will use his last rounds on the outcroppings of rock above us here. If we can block the road with a rock slide, we will delay the Russians even more. You are good men,' Ahmed said finally, then turned and started along the edge of the road. With his three-man unit, he moved on several hundred yards, then hurriedly crossed the road. Doubling back took longer than he had planned; there was little ground between the road and the yawning chasms below. At times he and his men were forced to crawl on their hands and knees through the snow to avoid slipping and failing to their deaths.
They finally stopped, parallel to the other four men, and just opposite them on the protected side of the road. Ahmed checked his watch. As if to confirm that the watch was keeping accurate time, he heard the rumbling of the trucks. Ahmed directed his men to conceal themselves on the edge of the road, behind the slight protection of a small spit of rock jutting out over the void.
Except for the rumbling of the trucks, all else was silence. The snowfall heightened the noise of the trucks. Perhaps the convoy was not so near, he thought. Ahmed glanced over the rock behind which he hid. He could see the headlamps of the slow-moving motorcycles, snow swirling in the probing fingers of light as they wove through the darkness. Ahmed had ridden a motorcycle many times, and for an instant was touched with compassion for the Russians aboard them. The road was icy now, and uneven to begin with. Maneuvering the cycles on such a night, mere inches at times from a thousand-foot drop, would be constant terror.
Ahmed could see the first of the motorcycles clearly now. One man riding, one man in the sidecar, their clothes covered with snow. He watched as the lead cyclist momentarily freed his heavily gloved fingers from the handlebars of the machine and brushed at the goggles covering his eyes.
Ahmed, bracing the H-K submachine gun against his shoulder, screamed, 'Open fire!'
With his first burst, he shot the man riding in the sidecar rather than the cyclist.
The H-K 69's were already belching their 40mm high-explosive charges. The first truck was less than a hundred yards away. As the grenade hit, the truck gushed into flame. Soviet troops, their uniforms afire, poured from the back of the vehicle. They fired at the flame-covered troops from each side of the road, gunning them down.
Another truck exploded a moment later, flames from the fireball licking out in the high wind, catching the tarp covering of the center truck. It, too, burst into flames.
Ahmed threw down his submachine gun, the weapon empty, his last magazine shot out. He snatched at the 9 -mm pistol on his belt, shot out the first magazine, then reloaded and picked off more of the Russians as they scattered from their burning vehicles.
The ground below him shook, and Ahmed fell back, the pistol, only half empty, flying from his hands. Looking up-his right eye was blurred-he saw the Soviet tank pushing the burning trucks out of its way as it thundered down the road. He started shouting to the grenadier-but the man had already fired. The grenade bounced against the tank's armor and exploded. The Soviet giant was unaffected. 'Russian armor,' he muttered to himself. 'The rocks'' he shouted to his grenadier.
As the grenadier started firing at the rock outcropping on the opposite side of the road, Ahmed reached into his left pocket, his frostbitten fingers touching the butt of the flare pistol which Rourke, had given him. Stiffly, he crammed a cartridge into the chamber and set it to fire.
The rocks across the road were already crumbling under the impact of the grenades. Huge boulders crashed down and blocked the road bed.
The ground shook again, and Ahmed's ears rang. He bounced skyward and came down hard against the road surface. He twisted his head to see with his good eye-the pain almost made him pass out. The grenadier was gone-nowhere to be seen. Ahmed started to cough; thoughts of his wife and daughter merged with the terror of death that was sweeping over him. He looked up. A Soviet soldier was standing above him, a submachine gun in his raw, bare hands.
Ahmed raised Rourke's flare pistol and pulled the trigger just as the first of the Soviet trooper's bullets cut through him.
Ahmed wanted to die with his eyes closed, but he stared sightlessly up at the failing snow.
Chapter Three
'Mr. Ambassador, wake up sir, please!'
Stromberg rolled over. The weak-bulbed bedside lamp was on. He closed his eyes against the dim light. 'What the hell are you doing here at-' Stromberg glanced at the watch on his nightstand-'at three in the morning? My God, man! Where's Mrs. Stromberg?'
'I knocked and she let me in, sir. When I sort of told her what was going on, she said to wake you myself-she was going to make some coffee for you. I said I could get someone from the staff, but-'
'Never mind that, Hensley! What the hell are you waking me up for, to begin with? You know I've got that trade conference tomorrow morning at nine-this morning!' Stromberg yawned, found his glasses and put them on, at the same time running his spatulate fingers through his thinning gray hair.
'Sir, it's an eyes-only message. You're going to have to decode it. It's direct from the president, not the secretary. But it's signed by him too, sir.'
'Oh, hell,' Stromberg groaned. 'Probably forgot to send somebody an anniversary card or something.'
'But, sir,' the young cipher clerk insisted, 'the code is Maximum Priority. You've got to read it now.'
'Hensley,' Stromberg said, trying to roll over between his blankets, then pushing himself into a sitting position. 'You've got to learn one thing, young man. Nothing in the State Department ever happens that won't wait until morning. Well, I shouldn't say that,' he added as he started to come awake. 'There's only one reason they'd send a message like that, and that's imposs-' He reached over to the bedside table and grabbed a cigarette from a small jade box. Hensley lurched forward and lit it. 'There's only one thing, as I said that-' He stared at the message. 'Good God! Hensley, get my robe!'
Stromberg was halfway to the door before Hensley could intercept him, helping him on with his robe as the ambassador fumbled with the doorknob, then threw open the door to his private office.
Inside, Stromberg took the Andrew Wyeth painting from the wall behind his desk, then felt along the joint of the wall paneling. A piece of the paneling slid away, revealing a small wall safe.
