He spun around onto his back, trying to lift his weapons to fire on anybody who came out to finish him off. But only one hand was working.
A head appeared around the corner and he squeezed the trigger.
The hammer fell on an empty chamber.
###
The ageing royal was not completely useless after all, Charlotte thought, as Harry’s unexpected attack on the Russian flank drew fire from her. She had written off the uptimers. Duffy was probably dead. And she assumed Harry had got himself jammed up somewhere behind her.
But then there he was, charging into the side of the Russian position, shooting wildly, but to good effect, taking down two, then three of Skarov’s men. She prepared to launch herself out of the stowage space in which she’d taken cover, and shoulder-charge the door of the cabin in which she was certain she would find Professor Bremmer. There would be no rescuing him now, of course. But the Russians would not be getting him either.
The murderous torrent of gunfire in the passageway eased off for just a moment, before returning with full fury. It was like the breathing of a dragon, and she timed her assault to move at just that moment between the serpent’s scorching exhalations.
Hot rounds zipped past her. Bright green tracers which left white afterimages burned into her retinas. She hit the cabin door, resigned to dying if it held fast. It did not. The flimsy lock, designed to give a minimum of privacy to some ship’s officer, gave way under the impact with a splintering crash. She sprayed down the room with half a clip, not caring who was in there, hoping it was Bremmer and his Russian captor.
But the room was empty.
Charlotte did not scream in exasperation. She roared. It was all she could do to stop herself firing off the rest of her ammunition in fury. She was going to lose. She was going to fail. Skarov had probably moved the scientist off the ship already, leaving his henchmen behind as a rearguard.
She checked her load out. She was running dangerously low on ammunition, and even lower on options. The chatter and snarl of automatic weapons fire cycled up, becoming deafening in its intensity. They had to be moving on her. Some hero of the people had finally had enough of all the pissing about and had decided to fall back on that reliable Russian tactic: crushing the enemy with sheer weight of numbers.
Roaring her frustration again, so savagely it seemed to tear the muscles in her throat, she pulled down the bunkbed which stood against one wall, creating an imperfect barricade to block entrance to the room. If the Russians were smart they would just toss a hand grenade in here. But maybe they weren’t that smart. Maybe they would come at her in ones and twos and she could pick them off. Resume her pursuit of Bremmer in the unlikely event that she got out of here.
Charlotte-Grace François took cover behind her flimsy barricade and trained the iron sights of her weapon on the open door. The tenor of the battle changed, building to a crescendo. She heard the thick, sonic booms of a combat shotgun echoing down the passageway. Clearing a path. She waited. Just as she had waited for the ghosts to enter that jungle camp a lifetime ago.
###
Julia Duffy was dying. She had seen enough men and women give up their hold on life that she knew the time had come for her. Harry was gone. He had been here, but he was gone. Probably dead already. The crazy Ninja Barbie, last survivor of Viv’s pirate crew, was also gone. Either dead or fled the scene of this battle for her next one. Julia had seen all that before as well. Charlotte was not the first killer angel she had encountered.
You did not see them often among the temps however. Where had that girl come from? She was too young to be an uptimer, even though she presented as an almost perfect harbinger of the future. A herald from a time of war without end.
Julia shivered, and the shiver turned into deep body convulsions. She was cold but burned with a raging fever, all at the same time. One leg was numb.
She saw the bodies of the children she had killed. The children who had tried to kill her, and she knew then that there was nothing special about this time or the future she had come from. All of human history was madness, murder and despair.
Her head spinning and her vision graying out, she used her good leg to push herself away from the tiny bodies. They didn’t look like killers now. They looked like what they were. Two children who’d had everything taken from them.
She was dying and with her death came regret.
Regret that she had not had a chance to make it work with Harry. Sorrow for everyone she had lost. Her family back up when. Rosanna. That guy Rosanna had liked. What was his name?
The dark blooms grew deeper, blotting out more and more of the room.
And Dan, of course. Her Dan. And the baby she could have had with him, if she hadn’t terminated that pregnancy, without even asking him.
If she hadn’t killed that child like she had killed these two.
She took a breath, struggling to draw in her last few sips of air. It felt like barbed wire in her lungs. The sounds of battle grew remote. Irrelevant.
She was moving beyond such things now, letting go in her last moments on this world; the second world in which she had lived.
Wasn’t that something, though?
What a privilege it had been, to travel between worlds.
The sound of guns was so far away now, she could not hear them. Something seemed to tear inside her. It hurt, but strangely enough it helped her breathe a little easier. She was grateful for the mercy.
Julia Duffy stopped fighting. She gave up trying to drag herself away from the bodies, from what she had done.
She would just lie here, she decided. She would close her eyes, and let everything drift away while she thought not about what she had lost, but what she had been given. A longer life than many; greater loves; a grand adventure. As she slipped away, she said goodbye. To Harry. To Rosanna. To Dan.
She saw them all in her last moments.
But it was Dan she saw last.
Captain Dan Black. Her lover, her friend, the greatest adventure of all. She smiled at him, as he stood, framed by the cabin door, looking older, and a little heavier, and infinitely sad.
She closed her eyes and whispered, “I loved you, Dan. I’m sorry.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ivanov was too late. For such a dishonorable, untrustworthy little zalupa, the businessman Davidson had been good to his word. Having heard from Ivanov all he needed to hear about Rome, and how the Communists had been developing a space-based weapons system, Davidson had delivered on his promise. A car took them to a small, private airfield, north of the city, where a sleek business jet waited for Ivanov and Rogas.
The American, it seemed, was to accompany him to Cairo to secure the services of Herr Professor Ernst Bremmer for Davidson Enterprises. And, Ivanov did not doubt, to secure further intelligence about Stalin’s orbital weapons project. James Davidson, or more likely, his executive officer, Ms O’Brien, was not one to ignore an opportunity or a threat when one arose.
But it did not matter. For again, he was too late. The jet left Paris just after midnight and landed in Cairo as the sunrise washed over the broken peaks of the pyramids. Ivanov dozed fitfully in transit. Rogas spent much of his time on a headset and laptop, in communication with various sources, operators, contacts, whoever might clear their path and speed their progress; perhaps with the resourceful Maria O’Brien herself. For when they landed at Cairo, and quickly cleared passport control at a private hangar, there was a car and a local factotum waiting for them.
“I am al Nouri,” the man said. “Do not even show me your passports. We do not have time for such inconsequential trifling.”
He did not bother with any of their papers, which Rogas had expedited in flight. Nor did he care to inspect the black carry-all the American hefted out of a luggage compartment.
“My man will carry your weapons,” said al Nouri.
Rogas did not object.
The Egyptian identified himself as “
an assistant to the palace”, but Ivanov recognized the type. He was a security man, almost certainly a spy, probably a torturer and executioner with it.
“It is provident you have come to us,” said al Nouri, when they were settled in the rear compartment of his vehicle. It resembled nothing so much as a London taxi. “This Russian you seek, he has done much ill to my city, to my clan. I am al Nouri. You are Russian, yes?”
“I am Ivanov,” said Ivanov. “And I am here to kill your Russian.”
This al Nouri clapped, as though in appreciation of an especially energetic belly dancing routine. “Then you are the most excellent sort of Russian and we will be the very best of friends,” he said.
They did not drive through the city. Davidson’s jet had landed near Port Said, at an airstrip reserved for cargo flights. They sped through warehouse districts and many miles of light industrial development, all of it quiet at the moment, so early in the day. Their man from the palace explained that regardless of what had been happening in Europe, he had endured a most tumultuous time the last day or so, and it was almost entirely the fault of “this Russian dog, Skarov”.
“My cousin, who was al Nouri, is dead by this man’s hand. I would take his hand before I took his life from him, but he is gone and I am told you are the man most likely to find him and kill him,” said al Nouri. “Much grief has he caused in Cairo, to my sovereign, and to me, personally. It is only by the grace of Allah and the strong hand of my brother-in-law, General al Nouri, and our friends in Washington and London that the house of al Nouri still stands.”
Rogas consulted a flexipad as they drove into the port, speeding past armed guards who waved them through, somewhat redundantly, thought Ivanov. He was sure al Nouri’s driver would have run them down had they barred the way.
“Looks like they had a rolling series of coups and counter coups here last night,” said the American. “It looks like fucking Turkey all over again.”
“Yes!” cried al Nouri. “It is just like the Turks. And they shall pay for this, or I am not al Nouri.”
Both men stared at him as the car thumped over a speed bump.
“And I assure you,” said al Nouri, “that I am most assuredly al Nouri.”
The port complex was huge. It took half an hour to drive around the waterfront to the wharf where a Russian ship, the Mikhail Bulgakov, was tied up. It had been burning, and smoke still poured from the superstructure here and there. There seemed to be three different branches of the police force attempting to control the scene, but mostly pushing and shoving each other around. The arrival of al Nouri did bring a minimum semblance of order to the confusion, if only because the ranking officers of the rival police factions abandoned arguing with each other in favor of seeking his approval.
The man from the palace did not shout or even raise his voice in the face of so much shouting and arm waving, all of it for his benefit. He took each man aside in turn and whispered something in their ears. They all fell silent, and pale. One of the police officers was visibly shaking as Ivanov and Rogas walked past.
They followed al Nouri up a gangplank onto the ship. The superstructure of the Bulgakov was pockmarked with bullet holes and blackened here and there with scorch marks. The bodies had been taken somewhere, but the deck was sticky underfoot with dried blood that had not been mopped up or hosed away. al Nouri gave them a tour of the ship, showing them where the German scientist had been held, and the rope ladder down which Skarov had climbed with him to escape in a motorboat.
They inspected the small, empty cabin where Harry Wales and the American reporter woman had been held prisoner and interrogated. Tortured too, presumably. Ivanov searched the cargo hold through which the mercenary operator, the woman called François, had infiltrated the ship.
He found nothing of any use. The name François meant something to him, he was sure, but its significance remained just out of reach. He had met many Frenchmen during the war and afterwards. And it was a common name. Perhaps he was simply reaching for a connection where none existed.
Finally, they returned to the upper deck where an American tactical unit had fought their way on board and put down the last resistance by Skarov’s rearguard.
“And you have no idea who these guys were?” said Rogas.
“Only that they were American,” said al Nouri. “Or at least their leader and his senior men were. They intervened decisively, secured the wounded, and left. That is all I know. I am sorry.”
“Really?” Rogas muttered to himself. “I thought you were al Nouri.”
“Where are the wounded now?” asked Ivanov, ignoring the dull barb.
“At the American University Hospital in the old town center. We shall go there,” said al Nouri.
The drive into the city did not take nearly as long as Ivanov expected. There was very little traffic. Only military and a few government vehicles were allowed on the roads. They passed through a dozen roadblocks, slowing but never stopping at any of them. At each barricade or intersection al Nouri would wind down the window and speak softly to whichever junior officer was in charge. Like the policemen back at the port they all wilted under his gaze and waved him through.
###
Harry was sedated, but not so heavily that he slept, and he was groggy and disoriented when the three men arrived. They were not the first to visit him or to question him in his hospital bed, but they were the first that he recognized, the uptimers, anyway.
He had met Pavel Ivanov on a couple of occasions during the war, and once or twice afterwards. But not recently. Vincente Rogas he vaguely recalled as a special operator attached to Lonesome Jones’ Marine Expeditionary Unit. Special Operations was a small village. People knew each other. He thought he recalled Rogas as a Navy SEAL, who had stayed in the Pacific when Harry had returned home.
Not that any of them could truly go home.
The third man, the Egyptian, he thought he recognized, at first anyway, until the man introduced himself and Harry understood it was just a family resemblance.
Harry wasn’t sure how the man would feel about him, but he needn’t have worried. The latest al Nouri in his life took Harry’s hand in both of his and raised it to his lips.
“Your Highness,” he whispered. “My family bleeds with you. Your enemies are forever enemies to us. My cousin, who was also al Nouri, spoke so highly of you and your betrothed and the kind words you would have for al Nouri when you spoke to His Majesty King Farouk. We thank you for this and I promise that together our families will lay vengeance upon all who have wronged us.”
It may have been the drugs, but Harry was convinced this latest al Nouri half-expected Princess Elizabeth herself to take up sword and shield in what was now a very personal blood feud—at least to him, and all the other al Nouris who were legion.
The Russian pulled over a chair, the rubber tips on the legs squeaking on the tiled floor of the hospital room.
“You need to tell me all that you know about Skarov,” he said. “And I will tell what I know.”
“He got away?” Harry asked. His throat was dry and his voice cracked.
“In a fucking cigarette boat,” said Rogas. “With the German.”
“Not that it matters now, I suppose.” Harry sighed. Not with the Sovs rolling on Europe.
“It matters,” said Ivanov. “Tell me about Rome. I was there too. On the other side of the Wall.”
Even as fucked up on trauma, shock, pain and painkillers as he was, Harry instinctively clammed up, looking at Rogas and al Nouri, neither of whom were cleared to discuss Rome.
Hell, he had no idea whether this big Russian Charlie was in on that operation or not.
“I’m afraid they’ll have to go, and you will have to talk first,” he said to Ivanov.
The Russian turned to the others.
“Leave us,” he said.
Harry waved weakly to get Rogas’s attention before he could exit the room. “Vince. Could you check on
my girlfriend for me? Julia. She’s in intensive care and they won’t tell me how she’s doing.”
The one-time Navy SEAL looked as though he was considering an argument with Ivanov about being dismissed from the room, but he seemed to decide it wasn’t a fight worth having.
“Sure,” he said. “Duffy. I remember her.”
Rogas and al Nouri left Harry with Ivanov.
“Did Six send you?” he asked when they were alone.
“Only to Rome. I came here of my own choice.”
“But not on your own. What’s Rogas doing? Is he OSS now?”
Ivanov laughed. It sounded like the bark of a wolfhound.
“No,” he said. “He works for Davidson company.”
The words made no sense to Harry. He recognized them as words that you could put one after the other, but not in any way that was remotely comprehensible.
“Rogas is not important,” said the Russian. “He’s just a man for hire. Like me. Like you. I was hired to meet with the woman of a Russian businessman. Sobeskaia. You will know him. You helped him escape from Rome. I made that escape possible, despite the interference of Alexandr Skarov. I will tell you how. And then we will discuss what happened here in Cairo.”
We’ll see about that, thought Harry.
But he settled back into his pillows to hear the man’s story.
###
Ivanov spent nearly two hours with the English prince. Harry Wales was reluctant to share information at first, but as he learned of Ivanov’s own role and more of what was happening at that moment in Europe, he let go of his disinclination to speak.
He had no intelligence about Skarov that could be of much help. But he did provide one useful piece of information about Bremmer.
Ivanov was not much interested in the German rocket scientist. If he was afforded the chance to prevent him falling into the clutches of Joseph Stalin, he would take it. Better the man die than that he help the dictator kill millions of others. Ivanov was very much interested to learn, however, that Bremmer carried an uptime tracking device under his skin. It was not a perfect solution to finding the man, and with him, presumably, the devil Skarov. Like any transmitter it could be blocked, or discovered and shut down. But as far as the Englishman knew, it was still functional, and if Ivanov was able to get a lock on the signal, it would surely lead him to Bremmer and thence to Skarov.
Stalin's Hammer: Paris: A Novel of the Axis of Time Page 14