Ammon crushed the picture in his white knuckles. Darkness smothered him. His mind went completely blank. Instinct and rage took control. He let out a low, animal groan and hurled himself toward Liski, his feet sliding on the slick linoleum floor, arms ready, fist tucked to his side.
But the Ukrainian was ready. Stepping catlike to one side, he grabbed Ammon by the shoulders and pushed him down, pitching him against the cinder-block wall. Ammon’s head hit the cement with a sickening thump, and he slumped to the floor. Reaching quickly under his jacket, Liski pulled a blunt handgun from a leather holster. As Ammon pushed himself up to his knees, Liski threw back his arm and struck him over the head, sending a splatter of blood against the wall. The rough, beveled grip of Liski’s pistol caught the soft flesh behind Ammon’s right ear and tore away a small piece of the scalp. The cold steel jammed into his skull. Ammon fell to the floor once again, moaned once, then rolled onto his back. His eyes glazed over with pain, his hands began to twitch at his side. His breathing became suddenly shallow. He didn’t move, and as Liski stared down at the body, watching the skin turn grayish-white, he began to regret that he hit him so hard.
Ammon started to stir. Liski knelt down beside him and forced his knee into his chest. He pushed his pistol into Ammon’s ear and shoved his face so close that Ammon could feel the heat from his breath.
“We’ve got your girl, Ammon!” he sneered. “She is mine! I hold her life in my hands! Now, I think you know what will happen to her if you fail us or attempt to get in our way.” Liski lowered his voice and pushed himself even closer to Ammon’s face. Richard stared up at him with unfocused eyes. A knot of bruised bone and tissue was already beginning to bulge from the side of his head.
“Just do what we say,” Liski commanded. “Do what we say, and she lives. Do as you have been trained to do. Follow orders. Your little girl is going to be just fine, if you do what we tell you to do.
“But, my fly-boy friend, screw up just one little thing, cause me even one hint of concern, and we turn our boy loose on your wife. It won’t be pretty for her, Ammon. And you’ll never know what he did with the body. You’ll never even find a grave to say good-bye. Now that’s no way for this all to end.”
Ammon lay there motionless, the short barrel of the gun crushing into the tender flesh of his ear. Liski twisted the barrel and pushed a little harder.
“Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” he muttered, twisting the barrel once again. “Or do you want me to show you more pictures? I could order something special, just for you.”
Ammon moaned, but didn’t say anything. Liski pushed his knee deeper into his chest. “Say it, Ammon!” he sneered. “I know you can hear me. Now tell me that you won’t let us down!”
“I understand. I know what you want.” Ammon finally muttered, his voice heavy with pain.
Liski smiled. It was enough.
He pulled the gun from Ammon’s ear, stood up, holstered his weapon and straightened out his clothes. Without another word he left the room, closing the door behind him.
As he began to walk down the hallway, he looked up and saw Ivan Morozov leaning against the wall, waiting. Liski gave him a nod, but didn’t say anything as he passed by.
Inside his room, Richard Ammon lay on the floor, his head propped against the cement wall. The room swirled and spun all around him. His stomach twisted into churning knots. His head pounded in pain as blood seeped from the wound behind his ear and rolled down his neck. He closed his eyes and covered his head.
Never had he felt so ashamed. Never had he felt so afraid. His stomach turned and he started to gag, heaving wads of spit and crimson bile onto the floor.
For a long time he lay in a heap. The room grew very dark. Richard rolled over and rested his head against his right arm. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t focus. All he knew was the pain in his head.
Three hours later, he finally pulled himself up and staggered into his bed, still holding the crumpled photo of Jesse in his fist.
NINETEEN
Richard Ammon stared out the small oval window and watched as the eastern coast of the United States slipped into view, thirty miles off in the distance. The sun was just coming up, chasing the airliner as it flew to the west and casting long shadows across the dark, open ocean as it climbed its way upward on the horizon. The North Atlantic air was cold and crystal clear, and Ammon estimated the visibility to be at least seventy miles. He could make out the tiny lakes, rocky shores, and green rolling hills of northern Maine as the Boeing 767 entered United States’ airspace. He stared out on the horizon, looking south toward Boston and the Massachusetts Bay. From thirty-eight thousand feet, he could just make out the slight curvature in the earth.
Turning away from the window, he sighed and leaned back in his scat, then glanced over at Morozov, who sat two seats over, sleeping. A steward passed by and asked him once again if he needed a pillow. Shaking his head, he abruptly sent him away.
He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t even close his eyes without an image of Jesse’s tortured face filling his head. He wanted to strike! He wanted revenge! He wanted to kill the man who had done this to him!
He opened his eyes and looked over at Morozov once again. As he stared at the sleeping man, he realized he had vastly underestimated Morozov’s resolve. How could he have not seen it coming? How could he have let her down so? At the time he first had met Jesse, he didn’t think that the secret Russian intelligence organization was even still in existence. And even if they were, what was he to them? It had been years since he had heard from them in any fashion. And so much had changed. The whole world had changed. Surely they must have forgotten.
But he had been wrong. At least partly wrong.
The Sicherheit may have forgotten. But Ivan Morozov had not.
Ammon shook his head once again, trying to shake off the despair. He wiped his hands across his eyes and tried to concentrate.
His options were really quite simple.
Number One. He could refuse to help them. And Jesse would die. Even the thought made him icy and weak.
Number Two. He could go along with their plan. And die in the process. Or worse yet, start the next world war!
Ammon ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. He felt so… compressed. It was a horrible feeling. Like a thousand tons of sand had been poured on his shoulders. It was pushing him down. It was crushing his chest.
He felt hopeless and alone and utterly trapped.
The sun broke through a low line of morning clouds and began to shine through his oval window. He reached up and pulled down the shade, settled back in his seat, and tried once again to get some sleep.
But as he lay there, one thought, one desperate glimmer of hope, kept rolling round in his mind.
“Don’t you guys let me down!” he silently pleaded. “We had an agreement. Now please, don’t let me down!”
The aircraft continued southwest for another three hours until it finally began it’s descent into the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. As the pilot throttled back his engines, Ivan Morozov stirred. Stretching to rouse himself, he reached his husky arms skyward, then looked across the empty seat that separated him from Richard Ammon. Ammon was finally sleeping. With a grunt, Morozov reached over and pushed against Ammon’s shoulder. Ammon immediately bolted awake.