They had been transferred by sling down to the deck of one of the Israeli gunboats standing by; the transfer had taken nearly a half-hour.
Potok and McGarvey had gone first. By the time Ainslie and Newman were down, the gunboat skipper had finished his hasty briefing. The Stephos was about twenty miles out, and drifting slowly east on the current. She was showing no electronic emissions, and the latest U-2 overflight had detected no lights. In fact, the U-2 would have missed her completely except for the infrared radiation coming from her diesel exhausts.
The Israelis supplied them with suppressed ninemillimeter automatics, stun grenades, night vision goggles and helmets, as well as tactical communications radios. In addition, they carried a single fifty-millimeter sniper rifle with night-spotting scope and one hundred rounds of ammunition. “There could be twenty men aboard” the gunboat commander had told them. “And you can damn well bet they’re highly trained and motivated. They’d have to be to come this far. “I don’t want your people making a move until we say so, or until you’ve lost all communications with us; is that understood” McGarvey had said. The skipper had glanced at Potok, who nodded. “You’ve got it”
In the rubber raft, their radios clicked once. “Copy”
“Affirmative” Potok spoke softly into his radio. They were speaking in English because of McGarvey and the others.
“You should be about a mile out. She’s lying five degrees off your starboard bow”
“I’ve got it” McGarvey said, suddenly picking out the silhouette of the Stephos. Something seemed odd … out of place.
“We have it” Potok radioed softly. Then McGarvey understood what he was seeing. “My God” he said. He looked at Potok. “The missile is up in the firing position”
“You’re right Newman started to say, when they all heard the unmistakable sound of automatic-weapons-fire from the ship. “That’s a Kalashnikov” Potok shouted, and he opened the Johnson’s throttle to the stops, the rubber raft surging ahead on a burst of speed.
Kurshin could hardly believe his senses. The shots had come from somewhere aft, and had raked the hull of the twenty-foot auxiliary launch that he had been about to lower into the water.
From where he crouched behind the now useless boat, oil and gasoline leaking from its pierced tanks, he peered into the darkness, looking for a movement, anything. Who was it? Had Grechko hidden an extra crew member for just such a contingency?
He didn’t think so, but then the KGB captain had been no fool … only slow. He glanced quickly at his watch. The missile was due to launch in less than twenty minutes. Was this then to be his fate? Was he meant to die here like this? He could not accept such a thing. There were so many projects Baranov had promised him. “Together we will do great things, Arkasha” the KGB director had said. Kurshin could hear his words clearly. “We will have a great future, you and I” There were rubber rafts aboard. He had seen the canisters up on the bridge deck. It would be a long haul to the Syrian coast, but he had been made to do even more difficult things in his life. It was possible. Anything was possible.
But who had come for him …,? Then he had it. Budanov. He could see the man’s jaw shattering, he could see him pitching onto the engine-room floor in his own blood. It had been a stupid mistake on his part, not making certain the man was dead. It was the only possibility.
“Viktor Georgevich” he called out softly. “Can you hear me” He thought he heard a gurgling sound, as if someone were choking on their own saliva. Tensing his muscles he fired a shot aft, the bullet ricocheting off the metal superstructure, and then he leapt away from the protection of the launch toward a half-open door across the portside passageway.
Budanov’s returning fire slammed into the boat, ricocheted off the deck, and blew the door off its hinges. Kurshin cried out as he dove into the forward staterooms corridor. “My eyes! My eyes” he screamed. He pushed his way farther back into the relative darkness and raised his pistol.
Moments later he heard the sounds of someone coming, and his finger tightened on the trigger. He was hardly prepared for the apparition that suddenly filled the doorway, and he nearly missed his shot. Budanov, his entire lower jaw shot away, blood streaming from his half-destroyed tongue, stood there weaving on his feet, the big AK74 with night-spotting scope clutched tightly. Budanov started to bring the rifle up, but Kurshin finally fired, the shot catching the KGB officer in the right eye, shoving him violently backward against the rail, his knees collapsing beneath him.
Kurshin rushed out on deck, where he stood over Budanov’s body for just a moment. The man’s left leg was twitching in death. Kurshin raised his pistol again and fired a second round into the shattered face. “No mistake this time, Comrade” he said, smiling. Now it was time to leave.
Turning, he raced to the ladder up to the bridge, holstering his pistol.
Topside, he glanced down at the missile in its last few minutes of countdown to launch. Again he smiled. “Succeed in this for me, Arkasha, and the world will be yours” Baranov’s words came clearly to his ears.
“Money, women, status, and prestige” But he had never wanted any of those things. Always there had been only one constant in his life.
Killing. “Then you shall have that” Baranov had said, laughing. “The streets will run red with blood wherever you walk”
Baranov had touched a finger to the Side of his nose. “Believe in me, there is enough killing to be done in this world … even for a man with your appetites” Kurshin found the two life raft canisters attached to the deck wings on either side of the bridge house. He quickly released the retaining straps holding the starboard-side canister down, and was about to toss it overboard when something hot and unbelievably hard slammed into his side, Picking him bodily up off his feet and knocking him backward against the bulkhead. He sat for several long Moments, dazed, scarcely believing he had been shot. He looked down at his side.
There wasn’t much blood, but the bullet had passed beneath a rib and had exited out of the small of his back. He had been lucky. Pulling himself half erect, he cautiously Peered out over the edge of the rail, but he couldn’t see a thing. The sea was pitch-black. He couldn’t even distinguish the horizon. Then he heard the sound Of an outboard motor.
Incoming. Very fast.
McGarvey. The single thought crystallized in his brain. The sonofabitch had come after all, and in a way Kurshin was glad for it. They would finish here, now, the two of them, one way or the other. Keeping below the level of the rail, he scrambled back to the bridge door, opened it, and inside grabbed Sokolov’s AK74 still leaning against the helmsman’s chair. Once again out on the starboard wing deck, he cycled a round into the firing chamber, keyed the night-spotting scope, and rose up. In one smooth motion he brought the scope to his eye, scanned the sea …
finding, then missing, then finding again the rubber raft. He got a brief impression that there might have been four men aboard. The raft was very close, well within twenty-five yards. He fired, keeping his finger on the trigger, playing the rounds back and forth across the rubber raft, which literally exploded under his fusillade. And still he fired, until finally the assault rifle’s firing pin hammered on an empty chamber. Slowly, stiffly, he rose up as he continued to scan the water with the scope. There was a lot of debris in the water, but he could not tell if there were bodies, or if anyone lived. Raising the scope a little higher he scanned the surrounding waters, but he could see no other boats. Against all odds he had finally triumphed. This made up for everything. Baranov would forgive his previous mistakes. “The world is my will and my idea, Arkasha. Never forget this” He laid the gun down and stood there for a long time wavering on his feet, his eyes coming in and out of focus. Give yourself the chance, Arkasha. Minimize your risks wherever possible. Stumbling to the portside wing, he released the other life raft canister and shoved it overboard. The instant it hit the water far below, the canister broke open and the raft began to automatically inflate. He could not survive such a long fall into the water. Not now.
Not wounded. It seemed to take forever for him to climb down to the main deck, and when he reached the bottom of the ladder he fell, pain raging through his body, nearly causing him to black out.
Pulling himself up again, he worked his way past Budanov’s body, where he opened an electrical panel on the bulkhead and hit the switch that lowered the boarding stairs.
Ainslie was gone and Newman had taken at least two rounds in the chest.
He was unconscious but still alive. Potok, wounded himself, had managed to inflate his life jacket, and he held on to the Pentagon man. They had spotted the single figure on the bridge deck, and McGarvey had fired a quick burst from the sniper rifle. The man had gone down, but seconds later all hell had broken loose. Potok looked
