“I’m going after Malkovic myself. I’ll keep you posted. Out.” He picked up his weapon, stood up, and looked down at Fiona. “Randi will be here soon.
Will you be all right until then?”
Still pale, she nodded. “I will. Now go help Oleg run that bastard down.”
“And you sit tight. No trying to walk on that wounded leg of yours,” Smith said firmly. “That’s an order.”
Then he turned and sprinted away across the Piazza.
Erich Brandt swam up through the darkness, fighting against the pain that threatened to drown his senses. His eyes blinked open as he came back to full consciousness. He was lying on the pavement with a dead weight pressing down across his legs. The hot, copper)- smell of fresh blood filled his nostrils.
He turned his head slightly, wincing at the agony that caused him. More blood dripped onto the Piazza.
One of his men lay heaped on top of him, plainly dead?shot multiple times.
Brandt carefully raised his own hand, gingerly touching his forehead. A crease torn there stung like fire. He felt broken bone grate beneath the loose flap of skin. His vision darkened and he jerked his bloodstained fingers away hastily. It would not do to think too closely about what this head wound might mean.
He heard footsteps racing toward him and closed his eyes until thev were only narrow slits. Breathing shallowly, he watched a lean, dark-haired man go running past, with one arm in an improvised sling and the other holding a submachine gun.
It was Smith, Brandt saw in amazement. Somehow the American had escaped from Russia, and now here he was in Orvieto, hot on Malkovic’s heels.
The realization jolted him into action. Slowly, he inched his way out from under the corpse. He found his pistol and then crawled away, staying low to the pavement until he reached the shelter of some trees and shrubs planted near the high arched gate that opened into the Fortezza dell’Albornoz. Once in cover, the gray-eyed man stood up and then staggered on, following in Smith’s wake.
Using both hands, Fiona levered herself up into a sitting position, being careful to keep her bandaged leg stretched out in front of her. The effort left her feeling dizzy. She waited a few moments for her head to stop whirling and then looked up, staring out across the moonlit square. Frightened voices were calling out to each other in the city behind her, as Orvieto’s citizens tried to make some sense of all the explosions and gunfire ringing through their ancient town.
Fiona frowned. She looked down at her watch, wondering where Agent Russell was. If the local police got there before the CIA officer arrived to help her, she was in real trouble. Neither Klein nor President Castilla could break the Covert-One secret to explain her actions, and she suspected the Italian authorities would look severely on a supposed freelance journalist caught wandering around their country armed to the teeth.
She studied the bullet-riddled funicular railway station, noting the two corpses sprawled across the Piazza in front of its shattered windows. Her eyes narrowed sharply. Two corpses? There should be three.
For an instant, Fiona sat rigid, feeling ice-cold. One of Brandt’s men, maybe Brandt himself was on the loose … and without her radio, she had no wav to warn the others. Painfully, she pushed herself to her feet and hobbled slowly toward the fortress.
Smith found Kirov and Konstantin Malkovic standing together on the upper ramparts of the fortress. The cliff face fell away sharply below the walls, plunging almost vertically through a tangle of scrub trees and bushes to the lights of Orvieto Scalo and the autostrada below. The financier had his hands high up in the air. An opened briefcase lay at his feet.
The Russian held his submachine gun pointed casually at the older, white-haired man. He glanced over his shoulder at Jon. “Mr. Malkovic has agreed to cooperate with us,” he said drily. “It appears that he bitterly regrets his unwise decision to assist President Dudarev in his various conspiracies.”
“I’m sure he does,” said Smith, equally drily. “What’s in the briefcase?”
“Important information for our government,” Malkovic said eagerly.
“Fvervthing that I’ve been able to learn about Russia’s military plans.”
For the first time in days, jon felt some of the weight lift off his shoulders.
With Malkovic alive and talking, and with evidence of Dudarev’s plans to invade his smaller neighbors, it was just possible that the United States might be able to fend off open hostilities with Russia.
“Drop your weapons,” a harsh, pain-filled voice said suddenly from behind them. “Do it now. Or I will shoot.”
Smith stiffened. He knew that voice. But Brandt was dead. He’d shot the bastard himself.
“You have three seconds,” Brandt said coldly. “One. Two ? “
Drained by the sudden reversal of fortune, Smith let go of his submachine gun. It clattered against the parapet. Beside him, Kirov did the same, carefully setting down his own MP5.
“Excellent,” the German told them. “Now turn around … slowly. And keep your hands up where I can see them.”
They obeyed.
Brandt stood there, just a few meters away along the battlement. His face was a horrible mask of dried blood. Bone gleamed white from a jagged cut across his forehead. He held his pistol in a one-handed grip, constantly shifting his aim slightly to cover them each in turn.
“Erich!” Malkovic said gladly, starting forward. “Thank God!” He smiled broadly. “I knew that you would save me from these men.”
“Get back,” Brandt growled, jabbing his pistol at the financier.
The smile faded from Malkovic’s face. “But Erich, I ? “
“You thought you would live through this night?” The former Stasi officer sneered. “Well, I’m afraid that your speculations were in error this time. One might even call it a fatal miscalculation.” He shrugged, still holding his weapon on the three men. “Dudarev may not reward me for killing you. But your death should at least protect me from the worst of his anger.”
“You intend to kill us all?” Kirov asked bluntly.
Brandt nodded. “Naturally.” He stepped back a few paces, widening the gap between them, making it impossible for any sudden rush to reach him before he shot them all down. “The only question is which one of you dies first.”
Again the Walther’s muzzle swung from one man to the other. Then it settled on Jon and stayed there. “You, Colonel,” Brandt said coldly. “You are the first.”
And then Smith saw a lithe, pale-faced shape loom up out of the darkness behind Brandt. He shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said quietly. “Remember that I once promised that you were a dead man?”
Brandt smiled icily. “Yes, you did, Colonel.” He took careful aim at Jon’s head. “But you were wrong about that, as about so much else.”
A gunshot rang out, deafening at pointblank range.
Brandt’s smile froze. Slowly, very slowly, he twisted and then fell sideways, toppling over the edge of the parapet. There was a short silence, and then a dull, crunching thud.
Smith scooped up his submachine gun, walked toward the parapet, and looked over. There, about twenty meters below, he saw Brandt’s broken corpse splayed out across the gravel path running along the foot of the fortress walls.
He shrugged. “I never said I would be the one who would kill you,” he murmured to the dead man.
He looked back over his shoulder.
Fiona Devin stood there, slowly lowering her Glock. The bandage wrapped around her right thigh was dark, stained with fresh blood.
“I thought I ordered you to stay put,” Smith said mildly.
She smiled at him, with a gleeful light dancing in her eyes. “So you did, Colonel. But I’m a civilian, and I never was much good at following orders.”
“Fortunately for us,” Kirov said gruffly, coming forward to take her gently in his arms. “Thank you, my dear, dear Fiona,” he said simply. He bent down to kiss her.
Grinning, Smith looked away to keep an eye on the trembling financier. In the distance, he heard the muffled
