Assassin

by David Hagberg

  She tried the knob as she had several times before, this time it turned easily in her hand, and the door opened a crack. She froze, her stomach doing a slow roll. She reached over and flipped off the lights, plunging the compartment into darkness.

  Guards would be posted outside, but they’d be watching for someone to come toward the train, not get away. If she could reach the woods she thought she might have a good chance of getting several miles before she was missed. By then she didn’t think they’d come after her.

  Girding herself for the dash she opened the door. Tarankov was standing there, an intent look on his face. She knew why he had come, just as she knew that there was probably nothing she could do to prevent it. She was alone, and her luck had just run out.

  “Were you going somewhere?” Tarankov asked. “Not such a good idea having you running around the countryside at this hour of the morning.”

  Elizabeth stepped back and he entered the compartment, switched on the light, and closed the door.

  “What do you want?” she asked, her voice dry in her throat.

  “I think you know.”

  “I’ll fight you, and you might even have to kill me. If that happened I wouldn’t be much use as bait.”

  “Your father wouldn’t find out about that until it was too late for him,” Tarankov said quietly. “They almost had him tonight in Moscow. He was wounded, and now he’s trying to hide in the sewers.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Leonid wanted me to send an impersonator to make my speech in Red Square, in case your father got through. But I don’t think that’s necessary any longer.” Tarankov smiled. “I don’t think you’ll be needed at my side on the reviewing stand either. So it makes no difference if you’re damaged tonight.”

  “I’ll tell your wife—”

  “She thinks I’m a god,” Tarankov cut in. “So will you after tonight.”

  Elizabeth lunged at him, but he easily stepped aside and backhanded her in the side of her head with so much force she was knocked across the compartment onto the narrow cot, spots and pinwheels of lights flashing in front of her eyes.

  He ripped open her fatigue shirt, and pawed her breasts, the pain of the assault real but so distant she was unable to defend herself for the moment.

  He tore the front of her trousers open and pulled them down around her ankles, and off, then spread her legs and opened his trousers and pulled them down, his erect penis leaping out.

  “No,” she cried, trying to fight him off as she regained consciousness. “Oh, God no. Please, no!”

  The compartment door slammed open, and Tarankov reared back as his wife stormed in, a big semi-automatic pistol in her hand.

  “I thought I’d find you here, you rotten prick,” she screeched, waving the gun around.

  Tarankov got to his feet, and calmly pulled his trousers up. “Well, Schat-zle, you were right about one thing. Neither of us will get to fuck her.”

  “Not until after you’re in the Kremlin, you mean,” said Liesel, who was not mollified.

  Tarankov moved away from the cot as Liesel came closer, pointing the pistol first at him, and then at Elizabeth. The woman had been drinking, and her face was flushed and she was unsteady on her feet. But she was also crazy, a maniacal glint in her eyes, spittle flying from her mouth as she ranted.

  “If you and your little whore were dead, maybe the people would sing a different tune!”

  “Over fucking her?” Tarankov asked mildly. “If you want her that badly, go ahead, I won’t stop you—”

  Liesel pointed the pistol directly at her husband’s head and cocked the hammer. “First you, you cocksucker!”

  Elizabeth had gathered her legs beneath her, and she sprang up suddenly, shoving Liesel aside. The gun fired, but the shot went wild. Liesel crashed against the door and Elizabeth snatched the gun from her hand, and tried to step back out of the way. But the German woman was wild with insane rage, and she charged, leaving Elizabeth no other choice except to fire.

  The shot caught Liesel high in the chest between her sternum and esophagus, and she was driven backward, blood splattering the wall.

  Without thinking Elizabeth spun on her heel, pointed the gun at Tarankov, who hadn’t moved, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The slide was back, in the locked open position.

  Tarankov came forward and took the gun from her hand, just before the first of the commandoes appeared in the doorway.

  “There are never more than two bullets in Liesel’s gun,” he told Elizabeth gently.

  “There were shots, sir,” one of the men said.

  “An unfortunate situation here, Lieutenant,” Tarankov said, staring at Elizabeth. He shook his head. “My wife tried to rape this girl, who was forced to defend herself.” Tarankov looked up. “Have the body removed, please, and get someone in here to clean up the mess.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Make sure everybody settles down, this will be a busy day. A busy day indeed.”

  Subterranean Moscow

  McGarvey, one hand pressed against the wound beneath his armpit, the other propping him up against the cold damp tunnel wall, held his breath for several moments to listen. It was after 2:00 A.M., and there was nothing now, other than the distant rumble of fast-moving water, probably one of the underground streams.

  For a time he’d thought that he would not escape. There were too many men searching for him, seemingly coming from all directions. Several times he’d nearly stumbled into a search party, each time ducking back into a side tunnel at the last possible moment to avoid being trapped in the beams of their flashlights.

  But it had been at least twenty minutes since he last heard anything. He didn’t think they’d given up the search, they were probably concentrating their efforts in ever-widening circles around the Ploshchad Revolyutsi metro station. For the moment he was outside their search pattern, but it wouldn’t last.

  Picking up the satchel, which was becoming heavier the farther he went, he made his way along the pitch-black storm sewer tunnel toward a circle of very dim gray light about twenty-five yards away.

  The news that Tarankov had Elizabeth was nearly impossible to bear, and yet the bright spark of hate it produced kept him going. She was his flesh and blood, his only child, who had been placed in harm’s way because of what he was. It didn’t matter that the Howard Ryans of the world gave the actual orders, it was men like himself who made those orders possible, and from a certain point of view even necessary.

  If it had ever been possible for him to walk away from this, it had become totally impossible for him with Elizabeth’s capture. The men responsible—all the men responsible—would pay.

  The light on the tunnel floor came from a grate in the roof, that led two hundred feet straight up to a storm grate in the street. In a spring snow meltoff, or during a strong rainstorm, the storm sewers would become raging maelstroms as the water was channeled into the underground torrents that eventually emptied into the Moscow River. Where the tunnels sloped down they led to the rivers, and where they sloped up they led to collection points.

  He cocked an ear to listen again, but still the only sound he could hear was the distant roar of rushing water.

  The rally in Red Square was set for four o’clock this afternoon, which gave him something under fourteen hours to get into place undetected. But first he was going to have to take one more chance. He had to warn Jacqueline to stay in the French Embassy no matter what happened, because in the aftermath there was no telling which way the country would go, or what the crowds or the military would do.

  Another fifty yards and he came to one of the maintenance openings set every quarter mile or so into the tunnel just like the one he’d used to get down here from the metro track level. The steel door at the top would be locked, but on the way down he’d spotted steel rungs set in the wall that led back up to a drainage opening in the floor of the metro tunnel.

  The stairs were damp and slippery with algae
so he had to watch his step. By the time he reached the top he was winded and claustrophobic, the narrow walls pressing against him in the absolute darkness.

  It took him several minutes fumbling around until he found the steel rungs a half-dozen steps from the landing. He slung the satchel over his shoulder and climbed the last ten feet or so until he detected a very faint light filtering down through a grate about three feet in diameter.

  Bracing himself as best he could he put his shoulder to the grate and pushed. At first nothing happened, except that he could feel a fresh gush of warm blood trickling down his side.

  He tried again, this time using his powerful leg muscles to push upward with every ounce of strength he had. The grate gave way with a tremendous screech that echoed off the metro tunnel walls, then fell away with a clang.

  McGarvey waited for a full minute, spots dancing in front of his face, as he tried to catch his breath while at the same time listen for the sounds of someone coming down the tunnel to investigate the racket.

  But no one came, and he climbed out of the access tunnel, looked both ways down the metro line, and headed the hundred yards toward the nearest lights.

  The metro wouldn’t be running again until 6:00 A.M., so the only people in the stations or on the platforms would be maintenance workers, and Militia watching for him to try to make his escape.

  An empty train was parked at the platform, its rear lights shining red, and its interior lights on. Ducking around the train, McGarvey looked up over the edge of the platform floor. The chandeliers had been turned low, but even so the light glinted off the tiled walls and ornately friezed arches. The long hall was empty.

  Climbing up from the tracks, McGarvey crossed the platform, passed through one of the arches and found a bank of pay phones next to the restrooms near the foot of the stationary escalators. A steel accordion gate blocked the escalators for the night.

  He went into the men’s room where he peeled off his jacket and opened his shirt. The wound was deep, and oozed blood, but fortunately the bullet had not hit a bone or cut a major blood vessel. He pulled a wad of paper towels from the dispenser, wetted them in the sink and washed the blood away. Then he pulled another wad of paper towels from the dispenser and stuffed them under his armpit. It wouldn’t stop the blood flow, but it would help.

  He splashed some cold water on his face, put his jacket back on and went out to the pay phones where he dialed the French Embassy number from memory.

  “Bon soir. You have reached the Embassy of the Republic of France,” a woman’s voice said. It was an answering machine, but a night duty officer would be manning the switchboard. “Our normal office hours are—”

  “This is an emergency. My name is Kirk McGarvey, and I need to speak to Jacqueline Belleau immediately.”

  A man came on. “This line is probably being monitored.”

  “I know,” McGarvey said.

  “Stand by, monsieur.”

  McGarvey glanced up at the station name. He’d come up at the Lubyanka, directly across from the headquarters of the FSK. The irony just now was rich.

  Jacqueline came on a minute later, out of breath. “Oh, Kirk, where are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” McGarvey said. “I’ve only got a minute before I need to leave here. I’m calling off the hit, do you understand?”

  “Thank God—”

  “But I know about Liz, and I’m going after her. In the meantime you have to stay inside the embassy. No matter what happens, stay there.”

  “I can come pick you up.”

  “Just stay there, Jacqueline,” McGarvey said, and he hung up.

  Dzerzhinsky Square

  Chernov was just pulling up in front of FSK headquarters after a frustrating hour spent with General Korzhakov when Petrovsky called his cell phone. McGarvey had just now telephoned the woman at the French embassy. He was calling off the kill, and he said he knew about his daughter.

  “Did you trace the call?” Chernov asked.

  “He called from a pay phone in the Lubyanka metro station. So you were right, he’s using the storm sewers to get around.”

  Chernov made a tight U-turn and shot across the broad Dzerzhinsky Square, no traffic for the moment. “I’m right across the square from the station,” he shouted.

  “My people are less than three minutes away.”

  “Do you have a map of the subway system in front of you?”

  “Da. Right here.”

  “He’s using the sewers, but he has to come up through a metro station. I want your people covering every station he can get to from here in case I don’t intercept him.”

  Chernov screeched to a halt in front of the metro station, and pulled out his gun, as he ran across the sidewalk and took the stairs two at a time.

  “There’re four of them—” Petrovsky was saying when his signal faded and cut off.

  Halfway down, Chernov heard the first sirens at the same moment he heard a gunshot from below, and he thumbed his gun’s safety to the off position.

  The shattered lock gave way, and McGarvey opened the accordion gate, stepped through, then stopped. He was hearing sirens, faintly in the distance, but getting closer. And another sound.

  He stepped back around the corner, and held his breath. He had heard footsteps.

  “McGarvey,” someone called from above.

  McGarvey held his silence.

  “There’s no way out for you.”

  It was Chernov, McGarvey had very little doubt. His call to Jacqueline had probably been monitored and traced here. By now the Militia would be scrambling to cover every metro station and storm sewer tunnel within a radius of a mile. Every second he remained here the tighter the net would become, and Chernov knew it.

  McGarvey turned and silently headed back to the platform.

  “If you turn yourself in your daughter will be turned over to her embassy. Unharmed.”

  “Bullshit,” McGarvey said to himself, not missing a step.

  “McGarvey, you have my word on it,” Chernov’s voice echoed down the platform. “My word as an officer and gentleman.”

  FORTY-ONE

  CIA Headquarters

  Director of Central Intelligence Roland Murphy showed up at Howard Ryan’s third floor office a few minutes before 6:30 P.M., his bodyguard in tow, after first confirming that his DDO was still at his desk.

  “Sorry to barge in on you like this, Howard, but the President wants to see us,” he said.

  Ryan looked up in surprise and pleasure. “Both of us? Right now?”

  “Yes,” Murphy said, masking his contempt. “We’ll take my car, and I’ll brief you on the way over.”

  Ryan put on his coat. “I don’t have the day’s summary ready, but I can bring my notes, and a few documents.”

  “That won’t be necessary. All the President wants from us is the … truth.”

  Ryan’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What do you mean, Roland?”

  Since Rencke’s disturbing telephone call, and the files he’d sent over, Murphy had done some checking on his own, first with Ryan’s assistant, Tom Moore, who had defended his boss’s action.

  “The idea was merely to send her over to help the French find her father. We wanted to get a message to him, nothing more. At least that was the initial parameters we gave her.”

  “But it didn’t happen that way.”

  “No, Mr. Director, unfortunately it did not. Apparently she’s more like her father than we first suspected. I’m recommending that her services be terminated, once she returns.”

  “I see,” Murphy said coolly.

  Next he called Elizabeth’s old boss, Bratislav Toivich in the DI’s Russian Division.

  “Pardon me, Mr. Director, but you wouldn’t be asking me about the girl unless she was in trouble.”

  “What do you know about her assignment?” Murphy asked directly.

  “More than I should,” Toivich replied, in just as direct a manner.

  “She’s in Moscow
, and we think Tarankov’s people may have kidnapped her.”

  “What are we doing about it?”

  “I’m taking this to the President once I have all the facts. He can take it up with Kabatov. I need to know if Ms. McGarvey contacted you at any time.”

  “She called from Paris worried that she and a young French woman working for the SDECE were being pressured into going to Moscow. I told her not to do it.”

  “Did she have any contact with a man by the name Rencke?”

  “She was looking for him there in Paris, and I gave her a couple of hints,” Toivich said. “Did she find him, General? Is that how you found out about this? Has Otto called you?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Listen to him,” Toivich said. “He’s the only one I know who has the combination of brains and honesty. If Otto tells you something, you can take it to the bank.”

  “We’ll get her back.”

  “See that you do, General. She’s quite a young woman, and I’d hate to be in your shoes if something happens to her, and somehow her father makes it back to Washington.”

  Finally he telephoned SDECE Director General Jean Baillot, who confirmed that Jacqueline Belleau had been sent to Moscow in an effort to misdirect the efforts of Bykov’s special police commission long enough to find out where Mademoiselle McGarvey was being held, and possibly get a message to the girl’s father.

  “Pardon, General, but it was not a good decision to set the young woman to find her father,” Baillot said quietly.

  “You’re right, Jean. And now it’s up to me to get her back. Keep me informed night or day if you hear anything further.”

  “Mais oui. Good luck.”

  “The truth, Howard,” Murphy said to Ryan. “About why we sent Elizabeth McGarvey to Paris to find her father.”

  Ryan’s lower lip curled. “She’s joined him in Moscow, you know. Like father like daughter.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s self-evident, Roland. She met him in Riga, and together they entered Russia where she’s probably going to help him kill Tarankov.” Ryan shook his head in amazement. “You have to admit that the bastard is smooth. He’s even enlisted the aid of his French girlfriend to spy for him on the Russian special police commission.”