He now had twenty—no, he counted eighteen men. Their camouflage clothing made them hard to spot. He ran from man to man, his back bowed by the weight of the radio, spacing them out, telling them to husband their rounds. He was just finishing the line on the west side when there came a chorus of human voices from the darkness.
“Here they come!” a private screamed.
“Hold your fire!” the Colonel bellowed.
The running figures appeared as though by magic. One moment the scene was empty of anything but falling snow-the next, there was a line of men firing Kalashnikov rifles from the hip. He let them get to within fifty meters.
“Fire!” He saw ten of them go down in an instant. The rest wavered and stopped, then fell back, leaving two more bodies behind. There was more firing from the opposite side of the building. Bondarenko wondered if the sergeant had held, but that was not in his hands. Some nearby screams told him that his men had taken casualties, too. On checking the line he found that one had made no noise at all. He was down to fifteen men.
The climb-out was routine enough. Colonel von Eich thought. A few feet behind him, the Russian in the jump seat was giving the electrical panel an occasional look.
“How’s the electricity doing?” the pilot asked in some irritation.
“No problem with engine and hydraulic power. Seems to be in the lighting system,” the engineer replied, quietly turning off the tail and wingtip anticollision lights.
“Well . . .” The cockpit instrument lights were all on, of course, and there was no additional illumination for the flight crew. “We’ll fix it when we get to Shannon.”
“Colonel.” It was the voice of the crew chief in the pilot’s headset.
“Go ahead,” the engineer said, making sure that the Russian’s headset was not on that channel.
“Go ahead, Sarge.”
“We have our two . . . our two new passengers, sir, but Mr. Ryan—he got left behind, Colonel.”
“Repeat that?” von Eich said.
“He said to move out, sir. Two guys with guns, sir, they—he said to move out, sir,” the crew chief said again.
Von Eich let out a breath. “Okay. How are things back there?”
“I got them in the back row, sir. I don’t think anybody noticed, even, what with the engine noise and all.”
“Keep it that way.”
“Yes, sir. I have Freddie keeping the rest of the passengers forward. The aft can is broke, sir.”
“Pity,” the pilot observed. “Tell ’em to go forward if they gotta go.”
“Right, Colonel.”
“Seventy-five minutes,” the navigator advised.
Christ, Ryan, the pilot thought. I hope you like it there . . .
“I should kill you here and now!” Golovko said.
They were in the Chairman’s car. Ryan found himself facing four very irate KGB officers. The maddest seemed to be the guy in the right-front seat. Gerasimov’s bodyguard, Jack thought, the one who worked close in. He looked like the physical type, and Ryan was glad that there was a seatback separating them. He had a more immediate problem. He looked at Golovko and thought it might be a good idea to calm him down.
“Sergey, that would set off an international incident like you would not believe,” Jack said calmly. The next conversations he heard were in Russian. He couldn’t understand what they were saying, but the emotional content was clear enough. They didn’t know what to do. That suited Ryan just fine.
Clark was walking along a street three blocks from the waterfront when he saw them. It was eleven forty-five. They were right on time, thank God. This part of the city had restaurants and, though he scarcely believed it, some discos. They were walking out of one when he spotted them. Two women, dressed as he’d been told to expect, with a male companion. The bodyguard. Only one, also as per orders. It was an agreeable surprise that so far everything had gone according to plan. Clark counted another dozen or so other people on the sidewalk, some in loud groups, some in quiet couples, many of them weaving from too much drink. But it was a Friday night, and that’s what people all over the world did on Friday night. He maintained visual contact with the three people who concerned him, and closed in.
The bodyguard was a pro. He stayed on their right, keeping his gun hand free. He was ahead of them, but that didn’t keep his head from scanning in all directions. Clark adjusted the scarf on his neck, then reached in his pocket. The pistol was there as he increased his pace to catch up. It wasn’t hard. The two women seemed to be in no hurry as they approached the corner. The older one seemed to be looking around at the city. The buildings looked old, but weren’t. The Second World War had swept through Talinn in two explosive waves, leaving behind nothing but scorched stones. But whoever made such decisions had opted to rebuild the city much as it had been, and the town had a feel very different from the Russian cities Clark had visited before. It made him think of Germany somehow, though he couldn’t imagine why. That was his last frivolous thought of the night. He was now thirty feet behind them, just another man walking home on a cold February night, his face lowered to avoid the wind and a fur hat pulled down over his head. He could hear their voices now, and they were speaking Russian. Time.
“Russkiy,” Clark said with a Moscow accent. “You mean not everyone in this city is an arrogant Balt?”
“This is an old and lovely city, Comrade,” the older woman answered. “Show some respect.”
Here we go . . . Clark told himself. He walked forward with the curving steps of a man in his cups.
“Your pardon, lovely lady. Have a good evening,” he said as he passed. He moved around the women and bumped I into the bodyguard. “Excuse me, Comrade—” The man I found that there was a pistol aimed at his face. “Turn left and go into the alley. Hands out where I can see them, Comrade.”
The shock on the poor bastard’s face was amusing as hell, Clark thought, reminding himself that this was a skilled man with a gun in his pocket. He grabbed the back of the man’s collar and kept him out at arm’s length, with his gun held in tight.
“Mother . . .” Katryn said in quiet alarm.
“Hush and do as I say. Do as this man says.”
“But—”
“Against the wall,” Clark told the man. He kept the gun aimed at the center of the bodyguard’s head while he switched hands, then he chopped hard on the side of his neck with his right hand. The man fell stunned, and Clark put handcuffs on his wrists. Next he gagged him, tied up his ankles, and dragged him to the darkest spot he could find.
“Ladies, if you will come with me, please?”
“What is this?” Katryn asked.
“I don’t know,” her mother admitted. “Your father told me to—”
“Miss, your father has decided that he wants to visit America, and he wants you and your mother to join him,” Clark said in flawless Russian.
Katryn did not reply. The lighting in the alley was very poor, but he could see her face lose all of the color it had. Her mother looked little better.
“But,” the young girl said finally. “But that’s treason . . . I don’t believe it.”
“He told me . . . he told me to do whatever this man says,” Maria said. “Katryn—we must.”
“But—”
“Katryn,” her mother said. “What will happen to your life if your father defects and you remain behind? What will happen to your friends? What will happen to you? They will use you to get him back, anything they have to do, Katusha . . .”
“Time to leave, folks.” Clark took both women by the arm.
“But—” Katryn gestured at the bodyguard.
“He’ll be fine. We don’t kill people. It’s bad for business.” Clark led them back to the street, turning left toward the harbor.
The Major had divided his men into two groups. The smaller one was setting explosive charges on everything they could find. A light pole or a laser, it didn’t matter to them. The large group had cut down most of the KGB troops who’d tried to come here, and was arrayed around the control bunker. It wasn’t actually a bunker, but whoever had made the construction plans for the place had evidently thought that the control room should have the same sort of protection as those at the Leninsk Cosmodrome, or maybe he’d thought that the mountain might someday be subjected to a nuclear airburst attack. Most likely was that someone had decided the manual prescribed this sort of structure for this sort of place. What had resulted was a building with reinforced-concrete walls fully a meter thick. His men had killed the KGB commander and taken his vehicle, with the heavy machine gun, and were pouring fire into the vision slits cut in the structure. In fact, no one used them for looking, and their rounds had long since pounded through the thick glass and were chewing into the room’s computers and control gear.