CHAPTER 37
Trial by Ordeal
'You're looking much better than the last time, Colonel,' Ritter said pleasantly in Russian. The security officer rose and walked out of the living room, giving the two men privacy. Ritter was carrying an attache case, which he set on the coffee table. 'Feeding you well?'
'I have no complaints,' Grishanov said warily. 'When can I go home?'
'This evening, probably. We're waiting for something.' Ritter opened the case. This made Kolya uneasy, but he didn't allow it to show. For all he knew there might be a pistol in there. Comfortable as his imprisonment had been, friendly as his conversations with the residents in this place were, he was on enemy soil, under the control of enemies. It made him think of another man in a distant place under very different circumstances. The differences ate at his conscience and shamed him for his fear.
'What is that?'
'Confirmation that our people are in Hoa Lo Prison.'
The Russian lowered his head and whispered something Ritter didn't catch. Grishanov looked up. 'I am glad to hear that.'
'You know, I believe you. Your letters back and forth to Rokossovskiy make that clear.' Ritter poured himself some tea from the pot on the table, filling up Kolya's cup also.
'You have treated me correctly.' Grishanov didn't know what else to say, and the silence was heavy in him.
'We have a lot of experience being friendly to Soviet guests,' Ritter assured him. 'You're not the first to stay here. Do you ride?'
'No, I've never been on a horse.'
'Ummhmm.' The attache case was quite full with papers, Kolya saw, wondering what they were. Ritter took out two large cards and an ink pad. 'Could I have your hands, please?'
'I don't understand.'
'Nothing to worry about.' Ritter took his left hand and inked the fingertips, rolling them one at a time in the appropriate boxes on one card, then the other. The procedure was duplicated with the other hand. 'There, that didn't hurt, did it? You can wash your hands now, better to do it before the ink dries.' Ritter slid one of the cards into the file, substituting it for the one removed. The other just went on top. He closed the case, then carried the old card to the fireplace, where he ignited it with his cigarette lighter. It burned fast, joining the ash pile from the fires that the custodians liked to have every other night. Grishanov came back with clean hands.
'I still don't understand.'
'It's really nothing that need concern you. You just helped me out on something, that's all. What say we have lunch? Then we can meet with a countryman of yours. Please be at ease, Comrade Colonel,' Ritter said as reassuringly as he could. 'If your side sticks to the bargain, you'll be on your way home in about eight hours. Fair enough?'
Mark Charon was uncomfortable coming here again, safe though the location might be this early into its use. Well, this wouldn't take long. He pulled his unmarked Ford to the front of the building, got out, and walked to the front door. It was locked. He had to knock. Tony Piaggi yanked it open, a gun in his hand. 'What's this?' Charon demanded in alarm.
'What's this?' Kelly asked himself quietly. He hadn't expected the car to come right up to the building, and had been loading two more rounds into the clip when the man pulled in and got out. The rifle was so stiff that he had trouble getting the clip back in, and by the time he had it up, the figure was moving too rapidly for a shot. Damn. Of course, he didn't know who it was. He twisted the scope to max-power and examined the car. Cheap body... an extra radio antenna... police car? Reflected light prevented him from seeing the interior. Damn. He'd made a small mistake. He'd expected a down-time after dropping the two on the roof. Nevertake anything for granted, dummy! The slight error made him grimace.
'What the hell is going on?' Charon snapped at them. Then he saw the body on the floor, a small hole slightly above and to the left of the open right eye.
'It's him! He's out there!' Tucker said.
'Who?'
'The one who got Billy and Rick and Burt -'
'Kelly!' Charon exclaimed, turning around to look at the closed door.
'You know his name?' Tucker asked.
'Ryan and Douglas are after him - they want him for a string of killings.'
Piaggi grunted. 'The string is longer by two. Bobby here, and Fred on the roof.' He stooped by the window again. He's got to be right across the road there...
Charon had his gun out now, for no apparent reason. Somehow the bags of heroin seemed unusually heavy now, and he set his service revolver down and unloaded them from his clothing onto the table with the rest of them, along with the mixing bowl, and the envelopes, and the stapler. That activity ended his current ability to do anything but look at the other two. That was when the phone rang. Tucker got it.
'Having fun, you cocksucker?'
'Did you have fun with Pam?' Kelly asked coldly. 'So,' he asked more pleasantly, 'who's your friend? Is that the cop you have on the payroll?'
'You think you know it all, don't you?'
'No, not all. I don't know why a man would get his rocks off killing girls, Henry. You want to tell me that?' Kelly asked.
'Fuck you, man!'
'You want to come on out and try? You swing that way too, sweetie-pie?' Kelly hoped Tucker didn't break the phone, the way he slammed it down. He just didn't understand the game, and that was good. If you didn't know the rules, you couldn't fight back effectively. There was an edge of fatigue on his voice, and Tony's also. The one on the roof hadn't had his shirt buttoned; it was rumpled, Kelly saw, examining the body through his sight. The trousers had creases inside the knees, as though the man had been sitting up all night. Had he merely been a slob? That didn't seem likely. The shoes he'd left by the opening were quite shiny. Probably up all night, Kelly judged after a few seconds' reflection. They're tired, andthey'rescared, and they don't know the game. Fine. He had his water and his candy bars, and all day.
'If you knew that bastard's name, how come you - goddamn it!' Tucker swore. 'You told me he's just a rich beach bum, I said I could take him out in the hospital, remember, but no!... you said leave him fuckin' be!'
'Settle down. Henry,' Piaggi said as calmly as he could manage. This is onevery serious boy we have out there. He's done six of my people. Six! Jesus. This is not the time to panic.
'We have to think this one through, okay?' Tony rubbed the heavy stubble on his face, collecting himself, thinking it through. 'He's got a rifle and he's in that big white building across the street.'
'You wanna just walk over there and get him, Tony?' Tucker pointed to Bobby's head. 'Look what he did here!'
'Ever heard of nightfall, Henry? There's one light out there, right over the door.' Piaggi walked over to the fuse box, checked the label inside the door, and unscrewed the proper fuse. 'There, the light don't work anymore. We can wait for night and make our move. He can't get us all. If we move fast enough, he might not get any.'
'What about the stuff?'
'We can leave one guy here to guard it. We get muscle in here to go after that bastard, and we finish business, okay?' It was a viable plan, Piaggi thought. The other guy didn't hold all the cards. He couldn't shoot through the walls. They had water, coffee, and time on their side.
The three stories were as close to word-for-word identical as anything he might have hoped for under the circumstances. They'd interviewed them separately, as soon as they'd recovered enough from their pills to speak, and their agitated state only made things better. Names, the place it had happened, how this Tucker bastard was dealing his heroin out-of-town now, something Billy had said about the way the bags stank - confirmed by the 'lab' busted on the Eastern Shore. They now had a driver's license number and possible address on Tucker. The address
