“You understand, General,” Krylov said, “that I have no personal feelings in this.”
“When did you ever have feelings, personal or otherwise, Aleksei?” General Levashev asked; there was a certain hoarseness in his throat. “You are still the common assassin you were when you began.”
“I would not use the word common, General,” Krylov said. “You demean yourself. You are big game. The biggest.”
He’s talking beautifully, Brook thought. He has a flair for drama; he can’t resist this scene. “Alex, I never figured you for a blowhard. It takes no special skill to carry out a suicide mission.”
“I would not call it that,” Krylov said. “I had planned to wait for a more favorable moment, of course. Now it will be more difficult, I grant. But I shall get out of here and make my way in time to Moscow.”
“Not a chance, Alex,” Brook said cheerfully. “You won’t get off these grounds.”
“If I thought I would be able to collect,” Krylov said, “I would make you a wager on that.”
Brook had already noticed Levashev’s right hand. The General, his back to Krylov, had reached for another pipe. In moving his hand across the desk, he had touched the buzzer beside the blotter. Brook was positive Krylov had not noticed. So maybe there would be a miracle after all. Brook said, “I’m interested Alex. How do you figure you have a chance?”
“The nearest guards are almost a mile away. They would not hear gunshots from inside this house. Of course, I shall have to kill the houseman, too. And anyone else who may appear.”
“The fence is electrified and patrolled. There are other defenses.”
Krylov looked disapproving. “Is it possible that you underestimate me? We have both gone through patrol lines before, Peter. I assure you you will not talk me out of this. Oh, yes. And we have talked enough.”
Krylov pointed the pistol at the back of Levashev’s head.
The General looked around slowly. When he saw the muzzle three feet from his head he paled. He turned his head back and placed both his palms flat on the desk. Brook saw his lips move. By God, the old Marxist’s praying! he thought.
“Wait, Alex, think it over,” Brook said. “You’ll have to take me out to keep me from coming after you. Because I’m not going to let you pull that trigger without giving it the old college try. My life isn’t worth a damn now, anyway, when my superiors find out how I’ve loused this up. I’m diving for that pistol on the floor. You can either shoot me or shoot the General, but one of us will get to you. Put the gun down, Alex, unless you have a real yen to commit suicide. We can work out a deal.”
“Thank you for reminding me of your pistol. Stand still, Peter. One move and my first shot is for you. I do not think, at the General’s age, that he will give me any trouble. Very still.”
He glided forward, his eyes and the gun on Brook. Brook was glaring at Levashev, trying to communicate. This was their chance! If only the General would jump at Krylov, throw the ashtray at his head, anything to divert his aim... but the old Russian sat there, eyes closed, praying like any muzhik.
Here goes nothing and bye-bye Mr. Holloway, Brook thought. He set himself.
Behind Brook the door opened.
Krylov, in a crouch over Brook’s pistol, fired at the door with Levashev’s. In an extension of the same motion he scooped Brook’s pistol from the floor. Brook hurled himself edgewise in a forward parabola. An instant before he crashed into the KGB man, lightning blinded him and an A-bomb went off in his ear. Krylov had fired again. Brook felt no pain. He and the Russian were grappling now; he had a hard grip on the hand that held General Levashev’s gun. The weapon the Russian had snatched from the floor was back there, dropped at Brook’s lunge.
The struggling men swung about in a slow half turn, like adagio dancers. Brook saw a white-coated figure slumped face down in the doorway — the Filipino houseman who had answered the General’s buzz.
They were locked; there was no room for maneuver. Krylov was very strong. Too strong. He wasn’t worked over by Stark and his China boys two weeks ago, Brook thought. For the first time he considered defeat. Krylov was bending his arm back, gradually breaking the grip on his wrist.
They were eyeball to eyeball; those blue eyes were searching his in a routine way. The Russian’s face was without expression. There was no bloodlust in it; almost no interest.
From somewhere behind them Brook heard General Levashev moving at last. He hoped it was in their direction, with the ashtray. His arm was now bent so far back that the pain was invading his groin. In a moment his grip would be broken, or his arm, and then Krylov would shoot him.
The pain became intolerable. Krylov broke free and shoved him powerfully away. As Brook staggered back, the Russian whirled and got off a snap-shot at an oblique angle. General Levashev, on hands and knees, was scrambling for Brook’s pistol. The old man fell violently forward as Krylov’s bullet struck him, and lay still.
Brook was in a spring before Krylov could turn Levashev’s gun on him. There was no time for subtlety. He swung a haymaker. It caught the Russian on the side of the face, too high to put him out, but stunning enough to make Krylov stumble and drop to one knee and lose his grip on the gun.
So there they were, in that tiny stasis, with both weapons on the floor, facing each other across a few feet of no man’s land, Levashev’s body to one side and their courses predetermined by training and instinct. Brook dived for the nearer pistol, which was his. Krylov dived for the other, which was Levashev’s. And they were on their feet, each with a pistol aimed at the other, in the same microsecond.
Krylov spoke first. “So, Peter. A stalemate.”
“Looks that way.”
Each man’s eyes were fixed, not on the other’s face, but on the forefinger curled about the trigger.
“Marx says somewhere that when you have reached a stalemate you negotiate. I have forgotten the exact quotation. It has been some time since I read the texts.”
“Negotiate,” Brook said. “Which means give yourself time to get the jump. I remind you, Alex, that in a situation like this nobody wins. You might beat me to the shot by a hair, but good old Mother Nature will pull my trigger, too, and there we’ll be — two dead men, or two critically wounded men. Either way you don’t escape.”
“I see,” Krylov said. “Yes, that makes sense. Then let us negotiate in good faith. I have a suggestion.”
“What?”
“I walk out of here. You give me one hour’s grace. Of course, it leaves me at a disadvantage. I would have to take your word that you will not raise an alarm before the hour is up.”
“You’d take it?”
“I see no alternative. Do you?”
“Of course. Drop your pistol. You’ve done your job. You can’t possibly make it home free. Why die for nothing?”
“It is the chance I must take. It is better than committing suicide.”
“You wouldn’t necessarily have to die, Alex. You know how these things go. Life imprisonment, for the record, and an exchange for an American agent later.”
“I do not think so,” Krylov said. “Not in this case. And life imprisonment for me would be the same as dying.” His eyes flicked up for just a moment.
Brook’s did not. His finger tightened imperceptibly on his trigger.
“I see,” Krylov said. “You are very controlled, Peter. So.”
“Bringing us right back to where we were.”
“You play chess, Peter?”