Show of Force

by Gar Wilson

  Katz's quick eye spotted a pattern in the way the passengers were organized. Most of them were taking tour buses. A half dozen groups, though, had arranged their own transportation.

  "You tail the large van," Katz told Gary Manning, "and McCarter, the next small bus." He continued until he had handed out the other assignments. He saved the largest independent group for himself.

  He was haggling for price with a taxi driver while he kept an eye on the group slowly boarding the bus.

  "Reverend Vulcan," one woman called in a chimelike voice from the middle of the line. "Will we be seeing the Blue Mosque while the light is still with us?"

  "Yes, HI instruct the driver, Mrs. Friday."

  Reverend? Katz brought that angle into his computerlike mind. Maybe religious groups were the least likely to harbor Russian agents. The church had been a sort of center in Cheyenne.

  Hadn't he heard somebody calling for Vulcan, Reverend Vulcan, at Cheyenne? Or had that just been a dying man calling for a man of the cloth? A man's loud question about the mosque took Katz's mind from the hell of Cheyenne to soft-spoken people boarding the bus.

  "Can we do that?" the man asked. "Isn't it a sin for us to enter the temple of infidels?"

  "We did in Russia," another man argued.

  A woman at the end of the line, apparently acting as an assistant tour director said, "Well, as a matter of fact, those were Christian churches. They were Greek Orthodox cathedrals."

  "Oh, Miss Cardwell, I'm so glad you could come with us," a middle-aged woman fawned.

  "Yes, Ann, darling," said another. "I feel safer, knowing you have been to all these awful places."

  Ann Cardwell... He knew that name, he thought, and fixed his gaze on her face. She was so beautiful and looked vaguely familiar.

  Had he seen her before?

  Yes, it hit him suddenly. In the Cheyenne McDonald's.

  It was as simple as that. He had found the espionage group.

  He wanted to call back the guys, but they were already gone. He would have to tail the bus by himself, and then it dawned on him that the woman would know him. She would remember his arm.

  His mood crashed. The beautiful Ann Cardwell was a Russian agent no matter how Western her clothes, regardless of her perfect English and flawless American accent. He wished she were not KGB. He would have enjoyed getting to know her.

  Then he realized she was watching him, and from a look that appeared in her eyes it was evident she recognized him.

  She controlled her expression, then apparently decided there was no sense trying to bluff.

  She walked briskly up to the man whom the church members had called Reverend Vulcan.

  Katz slid into the cab. He tensed, ready for anything.

  Vulcan, though, only nodded and continued to herd his flock into the bus.

  When they were all aboard and leaving the wharf, Katz saw Cardwell watching him through the bus's rear window.

  "Driver…" Katz began.

  "Call me Bulent, Bulent Cuskin." The dark-haired driver had his cab filled with pictures of tourists he had taken on day-long trips in the city. He was proud of his profession. "I drive you good. Okay. See everything. Girls. Blue Mosque. Girls. Yes?"

  "Just follow that bus."

  The skinny Turk objected. "Bus? No. We see best. I, Bulent Cuskin, guarantee you this."

  "Follow them. I don't care for sight-seeing." Katz passed forward two twenty-dollar bills. "For starters."

  "Okay. No problem. The dog cannot cut his own tail. I, Bulent Cuskin, say this."

  Katz tried to relax. It promised to become a long, dull day.

  The bus stopped at mosques and climbed minarets while Katz waited. In a bazaar he stayed nearby as the female tourists marveled at squatting women making coat hangers from strips of wire in a few quick, deft movements of their hands.

  Katz imposed a calmness on himself that he did not really feel. His clothes clung to his sweaty body, and the oppressive humidity clogged the air passages and made breathing seem like an effort.

  The handsome young woman let Katz notice by almost imperceptible signs that she was aware of his presence at all times. The look she wore was like that of a woman who is interested in what advances a certain man might make toward her. It was a very aware look, and had some elemental power to it because the experienced Israeli felt a bit of discomfort, along with a sense of embarking on an amorous adventure.

  He was still with them after dark when the bus began a geared-down climb up a hill overlooking the docks. They rode through narrow, winding streets of the old city to a famous tourist attraction: Tarihi Galata Kuesi, a sixteen-hundred-year-old tower of stone. It was ten stories of rock held together with crumbling mortar.

  Strange, Katz thought. It wasn't a point of interest that would normally be listed on the itinerary of a church group.

  A rickety, wrought-iron cage elevator took the tourists partway up, but several stories from the top, the rattling, quivering contraption gave up and left its passengers on a vacant floor.

  From there guests climbed a treacherous spiral staircase where the steps grew narrowed and the handrail stopped. Near the top the steps were only a foot wide.

  The women in the group made worried sounds, and he wondered curiously whether sounds of emotions could be sure clues to people's native tongues.

  Anyway, he didn't know whether the entire busload of people from Russia might be staying together or if there were some tourists mixed in among them.

  He laughed at himself and considered if he was tailing one Russian secretary along with twenty members of the Cedar Rapids Missionary Auxiliary.

  There was a restaurant on the top floor of the tower, and it served authentic shish kebab and powerful Turkish coffee. While everybody sat down to dine, a belly dancer appeared to entertain the guests. In her enthusiasm she pressed her undulating navel against the preacher's shoulder.

  Katz watched the scene from a table across the musty café. When everyone in Vulcan's group was apparently preoccupied by his discomfort, Katz looked through the windows that revealed a bird's-eye view of the city.

  There was a door leading outside to a two-foot walkway that circled the entire tower at that level. The fragile low railing discouraged guests from going outside.

  But when the music stopped and the diners, including Vulcan's group, began the perilous climb down the staircase, Ann Cardwell went to the doorway, considered the danger briefly and stepped out.

  It was an invitation, a trap, Katz felt, but sidestepping tables he crossed the room and went after her.

  She had to have gone around to the other side of the tower. He followed. By the time he reached the far side, he could guess the nature of the trap.

  Ann Cardwell had gone back inside.

  Katz stopped, every sense alert. Footsteps told him two men were on the balcony with him, one coming from each direction.

  Looking through a window, he saw that the waiters had disappeared and the busboys were carrying away the last of the soiled dishes.

  He was alone, ten stories up on a centuries-old balcony with a loose railing. At best, he could break the window with the butt of his gun.

  But it was too late. The footsteps were too close.

  He removed his stiletto from its concealment. His assailants were unlikely to come at him with guns. Shots would attract too much attention in the dark silent neighborhood. He had no more desire to be arrested on a weapons charge than they. Turkish prisons had reputations second only to Mexican jails.

  Calling for help was no solution. Even if he threw the gun away in time, he didn't want to miss the ship by sitting in some police station, trying to explain about Cheyenne, Wyoming, in Russia and the church group that was on some terrorist-type mission.

  So he inched along the window with a stiletto in one hand and his hook ready on the other side.

  A surprisingly strong wind, smelling of salty water, buffeted him.

  The walkway was pocked and uneven, and he stub
bed his toe in a shallow pothole.

  When his hand clutched the railing for support, the iron creaked and wiggled.

  He looked down.

  The street was empty except for the church bus. It was moving away and heading toward the ship.

  From down below drifted up the sound of cats fighting and the growling of dogs disputing ownership of a bone or claiming their territory. Cats fought. Dogs barked. Trash cans rattled. The tenements and warehouses were dark. In the distance he could see the bright lights of the city and hear muffled traffic noises.

  He felt alone and isolated, but not afraid. He had survived much more treacherous situations, he told himself, but the mere simplicity of the current predicament worried him. By inching his way in one direction he could hope to engage only one of his two adversaries at first. If he stood in place, they could close in on him simultaneously.

  The wind nudged him. The sickle moon succumbed to cloud cover. He would not be able to see the little movements that would give away an assailant's intentions.

  He was halfway around the tower. From his left came the faint sound of crumbling concrete. The sound was no more than six feet away.

  Katz stopped.

  He had made a mistake. By assuming both men would be moving, he had ignored the better offense. One of the American impersonators had stood still. The other had herded him into a trap.

  Katz pressed his stomach against the glass. He wanted to forget the height and the low railing. The stiletto and his artificial hand would be adequate if luck was with him.

  In the dark, with the wind whipping at his shirt, he scraped his knife across the glass.

  The moving assailant stopped to listen.

  He moved closer.

  Silently, Katz shifted his body toward the man who waited. Then he scratched once more, using his hook and stretching as far as he dared.

  The breeze died momentarily, as if it were waiting, too. Did he hear the breathing of the waiting man? The other man's sliding step drowned the sound.

  Both of them must be little more than an arm's length from his hands. They paused; they sensed the kill.

  Katz took a deep breath, knelt, and tested one of the uprights that held the top of the railing. It was not sturdy enough to satisfy him, but he heard the two men.

  "Dmitri?" one said.

  "Da," said the other.

  Each knew the other's position. They poised for the attack.

  Go for it, Katz told himself.

  He clamped the stiletto between his teeth.

  On his belly, he slid his feet over the edge. He hung, clutching an upright on either side. He kept his head and chest on the balcony and waited. A footstep from his left alerted him. Then there was a movement on his right.

  They would meet directly above him.

  They touched.

  "Ah," one of them gasped.

  There was no panic. Just surprise.

  "Ivan?"

  "Da."

  They said something else. Where was the man who had been between them?

  Almost immediately they realized their target had only one way to go. But the realization came a microsecond too late.

  Katz reached up and grabbed one of them immediately. With his upper body still supported by the narrow balcony, he felt himself slipping. He hung on with his hook, clutched one of the men by his belt and hauled him from the path.

  In an awkward kneeling position, the Russian lost his balance. He screamed as he hit the railing, which gave him momentary support. Katz forced himself to give another tug, this time catching a leg. He pulled harder, his upper torso sliding farther off the balcony floor.

  The man broke through the railing, taking part of it with him.

  He called for help all the way down.

  "D…m…i…t…r…i."

  A mushy sound indicated that the ground had come up to meet him.

  The concrete gave way where the upright rod had torn loose. Some of the loose crumbled mortar dribbled away from under Katz's shoulder. In a moment the entire balcony might go, he realized.

  "Ivan?" the surviving Russian called with some degree of anxiety in his voice.

  With his good hand, Katz took the knife from his teeth.

  Something sharp scraped his arm. With an awkward forward thrust, Katz buried his knife in the dark bulk above. He drove it straight up into the lower abdomen.

  The man named Dmitri screamed his agony, but he remained on his feet, bending low to slash at Katz again.

  Katz dropped the stiletto, caught the attacker by the shirt and pulled.

  The man flailed his arms, clutching for something to hold on to.

  Momentarily he danced above Katz, showering his life's blood on his foe. Then he tumbled headfirst to the cobblestones below. But his grasping fingers and his momentum took Katz partway with him.

  The leader of Phoenix Force team felt his weight shift. He slid, clawing at the concrete with the fingernails of his good hand.

  Three feet of concrete gave way and all he could do was slow his fall.

  His prosthetic hand still clutched the upright, and there seemed to be no guarantee it would hold.

  He looked down.

  A quick way to die, he thought. But he was in no hurry.

  So he began calculating his survival. He swung himself like a pendulum, moving back and forth until his free hand got a finger hold on a few inches of flooring, but it crumbled under his weight.

  When the mortar gave way, he placed his toes against the tower's wall.

  You're getting old for this, he told himself. Yes, well, how many younger guys would still be alive? None, most likely.

  A piece of mortar hit him on the head.

  His toes slid from the indentations they had occupied. He fell, stopping only when his body weight stretched the straps and connecting wires that held the prosthetic arm to the rest of his body.

  "Oh, hell," he said.

  He quit worrying, quit thinking about the fall and went to work, fighting his way up. He put each big toe in a different indentation between the stones. His fingertips with the broken and bleeding nails probed until he found the space with the flooring gone directly above him. He could stretch until he caught the frame of the floor-to-ceiling window.

  He moved upward, struggling, and moment by moment being uncertain when he would slip for good.

  When at last he clambered up onto the balcony, he leaned against the window, his arms and legs quivering with fatigue. He desperately needed rest. His heartbeat drummed in his ears.

  But there would be no rest, a siren below told him. He would have to be far from the tower restaurant before the authorities found the smashed bodies in the street.

  "Surely we must have endured through the most difficult parts of our mission," he told himself comfortingly and hoped what he'd just said wouldn't turn out to be famous last words.

  17

  Faint smoke from the diesel engines wisped out of the single stack amidship. The Odyssey's whistle blew once in spite of the lateness of the hour. Crewmen stood by her lines. Ropes to the gangway stretched taut as Katz crossed the wharf and slipped under the chain.

  He was aching all over from his ordeal and perspired heavily in the humid air. Night offered no respite from the heat.

  The young Greek officer frowned when he saw Katz reach the main deck, but he said nothing.

  Cruise ships waited for no one. They kept no tabs on who went ashore nor did they take note of who returned. If you were only minutes late, you hired a speedboat to catch up. Otherwise latecomers were left to fly to the next port of call if they had the money and the necessary visas and other papers.

  The few passengers who lined the railing applauded the Israeli's successful arrival, and his team members grinned with relief.

  "I thought you'd bugged out on us, old chap," McCarter said.

  Gary Manning's heavy brows relaxed their scowl, and he said in an aside, "We know you have a story to tell."

  Encizo clapped a hand on
Katz's shoulder as though he were looking for broken bones, and James cocked his head to one side worriedly. "Where have you been? Inside a cement mixer?"

  Katz looked down at his frayed shirt and trousers. He was covered with a mixture of concrete dust and reddish-brown rust from the tower railing.

  His good hand was scraped and bleeding.

  "You think I look bad, you should see what I did to that cement mixer." He led all of them inside to the air-conditioned foyer. "I'd better get cleaned up before a junior officer takes me for a stowaway."

  He turned toward the elevator.

  "Hey," Calvin James said. "Aren't you going to tell us what happened?"

  "Later," McCarter told him. "In his suite."

  Wearing sport jackets and open-neck shirts, the team bore no resemblance to the warriors who had sacked a Russian town and escaped by relying on their wits.

  They were following Katz until he stopped short of the elevator, coming up face-to-face with the tall slender beauty who called herself Ann Cardwell.

  He greeted her in Russian. "Good evening."

  "I beg your pardon?" she said, as though not understanding.

  He repeated the greeting while he looked her straight in the eye.

  "I don't speak Russian or whatever you're using," she responded after a confused stare at him, then started to put distance between them.

  "You missed our rendezvous," he told her, switching to English.

  She pretended ignorance. "Rendezvous? Have we met?"

  "We should have. I followed you out onto the balcony with such high hopes."

  "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Doesn't matter. But I did promise your two touring companions that I'd pass a message along to you. They said to tell you that they wouldn't be sailing tonight. They decided not to use that rickety elevator down from the restaurant,"

  She lost control of her expression for only a second. "I think you have mistaken me for someone else," she said.

  The Phoenix Force four were shifting their attention from the woman to Katz and back again, following the exchange with interest.

  They were baffled.

  Katz's memory was fresh with the battle he nearly lost on the walkway outside the tower restaurant. The Cardwell woman had set him up as easily as an experienced whore setting up a mark for her pimp to mug.