“As soon as the shooting began, I sent her downstairs. I came up here to see what was happening outside. High ground” Deryugin was weighing the possibilities, Trotter could see it in the man’s eyes. “We will go to the basement. If you are lying I will kill you. Trotter nodded. “I think we’ve already established that”
They had followed Interstate 95 out of Washington, skirting Falmouth along the Rappahannock River which brought them in from the rear of the ninety-acre property on which the farmhouse was perched. At first they nearly overflew the place. There were absolutely no lights showing from the house. They came around in a tight circle, and McGarvey finally spotted Trotter’s car parked behind the FBI’s blue van. “There” McGarvey shouted, leaning forward. “Set us down in the clearing at the front of the house” Kurshin nodded. “Yes, sir” McGarvey sat back and studied the pilot’s neck and shoulders. The voice. There was something vaguely familiar about the man. He hadn’t gotten a very good look at him because of the helmet he wore, and the rush they were in. But all the way down something kept nagging at the back of his mind. “Kirk” Potok suddenly shouted. McGarvey turned to him. They were barely a hundred feet off the ground now. Potok was pointing down. There was a stenciled in yellow letters on the back of his dark blue windbreaker. “Get us down now”
McGarvey shouted. “And then call for backup”
“Yes, sir” Kurshin replied. McGarvey pulled out his Walther, checked the action, and switched the safety off. The instant the helicopter’s skids touched the gravel driveway, he popped the hatch and he and Potok scrambled out, separated and raced up toward the house. Behind them the helicopter rose up a few feet and sideslipped all the way across the clearing, where it set down just at the edge of the woods. It was a good move, McGarvey thought, getting the machine out of the line of fire. But he didn’t have time for that now. Potok reached Langerford’s body first and turned it over. “He’s dead” he called out. McGarvey nodded and pointed up toward the house. The front door was open. Together they raced the rest of the way up the driveway, mounted the three steps onto the porch, and stopped on either side of the door, their guns up and at the ready. They exchanged a look, and McGarvey rolled left, leaping into the stairhall, sweeping left to right as he ran. He pulled up at the bottom of the stairs. In the dim light filtering in from outside he could see another figure lying in a heap in the back corridor. This one was dressed in black. Potok came in a moment later, flattening against the opposite wall. For a moment they remained in position, listening.
But the house was absolutely still. “Trotter” McGarvey shouted. There was no answer. They were too late. While Kurshin had been running them around in circles at the hospital, he had sent his people out here to kill Lorraine. “We’ll start upstairs” he said.
“The body out front was oozing blood. He cannot have been dead for more than a few minutes”
“I hope you’re right” McGarvey replied. His gut was tight, and a rage threatened to engulf him. Control, he told himself. It always came down to that. The upstairs corridor was in nearly complete darkness. McGarvey started up the stairs, slowly, softly, his every sense straining to detect a noise, a movement, anything that would indicate someone was waiting above. At the top he stepped into the deeper shadows along the wall and cocked his ear. Had he heard something? Perhaps above, in the attic, a floorboard creaking. “Hold up” he whispered softly to Potok who was a few steps down. The Israeli stopped. “John” McGarvey called out.
“Lorraine” There was a definite movement above in the attic, and then someone was coming down the stairs at the end of the corridor.
McGarvey dropped back and brought his gun up, aiming into the darkness.
A door banged open. “Kirk” Lorraine Abbott cried. “Oh, God, is it you”
“Here” McGarvey called to her. She came the rest of the way down the corridor in a rush, and suddenly she was in his arms, crying and laughing. For just a second or two, McGarvey kept his gun up, but then he allowed himself to relax, and he led her to the head of the stairs.
“There was shooting, and I think they killed all the FBI agents. I can’t believe you’re here. It’s over”
“Are you all right”
“Frightened, but I’m okay” She spotted Potok and stiffened. “What about John? Where is he” Her eyes suddenly went very wide. “Oh, my God, Kirk.
You haven’t found him”
“What is it”
ie s ie stammere(Isere.
“Heard who”
“One of the Russians. He wanted to know where I was hiding. John told him I was down in the basement. They’re still there”
Potok spun around and dropped low so that he could see down into the stairhall. He shook his head. “Stay here” McGarvey whispered urgently to Lorraine. “It was a police helicopter that brought us in. The pilot has called for backup”
“Kirk, it was the Russians in a helicopter this afternoon. That’s how they found us”
“It’s all right. No matter what happens stay here” McGarvey said. He hadn’t really listened to her. She nodded, her eyes wide. Potok started down the stairs, McGarvey a few feet behind him. Suddenly there was a shuffling below. “Kirk” Trotter cried out. A burst of automatic weapons fire raked the stairwell. The Israeli took at least three hits in his legs, and he pitched forward, tumbling down the stairs. “Now” Trotter shouted again. McGarvey was down the stairs in time to see Trotter desperately struggling with a black-suited figure who was trying to bring his bulky rifle around again. He snapped off three shots as he scrambled past Potok, the first going wide, the second hitting the Russian in the neck and the third smacking into the side of his head, spinning him around against the wall, where he collapsed. “Are you all right” he shouted back at Potok who was struggling to sit up. “I’ll live” the Israeli said, gritting his teeth in pain. “John … “
McGarvey started to ask when another burst of automatic weapons fire raked the stairhall, this time from the rear corridor.
Trotter took at least one hit in his hip, the force of the bullet slamming him backward off his feet.
McGarvey took one in the side, shoving him to the left, as he fired two shots at a darksuited figure in the back doorway.
He hit the floor and rolled over and over toward the wall as the firing went on and on. It came to him in a split instant then; their pilot in the khaki jacket, his familiar voice, there on the roof of the hospital waiting for them. It was Kurshin. It had to be! He fired three more shots in desperation, but the doorway was empty. “Kurshinhe shouted at the top of his lungs. “Kurshin! He tried to struggle up, but it was hard to move, and it seemed as if the stairhall was becoming even darker than before. Kurshinhe shouted again. In the distance he thought he could hear sirens, a lot of them, but that was impossible, he thought, sinking back on the floor. Again he had failed. The sirens were much closer now, but then they were drowned out by the sounds of the helicopter lifting off. He had failed, but so had the Russian. There would be a next time, he thought as the darkness settled in over him.
There definitely would be a next time.
BOOK THREE
Arkady Kurshin walked along the tree-lined pleasant Via San Domenico, hate riding on his shoulders like a powerful dark cloud.
He limped slightly from his wound, but it had been nearly six weeks since Falmouth and he was almost completely recovered. It was early evening. Traffic downtown had been snarled up, as usual, making it difficult for him to meet his rendezvous schedule and still take his usual precautions. His face was different now, though, as was his hair, his clothing, and his manner of speaking. Here he was a Frenchman visiting Italy. At the corner across from the Hotel Aventimo, he stopped to light a cigarette. There wasn’t much traffic, but down the block music came from the open doors of a small cafe, and a young couple strolled arm in arm beneath the street lamp, disappearing around the corner. A large, swarthy man, dressed only in slacks and an opencollar shirt, stepped out of a dark doorway up from the hotel and looked pointedly across the street at Kurshin. If he looked right or left, it would mean that the rendezvous wasn’t safe. He did neither, and Kurshin went across the street. “You were not followed” the lookout asked. His voice was soft; nevertheless he spoke in Italian in case someone was listening. “Of course not” Kurshin replied. “My people are here? All of them”