Rourke's heart sank a moment. Soames was nowhere in sight, but at the end of the street, approximately two blocks down, was an uncharacteristically elaborate athletic field and stadium.
Rourke stared at it. The stadium looked to have cost more than all the other buildings in the town combined.
Rourke reached up under his left armpit, snatching one of the twin Detonics pistols from the Alessi shoulder holsters. He thumbed back the hammer, pushing up the frame-mounted thumb safety. Bending into his stride, he began to run again, hugging the side of the buildings he passed, getting across the alley, then to the next street and into the next block. He slowed, the athletic field less than two hundred yards way; and beyond the cinder track, with some of the painted white lines in the field still visible, was the stadium.
Something inside Rourke told him Soames was there. The wind was blowing cold again. He pulled the waist- length brown leather jacket back on. Then, at a slow trot, started across the athletic field, snatching the second Detonics from under his right arm into his left hand, thumbing back the hammer and crooking his thumb around to push up the safety.
Rourke stopped beside the stadium entrance, examining the dust on the concrete surface, a smile crossing his lips. Faintly, he could detect a tire tread in the blown sand.
Rourke started through the entranceway, and as he reached the end of the long tunnel, he scanned the bowl of the stadium itself, squinting against the sunlight despite the dark glasses he wore. A smile crossed his lips again. Apparently the games held at the stadium had once been broadcast over local radio. There was a low-gain antenna beside the booth on the far, topside of the arena, the sort of antenna that could be used to transmit to a more powerful receiver-sender fifty miles or so away.
There was no sign of Soames or his bike.
Rourke walked up the low, broad concrete steps into the grandstand, then started along the circumference of the stadium toward the booth and the antenna.
One Detonics .45 in each hand, Rourke moved slowly ahead, looking from side to side. He no longer cared if Soames detected his presence— because there was nowhere the spy could go. Soames could smash his radio, but that was unlikely. Rather than going cold, out of contact with his Soviet masters, he'd likely try to make a fight of it. Perhaps Soames had weapons stashed somewhere in the stadium; perhaps there had been a weapon concealed on his body— a holster that carried a snubby revolver or medium frame auto in the top of his cowboy boot. It didn't matter, Rourke thought.
Rourke stopped halfway around the stadium, beside the broadcast booth. The antenna was corroded, weather-stained, but a new-looking, almost shiny coax cable ran from it, through what seemed to be a freshly drilled hole in the concrete below the grandstand.
Rourke turned around, his eyes searching for the nearest steps down into the stadium complex beneath the stands. He found them, then started walking toward them. He stopped at the head of the steps, looking at the twin pistols in his hands, holding them as if weighing them.
Both pistols in front of him, elbows tucked close at his sides— he thought if he could see himself he'd be reminiscent of a cowboy in a silent picture— he started down the steps, into the darkness of the shadow there.
Rourke stopped halfway down the steps. With the back of his right hand he pushed the sunglasses up off the bridge of his nose and into his hair. He started walking again.
Rourke stopped, his left foot on the last step, his right foot on the concrete walkway of the tunnel. He held his breath, listening. Voices. He heard two voices, the words unintelligible but distinct enough that Rourke could tell they were in English. They were coming from the farthest end of the tunnel.
Rourke began walking, hugging his body against the rough concrete wall, the pistol in his right hand held high, the one in his left held flat along his left thigh.
He could hear the voices more clearly. He stopped, seeing the darker blackness of the new coax cable leading down from above, then snaking ahead into the shadow along the tunnel and toward its end. Rourke shifted the Detonics in his right hand into his belt, taking the sunglasses off his head, putting them in their case under his coat. His right fist clenched around the pistol again and he moved slowly, cautiously ahead.
The voices were clear enough now to be understood, at least in part. One of them belonged to Soames:
'I don't care, Veskovitch. Why worry? All that damned earthquake is going to do is kill more Americans and kill a bunch of them danged Cubans. I don't think your folks give a shit about them anyway.'
'You were wise to come,' the other voice— Veskovitch, Rourke assumed— began. 'But you are wrong. We must contact headquarters. This is an important development. There may be valued Soviet personnel working in Florida at this very moment. They at least must be gotten out. It is not your responsibility, nor is it mine, to determine who should live and die. You speak of a disaster which could take millions of lives. Do you wish this on your conscience?'
Rourke, standing in the darkness along the wall, smiled. The Soviet agent, probably KGB, was sounding almost humanitarian. Soames sounded like a bloodthirsty animal. Rourke moved ahead, more slowly now, cautiously, not being able to see more than six feet ahead into the shadows.
He stopped, holding his breath, cursing mentally, then reached down and rubbed his right shin. There had to be a ramp down into the tunnel. He had just bumped his shin against Soames's motorcycle. Rourke shoved the Detonics from his right hand into his trouser band, then using the Safariland stainless handcuff key from his key ring, he found the valve stem on the rear tire and deflated it. He didn't want Soames using the bike for a getaway.
Pocketing the key ring, Rourke snatched the Detonics from his belt again. A pistol in each hand once more, he sidestepped the bike, then pressed against the concrete tunnel wall and moved ahead again.
The voices were louder now. 'Well, go on then and call Varakov or whoever gets it— but let 'em know I brought it to you.'
'You are still worried General Varakov will come for you, perhaps sometime in the middle of the night, and kill you for molesting a child. He did not like you. You were afraid of him and he knew that.'
'Shut up,' Soames snapped.
Rourke took two steps ahead, into the small cone of yellow light from the niche in the tunnel wall just ahead, then turned, both guns leveled, looking into the tiny room.
