by Noel Hynd
Then she turned and ran like the devil himself was chasing her.
She dashed toward Cerny’s car. And then she saw what had happened. The front windshield had been riddled with bullets, probably from a silencer-equipped automatic. She saw Cerny’s body in the front seat, slumped on the wheel, blood all over his skull.
She would have been sick. But there wasn’t time. She ran past his car, ran faster than she had run in years. She heard the profane shouting of Kaspar struggling up from the sidewalk behind her.
Something hit a parked car nearby as she fled. She knew it was a bullet, fired by a pistol equipped with a silencer, probably the same one that had dispatched Cerny.
She ducked and wove between parked cars.
In front of her, the rear window exploded on another parked car. It was a good thing that even in trained hands the best handgun was only accurate-in terms of hitting a human sized target-to about seventy yards. Obviously she had inflicted some pain on her assailant; his aim was wildly inaccurate.
She kept low, zigzagged, and wove. At one point she slipped and was thankful that she was wearing boots, otherwise she could have torn up an ankle.
Another silent round smashed into the bricks above her head. She heard yet another one smash into a plate-glass shop window.
The police judiciaire were going to have a ball with this one, she thought for no good reason.
Then she turned the corner.
She was on the Quai Conti by the river. Some isolated traffic passed.
Then there was a shout from a doorway, a crash of some heavy glass shattering a few feet away. A human form. A man. Rising to his feet, moving toward her.
Alex nearly expired from heart failure and figured this was the end of her life. She was about to be killed unless she somehow eluded him.
She stepped up her pace. No traffic, the skyline of nighttime Paris across the river, Notre Dame Cathedral illuminated like a giant wedding cake.
Her legs felt strong. She ran on the wet pavement and turned the next corner. She breathed heavily and leaned against the wall.
Good. No one had seemed to follow. Yet she knew from long experience that there was no substitute for getting as far away as quickly as possible from any place of trouble. She reached into her coat pocket, gripped the cell phone and opened it. She waited. And waited. No answer.
She turned left and ran into the dark Paris night, not yet knowing where to run, just wanting to escape.
Come on, Rizzo! Answer, answer, answer!
Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up.
Then Rizzo did answer.
Her mind scrambled. It rejected Italian. They spoke French.
“ C’est moi! Alex! ” she blurted out. It’s me, Alex, she said, breathlessly.
“ Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?
” Rizzo asked. What’s wrong?
“ Tout! ” Everything, she said, continuing to run.
She turned slightly as she moved and saw Kaspar in pursuit.
She turned westward. She stepped out into the busy traffic. Her ankle caught on something, twisted, and she went down. A taxi blared its horn, swerved, and sped by, barely missing her. She pulled herself back up, her ankle throbbing, a knee bleeding. She gathered up her cell phone and stumbled back onto the sidewalk.
She ran hard. She turned toward him and saw he was limping badly too. But Kaspar must have packed another clip into his weapon. The sidewalks and asphalt around her exploded with the pattern of bullets that just missed her on each side.
Her heart was pounding in her throat and she ran for her life as the Ukrainian assassin followed.
EIGHTY-ONE
S he flipped open the cell phone. Rizzo was still there.
“Find your way to the Metro,” Rizzo said, referring to the Parisian subway. “Then get to the Odeon station. That was the closest stop to your apartment. We have a team of people there,” he said.
She knew her way around Paris but in her haste to escape had run in exactly the wrong direction to get to the Odeon stop. She now would have to take a circuitous route.
“Or do you want them to abandon their positions and come find you?” Rizzo asked.
“No. They’ll never find me,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll get there.”
She tried to assimilate everything that had happened, but the horror of it acted as a block. She wondered about the men she had shot.
Had she left them dead? Dying?
Who knew, though she was sure she’d be reading about it in the newspapers, if not watching it on the news. A wave of disgust overcame her, quickly followed by an urge to survive.
Her thoughts were punctuated by police sirens. The distinctive European ones, like the ones in the open car of police going to round up “the usual suspects” at the beginning of Casablanca.
The traffic was heavy on the quai. But she darted into it, barely missing a car, then another. She was on the bank of the paved promenade above the river. The floodlit Cathedral of Notre Dame was behind her. One of the great views in the Western world, and she was scared out of her mind. No time to be a tourist.
Heavy drops of rain were falling. A gift from heaven maybe. If Kaspar was trailing her, it would make her more difficult to see. She kept her head down. She couldn’t see the rain but she could feel it on her face. What she could see was her breath against the humid mist of the night, that and the recurring image of Maurice’s body tumbling out of the closet.
She moved as fast as she could on a bad ankle, urging herself to run and resisting the urge at the same time. She broke into a fierce sweat and crossed the river on the Pont du Carrousel. The massive Musee du Louvre loomed on the other side. She came off the bridge and was on the right bank.
Alex looked over her shoulder and thought she saw Kaspar’s dark figure still crossing the bridge, limping badly also, following her.
Suddenly a police car approached, its siren wailing, its blue light flashing, heading in the way she had come. She tried to flag it down, but in the rain the gendarmes didn’t see her. They kept going. So did she.
She limped two blocks eastward, keeping Rizzo on the phone. She could see the lights of the Place de la Concorde up ahead. She knew there was a Metro station there and she figured it would be crowded. From Concorde, there would be a short ride to safety. It was too risky to cross a bridge again on foot. A perfect route? No, but she prayed it would work.
Alex picked up her pace. The rain intensified as she passed the gardens of the Tuileries. She cursed her original decision to run north, not south, when she fled the scene of the shooting.
Her body trembled. Within minutes, she arrived at the busy Place de la Concorde and, looking over her shoulder, still saw Kaspar in pursuit. She darted through the maniacal traffic and accessed an entrance to the Metro.
Alex ran down the old concrete steps to the platform. Her footsteps echoed noisily. She slipped badly on the wet stairs. She skinned her other knee and her ankle wailed in pain. But she struggled up to her feet and continued.
She found the Number 12 line southbound. She had thrown Kaspar, at least for a few moments. Without seeing her, he would have no idea which line and which platform she had fled to. Where was he? She was torn between leading him to the Odeon stop and losing him completely. She wished now she had worn a bulletproof vest. What would protect her if he tried to pick her off?
She went to the far end of the platform. She kept her head down, her eyes on the steps. Then, amidst the crowd on the other side of the platform, waiting for a train in the opposite direction, there stood Kaspar.
From a distance of about fifty feet, directly across the tracks, their eyes met. He had a clear shot now, across the tracks. In the distance, she heard the sound of a train approaching the station.
Kaspar glared at her, reached for his weapon but then realized the train rumbling into the station would take his shot away. So he turned and ran. He was trying to cross over.
A train roared into the station. A crowd flow
ed off the train and another crowd surged on. It was almost midnight but the subway was moderately busy.
She stepped onto the last car. Just before she boarded, she saw Kaspar descend the distant steps in pursuit. She couldn’t see whether he had gotten on or not. She assumed he had. She turned against the wall of the subway car. She wished she had recovered her gun. The empty holster made her feel naked.
The train rumbled along. Why did these Parisian subways have to zigzag like snakes beneath the city? Stations were often only two hundred yards apart.
One stop. Two. She got off and switched cars, trying to throw her pursuer. The train arrived at the Sevres Babylone station.
She stepped off, stayed in the crowd, and transferred to the Number 10 line going east to the Gare d’Austerlitz, the ancient train station. The 10 would take her to Odeon within two minutes.
She finally started to catch her breath. Under her clothing, her body was soaked. Sweat rolled off her. This train was crowded too. She kept waiting to see if Kaspar would come through looking for her. The doors between the cars were only for emergency use but were unlocked in case emergency use was required.
She took out her phone again. She found Rizzo on the other end.
“Where are you?” he asked.
She told him.
“Still got Kaspar after you?” he asked.
“Probably. I haven’t seen him for several minutes.”
“We’re ready for you,” he said. “When you arrive at Odeon, get off as quickly as possible. You’ll see some musicians playing. Walk toward them as quickly as possible.”
“Where will you be?” she asked.
“Watching,” he said.
In ninety seconds, the train arrived at Odeon.
She stepped out at the south end of the platform. Her ankle continued to kill her.
This station too was busy. But she could hear some street musicians, a small band playing for change in the subways. Accordion, violin, and sax until 1:30 in the morning. Only in Paris. They were at the other end of the platform, about a hundred feet away. It was strange they were playing so late.
She looked in every direction.
She saw no help. She spoke into her phone.
“I don’t see anyone,” she said.
“We’ve got you,” came the answer from Rizzo.
“What do you mean you’ve ‘got’ me?”
“We see you. We’re watching.”
“Who’s watching?”
“Get past the musicians,” Rizzo said.
“I don’t see Kaspar,” she said.
“You must have lost him.”
“I don’t think-”
“ He’s behind you! ” Rizzo said. “Get moving!”
She turned. Eye contact immediately. His gaze again ran smack into hers simultaneously. She saw him reach for something under his jacket. He was about fifty feet behind her.
“Get moving!” Rizzo repeated. “Get away from him!” barked Rizzo’s voice on the phone.
She had never felt slower in her life. Her ankle wouldn’t obey. She cursed the boots and wished she’d had sneakers. She bumped into a couple that was kissing and the contact nearly knocked her over. Kaspar was gaining.
“I can’t move fast! My ankle!”
“Get past the musicians!”
“I can’t. He’ll catch me first.” The words in her phone barked at her. “Move! Move!” they demanded. “You’ll be safe!”
“Why don’t you shoot him?” she demanded. “Just shoot him!”
“We can’t! Not yet!”
“He’s going to kill me!”
“Keep moving!” Rizzo barked. “Now! Move!”
It was the endgame and she knew it. She zigzagged through the crowd. She had never felt slower in her life. She heard excited voices and she heard the assassin steps behind her. And she heard the music, which got louder and louder as she lurched toward it. How was she going to get out of here? She eyed the sortie, the exit, on the other side of the players.
Kaspar must have drawn his gun because she heard a woman yell and scream. Then there was chaos behind her.
She broke into a final attempt at a run. She edged past people and Kaspar was on the run behind her.
Then her earphone thundered again. “Get down! He’s got a gun!”
She tried to move, but her ankle turned again. She fell and went down hard. She knew she was a goner. She got up and stumbled past the musicians, fell hard again. The musicians stopped playing.
She got past them. The accordion player reached into his pocket. So did the violin player. She saw from the corner of her eye. She tried to stand.
Then she saw what the trap was, what this was all about. Like Anatoli in London, Kaspar had stepped into his own hell on earth.
The violin player raised a black pistol at the same time. The accordion player pulled one out also. Kaspar raised his own weapon and the Metro platform was a flurry of bullets.
The violinist aimed right at Kaspar’s gut and put two shots into him. The assassin staggered for a moment, and his eyes went wide in pain and in the realization that death was at hand. He flailed and fired two shots wildly. Kaspar staggered, his hand snapped back, and he fired his own gun upward instead of downward.
There was a flurry on the Metro platform and bullets rang in every direction.
Alex felt something wallop her hard in the midpoint of the chest, just above the breast bone, at the center where her stone medallion hung.
She saw the accordion player reach forward and put a bullet into Kaspar’s head. Then a second. But she barely saw that, because she felt something wet and sticky on her chest. Blood. She had been hit by a bullet in the midpoint of the chest. The feeling first was numbness, then the pain radiated, as did the shock.
“Oh, God. Oh, God,” was all she could say.
Alex had a bullet wound in the center of her chest. She was bleeding.
Unreal. But she knew how quickly it could be fatal.
She clutched the area. She lay on the ground in shock, wondering how everything since January had led to this time, this place. The pain was spreading now and so was the blood. From the corner of her eye, she could see Kaspar lying on the ground, his skull torn open by a team of assassins.
One of them stayed over her and cradled her head.
“I’m dying,” she said. “I’m dying.” The pain was radiating out from a center point in her chest. Shivers turned to convulsions. She put an unsteady hand to the area where she had been hit. She felt warm wetness, the blood, and the broken pieces of the stone pendant from Barranco Lajoya.
It was surreal. The accordion player-gunman ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and pressed it to her chest. She drifted. Consciousness departed, then returned halfway.
Then there were the sounds of police over her. Her eyes flickered and she didn’t know how much time had passed. She only knew that the musician had disappeared.
Strange faces, noisy men and women in Parisian police uniforms, hovered over her. They barked orders and tried to help. She could no longer understand the language. They worked on her with bandages, tubes, and breathing devices. She felt herself tumbling deeper into shock. Or into something or some place she didn’t understand.
Then everything went from white to black then back to white again, and she was thinking, “If this is dying, it’s easier than I ever thought. Much easier…”
A cloudy painless whiteness enveloped her.
Two minutes later, her heart stopped.
EIGHTY-TWO
T he heavyset woman came down the stairs of her apartment building in a hurry. She carried one large suitcase and struggled with it. Three flights down the back stairs and she was sweating beneath her tan raincoat. But she had been sweating since before she had finished backing.
Short notice, long trip. But a big payoff. It would all be worth it. She was going to get a new passport, a new identity. And a free trip out of the country. She would get more money in cash in the next few hours tha
n she would by keeping her lousy government job for another twenty years. So it hadn’t been much of a decision when she had made it several years ago.
Still she was nervous. She had heard horror stories about people who got involved in this type of thing. But there was no turning back now.
It was nearly midnight.
She stepped out from the front door of her middle class building in Alexandria, Virginia. A few parking spaces down, in front of a hydrant, a car engine started up. The car slid forward a few parking spots and gently came to a halt.
She recognized two of the men in the front seat. The front window rolled down.
Handsome men. Smiling faces. The faces of her homeland.
“Hello, Olga,” the man in the shotgun seat said.
She answered in Ukrainian. “Do you have the money? Do you have my passport?” she demanded.
The man opened an envelope that sat on his lap. There were some huge bricks of money and some banking information where the rest could be found. He handed her a Brazilian passport.
“See if you like your picture,” the man answered. “But I wouldn’t advise you to stay too much longer. FBI. They’re probably on their way.”
The mere mention of American police was enough to make her heart jump. She had known of other CIA employees who had sold out over the years. Most of them went to federal prisons and didn’t emerge until they were very old or until some other more patriotic prisoner stuck a shiv in their backs.
Olga glanced at the passport. Her picture. A new name. She was now Helen Tamshenko and she was a resident of Sao Paolo.
Good enough. She reached for the back door and slid into the car. She slumped low. No one would spot her as a passenger.
The driver pulled away from the curb. An oncoming pair of headlights swept the street. Then a second. Two big unmarked Buicks, traveling fast.
“Just in time,” the driver said softly. “That’s the FBI now.”
Olga stayed low. She preferred not to see. Her car proceeded without incident. They went to the intersection and turned. She watched the driver as he glanced in his rear view mirror. He moved quickly and deftly into traffic so it would be difficult to follow.