“Fucker,” he screamed, firing four rapid rounds as the target turned, his own weapon rotating toward Alex.
Ludwig’s free hand flew to his face, one of the four bullets having cut deeply into the flesh of his right cheek. Then he caught himself and fired two rounds at his attacker.
Alex acted instinctively as the two shots went wide. The target held his weapon in his right hand, which meant that in rapid fire, under pressure, he would jerk his hand slightly to the left—to Alex’s right. He threw his body to his own left and rolled, coming up on one knee, his weapon up and level. But the target had darted into the street and, crouched low, was running toward La Canebière, an impossible shot with too much risk.
Alex could hear the pounding of feet behind him: Kolshak out of the alley and moving up fast. The sight of him had changed the odds and forced the target to run.
“I got him, Alex,” Kolshak shouted as he rumbled past.
Kolshak was by him before Alex regained his feet, and ahead he could already see the target rounding the corner. He started to join the pursuit, then broke stride and ran toward Blount’s fallen body. There might be a chance, and if there was, he owed it to Blount to go to him first. But even before he reached him, he knew. Something about the way his legs were draped over the low doorstep. Or perhaps it had been the way his body had flown back. But even before he looked into Blount’s dead, staring face, Alex knew there would be nothing left to save.
He looked up as Kolshak’s pounding feet headed back toward him.
“I lost him,” Kolshak said, fighting for breath. He looked down at Blount’s body. “Fuck!” he snapped. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Alex reached down and picked up Blount’s Walther, handed it to Kolshak, then quickly removed the shoulder holster the dead agent was wearing. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, his voice dead and flat. “This place is going to be crawling with French cops any minute.”
Kolshak stared down at Blount’s body, his face a mixture of anger and pain. Leaving your dead behind sucked. But he knew the procedure. Blount would simply be an American businessman killed on a Marseilles street. Worth only a few lines in The New York Times on a slow news day. Deniability wasn’t just the rule, it was the way of life in his business.
CHAPTER
9
Ernst Ludwig bared his teeth and his eyelids fluttered as the doctor tightened the last suture in his cheek and began tying it off.
Across the room an almost indiscernible smile played momentarily on Sergei Bugayev’s lips as he watched the Soviet-paid physician minister to him. Ludwig had telephoned the Soviet consulate shortly before dawn, demanding help, and had been picked up by a team and brought to the new safe house in the old quarter of the city. Since Bugayev had arrived with the doctor, a half hour later, he had not moved from the sofa on which he still lay.
“Will there be a scar?” Ludwig asked, staring up at the doctor with eyes so filled with hatred that the man took a step back, almost as though he feared he would be held personally responsible for the injury.
“I don’t believe there is any nerve damage, but it is impossible to be sure. As for scarring: Yes, I’m afraid there will be a scar. But plastic surgery—”
Ludwig cut him off with a wave of his hand. The doctor had spoken in French, and Ludwig turned to Bugayev and continued in Russian.
“Can we trust this fool?” he asked.
And what should we do, kill him if you’re uncertain? Bugayev thought. “He’s a member of the French Communist Party, and we have used him many times in the past,” he said in Russian. “His loyalty has been proven.”
Ludwig turned his head away, indicating neither pleasure nor dissatisfaction with the answer. “Get him out of here,” he said in a softer voice.
The doctor looked at Bugayev, uncertainty and a hint of fear in his eyes. The Russian smiled, crossed the room to him, then took his arm and guided him to the door. “Again you have served us well, my friend,” he said. “Again, my thanks.” He paused. “Is there anything special we should do for him?” He indicated Ludwig with a toss of his head.
The doctor pulled a small pad from his suit coat pocket, scribbled quickly, and handed over a slip of paper, bearing a prescription.
“For pain,” he said. “Otherwise there is nothing.”
Bugayev saw the doctor out, thanking him again, then stared at the prescription in his hand, momentarily thought of stuffing it in his pocket and allowing Ludwig all the pain possible, then handed it to one of his men and ordered him to get it filled. He turned and crossed the room to the sofa, pulled up a wooden chair, and sat facing his “wounded hero of the Revolution,” as he now referred to Ludwig in his mind.
“So, tell me, my friend,” he began. “Tell me how all this happened. The cafes are already buzzing with stories of wild shooting outside your former apartment early this morning.”
Ludwig glared at him, aware now that Bugayev had already had men scouring the neighborhood for information. “The Americans found your not-so-safe safe house,” he snapped. “I found three of them watching it.”
“Could it be they followed you there?” Bugayev’s voice was light, almost syrupy. He was thoroughly enjoying himself.
“It could be they simply placed all the safe houses you ineptly run under surveillance,” Ludwig snapped back. “I couldn’t take the risk.”
“So you killed one of them. And one of them wounded you,” Bugayev said.
Ludwig’s eyes narrowed. “A man called Alex,” he said, almost hissing the name. “One of them called him that. Who is he? He saw my face.”
Ah, Bugayev thought. The great fear that the myth of invisibility has been breached. “I can only guess,” he said. “But it undoubtedly was Alex Moran. The man I told you about, the head of the American Defense Intelligence Agency station here in Marseilles.” He shook his head. “A difficult man. And obviously a decent shot.”
Ludwig glared at him, looking for a moment as if he might leap off the sofa and go for the Russian’s throat. Bugayev almost wished he would try.
“I want to know where he lives,” Ludwig said.
“We don’t kill each other’s agents, and certainly not each other’s station chiefs. Not unless it’s unavoidable,” Bugayev said.
“I know about your stupid unwritten rules,” Ludwig said. “But they don’t apply to me. I don’t require approval from Moscow Center to kill capitalist agents. So you can give me his address, or I’ll find someone at the Center to order you to. I know you have it. Not to would be an unbelievable incompetence.”
Ludwig tried to smile, but the effort caused him to wince with pain. Bugayev offered up the smile for him, but not at Ludwig’s words as it might seem. Perhaps Alex would be more successful this time, he thought. If he were less committed to his own beliefs he might even telephone him.
“You’ll have your address. Now tell me what happened. And leave out nothing. It may just help us keep you alive.” Bugayev smiled again. “Oh, and there will be men here with you this time. Whether you want them here or not.” The Russian’s eyes hardened. “And if you go out hunting American agents, you go alone. And I shall advise Moscow Center of your plans, and my decision. Is that understood, comrade?”
The consulate had arranged for the pickup of Blount’s body, following an autopsy by French authorities, and had put out a story about the murder of an American businessman during an attempted robbery on a Marseilles street. It wouldn’t do much either way to the reputation of France’s second largest city, since the French themselves already referred to it as France’s Chicago.
But those facts didn’t concern Alex Moran as he sat at his desk in the late afternoon. What did bother him was his inability to offer some kind of official recognition to a man assigned to his office, however briefly. That, and the fact he wasn’t even close to finding the sonofabitch who killed him.
He had seen Ludwig’s face—the man no one could supposedly identify. He had seen him in profile as he murde
red Blount, and then again as he had faced him to try his luck a second time. And now he was wounded. Not badly, but somewhere on the right side of his head. Alex allowed the man’s image to float across his mind. It was a face he wouldn’t forget.
And when I find you, I’ll treat you with all the pity you showed that poor, hapless bastard you blew apart on a filthy French street, he told himself.
Except maybe that poor hapless bastard would still be alive if you’d been out doing your job instead of pacing floors wondering who your wife was fucking.
Alex spun in his chair and stared out at the dull, monotonous view offered by his lone window. It was the question that had been gnawing at him, the reality that he had sent his men out to do a dangerous job while he concentrated on the shit that was piling up on his own doorstep. And if he hadn’t been, would the outcome have been different? He squeezed his eyes shut. It damned well should have been.
There was no question in his mind that had he been out there, he would have kept Blount with him, if for no other reason than to evaluate what capabilities, if any, he had. And if he had ordered Blount to break off and go home, he would have. No matter how eager, the man had not been a fool. He had been ambitious, and would never have played his Lone Ranger game on the one man who could have shipped his ass back to the States on a whim.
But you weren’t there. You were at home, waiting for Stephanie. Waiting to see if she was still playing her game. Waiting to challenge her after-work jaunt, to find out if she was still dropping her drawers for someone else. Then you were packing your things, moving out. Playing the wounded cuckold for all it was worth. Playing for an audience of two in your own fucking soap opera.
So you pawned him off on Kolshak—let Kolshak do your job for you—and now one overeager kid, fresh out of training, was being shipped home in a box without even the dignity of anyone acknowledging why or what he died trying to do. Shit. It was all shit. And your part in it was the shittiest part of all.
Alex spun around, facing his desk and the still unwritten report explaining how and why Blount had died. His eyes drifted to the telephone. Even now all you want to do is call Stephanie and find out where she is and what she’s doing. Try to find out if her final words—that she still loved you, still hoped things could work out between you—were just another lie, just another part of her game.
Alex ground his teeth, the muscles along his jaw dancing wildly. He reached out and punched the speak button on his intercom.
“Please ask Kolshak to come in here,” he said when his secretary answered.
A minute later, Kolshak entered, looking gaunt and grim and exhausted.
“I’m going to the airport to see them put Blount on the plane,” Alex said without preamble. “I know we can’t do anything officially, but I think I owe him that much. You wanna come?”
“Yeah, I’d like that,” Kolshak said. “Then I want to find that fuck Ludwig, and blow his ass to kingdom come.”
Ludwig turned the note over in his hand. It was a single sheet of plain, unidentifiable paper that had been hand-delivered by one of Bugayev’s lackeys. On it an address and apartment number had been typed. No doubt using a typewriter that had since been destroyed, Ludwig thought, mentally snorting at the cowardice of the KGB.
But Alex Moran wouldn’t be the first station chief to die at the hands of a revolutionary. He would simply be more deserving than the others.
Ludwig ran his fingers gingerly over the heavy bandage that covered most of his right cheek. The man had not only seen him, he had marked him for others. Now it would take plastic sūrgery to remove the scar that would certainly be there. He walked to the large mirror that hung on one wall and stared at his bandaged face, his eyes alight with the hatred he felt boiling inside. The wound throbbed with the blood coursing through his face, telling him it was time for another dose of pills the doctor had prescribed. But they made him drowsy and dulled his reflexes, and there would be no more of them until he had killed the man who had made them necessary.
And kill anyone who was with him. Making Alex Moran get on his knees and watch their deaths, knowing his own was only moments away. Then a stomach wound, administered with a silenced pistol, so he could sit and watch him die, lying in his own vomit, his own piss and shit. That was the price he’d pay for marking him.
Ludwig’s fingers reached for the bandage again, and he noticed they were trembling. But not from fear. No, not from fear at all.
CHAPTER
10
Stephanie stared at the telephone, willing it to ring, willing Alex to call, just to speak to her, to say anything at all. When she arrived home there had not been a message from him on the answering machine as she had hoped. She had not called him at his office, hoping he would call first. But he hadn’t, and now it was ten o’clock and she didn’t even know how to reach him.
She could call his office and ask them to locate him, but she was afraid that might embarrass him, might even widen the chasm that already existed. She ran her hands through her hair, almost pulling it, thinking about pulling it. She could call Antoine. He would know where Alex was. Yes, she could call Antoine. Old Uncle Antoine, a man she had always secretly despised.
She fumbled in her purse, finding her address book, and quickly located the Pisanis’ number. She dialed it, listened to it ring endlessly, then finally heard an answering click, followed by a brutish voice. She asked for Antoine, said who she was, then waited again. Several minutes passed, then the brutish voice returned telling her Antoine Pisani wasn’t at home. She replaced the receiver.
“Bastard,” she said.
Stephanie walked to the drinks table and poured herself several fingers of brandy, a drink she seldom touched. But she needed it, needed something strong to push down the fear. She walked to the window and stared out at the night. She was dressed in black pleated slacks and a white blouse—as always presentable if she suddenly had to go out. It was something that had been drilled into her since childhood. Something, she felt, she never quite achieved.
The drink fell from her hand at the sound of the doorbell, splashing the amber liquid over the pale oriental carpet. She turned, ignoring the spilled drink, and hurried to the door. It was Alex, she told herself. It had to be Alex. No one else ever came this late at night.
The opened hand pushed into her face as soon as the door swung back, the fingers squeezing her cheeks, keeping her from pulling away. The barrel of the gun pointed straight at the bridge of her nose, held high and awkwardly so she could see it, the aperture at its end seeming enormous, almost like a small tunnel.
She staggered back, seeing the man behind the gun clearly for the first time. He was blond, with blazing blue eyes, and his right cheek was covered with a large bandage.
“Where is your husband?” he whispered. “Where is Alex?”
Stephanie tried to speak, but the fingers squeezing her cheeks made it almost impossible, and her words came out mumbled and distorted, sounding like some character in a cartoon.
“You call out and I’ll kill you instantly,” the man said.
Stephanie stared into his eyes and believed him. She tried to nod her head against his hand. Her legs had begun to tremble so violently she thought they might collapse beneath her.
The man dropped his hand from her mouth, seized her wrist, and spun her around, then forced it up behind her back. He laid the barrel of the gun against her cheek and marched her from room to room, checking each one. Stephanie could feel the sweat on the hand that held her wrist, and the man’s breathing seemed too fast, almost as if coming in short, panting gasps.
The search ended in the bedroom—the man was not here—and Ludwig could feel his adrenaline begin to ease. He shoved the woman forward brutally, sending her sprawling on the bed. She turned to face him, sitting on the edge of the bed. There was fear in her eyes, but not enough, he thought. He leveled the gun between her ample breasts, then turned it from side to side.
“This device on the end of the gun is
a silencer,” he said, his voice almost crooning. “If I shoot you, no one will hear.”
He snapped the pistol to the left and fired into the mattress only a foot from the woman’s right hip. She stared at the smoldering hole in the bedding, then jumped to her left, as if belatedly dodging the bullet. The sight of it brought a smile to Ludwig’s face.
“When will Alex be home?” he asked.
The woman’s chin trembled uncontrollably, as she fought the words out.
“I … I … don’t know.”
Stephanie’s mind was racing. If she told him Alex wasn’t coming home, that he didn’t live here anymore, what would he do to her? If he thought he’d be home any minute, would he leave? No. He wasn’t here for her. He was here for Alex. To hurt him. Her eyes widened. Even to kill him.
“Tell me!” Ludwig’s voice was a feral growl.
Stephanie stammered, getting nothing intelligible out, then stopped, drawing a breath. “He left me,” she said, her voice barely audible. “He moved out,” louder this time. “Yesterday.”
Ludwig’s eyes narrowed, and his face glowed with rage. “Where is he now?”
Stephanie’s entire body shook, and she clutched her opposite arms with her hands, hugging herself. “I … I … don’t know.”
Ludwig took a quick step forward and raised a hand as if to strike her. She shrank back, her chin pressing down against her chest, her shoulders rising to fend off the blow. It didn’t come, and she risked a look up at him. The hand was still raised, waiting, threatening.
“Tell me!” he growled again.
“He hasn’t called. I don’t know where he is. No one will tell me where he is.” The last came out in a sudden sob.
Ludwig stared at her, thinking. His eyes narrowed to a shrewd line. “Caught you fucking someone, did he?”
Corsican Honor Page 8