The gunman, the shaven-headed man Brandt had called Yuri, shrugged carelessly. “Then I will shoot you here. It makes no real difference to me.”
“Do as the man asks,” Fiona murmured. “If nothing else, we buy a little more time. And at least we get the chance to breathe a bit of clean air.”
]on nodded slowly. In the end, resisting here would make no real difference to their fate, and perhaps it would be better to die outside ?under the open sky?than here in this musty pile of stone.
Of course, not dying would be even better, he thought wryly. Cautiously, he tried again to loosen his bonds, straining his wrists hard against the length of heavy-duty plastic cable binding him and then relaxing, trying to stretch them out slightly. Over time, the constant expansion and contraction might create a point of weakness that would let him break free. He sighed. It was a technique that might succeed, but only if he were given an uninterrupted ten or twelve hours to spend working awav at the cable. Unfortunately, his remaining life span was probably measured in minutes at best.
“Come!” the gunman snapped again. His comrade, shorter and with a mop of coarse brown hair, prodded them forward from behind with the muzzle of his submachine gun.
Smith and Fiona stumbled out through the little door, down a few cracked stone steps and out across a snow-covered patch of waste ground. It was largely overgrown with weeds and brambles and little clumps of saplings. A few paths wandered off through the old and gnarled trees, heading for darker heaps or broken stone ?all that was left of a small hospital, a school, a refectory, cells for the monks, and other buildings. The remnants of a stout stone wall could be seen rising beyond those ruins.
They were pushed and shoved down a path running off to the left, one that led through an open gate in the monastery wall and out into a small, equally neglected, and overgrown graveyard. Many of these markers had fallen over and lay half-buried in the snow. Others were pockmarked with old bullet scarv probably made decades ago by NKVD execution squads amusing themselves while off-duty. All were surrounded by clumps of tall dead grass and Leeds.
Looming up on the far side of the graveyard, Jon could see a shallow open pit, probably once used to burn rubbish. Cans of gasoline and a collection of dirtv, oil-soaked rags were stacked at the rim of the pit. He stopped abruptly, digging in his heels. Their planned fate was clear. He and Fiona were going to be herded down into that pit, shot to death, and then their bodies would be doused in gasoline and burned.
From somewhere behind him, he could hear the two gunmen murmuring to each other. By the sound of it they had dropped back several meters behind Iheir two captives.
Smith grimaced. They were out of time and out of options. And if they were going to die anyway, it was better to go down fighting. In that same moment, he heard a muffled gasp from Fiona and knew that she, too, had seen the waiting pit and the gasoline. Jon glanced across at her. “Are you with me?” he said quietly, jerking his head slightly to indicate Brandt’s thugs coming up behind them.
Now there were tears in her eyes. But she lifted her chin and nodded bravely, ‘“lb the bitter end. Colonel.” Then she actually managed a very slight smile.
Smith grinned back appreciatively. “That’s the spirit. Let’s see if we can lure them in within reach. I’ll take the guy on the left. You take the one on the right,” he murmured under his breath. “Trip yours if you can. Otherwise just kick the hell out of him and then keep kicking. Okay?”
She nodded again.
“No talking!” the shaven-headed man snapped. “And keep moving!”
Smith refused to move. He stood still with his back to the two gunmen, waiting. His skin crawled, anticipating the sudden smashing impact of a bullet. Jnst come a little closer, he thought grimly. Just a bit closer.
He heard footsteps crunching across the snow, drawing nearer. He tensed, preparing himself to spring. A shadow fell across his shoulder.
Now!
Jon whirled around, lashing out with his right foot in a lightning-fast kick.
Out the corner of his eye, he saw Fiona making the same move.
It was no good.
Brandt’s men must have been waiting and watching for one last desperate escape attempt. With contemptuous ease, they evaded the kicks wildly aimed in their direction. Both quickly stepped back well out of range, grinning cruelly.
Thrown off balance by his sudden movement, Smith stumbled. With his hands still tied behind his back, he could not recover and wound up falling forward onto his knees. Panting, Fiona dropped to the snow at his side.
The shaven-headed man slowly wagged a mocking finger at them. “That was very stupid.” Then he shrugged. “But it doesn’t really matter, I suppose.
Nothing does?in the end.” He signaled to his colleague. “Kill them here, Kostya.”
Nodding coolly, the brown-haired man moved forward, raising his submachine gun.
Surprised at his own calmness, Smith forced himself to stare straight into the other man’s narrowed eyes. He had fought the good fight. What else could he do but take what was coming as bravely as he could? He could hear Fiona murmuring words softly under her breath, possibly a prayer of some kind.
The gunman’s finger tightened slowly on the trigger. A breath of wind ruffled through his mop of coarse brown hair.
Crack.
And the gunman’s chest blew apart in a spray of blood and bone, blown open from front to back. The submachine gun fell out of his nerveless hands.
His body swayed and then crumpled sideways, collapsing in a clump of brush between two grave markers.
For a split second, no one moved.
The other man stared in absolute astonishment at the mangled corpse of his comrade. Recovering suddenly, he threw himself down.
Crack.
A second high-velocity round smashed the snow-covered cross right behind where Brandt’s bald henchman had been standing. Snow and shattered pieces of marble flew away from the point of impact.
Smith rolled to the left, into the shelter offered by a headstone that appeared on the verge of toppling over but that was somehow still standing-A sculptor had carved the likeness of a sleeping mother and child deep into its surface. Fiona followed him. Together, they crouched low on their knees, being very careful to keep their heads well below the top of the monument.
“What the devil is going on?” Fiona whispered. Her eyes were wide and her face had gone very pale. The red handprints, welts, and cuts left by Brandt’s crueltv were plain on her smooth clear skin.
“Damned if I know,” Smith said softly, putting his mouth close to her ear.
An eerie silence descended across the weed-choked cemetery. Cautiously, Smith turned his head, studying the terrain more closely. The graveyard lay at the bottom of a little bowl, with gentle slopes rising all around. The ruins of the monastery crowned one of those shallow hills. Groves of birch and pine trees covered the other elevations.
i He heard the sudden crackle of dry brush not far off, the sound of someone slithering closer through the dead weeds and grass. Brandt’s surviving gunman was stalking them, Jon realized coldly, inching carefully from cover to cover to avoid drawing fire from the marksman lurking somewhere among the trees.
From the noise, Brandt’s man was swinging wide to their left, crawling through the crowded tangle of crosses and grave markers that still separated them from him.
Smith leaned closer to Fiona. “You go off that way,” he muttered, jerking his chin to the right, away from the ominous, crackling sounds coming steadily and stealthily closer. “Go a few meters. Once you’re behind another big marker, make some noise. As much noise as you can. Understand?”
Wordlessly, Fiona nodded back. Without waiting any longer, she rolled rapidly away across the hard-packed earth and snow.
And Jon moved himself, rolling to the left as quietly as he could. He crossed a small gap and readied the next pair of headstones over, one leaning Irunkenly against the other. He stopped behind the largest, a solid slab of dark-colored stone, and listened intently. More weeds rustled. The shaven-headed gunman was coming closer,
