"Yeah. Except for my left ear." He reached his hand up to cover it. "You nearly blew out my eardrum."
"I'm sorry."
Roddy suddenly burst out with a laugh that shook his shoulders. It was partly a humorous reaction, moreso pure nerves. "Damn, Yuri. Don't apologize. If you hadn't fired that blunderbuss, we'd both be dead. I thought you were crazy when you put it in that bag you checked through to San Antonio. Shows how little I know."
As he began to settle down, Roddy pressed firmly on the accelerator, pushing the Chevrolet back up to speed. He saw the sky brightening a bit ahead, and the rain began to slacken. Deciding to press his luck a little further, he eased the speedometer on above sixty-five and after several minutes spotted the orange stripe on the rear of the U-Haul.
It was around six when Burke Hill stepped off the plane at McGhee-Tyson Airport. He had flown non-stop to Nashville, then caught a commuter flight to Knoxville. He stopped at a pay phone and called Lori, reflecting that their next long-distance bill would likely resemble the national debt.
"Roddy just called," she advised. "They stopped at a motel in Knoxville a short while ago. He said a truck tried to run them off the road in the mountains. He didn't go into detail. Said he would tell you when you got there."
"I was afraid of something like that. Mr. Stern has obviously been busy. Any other news?"
"Just that there isn't any news about any hunt for the fugitives. Not on TV. Not in the papers. I told Roddy I suspected the FBI would cool it rather than risk compromising the Major."
"Not the Bureau, Lori. Some of the FBI brass." The trouble was he didn't know which ones. "Are the kids okay?"
"They're fine. Chloe and Walt Brackin are coming by tonight. She was disappointed to hear you had been sent to Korea. She was counting on you going to that concert with us on the Fourth. I told her I hoped you would be back by then."
"Don't count on it. I'll have to stay under cover until this thing plays out."
"Are you going to warn Jerry Chan not to expect you in Seoul?"
"Yeah. I'll call him. I hope I can convince him to cover for me a day or so."
Burke checked the yellow pages for a rental agency with pickup trucks. He finally found one that stayed open late. When he had completed the paper work, he climbed into the black Ford, tossed his bag on the seat and headed for the motel where Roddy and Yuri were holed up.
He was anxious to hear what had happened. He also needed to brief them on his plan for tomorrow. He would have Roddy take the white Chevrolet out tonight and swap it for a different color. Then in the morning they would run a two-car surveillance operation, using small hand-held radios he had picked up from Worldwide's Technical Services Department.
He hoped they could make Major Romashchuk think Adam Stern's hit men had done their job. Time would tell.
He found Roddy in an upbeat mood, quite happy to still be alive after the close call with the large truck. Yuri, though, looked like a man whose prize dog had just been run over. Suspecting the cause, Burke suggested he telephone his wife in Minsk. He knew it would make no difference even if Larisa Shumakov's phone were tapped. The Minsk militia was obviously aware that he was now in the United States.
Yuri called late that night before going to bed.
"Are you all right?" Larisa asked. "We were told you didn't pick up the money."
"I'm fine," he assured her. "I can't explain now, but I had to leave Mexico before I could get to the bank."
"Have you learned who killed the Trishin boy?"
"No, but I am hot on the trail of the man who surely can tell me."
He asked about the boys and was told that Petr and Aleksei were doing well but were terribly worried about their father. As for the city prosecutor's office, Larisa knew only that Sergei Perchik was absolutely infuriated that Yuri continued to remain at large.
"Fortunately, right now everyone is too wrapped up in this commonwealth summit meeting to worry much about you," she said. "But I did have a visitor inquiring about you recently."
"Who?"
"General Borovsky."
"Really?"
"He said Perchik had been pestering him about not helping in the effort to find you. He obviously detests the prosecutor."
"You're right. They dislike and distrust each other. What did he want from you?"
"He wanted to know what you had told me about the case. Your side of the story, as he put it."
"Well, I'm glad somebody is interested in my side of it. What did you tell him?"
"Exactly what you told me. That you thought Vadim Trishin's murder was tied in with the case you were working on for him. That you were convinced someone had set you up. I told the General you had been trying to find him to explain everything that day, but the Brest militiamen got there before you could reach him."
"How did he react?"
"He seemed genuinely troubled by it. Said it might tie in with something one of his people had told him, some information the man had gotten for you the day you disappeared. It was about the ship from Gdansk. I was afraid I might have said too much already, so I dropped it there."
64
A few staff members of the Foreign Affairs Roundtable were in the office on Sunday morning doing last-minute packing. An advance contingent had already flown out to Colorado. The others would leave this afternoon. All except Adam Stern. His project was just shifting into high gear. He met with Laurence Coyne to review the operation before time for Coyne to fly out with Bernard Whitehurst.
"You're positive everything is under control?" Coyne asked one final time. "There is no chance that whatever happens can be traced back to us?"
"Everything was bought at discount stores or stolen. Serial numbers have been filed off. The evidence will be destroyed or eliminated, except for enough to identify the Peruvians. Their people will promptly take credit for it."
Coyne pulled off the gold-rimmed glasses and tapped them against his double chin. "I wish they could have found somebody besides South American guerrillas. Those people are insane. They're capable of anything."
"They will do exactly as told," said Stern. "Do you want to know what that is?"
The reply was quick and unequivocal. "No!"
"Pickens is handling the Mexican request on Rodman and Shumakov. He had to assign a small group to follow up, otherwise he might have encountered some nasty flak. His instructions are to provide only surveillance should they be located."
"Do you think the Bureau will find them?"
Stern gave a sadistic grin. "Not a chance. Haskell Feldhaus's new friend has promised to eliminate that possibility."
"What about Burke Hill?"
"He caught his flight to Korea. One of Pickens' people talked to him just before he left San Francisco. He used his airline ticket. Evidently he was responsible for Rodman and Shumakov being in San Antonio. I still don't know how he knew where to find Romashchuk. But everything is going fine. Trust me. I'll stay in touch."
Shortly after he returned to his office, Stern received a call from Major Romashchuk in Roanoke, Virginia.
"Has your tail been eliminated?" Stern inquired.
"Apparently so. I haven't seen anything of them this morning. Do you have the equipment I requested?"
"Everything will be ready this afternoon."
FBI Agent Billy Verona had three pet peeves. He hated flying, which invariably left him half-nauseated for hours after planting his feet back on terra firma; he despised the military, having been forced to slog through the quagmire called Vietnam as a lowly grunt; and, ever since Vietnam, he could not stand hot, muggy weather. So the order to fly down to the humid Florida Gulf Coast and interview a bunch of Air Force officer types did not leave him in the best of moods.