Shadow of a Broken Man

track.

'Hell, yes. The French have a good man working for them. Been feeding them top-grade information for years.'

'What's this agent's name, and where can I find him?'

George shrugged. 'Nobody-except some controller- knows. He-or she, for all I know-has a deep cover; you find out, let us know. There's someone who can tell you what you want to know about Victor Rafferty. Shit, Peter and I are just cannon fodder compared with the Frenchie. You know, you hurt my fucking ear.'

'But you don't know why all these people had orders to capture or kill?'

'Top Secret. We were just following our orders. Now, that's all I know. I swear it.'

I pressed the point of the needle against the thick blue vein on the inside of his forearm. He squirmed, the color draining from his face as. a droplet of blood formed on his arm. 'You'll kill me if you stick me with that! What the hell are you doing?'

'George,' I replied, 'I feel I'm losing your cooperation.'

'Then ask me something, for Christ's sake! Or go find the Frenchie!'

I kept the tip of the needle just inside his vein. 'Five years ago a doctor by the name of Arthur Morton was murdered. Do you know anything about that? Think carefully, George; my thumb is beginning to twitch.'

'We killed him,' George croaked, his eyes bulging as he stared down at the hypodermic and the trail of blood running down his forearm.

'Why?'

'It was an accident! The goddamn bloody fool had no business coming to his office in the middle of the night. We weren't expecting him. He surprised us. He had a gun. We just didn't have any choice!'

'Why were you in his office?'

'We were supposed to take pictures of Rafferty's medical records,' George said hoarsely. 'And I don't know why. I swear it!'

I removed the tip of the needle from George's vein but kept it where he could see it. 'What do you know about the Fosters?'

'The Russians have them. Everybody in the business knows it. The Russians want everybody to know.'

My mouth suddenly tasted metallic. 'Where have the Russians got them?'

'Russian consulate.'

'Why? What do the Russians want with the Fosters?'

'Mrs. Foster used to be married to Rafferty. The Russians figure maybe they can pressure Rafferty into turning himself in, if he's alive.' George clucked his tongue. 'It's a bloody bad business,' he said sincerely. 'Got everybody and his brother running around.'

'How is Rafferty supposed to find out that the Russians have his ex-wife?'

'You thought Rafferty was at the U.N. If he is, he'll find out soon enough.'

'What if he isn't there?'

George shrugged. 'You never know what the Russians will do.' Suddenly his face went chalk-white as he glanced up and saw something just behind me. 'Kaznakov!' he cried in a strangled voice.

I wheeled and froze. The man filling the doorway was huge-well over six feet and better than two hundred and seventy-five pounds, all resting on ridiculously small feet. There was nothing ridiculous about the machine pistol in his right hand. His eyes were like twin moons, pale and lifeless, suspended in an unbelievably ugly, pockmarked face; a large, mashed nose sat in the middle of that face like a broken rocket drifting off to nowhere. The trackers had been tracked, and I doubted that the Russian was looking for information.

14

There was no change of expression on the Russian's face as he fired a single bullet into Peter's brain; he might have been a robot. George continued to gape while I stood, paralyzed with shock, for what could only have been fractions of a second but seemed like hours. I couldn't believe that anyone, even a 'freak,' could cold-bloodedly murder three men, two of whom were helpless. Then I remembered Abu.

I dived at the same time as Kaznakov efficiently dispatched George with a second bullet. I hit the floor and rolled sideways as more bullets beat a staccato tattoo on the floor inches from the base of my spine. It was Circus Time. There was no way for me to get to the gun I'd laid aside, no time to use it if I could, and no place to go except out the window. Head first.

I covered my face with my arms as I crashed through the glass. Something razor-sharp and white-hot sliced across the back of my left thigh, but I had other things to worry about. I was at least thirty feet from the ground; if I didn't hit the tree, I was dead.

I kept my face covered until I felt a branch lash my forearm. Instantly I reached out and grabbed a handful of leaves. I let myself fall freely, leaves whipping against my face, until I hit a thin branch. I twisted in the air, grabbed hold of the branch, and let it guide me down and onto another, thicker one that would sustain my weight. I hung on, gasping for breath, but not for long. The Russian was at the window above me, firing blindly down into the tree.

I quickly scrambled down the major branches and dropped the rest of the way to the ground, rolling to ease the pressure on my wounded leg. I got up and pressed against the bole of the tree while Kaznakov pumped bullets into the ground around me; leaves and shattered bits of wood showered down on my head, but I was safe for the time being. I used the time to remove a few shards of glass from my arms, then looked around me. My position was on one side of the house, near the front. I could see two cars-the green Caddy and mine-parked at the top of a long dirt-road driveway that snaked across a large, corn-stubbled field to a highway. My guess was that Kaznakov's car was parked somewhere out on the highway and that he'd walked in. He must have been tailing the two British agents from the beginning.

The firing abruptly stopped. I winced with pain as I stepped on my left leg, but the leg managed to hold me. I hobbled to the car. The door was open, but the keys were gone. I started to slide behind the wheel, then thought better of it: Even under the best daylight conditions, it would take me a few minutes to jump the wires; by the time I started the car, Kaznakov would be over me playing Taps with his machine pistol. There was no time, no place, left to run.

Sucking some night air into my lungs, I limped back to the house and pressed myself flat against the side while I peered over a windowsill into the inside. I could just make out the dim, shadowy bulk of Kaznakov moving carefully down the stairs.

A quick search for something with which to defend myself turned up the ragged edge of a two-by-four sticking out from beneath the raised foundation of the house. I grabbed it and pulled. The wood was about three feet long; it would make a formidable weapon if I could get enough momentum into a swing, and if I could take Kaznakov by surprise. I picked up the beam, inched my way around the corner and along the front of the farmhouse to the door. I positioned the wooden beam slightly behind me as if I were about to make an Olympic hammer throw, gripped it tightly, and waited. I was soaked with a mixture of sweat and blood.

After what seemed an eternity, the door swung open. The Russian stepped out into the moonlight, his gun at the ready as he peered in the direction of the cars. I brought the beam whistling around, and it landed with a sharp crack on his shins. He howled with rage, pain, and surprise, but didn't drop the gun. He instinctively reached down for his shins and almost toppled off the stoop. He straightened up again when I brought the end of the two-by-four up into his face, leaving a large red blob where his nose had been. He staggered down off the stoop and collapsed. Incredibly, he was still conscious-but the gun had slipped from his fingers. I picked it up and pointed it at his chest.

The sudden, giddy elation I felt was probably due to loss of blood and shock. But I had the man who'd tortured and killed Abu, and at the moment that was all I cared about; I'd beat what he knew out of him with the butt of the gun, try to use him to free the Fosters, and then kill him. I was in a hurry to ask questions before I