Conspiracy in Kiev

Cerny? Rizzo?

She was in the middle, trapped in the darkness. Was the intruder below her savior or assassin? From above there was a flash and a brutally loud retort. A bullet crashed into the woodwork of the steps a few feet from her. Then there was a second shot at her and then a third.

Her hand whipped upward as she ducked away from where she had stood. She went into a low crouch, pointed her weapon upwards, and pulled the trigger. Either God guided her hand or just plain dumb luck prevailed.

Or maybe it was her years of training, because the agonized profane scream from the top of the stairs, followed by a torrent of obscenity in Russian-not Ukrainian but Russian!-told her that she had hit her target.

Alex heard the man’s body slump toward the wall. Then in the darkness she saw the erratic wavering flash of his pistol and heard the ear-splitting “bang” as he fired twice rapidly again and still tried to kill her.

The bullets shattered against the wall above her. One hit several feet above her head. The other passed so close to her right ear that she felt it go by. The impact sprayed powdered wood and concrete from the wall.

She steadied her own weapon. She could see a silhouette in the darkness and fired twice at the midpoint of it. She hit the target, heard the impact of the bullets and then heard the tumbling crashing sound of the man’s body on the stairs. All this rose above the sound of other heavy footsteps rushing upward from below.

She shifted her position, standing now. She leaned flat, her back to the wall.

“Rizzo? Cerny?” she asked.

Mistake. The response was the repetitive flash and loud bang of an automatic weapon and more shots impacting against the wall behind her.

She lowered her own weapon, fired toward her second assailant, and scored another hit. She heard a howl of pain and the clunk of his weapon hitting the floor, followed by the heavier thud of his body, followed by groans and cursing.

She heard the weapon rattle across the wooden floor and drop down two or three steps. She moved toward her only possible escape. She raced down the stairs and tried to step past the fallen body. The man who had tried to kill her cursed profanely and grabbed at her. Clearly she had not hit him in a vital spot.

He slashed at her body. With a powerful arm, he brought her down.

She fell hard to a knee. He cursed her in Russian. He had one strong hand on the shoulder of her jacket. His other hand, wet with blood, pushed at her throat. She threw an elbow at him and made contact. But he still fought, cursing in Russian that he would kill her. She could tell that the other hand was grasping for his gun.

She swung downward again with an elbow and smashed at him with the hand that held her gun. Both blows landed hard, catching him on the side of the face, then on the side of the skull. She felt his grip on her weaken. She swung hard again with the hand that held her weapon. It cracked across his forehead.

His grip on her shoulder weakened. She followed with the same elbow crashing downward, pile-driver style, onto the top of his skull.

She fought and pulled away. She struggled to her feet. In the dim light from the outside, she then saw him access his gun. Alex had no choice. She pushed her Glock to the man’s chest and pulled the trigger. The bang was enormous, and she could feel the spray of blood as his body tumbled away and sprawled backward.

She felt sickened but kept moving.

She found her way to the door, swung it open, and found the street blocked by another huge man. For an inexplicable second they glared each other in the eye.

“Kaspar,” she said, recognizing him from Kiev.

“Alex LaDuca,” he said calmly.

Once again, Alex was faster. She brought her knee up and caught him hard between the legs. He bellowed and reached for his weapon. She hit him again, chopped at his hand to freeze it. She knew he had a huge advantage in physical force. If she gave him the slightest chance to overpower her, she was dead. In turn, she knew she had the advantage of speed and surprise: he hadn’t expected her to survive the trap inside the building. She kicked him in the shins, then the kneecap. Somehow she thought of Robert and the carnage in Kiev as she was fighting.

Where was Rizzo? Where was Cerny?

Kaspar staggered. He slumped slightly.

She smashed him across the back of the neck, and with all the strength that remained in her, she shoved at him. He staggered backward into a car but rebounded like a tiger. He kicked at her and got lucky, catching her in the wrist, sending her Glock flying from her hand. Her wrist was hit so hard that it felt frozen. Her fingers wouldn’t move. Kaspar lunged at her gun. She chopped him hard behind the neck then followed with a kick to the ribs. Momentarily he blocked her access to her own gun.

Then she turned and ran like the devil himself was chasing her.

She dashed toward Cerny’s car. And then she saw what had happened. The front windshield had been riddled with bullets, probably from a silencer-equipped automatic. She saw Cerny’s body in the front seat, slumped on the wheel, blood all over his skull.

She would have been sick. But there wasn’t time. She ran past his car, ran faster than she had run in years. She heard the profane shouting of Kaspar struggling up from the sidewalk behind her.

Something hit a parked car nearby as she fled. She knew it was a bullet, fired by a pistol equipped with a silencer, probably the same one that had dispatched Cerny.

She ducked and wove between parked cars.

In front of her, the rear window exploded on another parked car. It was a good thing that even in trained hands the best handgun was only accurate-in terms of hitting a human sized target-to about seventy yards. Obviously she had inflicted some pain on her assailant; his aim was wildly inaccurate.

She kept low, zigzagged, and wove. At one point she slipped and was thankful that she was wearing boots, otherwise she could have torn up an ankle.

Another silent round smashed into the bricks above her head. She heard yet another one smash into a plate- glass shop window.

The police judiciaire were going to have a ball with this one, she thought for no good reason.

Then she turned the corner.

She was on the Quai Conti by the river. Some isolated traffic passed.

Then there was a shout from a doorway, a crash of some heavy glass shattering a few feet away. A human form. A man. Rising to his feet, moving toward her.

Alex nearly expired from heart failure and figured this was the end of her life. She was about to be killed unless she somehow eluded him.

She stepped up her pace. No traffic, the skyline of nighttime Paris across the river, Notre Dame Cathedral illuminated like a giant wedding cake.

Her legs felt strong. She ran on the wet pavement and turned the next corner. She breathed heavily and leaned against the wall.

Good. No one had seemed to follow. Yet she knew from long experience that there was no substitute for getting as far away as quickly as possible from any place of trouble. She reached into her coat pocket, gripped the cell phone and opened it. She waited. And waited. No answer.

She turned left and ran into the dark Paris night, not yet knowing where to run, just wanting to escape.

Come on, Rizzo! Answer, answer, answer!

Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up.

Then Rizzo did answer.

Her mind scrambled. It rejected Italian. They spoke French.

“C’est moi! Alex!” she blurted out. It’s me, Alex, she said, breathlessly.

“Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?

” Rizzo asked. What’s wrong?

“Tout!” Everything, she said, continuing to run.

She turned slightly as she moved and saw Kaspar in pursuit.

She turned westward. She stepped out into the busy traffic. Her ankle caught on something, twisted, and she went down. A taxi blared its horn, swerved, and sped by, barely missing her. She pulled herself back up, her ankle