The two Mercedes sedans spun into each other, looking like bumper cars at an amusement park as they spun out of control. The skilled drivers managed to right the ruined vehicles and get them back on the bus’s tail, but McCracken had widened the gap.
Blaine slammed the Russian’s face into the bus’s dashboard again and again until the man had gone limp. He watched the man slump to the floor, then turned his attention back to the road. He spun the wheel hard to the left onto one of many smaller side streets which cut through the Kerameikos district, looking for a place to dump the wounded Russian. He had lost sight of the Mercedes sedans and clung to the hope that they had given up the chase. Blaine turned the wheel just as hard to the right down yet another side street.
He saw the horse-drawn carriage much too late to do anything but slam on the brakes and work the wheel madly. But riding on two rims and two bad tires, the bus could do nothing but lock up and roll over onto its side, missing the carriage as it slid down the street into a row of parked cars and then a building. McCracken felt his consciousness wavering and realized the initial roll had slammed him against the door. The bus had come to a halt with the door on the bottom, so he pushed his aching body upward. Blood poured down his face from a nasty gash on his forehead. He used the steel first-aid kit to knock out the remnants of a window so he could pull himself out. He smelled gasoline and heard a hissing from the engine.
Blaine managed to get his torso through the shattered window and, with considerably more effort, his legs as well. But his balance was gone and he tumbled hard to the sidewalk with the world blurring in and out of blackness.
The sound of screeching tires had him moving again and the sight of the two approaching sedans had him trying for yet another escape. He stumbled and staggered, his body a mass of pain. His gun was gone, and it was empty in any case. Blaine limped toward a shop with its light still on.
Bullets hit the ground near his feet. Car doors opened and men poured out to give chase.
Damn! He shouldn’t have tried running. He should have known they would spot him instantly.
Still staggering, he reached a sidewalk and nearly tripped on the curb. He pulled himself along the buildings now, refusing to give up. There had to be a way to survive. A weapon he could make use of, something …
A flood of automatic fire sent him diving to the sidewalk and crawling desperately for cover that didn’t exist. It seemed over. By all rights it should have been.
The small car coming toward him with high beams blazing surprised him as much as it did the Russians. They swung suddenly, awash in the light, and darted aside when it seemed certain the small car was intent on running them over. At the last instant the car, a Volkswagen Beetle, swung away from them for the curb, and slowed down between the downed McCracken and his pursuers. In the next second, an Ingram machine gun poked out the driver’s window and commenced firing at the shocked Russians. They returned the fire.
McCracken watched in a daze. If he was being rescued, this had to be a dream and soon he would wake up dead. But then the passenger door was thrown open and through the darkness he made out the coldest pair of eyes he had ever seen in a woman’s face.
“Get in!” the woman shouted. She never stopped firing.
Chapter 13
The car bucked as the woman jammed down on the accelerator. McCracken managed to get the door closed as the Beetle lurched toward the gun-wielding Russians.
“Who the he—”
The rest of Blaine’s words were lost in a hail of gunfire and glass as the windshield shattered. He ducked low, head near the gearshift, and felt the shards spray him. The woman swung the wheel hard, still firing out the driver’s side window with her Ingram.
“Shift into second!” she ordered Blaine.
He did as he was told, frozen by the fiercely resolved glare on the woman’s face. He had seen enough professionals before to know he was looking at one now.
More gunshots sounded behind them, one shattering the rear window. The Volkswagen stayed straight, the Russians thus forced to rush back for their heavily damaged Mercedes sedans.
“Third,” the woman started, hesitating as a corner came up. “Now!”
Again Blaine obliged and sat up in his seat. The woman pulled the Ingram back inside and handed it over to him, eyes alternating between the side and rearview mirrors.
“I want you to know I don’t kiss on the first date,” Blaine told her.
The woman seemed not to hear him. Her eyes maintained their intensity, narrowing suddenly.
“Damn,” she uttered, “they’re on us.”
And the Beetle picked up speed. The woman swung right off Sari Street onto a narrow side road lacking a sign. The glare of headlights shimmered off the rearview mirror as the sedans screeched round in pursuit. The woman took another right and headed straight toward an alleyway connecting this street with another. When they were almost upon it, Blaine realized its narrowness, realized even the small Volkswagen would have no chance of negotiating through it.
“Hey,” he started. “Hey!”
Again the woman ignored him, gritting her teeth and downshifting to lower the Beetle’s speed as it sped into the alley with barely four inches to spare on either side. Sparks flew as the driver’s door grazed the cement building on its side. The woman overcompensated a bit too much and Blaine’s door smashed inward.
The woman remained expressionless. The end of the alley was just thirty yards ahead. Again headlights flashed in the rearview mirror, this time dimly. Blaine turned behind him, smiling.
“Come on, you fuckers,” he urged the oncoming Russians. “Try it.”
They did, but the driver of the lead Mercedes realized the narrow width of the alley too late to pull back. He managed to brake just before the Mercedes crashed into a pair of buildings. The second sedan smacked into it solidly from behind, compressing the back end to match the crushed front, so that the lead Mercedes resembled an accordion.
The woman swung right onto Evripidou Street and eased the Beetle’s speed back with the appearance of more traffic.
“Next time I think I’ll leave the driving to Greyhound,” Blaine told her, wiping the blood and sweat from his eyes with a swipe of his sleeve.
“We have little time,” she told him flatly and Blaine noticed her accent was foreign. He felt a chill.
“You’re Russian, aren’t you?” he managed.
“Since birth,” the woman replied without looking at him.
“We have much to discuss,” the woman said as she locked the door of the hotel room behind them.
“Like to know your name,” Blaine said. “Might help avoid confusion during the course of our conversation.”
The hotel was located three blocks from his but was not listed in any brochure or travel guide. It catered mostly to patrons who booked by the hour, perhaps night, and never in advance. There were no sheets on the bed, and there was barely any furniture besides a single chair and small dresser. The window was dirt-stained, with parts of its lower rim painted over.
“Natalya Illyevich Tomachenko,” the woman said by way of belated introduction.
Blaine’s eyes wandered. “KGB. I’ve heard of you.”
“And I have heard of you, Mr. McCracken.”
“My friends call me Blaine.”
“We are not friends, just allies thrust together out of necessity.”