Pembroke found the logbook in a desk drawer and took it. The four people moved quickly back to the van. Pembroke said to Roth, “That was a fine performance, Karl. I suppose the schnapps helped a bit. Headlights on. Move!”
Roth’s shaking hands turned on the headlights and put the van in gear.
Ann knelt beside Pembroke and scanned the logbook with a penlight. “There’s a commo check and sit rep every thirty or forty minutes. Bunin entered the last one ten minutes ago, so they may not be missed for a while.”
Pembroke nodded.
No one spoke as the van moved slowly up the S-curved gravel drive. Sutter watched out the rear-door windows. Llewelyn peered over the seat and watched out the windshield. Ann flipped a few pages of the log and said, “Peter Thorpe was logged in about two hours ago. Still in there.”
Pembroke nodded again.
Ann glanced at Pembroke, then said, “Orders from Androv to arrest Karl and Maggie Roth when they arrive.” She winked at Pembroke and he smiled, then turned to Roth. “Did you hear that?”
Roth nodded but said nothing.
Ann turned a page. “Oh… here’s something… the officer of the guard comes around at random intervals and signs the log. Last time he was at the gate was… almost an hour ago. He may come by at any—”
Roth made a sound and everyone turned. Through the windshield they saw a single headlight shining on the trees around the bend. Pembroke barked at Roth, “Keep moving until you get within ten feet, then stop.” Pembroke and the other three got down behind the front seats. The interior of the van was illuminated by the oncoming headlight.
Pembroke put his pistol to the back of Roth’s neck. “What is it?”
Roth’s voice was quavering. “It’s the guard officer. He rides in an open Lambretta… with a driver—”
Pembroke said, “Don’t give him room to pass.”
Roth nodded and felt the silencer rub the nape of his neck. He centered the vehicle on the narrow drive and came to a stop. The Lambretta also stopped. The driver called out in Russian.
Ann whispered to Pembroke, “He wants to know what the hell Roth thinks he’s doing.”
Pembroke said to Roth, “All right, back up slowly and let him pass on the right side.”
Roth put the van in reverse and began edging back. The Russian driver gunned the small three-wheeled vehicle and headed toward the space on the right between the van and the stone-bordered drive.
Pembroke opened the sliding door on the right of the van as the small vehicle with the surrey top came into view. The driver sat in the single front seat holding the handlebars, the guard officer sat in the back double seat. Both men heard and saw the door slide open and turned. As the Lambretta drew abreast of the open door, the two Russians stared up into the muzzles of two automatic rifles, not three feet away. The driver let out a startled cry. Both auto matic rifles spit fire and coughed. The driver was thrown out of the open vehicle, still grabbing the handlebars and taking the unbalanced Lambretta over with him. The guard officer scrambled from under the Lambretta and stood, clutching his chest. He stumbled toward the trees, staggered, and fell.
Pembroke and Llewelyn jumped down from the van, administered the coup de grace to the Russians with a single shot to their heads, then dragged them into the trees. Sutter helped them right the Lambretta and roll it through the tree line. The three men jumped back in the van. “Move out.”
Roth put the van in gear and the wheels crunched slowly through the gravel.
Ann broke the silence. “I suppose we couldn’t have let them go past.”
Pembroke regarded her for a moment. “No, they were going right for the guardhouse.”
She said, “We could have captured them.”
Pembroke replied curtly, “We’re running a bit late.”
Llewelyn added, “That was a break to run into them. There’ll be other guard posts put out of business tonight and we don’t want a mobile officer of the guard running about checking his posts.”
Ann didn’t reply.
Pembroke said to her, “This is new to you, I know. Later, if things don’t work out for us, you’ll wish we’d taken a few more with us. This is a bloody awful business. But it is a business.”
The van completed the final turn in the rising S-curved drive and the Russian mansion came into view, silhouetted against the turbulent sky. A few windows were lit on the first and second floors, and all the attic gables were lit. Pembroke remarked, “Ivan is working late tonight.”
Sutter turned from the rear-door windows and said, “We’ll put their lights out and lay them down to sleep.”
Pembroke nodded, then said, “How are you holding up, Karl?”
Roth drew a deep breath and nodded, but said nothing. He glanced at his dashboard clock and wondered when they would begin dying of the poison. He hoped it was soon.
The van entered the long forecourt and turned toward the house.
Pembroke said, “Ladies and gentlemen, before you is Killenworth. We’ll stop here awhile and stretch our legs. Don’t forget to take your rifles with you.”
Roth shook his head. Madness.
58
Tom Grenville considered himself a good company man, and he understood that in the oblique style of corporate communication, suggestions from superiors were in fact orders, much like when he was a lieutenant JG in the Navy. The captain’s wish is your command.
So when George Van Dorn had commented that golf was not a sport he approved of, Tom Grenville had given it up, though he loved golf.
But George was not really an unfair or arbitrary person. He had a constructive alternative: Guns, not golf clubs, he declared, belonged in the hands of a man. Consequently, Grenville had taken up skeet shooting, hunting, and competition target shooting.
Then, one day at lunch about a year ago, Grenville recalled, O’Brien and Van Dorn had asked him if he had ever considered parachuting. Grenville had no more considered parachuting than he’d considered shooting Niagara Falls in a barrel, but he’d answered enthusiastically in the affirmative.
When the moment of truth had come, Grenville had some understandable reservations about his first jump. He realized, however, that almost all the old OSS crew were former paratroopers, and many, like O’Brien, still jumped. Formerly closed doors would be open to a young man who could share a jump with Patrick O’Brien and his friends.
Van Dorn had seemed pleased, and so had O’Brien and the other senior partners in the firm. Grenville now knew why.
He looked around the dimly lit cabin of the big Sikorsky amphibious rescue helicopter. The jumpmaster, Barney Farber, was an old friend of O’Brien’s and Van Dorn’s, and Farber’s company, one of the Long Island defense-related electronics firms, actually owned the former Navy Sikorsky.
Two more old boys sat on the bench opposite him: Edgar Johnson, a recently retired paratroop general, and Roy Hallis, a semiretired CIA agent.
This entire operation, Grenville understood, had been planned and was being controlled by the old boys. And it would not be complete without a few of them along for the actual flight. Grenville glanced at Johnson and Hallis in the weak light. They were both World War II vets, but they didn’t look much past sixty. This was their last mission, their last jump, he thought. Perhaps it was the last time the OSS alumni would directly participate in an operation. Even they got too old to make combat jumps. Grenville found himself staring at them. They looked psychologically prepared for a firefight, which was more than Grenville could say for himself.
In fact, he felt queasy. The Sikorsky, sitting on its pontoons in the middle of Long Island Sound, was rocking badly. The wind had picked up and waves slapped against the hull. Grenville had never been seasick on a parachute jump before.