The driver and the woman consulted a map, made more whispered comments, stared out the window to the left. The driver had a handheld radio that now sounded startlingly loud. He turned down the volume and held it close to his ear.
Finally she turned back to Yocke. “The statutes are over there about a hundred yards or so, through the little trees.”
“Who are you?”
“You and I will get out and walk across the grass. Stay with me. If anything goes wrong, just fall down on your stomach and stay there.”
“If what goes wrong?”
“Anything.”
The man in the front seat handed back a submachine gun. Shirley Ross put the strap across her left shoulder, tucked the butt under her right armpit and grasped the pistol grip and trigger assembly with her right hand.
The driver got out of the van and closed the door. In seconds the rear doors of the van opened.
“Let’s go,” she said, and went first.
Jack Yocke took a deep breath, then followed.
The van was sitting in front of a huge slab of apartments. Across the street was the park. She was already moving. Yocke followed. As they crossed the sidewalk and entered the weeds and longish grass, it occurred to him that he had never even got a glimpse of the driver’s face.
There was just enough light for him to pick up the vague outline of tree trunks and bushes. He tripped twice, then had to take several long strides to catch up to Shirley Ross, who was just a vague black shape moving quickly away from him.
Once she stopped and he almost bumped into her, then she was moving again, though in a slightly different direction.
Just as Jack Yocke was beginning to wonder if she knew where she was going, she slowed down and spoke softly: “Good morning, Admiral.”
“Hello, Judith. Come sit over here by Stalin’s head.”
“I don’t think we were followed, but they might have fooled me. They’ve been running spot surveillance on you since you arrived and they’re hunting really hard for me.”
Yocke almost fell over the marble statue that lay on its side. He sat down with his back against it. Shirley sat on his right. Sitting facing them, with his back against one of the huge bronze statues, the reporter recognized Jake Grafton. He had a pair of heavy binoculars in his hands.
“I brought your reporter back,” Shirley told Jake. “Where can we put him so that you and I can have a private conversation?”
“Oh, I think he’s earned a little piece of the truth. He won’t print anything without my permission.”
“You trust him?”
Jake Grafton chuckled. “Beneath that polished, ambitious facade beats a pure and noble heart.”
“Shmarov blew up the Serdobsk reactor.”
“Sure,” Jake Grafton said. “And the KGB killed Kolokoltsev in Soviet Square. If we’re going to tell each other fairy stories, Judith, let’s go find a warm bar that serves good whiskey.”
“Oh, you know we killed Kolokoltsev. After we did it the KGB breathed a collective sigh of relief — the man was an embarrassment to the Old Guard heavy hitters — and so I thought why not get some PR mileage out of it, muddy the water.”
“How do you know about Serdobsk?”
“The helicopter pilot that flew them down there is one of ours. He helps us pay off the authorities and smuggle Jews out. Then a few nights ago he was called at home and told to come in for a priority flight. Five men and their equipment to the nuclear power plant at Serdobsk. When he got there he realized things weren’t going right when his passengers shot one security guard and herded the other inside. So he waited a bit, then started the engines and got out of there. The reactor blew up about two hours later.”
After a few seconds of silence, Jake Grafton asked, “Who does your man work for?”
“KGB.”
“And the passengers?”
“Also KGB. The man in charge was a Colonel Gagarin.”
“How do you know Gagarin blew the thing up?”
“Obviously I’m adding two and two.”
“Where’s Gagarin now?”
“I don’t know. He never came back.”
“He blew himself up?” Jake asked incredulously.
“Well, he didn’t shoot the guard at the front gate for sport, then carry bags full of equipment inside to equip the local baseball team. But he and his men could have gotten out somehow and the KGB then eliminated them. I don’t know.”
“And Shmarov?”
“Gagarin was one of his lieutenants. He didn’t do anything that Shmarov didn’t know about and approve.”
“It’s damn thin, Judith.”
“Admiral, in this business you are never going to get sworn affidavits.”
Jake Grafton could see her silhouette but not her face. She sounded tired. How many years had it been since he last saw her? He counted. Five. Five years running clandestine, covert operations, five years of false identities, deceit, risks calculated, chances taken, five years of stalking enemies of the Jewish state, five years of secret warfare…and she had been a covert operations professional when he first met her in Italy.
“Let’s talk about Nigel Keren,” Jake Grafton said.
“You guarantee that this reporter…?”
“If he writes a word that I don’t approve of, you can shoot him anywhere you find him.”
Jack Yocke didn’t think that was a joke.
The woman was answering Jake: “…Keren was financing our efforts to get Jews out of Russia. He gave us about a billion dollars.”
“A billion? That much money—”
“Bribes,” she told him. “Expenses. We had to pay off the authorities, pay for everything.” She turned slightly, toward Yocke. “You were looking for Yakov Dynkin? He’s in Israel now. We’ll get his wife there as soon as we can. We bought him out of prison, bought a false passport and visa. He left from Sheremetyevo.”
“Keren was a Jew,” Jack Yocke said.
“Keren wanted to help. The CIA finally found out about it through the KGB and decided to stop Keren’s contributions. The Arabs want Jewish immigration to Israel stopped and the CIA was trying — is trying — to play all sides in the Middle East. Iraq and Syria are buffers against Shiite fundamentalism, but they are bitter enemies of Israel. Give everybody a little, preserve the status quo. They—”
A shot rang out. Then another.
A stream of muzzle flashes from the darkness. Jack Yocke threw himself sideways as a surge of adrenaline shot through him and tried to burrow under the marble statue of Stalin. Vaguely he was aware of a silenced, guttural buzzing beside him, more shots, then a weight fell across his legs. A heavy report sounded just beside him. More shots.
And as suddenly as it began, it was over. In what, ten or fifteen seconds?
“Judith? Judith?” Jake Grafton’s voice.
Yocke tried to move but the weight on his legs held him. It was a body. “I’ve got her,” Jake Grafton said. “Get up, Jack.”
Grafton had a small penlight. “She’s been shot. Judith, can you hear me?”
Someone else was there. “Two CIA guys from the embassy.” Toad Tarkington’s voice. “They’re both dead. We’ve got to get the hell out of Dodge.”
“Judith’s been shot,” Jake told him. Now Toad saw the revolver in his hand. “You and Yocke take her to the car and I’ll get the other guys.” He took the M-16 from Toad and slung it over his shoulder.
She was heavy. Jack Yocke got her legs and Toad her shoulders. Toad wanted to go faster than Yocke could manage. “Come on, you son of a bitch,” Toad swore. “Move it!”