began to spurt, with the slow, regular pulse of his heartbeat.
Tell me you understand.
Yes, Ben had told him, and just then, at least, he did. / understand.
Within a few moments, his father slumped backward, lifeless.
Lifeless, and yet the picture of health. Blinking away tears, Ben could
see that his father looked decades younger, his hair beginning to grow
in glossy and dark, his skin smooth, firm, toned.
In death, Max Hartman had never looked more alive.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT.
Ben and Anna raced down the corridor, gunfire audible all around. The
bandolier swung against the barrel of her Uzi as she ran, producing a
dull rattle. At any moment, they could be set upon, but the guards
realized they were heavily armed, would have to approach with caution.
Anna knew that no paid sentry, however loyal, would endanger his life
needlessly.
Max’s directions had been clear and accurate.
Another right turn brought them to a stairwell.
Ben opened the steel-plated door, and Anna directed a burst of gunfire
into the landing area: anyone present would instinctively dive for
cover. As they entered, there was a deafening return burst: a guard
located on the level below, shooting in the narrow space between the
stairs. It was not an angle that afforded any accuracy; the biggest
danger was being hit by a ricochet.
“Run upstairs,” Anna whispered to Ben.
“But Max said the bay level is downstairs,” Ben protested in a low
voice.
“Do what I say. Start running upstairs. Loudly.”
He immediately understood, and did so, making sure that his shoes
thundered against the stairs as he mounted them.
Anna flattened herself against the wall, just out of the sight line from
the lower landing. Within a few moments, she detected the guard’s
movements: hearing Ben’s ascent, he was scrambling to catch up with his
quarry.
The seconds became hours. Anna could picture the guard bounding up to
the lower landing: she’d have to work with a mental image, assembled
from sounds of the man’s movements. Once she was visible to the guard,
she would have no advantage over him other than swiftness. She would
keep out of sight until the last possible moment; and then her reflexes
would have to be instantaneous.
Now she leaped into the air and fired where she pictured the guard in
her mind, squeezing the trigger even as she was at last able to confirm
his position visually.
The guard had a submachine gun aimed directly at her. Victory or defeat
would be measured in milliseconds. Had she waited until she could see
him before firing, the advantage would have been his.
Instead, she watched as his tunic erupted into blood and his weapon
fired harmlessly above her, then fell noisily down the stairs.
“Anna?” Ben called out.
“Now!” she replied, and he sprinted down the two flights of stairs,
joining her at the bay level, at a gate-latch door, also of gray-painted
steel, which pushed out.
As they entered Bay Number 7, they felt a gust of cold, and there it was
the helicopter glinting in the waning light, a great gleaming metallic
creature. It was a large, sleek, black Agusta 109, brand new.
Italian-made, with wheels instead of skids.
“Can you really fly this thing?” Anna asked, after they’d both
clambered into it.
Ben, seated in the cockpit, grunted assent. In truth he had flown a
helicopter only once before, a training vehicle, with a licensed pilot
at the twin set of controls. He had flown planes many times, but this
was entirely different, counterintuitive. He scanned the dim cockpit
for the controls.
For an instant, the complexities of the instrument panel dissolved into
a blur. The image of his father’s crumpled body seemed to hover before
his eyes. He flashed on a Max Hartman just young enough that he could
glimpse how he once must have looked. He could glimpse the youthful
financier who found the country around him erupting into a lethal blaze
of hatred. Who raced around, entering into loathsome accommodations
with a loathsome regime in order to save as many families as he could. A
man accustomed to mastery turned into a pawn.
He could glimpse the man an emigre, a harrowed man, a man with secrets
whom his mother met and fell in love with. Max Hartman, his father.
Ben shook his head hard. He had to focus.
He had to focus or they would both be dead. And everything would be for
nothing.
The bay was open to the elements. Outside the gunfire seemed to be
coming closer.
“Anna, I want you ready with the Uzi in case any of the guards try to
shoot us down,” Ben said.
“They won’t shoot,” Anna said, a wish expressed as a declaration. “They
know it’s Lenz’s helicopter.”
A voice from the back, cultivated and precise: “Quite so. Did you
suppose that Lenz had no passengers waiting for him, Ms. Navarro?”
They weren’t alone.
“A friend of yours?” Ben asked Anna quietly.
They both turned around and saw the passenger crouched in the rear
compartment, a white-haired but vigorous-looking man wearing large
glasses with translucent flesh-toned frames. He was immaculately
attired in a King Edward-style Glenn Urquhart suit, a crisp white shirt,
and a tightly knotted olive silk tie.
In his hands was a short-barreled automatic weapon, the one inelegant
touch.
“Alan Bartlett,” Anna breathed.
“Toss me the gun, Ms. Navarro. My gun is trained on you, and yours is
hardly in position. I’d very much regret having to squeeze the trigger,
you know. The discharge would surely blow out the windshield and
possibly damage the fuselage as well. Which would be unfortunate, since
we’ll be needing this vehicle as a means of conveyance.”
Slowly, Anna let the Uzi slide to the floor, and pushed it toward
Bartlett. He did not lean over to retrieve it, but seemed satisfied
that it was out of her reach.
“Thank you, Ms. Navarro,” said Bartlett. “My debt of gratitude toward
you only grows. I don’t know that I adequately expressed my thanks for
your having located Gaston Rossignol for us, and so swiftly. The wily
old bird really was poised to cause us a great deal of trouble.”
“You bastard,” Anna said in a low voice. “You evil, manipulative son of
a bitch.”
“Forgive me, I realize this is hardly the time or place for a fitness
report, Ms. Navarro. But I must say, it’s terribly unfortunate that,
having given us such excellent service, you’ve started to undo all the
good you’ve achieved. Now, where is Dr. Lenz?”
Ben answered for her: “Dead.”
Bartlett was silent for a moment. There was a flicker in his gray,
expressionless eyes. “Dead?” His grip tightened on his automatic rifle
as he digested the information. “You idiots!” His voice flared
abruptly. “You destructive idiots! Vicious children seeking to ruin
something whose beauty you could never comprehend. What gave you the
right to do that? What made you think this was your decision to make?”
He fell silent again, and was visibly shaking with anger when he
resumed. “Damn you both to hell!”
“After you, Bartlett,” Ben snapped.
“You’re Benjamin Hartman, of course I’m sorry we meet under these
circumstances. But then I have only myself to blame. I should have
ordered you killed at the same time as your brother: that shouldn’t have
taxed our capabilities. I must have grown sentimental in my old age.
Well, my young lovers, I’m afraid the two of you have left me with some
difficult decisions to make.”
Faintly reflected in the windshield of the cockpit was the wide barrel
of Bartlett’s assault weapon. Ben kept his eyes on it.
“First things first,” Bartlett went on, after a pause. “I’m going to
have to rely upon your piloting skills. There’s a landing strip outside
Vienna. I’ll direct you to it.”
Ben glanced again at Bartlett’s automatic weapon and toggled up the
battery switch.
There was the clicking sound of the spark plugs firing, then the whine
of the starter motor, which gradually deepened. It was fully automatic,
Ben realized, which would make it much easier to fly.
In ten seconds there was ignition, and the engine thundered to life. The
rotors began turning.
“Belt yourself in tight,” Ben murmured to Anna. He pulled up on the
collective’s twist grip with his left hand, heard the sound of the
rotors slowing.
Then some kind of horn sounded, and the engine slowed.
“Damn,” he said.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Bartlett asked. “Because if you
don’t, you’re of no use to me at all. I needn’t spell out what that
means.”
“Just a little rusty,” Ben replied. He grabbed the throttles, the two
sticks that came down from the top of the windshield, and pushed both of
them forward.
Now the engine and both the tail and the main rotors roared again. The
helicopter lurched forward, then yawed left and right.
Ben abruptly yanked back on the throttle: the helicopter came to an