by David Wind
A minute and a half later, Witt saw the oncoming headlights flash and then go off. He pulled off the road and waited for the car behind him to pass.
When the car was almost upon Witt, it slowed and stopped. Witt had his service piece out, and was lifting it when the passenger of the other car rolled down his window and said, “You okay? Do you need some help?”
“I’m fine,” Witt said, “just taking a rest.” The driver smiled, waved at him, and started off.
Ignoring the cold and clammy skein of perspiration that broke out over his body, Witt picked up the radio and said, “False alarm.”
“Roger that,” Jamison said. “Let’s get the hell out of—”
The eruption of a fireball in the spot where the Bronco was, cut off his words. In the fire-lit night, Jamison watched pieces of the vehicle fly skyward
When his vision cleared, he started his car and drove forward. He stopped across from the burning remains, got out, and went toward the wreckage. The flames were too intense. From twenty feet away, the heat seared his face. He closed his eyes, realizing nothing would be left of Witt.
Finally, he turned and walked back to his car. He stopped at the door, drew his service revolver, and looked around.
“Where are you,” he whispered, thinking about the other two agents who had been keeping pace behind them. He raised the walkie-talkie and thumbed the transmit button. He called out one code, and then another. There was no answer. He tried again. Nothing. Instinctively, he knew they’d taken out the backup agents.
Headlights blossomed In the distance. The sound of a car’s engine was loud. Tires protesting the road, screamed into the night.
Jamison sidestepped and dropped to one knee. He set himself in a double-handed firing position as the car bore down on him. He waited for the car to come closer and, aiming above and to the left of the driver’s headlight, fired.
He got three rounds off before the car plowed head on into him.
<><><>
“Everything’s settled,” Grange announced, returning to the room after a twenty-minute absence. “I spoke with the director. He’s sending a second team. You’ll be going to the new safe house as soon as Witt and Jamison get back.”
“Where?”
“Virginia. Witt and Jamison will drive you to an airstrip on the other side of Hagerstown. The director is having a plane dispatched now,” Grange said, sitting across from Steven.
Still adjusting to the revelations about Ellie, he no longer doubted the truth of Carla’s disclosure; he only doubted his own ability to understand why Ellie had not trusted him enough to tell him.
He realized, with the clearness of perfect hindsight, if Ellie had told him, he wouldn’t be where he was, and she wouldn’t be in the hospital.
“Who are the prime suspects?” he asked, pushing aside his thoughts to study Grange. He sensed a reluctance in the supervising agent, but was not certain about what.
“There are several people under investigation: Pritman, yourself, Arnold Savak, and Simon Clarke.”
Thinking about Savak and Pritman, Steven shook his head. “It isn’t Arnie or the senator. And I just don’t envision Simon Clarke as a suspect. His ambition doesn’t run along those lines.”
“I’m sorry, Steven, it has to be one of them. And Simon Clarke, according to Ellie’s reports, does have access to the senator’s papers, if not the meetings themselves.”
“What makes you so goddamn sure?” he asked, aware the fire in him was no longer as strong as he wanted it to be. If Ellie was a spy, he rationalized, one of the others could be as well.
“Those men, and you, were the only ones privy to all the information leaked to the other side.”
“I don’t see it. I think you’re wrong.”
“About what?” Carla asked as she came in from the kitchen with a tray of sandwiches.
“Who the mole is,” Grange said, taking a tuna sandwich.
Steven chose a turkey sandwich, and took one of the three cups of black coffee on the tray.
They ate silently, each wrapped in their own thoughts, waiting for Witt and Jamison’s return. When Grange finished his sandwich, he looked at his watch. “They should be back soon.”
Steven drank some coffee. “Earlier, you said I’d be the bait. I’m curious about that.”
“We worked it out yesterday,” Grange said. “We were going to make you a runner, to draw out the mole. But the FBI did that for us.”
“How were you going to do that?”
Grange laughed at Steven’s expression. “Nothing sinister. A controlled run that would draw the mole after you. We were going to bring you here, and then bait the trap.”
“Not quite last night’s scenario.”
“Actually the FBI helped us for a change. The mole knows the Bureau sent you on the run, which keeps us out of the picture, at least for now. Unless Witt and Jamison have screwed it up,” he added, again looking at his watch.
On cue, his radio came to life. “Our car’s coming back,” said a voice Steven hadn’t yet heard. He guessed it was one of the mobile teams out on the road.
Grange stood a few seconds before a buzzer sounded in the drawing room. “Front gate warning. Infrared,” Grange explained. Seconds later a wash of headlights panned across the window. Ghostly shapes fluttered along the ceiling until the lights passed.
Grange went to the window. “It took them long enough. Time for you to get out of here.”
They went into the hallway, where Steven and Carla put on their coats.
A car door closed. A moment later footsteps echoed up the outside steps. “Time,” Grange said. Steven and Carla picked up their bags.
Steven turned and started forward.
Grange opened the door.
The night exploded in a staccato burst of gunfire.
Chapter Twenty-five
The barrage of bullets lifted Grange, tossing him backward like a rag doll. He landed in a heap against the wall.
Steven reacted to the gunfire by flinging his suitcase at the figures framed in the doorway. As they dodged the bag, he dove at the door.
Crashing into the heavy wood with his shoulder, Steven slammed it shut, and threw the latch home.
Still moving quickly, he went over to Grange, grabbed the agent under his shoulder, and dragged him out of the line of fire. Behind him, bodies pounded against the door.
He released Grange, pulled the agent’s pistol from his shoulder holster, and faced the door. Carla was next to him, aiming her automatic.
There was another hard crash. The doorframe shook. Plaster dust rained down from the upper edges of the frame. “It won’t hold much longer,” he told Carla. “On my mark, fire on the center of the door.”
Steven tensed, waiting. His finger was tight on the trigger, his sights chest high on the door. The blood pounded in his temples. He counted the seconds in his head. At six the crash came.
“Now!” he said, pulling the trigger twice. Carla fired five times.
A surprised cry of pain reached them. Steven waited. When nothing happened, he looked down at Grange. The agent was alive. A jagged groove ran from his temple into his hairline. His hair matted with dark blood. Steven tore open Grange’s shirt and studied the other wounds. One round was in the shoulder. Two wounds were grazes across Grange’s ribs. A fourth bullet punctured the girdle of muscle low on his right side. More blood ran from where a bullet entered Grange’s left thigh.
“He’s alive,” he told Carla. “But there’s nothing we can do for him right now.”
He glanced at Carla. She was pale; her eyes fixed on the door. Then he heard footsteps in the front. He lifted the pistol, but Carla fired first, letting go a three-burst volley.
Steven spotted Grange’s radio in the hallway. It lay in pieces, crushed by the agent’s weight. “No help coming,” he told Carla, nodding toward the radio. “We’ll have to do it ourselves. Keep firing through the door,” he directed as he started toward the back.
“Wh
ere are you going?” Carla whispered while she reloaded.
“To protect our backs.” He got to his feet before she could argue, and ran to the kitchen.
Carla fired at the door. This time there was answering fire. Steven heard a bullet pierce the door and give a dull thud when it buried itself in plaster.
He stepped into the kitchen and heard someone at the back door. Flattening against the wall, he sidestepped toward the door. He held the pistol in a two-handed grip. He was five feet from the door, when it opened and a figure dressed in black entered.
Steven held his breath, waiting until the man was abreast of him. “Don’t move,” he ordered. The man turned, leading with his weapon.
Steven fired twice and dove to the floor. The man staggered. The machine pistol arched upward. A deafening burst of parabellum bullets stitched a path across the ceiling.
Then the man fell to the floor.
Steven bent over him. He was dead. Two of Steven’s bullets had ripped his throat open. Blood poured to the floor. Steven didn’t think about the violence. He couldn’t—not yet.
Kneeling, he tore the machine pistol from the dead man’s hand, and did a quick body search. He found two magazines and a pocket full of money. There was no wallet.
Steven stared at the man’s face, looking into his death glazed eyes, and willed himself to remember if or when he’d seen him before. He found no familiarity in the coarse features, no sense of recognition.
Steven left him on the floor. He shut off the overhead light, closed and locked the back door, and then rammed the high placed brass bolt home. Before returning to Carla and Grange, he hooked a ladder-back chair under the doorknob.
His mind ran at full speed, trying to work up a plan of action, without knowing how many the enemy was. All he knew with any certainty was that his body was pumped, and his senses shrieked for action.
He found Carla kneeling next to Grange, just where he had left them. Her attention was on the bullet-riddled door.
He studied her quickly. Her breathing was slightly uneven, her face flushed, and her hands steady: her eyes showed no fear. “Our visitor brought us a present,” he told her, handing Carla the machine pistol and magazines. “Give me Grange’s spare clip.”
After putting the clip in Grange’s Beretta, Steven cocked it, and knelt next to Carla. “Count a slow thirty and then fire out the window,” he said, pointing to the sitting room.
Carla shook her head. “We have to stay here. Help is coming.”
“Is it?” Steven asked pointedly, not anywhere as sure as Carla. Nor did he plan to wait and see. “Do what I said.”
Without giving her a chance to protest again, he raced into the kitchen, stepped over the dead man, and pulled the chair free from the door. He closed his eyes to help adjust to the dark night, counted to three, and opened the door.
The cold night air danced across Steven’s skin, raising goose bumps over his body. He opened his eyes and was able to make out the moonlit landscape. Moving cautiously, he worked his way around the house. He never lost track of the count.
At the count of twenty-five, he reached the front corner. Stopping, he pressed his back to the house and peered around. Steven spotted the second man instantly. He was crouched behind the rear fender of the car. The man’s right arm hung limp.
At thirty, Carla fired a short burst through the sitting room window. Her bullets danced over the car’s body, raising sparks. The man returned fire. Bolts of lightning spat from his machine pistol. Steven broke cover and ran into the drive. Then, amidst the bedlam of nine-millimeter gunfire, headlights cut the darkness, pinioning both Steven and the assassin.
The assassin spun when the headlights hit him. His useless arm wind milling as he fought to bring his weapon to bear.
Steven threw himself sideways, rolling beneath the first burst of fire. The bullets ripped up dirt to his left. He stopped rolling, sighted on the man, and squeezed the trigger.
The man spun away from the car and fell heavily, his legs spasming.
Steven pushed off the ground, and warily approached his attacker. The man lay still. Steven kicked the bulky weapon from his lifeless hand. The headlights came closer, fully illuminating the man. Steven recognized the dead man’s Slavic features immediately. He was the driver of the car at the motel.
It was Anton.
“I’m coming in,” Steven shouted to Carla as the approaching car came to a halt and its doors opened.
The front door to the house opened when he reached the top step. Carla stared at him in question. “He’s dead,” he said simply. “How’s Grange?”
“Not good.”
The heavy pounding of running feet reached the stairs. Carla looked over his shoulder. Steven saw anger flash across her face. “Where the hell have you been?”
The first man shook his head. “We thought they were Witt and Jamison. They were driving Jamison’s car.”
Ignoring them, Steven went inside and knelt by Grange. The supervisor’s eyes were open. Pain tightened his features. “I think you’ll make it,” Steven said with a half-smile he didn’t feel.
“I know,” Grange said weakly. “Carla, report in.” When Carla went to the living room phone, Grange said, “Did you recognize them?”
Steven nodded. “Only the one out front. He was the one who tried to kill us this morning. Short dark hair. Heavy features, ruddy complexion.
Grange smiled and winced for his trouble. “Anton. Good. You’re a hell of a soldier, Morrisy. You took out the mole’s back up. Now the mole’s alone. You’ve got to play the game. It’s up to you to pull him from cover.”
Steven gazed at the injured agent. Respect grew within him as Grange, wounded and in obvious pain, kept up his role to the hilt. But Steven had reached his limit in this fruitless game. “No, Grange, I’m not playing it your way anymore. This time we’ll do it the right way.”
Grange shook his head forcefully. “You’ve been out of it for too long. You were good then, Morrisy, but this isn’t Nam.”
“Fuck you, Grange. Fuck all the rest of you shadow players. The mole wants my blood. I’ll get him by my rules.”
Grange stared at Steven for a long moment before he finally nodded his head. “You may be right—this time.”
Carla returned, saying, “They’re dispatching full cleanup crew and a copter. We’ll get you to a hospital soon.”
“Get him out of here, now,” he told Carla and two of the other agents.
Carla shook her head. “No more. We almost blew it tonight. I don’t want Steven used as bait.”
“We have to,” Grange said.
“No.”
“Grange is right.” Steven’s voice was low and matter-of-fact. “It’s the only way. But I’m going alone. Your mole knows your procedures. He wants me, but he won’t come after me unless he’s certain he can get to me. It won’t work if anyone else is with me.”
Carla looked at him, her expression anxious. “You’re not trained for this.”
Steven couldn’t stop the smile from coming as Grange said, “Carla, Morrisy may be even better trained than you.”
She looked from Grange to Steven. “You’re a long time away from Vietnam.”
Steven considered her words, and thought about his method of keeping the past locked inside his mind. “No, I’m not,” he said swallowing hard. “I’ve been there every day of my life.”
“I’m going with you,” Carla stated. “The mole thinks I’m Ellie’s sister. Report procedure?” she asked Grange before Steven could speak.
Grange coughed, groaned, and held his side. Steven saw the blood begin to run again. “Use Priority One only,” he instructed. “Morrisy, what happened to Ellie was because she discovered who the mole is. And it is someone in Pritman’s office. Use that trick memory of yours. Figure out why he wants you to take the blame. You’re the key, Morrisy.”
<><><>
It was almost midnight when they checked into a downtown hotel in Pittsburgh. Steven registere
d as Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Adams, paying for one night, and using some of the cash he’d taken from the dead man in the kitchen.
Their room was modest, with flower patterned wallpaper on a beige background that matched the carpeting, a king size bed, and an easy chair recliner. There was a traditional television chained to the wall and a small desk in front of the window.
Steven put their bags on the aluminum stand at the foot of the bed and turned to Carla. “I think we can relax for now.”
Carla nodded and started toward the bathroom. When she was next to him, her steps faltered. Steven saw the tears in her eyes.
Rather than speak, he took her in his arms and held her close. The sobs came then, body wracking spasms that shook her uncontrollably. Steven knew the cause of the tears, as well as her silence on the long drive, was a delayed reaction to the fight at the safe house.
When her crying lessened, he eased her onto the bed and sat next to her. He held her as he spoke. “When I first met Grange, I had the feeling that you and he—” he stopped and smiled at her. “I once asked if you were lovers. You are, aren’t you?”
Carla shook her head. A smile etched with memories graced her lips. “A long time ago. Not now, not for years. Seeing him lying there, bleeding and helpless. God, it was horrible.”
“I know. But he’ll be fine.”
“Until the next time,” she said, turning to stare at him.
“You’re both in a dangerous profession.”
Carla looked away. “Maybe I picked the wrong one. Look at me, I’m a wreck.”
“You’re no different from anyone else. Everyone reacts differently, but everyone reacts. Some fall to pieces during a fight, others, like you, react afterward, when it’s safe to fall apart. It’s a sign of strength, not weakness.”
“Oh, right, I’m brave,” she said sarcastically, lifting her hands to show how badly they shook.
Steven knew if he kept pushing, it would only make things worse. He had to find a different subject.
“You met Grange in college, right?”
“I told you that, didn’t I?”