also crazy, a maniacal glint in her eyes, spittle flying from her mouth as she ranted. “If you and your little whore were dead, maybe the people would sing a different tune!”
“Over fucking her?” Tarankov asked mildly. “If you want her that badly, go ahead, I won’t stop you—”
Liesel pointed the pistol directly at her husband’s head and cocked the hammer. “First you, you cocksucker!”
Elizabeth had gathered her legs beneath her, and she sprang up suddenly, shoving Liesel aside. The gun fired, but the shot went wild. Liesel crashed against the door and Elizabeth snatched the gun from her hand, and tried to step back out of the way. But the German woman was wild with insane rage, and she charged, leaving Elizabeth no other choice except to fire.
The shot caught Liesel high in the chest between her sternum and esophagus, and she was driven backward, blood splattering the wall.
Without thinking Elizabeth spun on her heel, pointed the gun at Tarankov, who hadn’t moved, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The slide was back, in the locked open position.
Tarankov came forward and took the gun from her hand, just before the first of the commandoes appeared in the doorway.
“There are never more than two bullets in gun,” he told Elizabeth gently.
“There were shots, sir,” one of the men said.
“An unfortunate situation here, Lieutenant,” Tarankov said, staring at Elizabeth. He shook his head. “My wife tried to rape this girl, who was forced to defend herself.” Tarankov looked up. “Have the body removed, please, and get someone in here to clean up the mess.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Make sure everybody settles down, this will be a busy day. A busy day indeed.”
McGarvey, one hand pressed against the wound beneath his armpit, the other propping him up against the cold damp tunnel wall, held his breath for several moments to listen. It was after 2:00 a.m.” and there was nothing now, other than the distant rumble of fast-moving water, probably one of the underground streams.
For a time he’d thought that he would not escape. There were too many men searching for him, seemingly coming from all directions. Several times he’d nearly stumbled into a search party, each time ducking back into a side tunnel at the last possible moment to avoid being trapped in the beams of their flashlights.
But it had been at least twenty minutes since he last heard anything. He didn’t think they’d given up the search, they were probably concentrating their efforts in ever-widening circles around the Ploshchad Revolyutsi metro station. For the moment he was outside their search pattern, but it wouldn’t last.
Picking up the satchel, which was becoming heavier the farther he went, he made his way along the pitch black storm sewer tunnel toward a circle of very dim gray light about twenty-five yards away.
The news that Tarankov had Elizabeth was nearly impossible to bear, and
yet the bright spark of hate it produced kept him going. She was his flesh and blood, his only child, who had been placed in harm’s way because of what he was. It didn’t matter that the Howard Ryan’s of the world gave the actual orders, it was men like himself who made those orders possible, and from a certain point of view even necessary.
If it had ever been possible for him to walk away from this, it had become totally impossible for him with Elizabeth’s capture. The men responsible — all the men responsible-would pay.
The light on the tunnel floor came from a grate in the roof, that led two hundred feet straight up to a storm grate in the street. In a spring snow melt off, or during a strong rainstorm, the storm sewers would become raging maelstroms as the water was channeled into the underground torrents that eventually emptied into the Moscow River. Where the tunnels sloped down they led to the rivers, and where they sloped up they led to collection points.
He cocked an ear to listen again, but still the only sound he could hear was the distant roar of rushing water.
The rally in Red Square was set for four o’clock this afternoon, which gave him something under fourteen hours to get into place undetected. But first he was going to have to take one more chance. He had to warn Jacque line to stay in the French Embassy no matter what happened, because in the aftermath there was no telling which way the country would go, or what the crowds or the military would do.
Another fifty yards and he came to one of the maintenance openings set every quarter mile or so into the tunnel just like the one he’d used to get down here from the metro track level. The steel door at the top would be locked, but on the way down he’d spotted steel rungs set in the wall that led back up to a drainage opening in the floor of the metro tunnel.
The stairs were damp and slippery with algae so he had to watch his step. By the time he reached the top he was winded and claustrophobic, the narrow walls pressing against him in the absolute darkness.
It took him several minutes fumbling around until he found the steel rungs a half-dozen steps from the landing. He slung the satchel over his shoulder and climbed the last ten feet or so until he detected a very faint light filtering down through a grate about three feet in diameter.
Bracing himself as best he could he put his shoulder to the grate and pushed. At first nothing happened, except that he could feel a fresh gush of warm blood trickling down his side.
He tried again, this time using his powerful leg muscles to push upward with every ounce of strength he had. The grate gave way with a tremendous screech that echoed off the metro tunnel walls, then fell away with a clang.
McGarvey waited for a full minute, spots dancing in front of his face, as he tried to catch his breath while at the same time listen for the sounds of someone coming down the tunnel to investigate the racket.
But no one came, and he climbed out of the access tunnel, looked both ways down the metro line, and headed the hundred yards toward the nearest lights.
The metro wouldn’t be running again until 6:00 a.m., so the only people in the stations or on the platforms would be maintenance workers, and Militia watching for him to try to make his escape.
An empty train was parked at the platform, its rear lights shining red, and its interior lights on. Ducking around the train, McGarvey looked up over the edge of the platform floor. The chandeliers had been turned low, but even so the light glinted off the tiled walls and ornately friezed arches. The long hall was empty.
Climbing up from the tracks, McGarvey crossed the platform, passed through one of the arches and found a bank of pay phones next to the restrooms near the foot of the stationary escalators. A steel accordion gate blocked the escalators for the night.
He went into the men’s room where he peeled off his jacket and opened his shirt. The wound was deep, and oozed blood, but fortunately the bullet had not hit a bone or cut a major blood vessel. He pulled a wad of paper towels from the dispenser, wetted them in the sink and washed the blood away. Then he pulled another wad of paper towels from the dispenser and stuffed them under his armpit. It wouldn’t stop the blood flow, but it would help.
He splashed some cold water on his face, put his jacket back on and went out to the pay phones where he dialed the French Embassy number from memory. “Eon soir. You have reached the Embassy of the Republic of France,” a woman’s voice said. It was an answering machine, but a night duty officer would be manning the switchboard. “Our normal office hours are—” “This is an emergency. My name is Kirk McGarvey, and I need to speak to Jacqueline Belleau immediately.”
A man came on. “This line is probably being monitored.”
“I know,” McGarvey said.
“Stand by, monsieur.”
McGarvey glanced up at the station name. He’d come up at the Lubyanka, directly across from the headquarters of the FSK. The irony just now was rich.
Jacqueline came on a minute later, out of breath. “Oh, Kirk, where are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” McGarvey said. “I’ve only got a minute before I need to leave here. I’m calling off the hit, do you understand?”
“Thank God—”
“But I know about Liz, and I’m going after her. In the meantime you have to stay inside the embassy. No matter what happens, stay there.”
