumbering walk.
He had to get out of there, stealthily. In the gloom, he made out a wooden door, a hundred feet away. Quickly, quietly, he made his way there and grabbed the knob.
Which came right off.
The door was a fake! It was nothing more than a painted board, the door frame and door an appliqué of thin wood a quarter of an inch thick glued on top of a piece of lumber four by eight feet.
Metcalfe shoved it, but it was too sturdy, probably reinforced from behind.
Then he heard Chip’s footsteps grow nearer, saw Chip running down the aisle toward him, his Colt in his hand once again. Fifty feet, thirty feet . . .
Metcalfe was trapped.
To his left was a large metal trash bin four feet tall and six feet long. It was dented and rusted, but its several layers of sheet metal would serve as a shield against the Colt’s bullets. Just as Chip came to a halt and assumed a two-handed firing stance, Metcalfe dived behind the trash bin. There was silence: Chip was probably repositioning himself to try to aim around the steel obstruction.
Metcalfe took advantage of the lull to get his Smith & Wesson chambered and ready to fire.
Suddenly there came a volley of gunfire, and Metcalfe felt an icicle-like incision in his right shoulder. A bullet had lodged just below his collarbone. He gasped; the pain was incredible. How could this have happened? As warm blood oozed into his clothing, he realized with horror: This was no metal trash container. It was stretched muslim on a frame of wood! The bullet had easily pierced a few sheets of cloth before entering his body.
He rolled over on the concrete floor, hoping that at least the change in position would protect him from another round. Another shot, and then one more, penetrated the prop but missed. Metcalfe scrambled to his knees and scuttled along the floor, the prop now serving as a curtain at least to obscure him from Chip’s aim.
Another lull. Was Chip repositioning, racing closer? Why wasn’t he just firing again? After all, he couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen feet away.
Then Metcalfe heard a metallic clanging on the floor, and he recognized the sound of an ammunition cartridge being ejected. Chip was reloading! Metcalfe leaped to his feet and raced down the adjoining aisle, not daring to look back. In a moment he was easily thirty or forty feet away; he knew he could count on the inaccuracy of Chip’s handgun at more than twenty feet. He began weaving erratically from side to side as he ran, almost lurching like a drunk, but there was a logic: he knew that an unpredictable moving target was extremely difficult to hit, especially as the distance between them grew. He glanced back now, saw that Chip had once again assumed his firing stance and was shifting his weapon back and forth, trying to hone in on his target.
Chip recognized what he was doing and lowered his gun, then raced toward Metcalfe. A moment too late Metcalfe saw a ten-foot-high scale model of a castle—Mad King Ludwig’s famous Schloss Neuschwanstein. He was too close; he couldn’t stop himself in time from colliding with it. The plywood shuddered, chunks of plaster came raining down, and one of its spires flew off. With a long creaking sound, the castle tipped forward, smashing onto the floor directly in Chip’s path.
The plywood wreck knocked Chip off balance, buying Metcalfe a few more precious seconds. He spun around toward Chip and squeezed off a carefully aimed shot. A metallic cough was followed by a guttural cry. He had hit Chip!
He squeezed the trigger once more, but nothing.
The gun was empty.
He reached into his pocket to grab a handful of bullets, but they were gone. They must have fallen out at some point. He had no more ammunition!
He had no choice, now: He had to keep running. Metcalfe searched for a way out and saw one, a few aisles down. A steel door: He thought it was genuine, though he couldn’t be sure.
A long row of wooden crates separated this aisle from the next. The crates were too tall to jump over, but in front of them was a wooden worktable that was low enough to use as an intermediate step from which to vault over them. He leaped on top of the table—and it collapsed. Shit! It was a balsawood breakaway table, another prop, probably left over from some slapstick comedy.
His knees slammed painfully onto the concrete floor. Pain was now flooding his body, from his knees up to his collarbone. He was breathing hard, finding it difficult to catch his breath. He could feel that his shirt was soaked with blood: a good deal of blood had been lost.
A shout: Chip’s voice. “I heard that,” he said, breathing hard as well. “Out of ammo. Tough luck, kid. You should always be prepared. One of those lessons you learn a little too late, huh?”
Metcalfe didn’t reply.
“You’re going to die today, Metcalfe. You might as well face it. But look on the bright side. It’ll be the most valuable thing you ever do. The planet is gonna be a hell of a lot safer without you on it.”
As Metcalfe got to his feet, his eye was caught by one of the crates a few inches from his head.
It was filled with weapons.
There were antique machine guns, some ridiculously outdated. Some MG-34s, some MP-43 assault rifles, MP-38 machine pistols. Antique stick hand grenades, some smaller egg-shaped ones. They were World-War-One-vintage dummy weapons that had been used in the Brandenburg Studios’ many war films.
Quietly Metcalfe reached into the crate and removed a Luger 9mm Parabellum semiautomatic weapon, a P-38. Also circa the Great War. But it was entirely plausible. It wouldn’t fire—but it looked authentic. Glancing to his left, he saw Chip’s legs flailing as he tried to free himself from the plywood debris. He slipped the Luger into his coat pocket, then raced farther down the aisle until he came to the replica of the Manhattan apartment, complete with ivory grand piano and a large chandelier. The chandelier hung low over the apartment, apparently intended to be within the camera frame, but it dangled from an ugly plain rope that was tied to what looked like a tall iron ship’s mast, another section of iron rod jutting forward at a perpendicular. It appeared to be a microphone boom that had been retrofitted. Metcalfe pulled at the iron mast and knocked it over toward where Chip was just getting to his feet. It missed him narrowly but blocked his path.
Metcalfe shoved at the barrier of wooden crates, and a few of them gave way. He managed to crash through to the next aisle, then ran toward the steel door.
It was real, he saw with relief.
He pulled it open, saw that it did not lead to the outdoors. There was a dark stairwell that wound around down, presumably to a basement, or up. Up where? A roof?
The roof seemed a safer alternative than the basement, where he might find himself trapped. He sprinted up the stairs, trying his best to ignore the pain in his shoulder, which was steadily increasing, and the dull ache in his kneecaps. Soon he reached another steel door, flung it open, and saw that it gave onto the roof of the building. A flat tar-and-gravel roof. The moonlight provided ample illumination, allowing him to run across the expanse of the roof. When he neared the edge, he realized that the drop to the ground had to be a hundred feet: enough to kill him or at least injure him so badly that he would not be able to move. One of the dummy brick buildings was close, however; it was no more than six feet away. Smoke poured from its four chimneys. If he took a running leap he should be able to make it. He had jumped across wider chasms between Paris rooftops.
A clamor of footsteps told him that Chip had followed him up. A few seconds later, Chip burst through the doorway.
“Go ahead and jump, asshole!” he shouted.
“One way or another you’re dead. I don’t really care how it happens.” He advanced across the gravel slowly, deliberately, his gun drawn.
Metcalfe backed up a few feet, took off running, then jumped into the air, pulling his feet up under him in preparation to break his fall.
Then everything seemed to happen all at once. He was propelled through the air and landed square onto the bluestone roof of the brick building, just as Chip shouted, “Die, you bastard!” A moment later, Chip fired off a shot; Metcalfe could see the deliberate, calm aim of the FBI man and knew that the bullet was going to hit him.
But even as Chip was shouting at him, Metcalfe could feel his feet crashing through the bluestone roof as if it were made of marzipan. As he plummeted down, the bullet whizzed by so close he could feel the disturbance in the air.
In the next instant, Metcalfe hit something hard. The floor of the building? No, it was the ground, the earth soft, recently plowed. He groaned, wondered whether he’d broken a leg. He tested himself, felt both of his legs. He had not. He was in pain—Christ, yet more pain!—but his limbs were intact.
He’d known the brick structure was fake, but he hadn’t known how flimsy it was. The roof must have been some sort of fabric, painted to look like bluestone; he had torn through it, the fabric slowing his descent just enough to keep his landing from crippling him.
Now Metcalfe looked around in wonderment. The “building” was nothing more than a large box constructed of beams and joists of two-by-four lumber, an armature over which was stretched canvas that, outside, was painted to look exactly like brick. As his eyes swept the interior, he was jolted to see several men standing by one of the ground-level windows. Then he realized that they were mannequins—lifelike human dummies attired in men’s clothing, posed near the cut-out windows to simulate factory workers. Arrayed around the ground were four rectangular metal boxes, each connected by a short length of pipe to tall two-hundred-liter oil drums. Emerging from each contraption was a long, wide hose that ran all the way up to the four false chimneys.
The Tristan Betrayal Page 47