The Shield of Darius

by Allen Kent

  “Thank you,” Ben said again. “Perhaps we will meet again. I would like to see St. Petersburg.”

  Ushakov gripped his hand firmly and looked at him seriously through his rimless glasses.

  “Be very, very careful, my American friend,” he said.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Falen had flown to London, then on to Stockholm and Helsinki without laying over, arriving in the Finnish capital in the early hours of Wednesday morning. He checked into a hotel in the Tapanila District near the airport, slept for five hours, then called car rental agencies until he found one with a fleet of late model Volvos. The agent guaranteed a new sedan for Friday morning; a four door silver gray with slate interior. With the assistance of an accommodating taxi driver he toured the city, visited the rental agency to confirm the appearance of the Volvo, then located shops with the supplies needed for his return visit. By noon he was on a plane back to Stockholm and by four o’clock was finalizing purchase of an identical car, paying for it with and approved credit card under the name of John Bateman. The skeptical dealer checked with VISA and to his delight, found that the extended purchasing limit was approved. He had no way to check on John Bateman.

  The passenger manifest for the overnight ferry from Norrtalji just north of Stockholm to Turku in Finland showed that John Bateman crossed with ninety-seven others on a Wednesday night, reaching the Finnish port just before 7:00 a.m. on Thursday. Falen drove the new Volvo into Helsinki as the shops were opening and purchased a sturdy touring bike and carrying rack at a corner cycling shop just off Kapyla Street.

  By Thursday noon he had driven the hundred kilometers north to Lhati and, as Christopher Falen, was checked into a quaint inn near the railway station. He picked up a small package at the desk, postmarked with a British stamp, then napped until five, ate a light supper in the inn’s quiet dining room, and in early evening drove the sixty-five kilometers east to Kouvola. The narrow two-lane road wound through thick pine forests and along the sharply cut edges of deep glacial lakes. At several points he stopped and walked along the roadside, judging the grade of the banks and measuring distances from the base of a hill to its crest. At Kouvola, a city of 90,000 nestled at the southern edge of Finland’s scenic lake region, he found the train station, then retraced his route for twenty-three kilometers to a point where the road climbed a gradual hill along the southern edge of one of the lakes. He stopped above a narrow arm of dark water that licked against the base of a steep shale embankment, separated from the road by a low steel guard rail. At the far end of the railing, the bank continued for another thirty meters until it again shallowed into brush and trees.

  Falen quickly unloaded the bicycle and carried it across the road and into the woods away from the lake, maneuvering through the trees until he could no longer see his parked car. He chained the cycle to the straight trunk of a small pine and paced the distance back to the road. With the Volvo’s tire iron, he gashed the trunk of another pine at the point he had entered the woods and returned the purchased Volvo to the inn’s parking lot at Lhati.

  In his second floor room, Falen hung his leather suit bag in the narrow wardrobe beside the bed, spread the contents of a small shaving kit out beside the wash basin and, carrying a small brown leather travel case, walked casually down the back stairs of the inn and into the garden. In five minutes he had covered the two blocks to the Lhati train station and caught the nine forty-five to Helsinki where he checked into a guest house on Tannila Street.

  Friday morning was unusually warm and Falen dressed in casual slacks and loafers and slipped a light windbreaker over his blue shirt. When the taxi dropped him at the rental agency, the attractive blond clerk smiled as he entered, carrying only the brown travel bag.

  “We have the car ready for you, Mr. Falen. When will you be returning?”

  “I’m thinking of driving north to Lhati and possibly through the lakes to Kuopio. I’m a ski jumping enthusiast and want to see the Lhati tower. I should be back tomorrow.”

  “You travel very light. My husband says that when I leave overnight, I pack for a week.”

  “My girlfriend says that when I pack for a week, I look like I only have enough for overnight,” he laughed. “But then, she packs like you do.”

  He signed the papers for the Volvo as Christopher Falen and started through the city, following a carefully mapped route laid out two days earlier from the taxi. At an outlet for homecare medical equipment he purchased a small canister of compressed oxygen, then drove to an automobile supply shop for hose clamps, a screwdriver and metal screws. By one o’clock he was back in Lhati where he parked the rental at the train station and walked back to the inn with his newly acquired supplies in the leather travel bag.

  Falen drove the purchased Volvo four kilometers out of town to the north, turning left off the pavement down a narrow dirt road that disappeared into thick woods. At the road’s end, a small secluded clearing overlooked a lake, and he pulled back along the tree line and dumped the contents of the package from Britain onto the front seat. The parcel contained a green six inch long canister of pressurized gas, a small black electronic activator with safety switch and trigger button, and a coil of plastic tubing. It had been prepared by one of Fisher’s London contacts with the canister fashioned from hardened plastic and sent by mail to escape the penetrating scan of airport x-ray machines.

  He unrolled the three foot length of tubing and examined its ends. One was fitted with a small elastic cup, easily stretched to snap over the end of a spigot or nozzle. The other end divided to form a Y, with each tip fitted with an open foam cap the size of a small acorn.

  Falen carefully stretched the rubber cup over the nozzle of the oxygen bottle and gently turned its lever handle to test the flow of air. It whistled through gently and he turned it off, securing the bottle beneath the driver’s seat of the Volvo. He passed the tube out under the door side and taped it in a loose coil to the left side of the seat. Stretching on his back beneath the dash, he tightened one of the hose clamps around the green plastic canister and fastened it to the underside of the car’s dash with a single metal screw, then slid again from the car and knelt beside the driver’s seat, carefully taping the electronic activator beside the coiled tubing. Sitting erect behind the wheel, he reached down with his left hand, testing the equipment for convenient reach. With everything located to his satisfaction, Falen removed the bicycle rack, flung it into the lake, and returned to Lhati where he stripped off his clothes, set his travel alarm for ten-thirty and went to sleep.

  The clatter of the travel alarm jarred him out of a dream that had once haunted him nightly but had stopped, he thought permanently, nearly ten years ago. He was flying at treetop level above the Ho Chi Minh Trail while below, an unending convoy of North Vietnamese munitions trucks rumbled along, seemingly oblivious to his presence. He’d called in the strike and could hear and feel the fighters coming, but could not pull the 0-2 up to break away from the attack. Though he yanked and twisted at the controls, the plane continued to fly straight and level over the bomb-laden convoy as the first F-4 screamed over the ridge in front of him, pounding the trucks below with cannon fire and lobbing a belly mounted, rocket-shaped bomb directly at his unresponsive aircraft. Falen always awoke just as it was about to explode, this time in a shivering sweat to the explosive clatter of the alarm beside his head.

  He spun into a sitting position on the side of the narrow bad, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and shook himself. The communal shower was down the hall, so he washed quickly in the small basin and climbed back into his clothes. By 12:50 he stood among the collection of greeters on the platform of the Kouvola station, awaiting the Russian overnighter as the train from Leningrad moaned and hissed to a stop and unloaded his quarry.

  . . .

  “Mr. Sager?” The man on the platform stepped briskly forward, showing momentary surprise at the ill-fitting blue suit and severe Russian haircut.

  “Call me Ben,” Ben said, extending hi
s hand. “It’s good to see you.” Ushakov’s warning echoed in the back of his head.

  “Great to see you, Ben,” the man said. “There are some people who are anxious to have you home.”

  “I’m surprised you told anyone I was coming…with all the security that’s been placed on this from the Russian end.”

  “Only one or two,” the man smiled. “Very discreetly, of course. I suspect they will be waiting for us in London.” He paused and looked Ben over with a trace of amusement. “I thought for a moment I should ask to carry your bag, but I guess under the circumstances, you’re traveling light.”

  “I don’t even own what I’m wearing,” Ben said. “Not that whoever this belongs to would want it back.” The man seemed legitimate enough and Ben felt himself relax. He was in Finland, not Russia, and this man had been sent to take him home. They walked side-by-side toward the station exit.

  The parking lot, though cast in the twilight glow of arctic summer, was lighted by four floods mounted at the corners, each casting a white circle that ended abruptly just before meeting the other. A silver Volvo sat in the hazy rectangle between the lights, and Ben’s contact directed him toward it.

  “I’m Chris Falen,” the man said, stepping toward the car. “The Government sent me to look after you until we can give you an official debriefing. I have documents waiting for you in Lhati.”

  Ben stumbled slightly, catching a step in mid-air for a fraction of a second, then continuing without losing ground on Falen as they crossed to the passenger side of the Volvo. He thought fleetingly of running – of dashing back toward the depot, or off into the dusky night. But aside from the jarring impact of hearing the name of the American from the recording, he had no real reason to fear the man, and he knew that he did not want to run anymore.

  “You look beat,” Falen said. “Climb in and I’ll have you in a good warm bed in about forty-five minutes. If you want to nap on the way, don’t worry about me. There won’t be much to see and we’ll be heading for Sweden about ten tomorrow. It might help to get some sleep.” He opened the door and Ben slid into the seat.

  “Don’t think I could sleep,” Ben said. “I’m pretty excited about being out of Russia.”

  Falen walked quickly to the driver’s side and started the engine. “We can visit if you like. I’d be interested in hearing about your escape. Sounds like quite an ordeal.”

  “What have they told you already?’ Ben asked, looking at the sleeping Finnish city as they swung west out of the parking lot. If there was a stop light, with buildings close enough to reach….

  “Only what the Russians have passed along,” Falen said casually. They were already moving into a stretch of open farmland that separated the city from a dark ring of forest. “They say you escaped from a hostage situation in Tehran and made it to the Caspian coast where they picked you up on a fishing boat. To be honest, that sounded pretty unlikely to us, until the Russians agreed so quickly to pass you along. If they thought you were a drug runner or a spy of some sort, they wouldn’t have notified us.”

  “That’s pretty much the way it went,” Ben said, deciding he would have to ride this out until Falen showed his intentions. “The Iranians had me locked away in a building in south Tehran.”

  “Just you? Or were there others?”

  “Me and at least one other. A guy named Cannon from Oregon. Have you been getting any intelligence out of Tehran? I’ve been wondering what happened to him.”

  “Scattered reports. There was a raid a few weeks ago on a place in the city some thought might be a terrorist training center. I imagine you’ll hear something about that when they debrief you in Washington. And we knew about increased military activity along the Caspian coast. I assume that had something to do with you.”

  “They sent out the troops,” Ben said coldly. He was surprised that Falen had mentioned the raid. But then, everyone in America knew something had happened.

  “How the hell did you get away? That must have been some escape.”

  “I made it to the Caspian dressed as a woman. One of the advantages of insisting on fully covered bodies is that you can’t tell whose body is in there. I stole a fishing boat from a little village and headed north. They were about a hundred yards behind me when the Russian gunboat picked me up.”

  “The stuff spy novels are made of,” Falen laughed. “Washington’s going to find this real interesting.”

  Ben didn’t respond. He was too busy rethinking Christopher Falen’s role in all of this. It was just possible that the government didn’t know that the hostages were still in the buildings and were hoping he could help them identify the relocation points. In that case, he may not be viewed as much of a threat….

  As they began to climb a gradual hill that rose above a deep, glacial lake, Falen slowed the car.

  “These summer nights do strange things to the light around here,” he said. “Look at how silver the surface of that lake is.”

  Ben turned to the passenger window, gazing out over the shimmering water. In the night-mirrored glass, he saw Falen reach beside his seat and with a single sweeping motion, pull a plastic tube to his face and insert its divided ends into his nostrils. Beside Ben’s left leg a sudden burst of air brushed his shin, and he gulped a deep breath, instantly feeling the dizzying effects of the gas. He trapped the breath, knowing that he could not allow himself to breathe again, but finding that the rest of his body refused to move. As he felt the car accelerate, he slumped sideways against the window, feeling the air swell in his lungs, rip at the healing wound in his side, and burn into his throat. Christopher Falen had beaten him – found a way to dispose of him with the rest of the hostages. A dark, crushing sadness overcame the struggle in his lungs and Ben slowly released the breath, thought fleetingly of his beautiful Kate, and felt himself grow suddenly very cold.

  A burst of acceleration shot the Volvo to the far end of the guard rail where Falen spun hard right, stopping the car with its nose hanging precariously over the steep bank. Though the road was just beginning the down slope of the hill, the bank still dropped sharply beneath the bumper into deep water.

  If the gas did its job, he had only ten minutes to work before Sager would regain consciousness. Reaching across the seat, he unrolled the passenger window beside Sager’s head, unrolled his own window and jumped from the car. The action pulled the tubing from his nose and he quickly removed the oxygen bottle from beneath the seat, wrapped the plastic tubing around it, and un-taped the electronic switch. Tossing them on the ground beside him, he reached into the back seat and found his travel bag, stretched beneath the steering column and twisted the gas canister and clamp from the underside of the dash. As he pulled back, he looped the seat belt up over the shoulders of his unconscious passenger and released it back into the retraction reel.

  Falen gathered his loose equipment into the travel bag and with the transmission in neutral, started the Volvo and pushed his shoulder into the open window frame of the driver’s door, easing the car over the edge of the embankment. It started slowly, gaining momentum as it half rolled, half slid down the shale slope and plunged into the lake. Its engine coughed and hissed, then sputtered into silence. When half submerged the car seemed to stop, floating momentarily as water, still icy from spring runoff, poured into the compartment. Then it was gone, bubbling a final gasping breath and sliding silently beneath the silver surface.

  Falen watched for a few moments through the hazy twilight until satisfied that the car had settled deep into the water. He carefully checked the spot where the Volvo left the pavement to insure nothing was on the ground, then crossed the road to the scarred tree. The bicycle was where he had left it and he carried it back to the roadway, clipped the bag to the carrier behind the seat, and peddled silently toward Lhati. No lose ends, he thought, filling the miles back to the inn with images of Kate Sager.

  THIRTY-THREE

  His hurried breath, gulped as he saw Falen insert the nose tubes and felt the gas release ag
ainst his leg, had contained enough of the anesthetic to slow Ben’s mind to the edge of consciousness. But as Falen steered the car to the precipice, he had reached across and rolled down the passenger window too quickly, releasing the gas and blowing cool clean air into Ben’s starving lungs. Ben heard the car grinding down the slate embankment, groping through the drugged haziness for what the sound meant.

  As the car hit the water, the engine drowned in a chugging, hissing spray of steam and showered Ben’s face through the open window, slapping him fully awake. Water poured onto him from both sides, numbing his legs and hips and he threw himself backward over the seat away from the surging flood. Pressed against the rear seat, Ben watched the water rise, then slow and gradually stop as the trapped air equalized the pressure.

  He inched upward and peered through the rear window of the sinking car, seeing above him on the bank the shadowy figure of his executioner. He prayed that the Volvo’s weight would carry it beneath the surface, but it hesitated, shifting unsteadily as the water lifted its air filled trunk. Then the lake gulped loudly and swallowed the car.

  As the Volvo sank deeper into the dark water, Ben fought the urge to plunge for an open window and struggle back to light and air. But he knew the shadow watched, and he waited with seconds seeming like minutes, until he could no longer stand the crushing closeness of the flooding compartment. He stripped away his jacket and shoes and tied the laces together, looping them over his shoulders. The water was now chest deep and continued to rise slowly as air bubbled through seams along the doors. The remaining air was thick and damp with his own breath.

  As the water reached his neck and rose above the door seams, it trapped a final bubble and he sucked in the remaining oxygen, then plunged downward. With legs already dulled to aching posts, Ben groped for the open driver’s window and twisted through it. His body moved as if running in a dream, thick and sluggish, and he strained upward toward a faint, distant light. The shoes around his neck dragged at him, leaden weights against the mechanical thrusts of his legs. But his arms would not move upward to strip away the shoes and he dared not bend, afraid that he would lose the light and never see it again.