A little car came around the corner and drove past him. The two heads — two male heads — didn’t turn his way. The car went up the street and turned right at the next corner. A black car.
He was tiring. The nervous energy was burning off and the pace he was making was too fast. He slowed to almost normal speed.
Ahead of him on the right a door opened. Unconsciously he swerved left toward the street and picked up his pace.
God! He should have accepted that pistol Grafton offered. Grafton knew what the score was and offered it — why didn’t he have the sense to—
“In here, Jack.”
It was her voice, a conversational tone.
“Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Come in here now!”
He went through the door into a darkened hallway. She was there, with a man. The man closed the door and she took his arm. “Through here, quickly. We have a car out back. Hurry.” She broke into a trot.
“Jake Grafton wants to see you.”
“Where?”
“A park on the south side of the Moskva. He said—”
“Quiet.” She went through a door and they were in an alley. “Into the car.” She dove into the passenger seat and Yocke climbed into the back. Before he could get the door completely closed the car was in motion. He opened it partially and slammed it shut.
“Lie down,” she said.
He did so.
The car swerved and accelerated with a blast from the exhaust.
“Jake Grafton said that—”
“Wait.”
With his head against the seat Yocke tried to look out the windows. The car was accelerating down a narrow street, now braking and swerving around another corner.
“When the car stops,” Shirley Ross said, “I want you to quickly get out. The same side you got in on. Be sure to close the door. There will be a panel truck right beside the car. You go into the truck and I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay.”
And almost immediately the car swerved sideways again. In seconds the driver applied the brakes.
“Now.”
He sat up and grabbed the door handle and got out as fast as he could. There were four vans there, but only one with the rear doors open. Shirley pushed him toward it. He scrambled in and she followed and someone closed the door and the vehicle began to move.
“Where?” she said.
“A park on the south side of the river four hundred yards east of the entrance to Gorky Park. They put the statues there after they tore them down.”
“I know where it is.” She moved forward in the van’s interior and said something to the driver in a language Yocke didn’t know.
When she returned to his side she devoted her attention to a small device she held in her hand. Then she held it up to her ear. A radio. Yocke could hear the voices.
“Are we being followed?”
“They are following three of the vans.”
“This one?”
She held up a hand to silence him. After a minute she went forward to confer with the driver.
How in hell had he gotten himself into this mess anyway? Hurtling through the streets of Moscow in a van that smelled like a garbage truck, being trailed by the KGB — he braced himself against the swaying of the vehicle as it darted around a corner.
She was back beside him. “In a few minutes we will switch vehicles again. Stay with me.”
“Okay.”
She listened intently to the radio.
“What’s your real name?”
She didn’t reply.
“What did you want to tell me?”
“You? Nothing. I need to talk to Jake Grafton and the telephones are all tapped. He figured it out.”
Jack Yocke opened his mouth again but now her fingers were against his face, feminine fingers that brushed his cheek and remained against his lips.
Jake Grafton sat in the grass with his back against one of Felix Dzerzhinsky’s bronze legs, facing in the direction of Gorky Park. About seventy-five yards to the north, his right, was the south bank of the Moskva River. Farther ahead on the right, between where he sat and the boulevard in front of the Gorky Park entrance columns, was a vast low building, a cultural institute, with its empty parking lots. Farther to the west the Grecian columns of the park entrance gate were visible behind streetlights on the boulevard. Several hundred yards away to the south, on Jake’s left, were block after block of drab apartment buildings. Behind him to the east the park went for a quarter mile until it reached a street.
Toad Tarkington was on Jake’s left lying on his belly amid some scrub trees and weeds. Spiro Dalworth was against the corner of the cultural building. Senior Chief Holley was behind Jake, watching his back. All three men had M-16s.
The city seemed abnormally quiet tonight, Jake Grafton thought. Perhaps the day of rioting had drained the energy from the Muscovites and they were home in bed worrying about their future. They certainly had a bucketful of troubles to fret about.
Ambassador Lancaster had telephoned as Grafton was walking out the door of his apartment, five minutes after dispatching Jack Yocke. Toad took the call and made some excuse. Whatever was on the ambassador’s mind would have to wait a few hours.
Tonight Jake’s .357 Magnum revolver lay beside him in the grass. All he had to do was drop his hand to it. In his hands he held a stick that he had picked up before he sat down. He was whittling upon it with his pocketknife while he speculated about what Lancaster had wanted. Lancaster didn’t seem the type to invite him to Spaso House for an evening of poker.
No stars tonight.
Another high overcast that might or might not bring rain.
How long had it been? Twenty minutes?
Over on the boulevard in front of Gorky Park several trucks rumbled by. The noise carried oddly, sounding abnormally loud. The city was too quiet.
Looking the other way, toward the northeast, Jake could see the turrets and spires of the Kremlin, lit up tonight as usual. It was eerie, in a way, how for centuries that old fortress had housed czars and czarinas in extraordinary opulence. Favored by accidents of birth, they had lived out their lives in that palace and the one in St. Petersburg while the mass of Russians struggled just to stay alive. When the Communists came along they moved right in. Yet like the czars, the days of the Reds were over, so tonight Yeltsin and his allies were in there trying to figure out how to ride the tiger. And out here amid the discarded, smashed statues the Russians were still struggling to stay alive, just as they always had.
Bracing his elbows against his knees, Jake scanned the area again with what appeared to be heavy binoculars. Unlike regular binoculars, this set picked up infrared light.
He could see Spiro against the corner of the building. He had told the lieutenant to stay down, but he was up against the wall, peering this way and that.
Do the Russians have infrared binoculars?
Toad was nearly invisible — all Jake could see was the faintest indication of a glow where he must be lying. The senior chief seemed equally well hidden.
No one else in sight. Not a dog, not a prowling cat, not a drunk or pair of lovers. Well, it’s not a good night for drunks or lovers.
Jake raised the glasses and scanned the buildings to the south and east.
Somewhere in the city Yocke was playing secret agent. That guy! Always sure he knew everything when in reality he was just stumbling along in the dark with everyone else.
Maybe he shouldn’t have let Yocke go. If something happened to him…
Finally he lowered the glasses and zipped up his jacket. The evening was getting chilly. Wondering about Yocke, worrying about Yeltsin and his grand experiment, Jake Grafton went back to his whittling.
Jack Yocke couldn’t see any of the features of the man behind the wheel of the van, even looking in the rearview mirror. He had dark hair and wore a dark jacket and whispered with Shirley Ross in a foreign language that Yocke tried in vain to identify in the deep silence that had fallen once the van’s engine was turned off. This was the third van he had been in tonight. Shirley Ross apparently had access to a motor pool.