by Glenn Meade
She ignored them both and struggled to her feet. There were tears in her eyes as she moved beside Vassily. His eyes flickered as he recognized her. “Anna . . .”
“No, don’t speak, Vassily.”
He was still losing blood, and she felt his pulse. It was weak. She looked back at the men.
“He’ll die if he doesn’t get help. You have to do something . . .Please!”
The fat man said, “I’ll kill him if you don’t get away from there.”
He slid off the table, came over, grabbed Anna by the hair, and threw her into a chair.
“Now you sit there and keep that mouth shut.”
“He’s dying!”
The scar-faced man stood and came over and slapped her hard across the face, then his fingers pinched her jaw painfully and he stared into her eyes as he spoke in Russian.
“Massey and Slanski, where did they go?”
Anna felt the blood drain from her, a sudden overwhelming fear in her heart, and she opened her mouth to speak but no words came, a terrible truth dawning on her.
The man slapped her hard again. “I asked you a question. Where are your friends?”
“I . . .I don’t know.”
The man lifted his shotgun and aimed it at Vassily. “The truth, or I kill him.”
“I . . .I don’t know . . .They left . . .this morning . . .”
“To go where?”
“I don’t know.”
“When will they be back?”
“I don’t—”
The man eased back the hammers of the shotgun and aimed at Vassily’s head.
Anna said, “Tonight. They said they would be back tonight. I don’t know when. I’m telling you the truth . . .please.”
For several seconds the man just stood aiming the weapon at Vassily, then he grinned and lifted Anna’s chin. The grin vanished as he gripped her face, grinding his teeth as he said, “Don’t lie to me. Lie to me again and I kill you, understand?”
There was a noise from behind and another man came into the room from the kitchen, young, heavily built, carrying a long wooden box. “Guess what I found?” He put the box down on the table and flipped open the lid. Anna saw it was the weapons they had used in training with Popov. The young man grinned. “They were in the back. There’s a trapdoor under the kitchen floor, kind of like a storage room, full of food and stuff.”
The fat man with the mustache came over and looked through the box of weapons, then whistled as he picked up a Tokarev machine-pistol. “Heavy equipment. Looks like our friends here are going to start a war.” He looked at the man with the scar. “What’s happening here, Braun?”
Braun thought for a moment, then flicked a look at Vassily. He said to the younger man, “Take the woman outside. I’ll deal with her later.”
When they had gone, Lombardi said to Braun, “What’s the story?”
Braun ignored the question, stepped over to Vassily. He was still conscious, but his eyes were barely focused. Braun said, “What else are Massey and Slanski hiding, old man?”
Vassily’s eyes flicked up weakly at Braun, but he didn’t speak. Braun slapped him hard across the jaw. “I won’t ask again. Next time I tell my friend outside to hurt the woman. Hurt her bad. This is your property. The weapons are here. Why?”
“Massey . . .brought them. I . . .don’t know why,” Vassily gurgled.
“What else did he bring?”
“I . . .don’t know.”
Braun said sharply to Lombardi, “Bring the woman back.”
“No,” Vassily pleaded hoarsely. “I told the truth.”
“What other hiding places have you got in the cabin?” Vassily’s head slumped onto his chest, and Braun grabbed his hair and stared into his face. “You want to watch while the woman’s raped? Because that’s what’s going to happen to her if you don’t talk. Then I kill her. Slowly.”
Vassily’s eyes came open drowsily. He seemed to be having difficulty breathing. “Don’t . . .don’t hurt her.”
Braun grinned. “You help me, and I won’t.”
But before Vassily could speak again his eyes rolled, and his head slumped to one side. Braun hit him across the face, again and again, in frustration, but Vassily didn’t return to consciousness.
Lombardi said, “You’re wasting your time. The hick’s out of it. He’s lost too much blood.”
Braun picked up the shotgun and moved toward the stairs. He said to Lombardi, “Search the storage room again. And search downstairs thoroughly.”
“Where you going?”
“To see what else I can find.”
• • •
Fifteen minutes out from Buzzards Bay the clear air was turbulent, and Barton had to increase altitude to five thousand feet to avoid the worst of it. The takeoff had been bumpy to say the least, but Barton seemed to know exactly what he was doing. The Seabee had finally lifted off gracefully before banking northwest.
It was growing dark in the cabin, and the men could see the vast speckle of lights that was Boston coming on in the stretch of dusk off to the right. Barton said above the engine noise, “Another ten minutes and we’ll be over the state line into New Hampshire. I’ll try to get as close to the cabin as I can, but I can’t promise, mind. Depends on what the water’s like.”
Slanski said, “Forget the cabin. I want you to land farther away, a mile up the shore. And leave off the landing lights on the way in.”
Barton looked puzzled and glanced from Slanski to Massey. “Hey, I thought you folks said this was an emergency.”
“It is.”
“Well, I need those lights to see what the water’s like,” Barton protested. “If I hit whitecaps too darned hard they can crack the prow or make me dip a wing into the water.”
Slanski put a hand on Barton’s shoulder. “Just do as I ask, Abe. And as soon as you touch down and we get away, do me a favor and wait half an hour in case we need you to take us back. No longer than that, or you’ll have trouble landing back in Buzzards Bay.”
“I got trouble enough as it is doing what you ask. I need those darned lights.”
“Please, Abe, just do as I say.”
Barton frowned in puzzlement, then he shrugged and turned back to the Seabee’s controls.
• • •
Braun went through the rooms upstairs one by one. Even though he knew the house was empty he moved cautiously, stepping into each bedroom with care, the shotgun ready in his hands.
He found the woman’s room first and searched through her clothes and a small suitcase under the bed. There was nothing of interest, but when he found her underwear he fondled it and smiled.
The other rooms were bare and functional. The old man’s had nothing much besides tatty clothes, some tobacco, and a couple of old books in Russian.
When he found Slanski’s bedroom he went through it with much more care. He searched through the clothes in the wardrobe, emptying the pockets, and two leather suitcases full of old clothes lying at the bottom. He turned over the mattress and looked underneath but found nothing.
In frustration, Braun kicked over the bedside locker and it toppled onto the floor. He went to the window, idly lit a cigarette, and as he stood something made him look down. The locker had rattled the roughly hewn wooden floorboards under the window, and one of them felt loose as he stepped on it. He knelt and pried it with his nail. He saw the rusting biscuit tin in the recess and opened it. After several moments examining the contents he flung them away. Then he saw the file lying below. There were four pages inside the folder headed JOSPEH STALIN, and he read them quickly.
For several moments he stood there, guessing the value of his discovery, then he smiled. Moscow would pay for what he had just found, no question.
He folded the file and tucked it carefully down his trousers, then searched through the rest of the contents of the box before discarding them without interest. When he had finished checking the other rooms thoroughly he went back downstairs.
It was grow
ing dark outside, and Lombardi was trying to light an oil lamp. He burned his fingers in the process and said to the old man slumped unconscious in the chair, “Ain’t you dumb hicks ever heard of electricity?”
Lombardi looked over at Braun. “There were only provisions downstairs. The rest of the place is clean. What did you find?”
“Nothing,” Braun lied.
Lombardi said, “So what next?”
“We leave and take the woman with us.”
“I thought we were going to wait for the broad’s friends.”
“There isn’t time.”
Lombardi frowned. “Whatever you say. What about the old man?”
“He’s seen our faces. Kill him.”
• • •
The Seabee circled the lake in a perfect arc, then Barton nosed her down to three hundred feet above the water. Dusk was falling rapidly, and the lake was in almost complete darkness, just a faint shimmering of silver light on the water. Barton insisted on flicking on the landing lights briefly to see the water surface. It seemed calm enough but toward the shore there were choppy waves, and Barton said to Slanski, “Better make sure you’re both strapped in and holding on, this could be a mite bumpy.”
There was sweat on Barton’s brow as he dropped to a hundred feet and started gently to ease down the flying boat. They were headed toward a stretch of shore about a mile north from the cabin, coming in alongside the land. At sixty feet the Seabee started to bounce with the updraft over the water, a sudden gust hitting them and throwing them off to the left, closer to the land.
Barton said, “Whoa” and corrected, then continued to ease forward the control stick. At twenty feet he pulled back on the throttle and the Seabee hit the water hard, then settled, and it was down, skimming and bumping over the lake as the propeller idled. Barton let out a sigh, easing the boat closer to the shore before looking back over his shoulder. “This is as close as it gets. You folks are going to have to get wet.”
They were twenty feet from shore and Slanski was already tearing open the cabin door and climbing out, Massey behind him. Slanski jumped out into the waist-high water and started to wade toward the bank.
Barton said to Massey, “I’m waiting no longer than half an hour, understand? What the heck kind of emergency is this, anyhow?”
Massey didn’t even reply but plunged into the water after Slanski, who was already at the shore.
• • •
“You hear something?”
Lombardi had crossed to the open door, then he stepped toward the veranda and stood with his head cocked to one side. He looked back in at Braun. “Yeah, I heard an engine.”
Braun came and stood beside him, listening. Finally he said, “I hear nothing.”
“It sounded like a plane.” Lombardi cocked his ear again. “But it’s gone.”
Braun shook his head. “Forget it.” He crossed to the table and picked up the oil lamp and said to Lombardi, “Time to deal with the old man.”
“What you got in mind?”
Braun removed the glass cowl on the oil lamp. The flame guttered for a moment, then burned brightly again.
Lombardi frowned. “You going to set the place on fire?”
“As a lesson to our absent friends. The nearest town is five miles away. With this terrain no one will see the flames. First, go outside and shoot out the tires on the jeep and pickup.”
Lombardi took the .38 from his pocket. “You’re not going to plug the old man first?”
Braun smiled coldly. “I thought that pleasure would be yours.”
• • •
A mile into the woods, Massey was out of breath. He saw Slanski racing ahead of him like a man possessed in the dusk, scrambling through the forest. He was running silently and Massey had trouble keeping up, tripping over deadwood and fallen branches.
Five minutes on and he saw Slanski slow and look back, pointing to tell him he was going on ahead, and Massey waved back. He saw Slanski give a burst of speed, and then he disappeared.
A hundred yards later Massey had to slow down to catch his breath, then suddenly, somewhere off in the distance back toward the lake, he heard the roar of an engine and recognized the sound of the flying boat.
Massey swore. Barton hadn’t waited long.
Suddenly Massey heard another sound, a gunshot, then another, half a dozen shots, one after another, and then moments later a couple more.
• • •
Lombardi dragged Vassily in the chair into the middle of the room. Braun lit a cigarette from the naked flame of the oil lamp, then said calmly, “Move back.”
Lombardi stepped back and Braun tossed the lamp into a corner of the room, and the fuel spread on the wooden floor and ignited. As the flames started to lick the corner walls, Braun said to Lombardi, “I’ll take the woman to the car. Finish the old man.”
“A pleasure.”
Braun stepped out. Vince came back in moments later and stood at the door. “Mind if I watch?”
Lombardi handed him his shotgun and took out the pistol again and held it by his side as the knife flashed in his other hand. “You might learn something, kid. I’ll show you how to gut a hick. Watch closely—this is going to be quick.”
As Lombardi went toward Vassily, he sensed a presence behind him. Lombardi looked around as an angry voice said, “Touch him and I kill you.”
A blond man stood in the kitchen doorway, his face covered in sweat. He had a pistol in his hand.
Lombardi said, “What the—”
The pistol in Lombardi’s other hand came up, and Slanski shot him in the eye. Lombardi screamed, then Slanski shot him again in the head, and as Lombardi was punched back out of the door, the second man fired both barrels of his shotgun in panic.
It went wide, and the blast hit Vassily in the chest and flung him back into the flames.
Slanski screamed, “No!”
As the second man wrenched out a pistol and went to shoot again, Slanski fired, hitting him in the head, then the chest, then the head again, a terrible rage in him as he kept firing.
The flames rose and spread in the cabin and smoke filled the room, choking the air, and as Slanski tried to move frantically toward Vassily’s limp and bloodied body engulfed in flames, he already knew there was nothing he could do.
• • •
Braun was hardly fifty yards from the cabin when he heard the shots and the scream, instinct telling him something was terribly wrong.
He looked back and saw the flames lick inside the cabin but no sign of Lombardi and his bodyguard. The woman suddenly tried to struggle free, and Braun grabbed her and dragged her at a run toward the car, impulse telling him to get away.
“Move, do you hear me? Move!”
He had covered another twenty yards when he looked back and saw the blond man come down the veranda dragging a body out of the burning cabin, then the man looked up and saw Braun and broke into a run toward him. Braun fired off two quick shots in his direction, then pulled the woman against him as a shield and shouted to the man, “Come any closer and I kill her!”
The man slowed but kept coming, and then Braun saw the gun in his hand. He recognized him from the photographs. Slanski. The Wolf. He flicked an anxious look back at the Packard. It was thirty yards away along the narrow track through the woods.
Close enough to get away. He moved backward smartly, still holding the woman in front of him. He looked back. Slanski had started to move toward him again. Braun pressed the gun hard into the woman’s head and roared, “Another step and I kill her!”
Slanski halted thirty yards away. There was sweat on Braun’s face as he reached the car, but he knew now Slanski was too far away to stop him. He smiled as he yanked open the driver’s door and shoved Anna inside. He fumbled for the keys in the ignition. They were gone.
“Kurt Braun?”
Braun spun around in his seat, a look of panic on his face as he heard the voice.
Another man sat behind him in the back, rage in hi
s eyes and a .38 in his hand, the weapon aimed at Braun’s face. “I asked, are you Kurt Braun?”
Before Braun could reply Massey squeezed the trigger.
The cabin was still in flames as Slanski held a storm lamp over the bodies laid out a distance away. There was a terrible expression of grief on his face as Massey looked down at Vassily’s body. They had searched the others for forms of identity but Braun’s was the only one Massey was interested in.
Vassily’s body was badly burned, and there was a gunshot wound in his chest, another in his shoulder. Massey looked at Slanski for a long time. It was the first time he had ever seen Slanski wear such a look of anguish, and he touched his arm. “This is my fault. I’m sorry, Alex.”
Slanski was suddenly white with anger. “It’s no one’s fault but the people who did it. He didn’t have to die, and they didn’t have to kill him.” He looked at Massey, a frightening rage in his eyes. “Someone’s going to pay for this, Jake. Someone’s going to pay dearly, so help me—”
“Leave that to me, Alex. But right this minute, all bets are off. We’re canceling the operation.”
Slanski shook his head fiercely. “You do that and I go in alone, with or without your help. I told you someone’s going to pay, and I know who it is.”
Massey said grimly to Slanski, “Not now, we talk later.”
“I mean it, Jake. I’m going.”
“We can’t do it, Alex. Branigan would never go along, not when he hears what’s happened to Arkashin. And what’s happened here only makes it worse. It’s a security risk.”
“When they find Arkashin’s body no one’s going to know who did it. And Arkashin couldn’t have known what we intend. Besides, he’s dead.”
Massey shook his head. “Maybe, but Branigan will hear. Popov’s body is in Braun’s apartment. And Branigan will put two and two together.”
Slanski looked over at Anna and said to Massey, “Either way it’s going to take time before Branigan finds out. Anna can stay if you’re worried. But me, I’m still going in.”
Anna looked at him and said quietly, “If you go, I go, too.”
Massey looked at them both. For a long time he seemed to hesitate, then he said to Slanski, “You’re angry. Are you really sure about this?”