She was gorgeous, but looking into her eyes was like looking through windows into hell. She might be worth a roll in the hay, but he suspected that an ordinary man would be driven absolutely mad by the experience.
He flicked the rifle’s safety catch down, then up, no longer certain in which position the weapon was safetied.
East Berlin in the old days-hell, barely five years ago-had been simpler. There were safe havens. Even now they’d been offered the chance to come to Moscow, but no one was enticed. The Russians were having their problems. No safety there.
No safety anywhere, he thought glumly. Now they were even taking orders from the slant-eyed Japs. It was galling.
He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, and he jerked to the left in time to see a man dressed all in black, water cascading from his head and shoulders, pulling himself onto the dock.
Lessing started to bring the Kalashnikov around when a noise to his right, like a walrus or a big fish flopping up onto the dock, made him jump nearly out of his skin, and he spun around.
The black-suited twin of the first man stood at the end of the stone dock, an M-16
rifle with a stainless steel wire stock in his hands.
Lessing was swinging the Kalashnikov to the right when a third figure dressed in black rose up onto the dock, a silenced pistol in his right hand.-
A thunderclap burst in Lessing’s head, and then nothing.
Smoke from the burning helicopter was obvious on the air even in the alcove behind the dock. And it was just as obvious to Lipton and his team that they were smelling burnt aviation gas.
About ten yards out they had surfaced long enough to spot the lone terrorist on the dock. Diving again to a depth of five feet, their oxygen rebreathers leaving no telltale bubbles, they’d split up; Tyrell left, Joslow right, and Lipton down the middle with Bryan Wasley and Tony Reid as backup. The sentry hadn’t had a chance.
Tyrell was bent over the man, feeling for a carotid pulse. He’d taken three hits in the head from Lipton’s suppressed .22, killing him instantly. The Kalashnikov’s safety catch was in the on position. Even if the terrorist had pulled the trigger, his weapon would not have fired.
Lipton and the others were hurriedly pulling off their wet suits and removing the rest of their weapons and equipment from waterproof carrying pouches. Reid and Joslow, weapons up, bracketed the narrow stairway that led steeply up through the cliff into the monastery. On signal Joslow rolled around the corner, his pistol sweeping upward in tight circles.
After a moment he shook his head and turned back. “Clear,” he called softly to Lipton.
He seemed almost disappointed.
“This one is dead,” Tyrell said, straightening up from Lessing’s body.
“There was no evidence of a landing strip at this end of the island on the survey maps and flyover shots I saw, which means what we’re smelling is probably a chopper,”
Lipton said.
“McGarvey and Bobby?” Tyrell asked.
“Probably. Which means the bad guys are caught between us, and they’re not going to take that lightly.” Lipton quickly surveyed the landing dock. “We’ll use this as our staging area as planned. We go for the hostages first. Everything else is secondary.”
None of his men said a thing.
“Once they’re released, Tony and Jules will bring them down here, and depending upon the situation we’ll either fetch the boat, or call for help. Commander Rheinholtz is standing by.”
“What if we run into heavy resistance and have to fight our way back here?” Tyrell asked quietly. They all wanted to be completely clear on their orders.
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Lipton answered. “As I said, anything other than the hostages will be secondary. That includes McGarvey and Bobby. If we can get to them, we will. But the safety of the hostages comes first.” He looked at his men. “Questions?”
There were none.
“Toss that body over the side,” Lipton ordered, starting for the stairs. “The scope and rifle too. I don’t want to leave any evidence that we were here.”
The stairs were so steep and narrow that only one person could start up at a time.
They led five hundred feet into a long, narrow vestibule that opened onto a broad corridor which ran through the main residence and living areas of the monastery.
Lipton silently crossed the corridor and halted at the doorway into the great hall. No one was here, and there were no sounds other than the wind and rain lashing against the thick, lead-glass windows. But the smoke was much thicker up here, and the smell of burning aviation gas was very strong.
“Nobody home, sir?” Wasley asked.
Lipton turned and shook his head. “Go with Ried and Joslow. Check everything to the end of the corridor.”
They hurried noiselessly off as Lipton entered the great hall, Tyrell right behind him. They spread out, left and right, and halted for a moment, listening, watching, every sense alert for a sign of trouble.
Somebody had been here recently. There were glasses with dregs of wine still in them on the table. Plates with scraps of food. The Paris, Berlin, Athens and New York newspapers spread out. A sweater tossed over one chair, a black nylon jumpsuit over another.
“They’re dealing with the chopper,” Tyrell said softly.
Lipton nodded. “They wouldn’t have taken the hostages.”
“This is a big place, Ed.”
Lipton looked at him. “They’ll be isolated. Up high, away from everything else.”
Tyrell nodded his agreement, and the two of them hurried across the room to a corridor that ran at right angles to the first, deeper into the compound. Immediately to their right spiral stairs led upward.
“Get the others and follow me,” Lipton ordered. “But post Wasley down here.” He started up the stairs, keeping low and against the inner wall so that he would present less of a target to someone waiting above.
At the top, three stories above the level of the great hall, the stairs ended at a short, narrow corridor, three wooden doors on the right. Isolation cells.
He could hear the scuffle of soft-soled shoes coming up from below. Tyrell and the others. If anyone was up here, it would be the hostages, not the terrorists, he figured.
But something felt odd to him. No matter what trouble the East Germans were having they wouldn’t simply run off and leave the two women alone. They’d have to know that the hostages were their only real guarantee of success.
His pistol up, Lipton slipped into the corridor and put his ear to the first door.
There were no sounds from within and he was about to pull away when he thought he heard something. A murmur, perhaps. A single word spoken, or whispered … by a woman. A moment later another woman said something, her voice so low that the words were indistinct, but recognizable as a woman’s voice nonetheless.
Tyrell and the others came up, and Lipton motioned for them to check the other two rooms, as he holstered his pistol and gingerly inspected every square inch of the door and thick wooden frame around it for a wire, or any hint that there might be a pressure switch.
If the terrorists had left the woman here, they might have booby-trapped the room.
But Lipton found nothing. And the other two rooms were empty.
“Cover the stairs,” Lipton ordered. Reid complied and Lipton turned back to the door.
“Mrs. McGarvey,” he called.
There was no reply.
“Mrs. McGarvey, are you in there with your daughter? Are you all right?”
“Who’s there?” A young woman asked softly.
Lipton exchanged relieved glances with Tyrell. “Elizabeth McGarvey?”
“Who is it?” Elizabeth demanded.
“My name is Ed Lipton. U.S. Navy. I’m here with a team to rescue you. If you’ll stand back we’ll force the door.”
“Thank God,” Elizabeth cried. “But wait. There was gunfire, and an explosion. Is my father with you?”
