any luck?”
“Did pretty well this morning. We released them all, of course. Slow right now. They’ll start biting again when the sun goes behind the mountain.”
“My name is Winston,” I said. “I’m here to talk to your guest.”
Jarrett began cranking in his line. “Do you know him?” he asked, glancing at me.
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t seem to speak English.”
“He’s Russian.”
“How did you know where to find him?”
“The sheriff told us. I brought his niece. She speaks Russian.”
Jarrett waded ashore. He shook my hand, sized me up. “You’re not Russian.”
“I’m as American as Freedom Fries. His niece is my girlfriend.”
He handed me his rod, then waded out to where Goncharov was standing. He pointed at me, made gestures that Goncharov should come in. Goncharov reeled in his line, then waded over and climbed the bank. He was agile enough and surefooted. However, his face reflected little curiosity.
“Do you speak Russian?” Jarrett asked.
“Not a word. Jump in the car and we’ll run up to your place.”
After I turned the car around, I gave Jarrett the spiel I gave the sheriff, about losing the uncle from a camper last week. Jarrett listened in silence, asked no questions. “We were certainly worried,” I said, summing up. “The sheriff said we owed you and Ms. Fiocchi a real debt for taking him in.”
“Forget it. He’s obviously a sick man. Least we could do.”
As we drove he asked me where I lived, what I did, etc. I was chattering along, all lies, of course, when we rounded the curve just below the entrance to his cabin. There was a car turning into the driveway. I applied the brakes, stopped the car.
“Who is that?” Jarrett asked. “Someone with you?”
“No.” Even as I said it, the car stopped, backed out onto the road, and started toward us. Then it stopped.
Oh, shit. I had been lucky as hell against these guys up to now, but there is a limit.
A man got out of the passenger’s side, then reached back into the car. He pulled out a weapon, then began walking toward us. He was about fifty yards or so away, but even at that range I recognized the gun. MP-5. He kept walking, apparently trying to make up his mind.
The weapon held me mesmerized. If he lifted it, though, we were out of options.
Get down,” I shouted at Jarrett, and jammed the accelerator to the floor. As I did I reached over, grabbed his head, and pulled him down toward me.
The dude with the submachine gun leveled it, then hesitated as he faced the car rocketing toward him, faster and faster.
He squeezed off a burst that shattered the windshield — the glass just exploded — then he tried to jump out of the way. Too late.
I hit him a hell of a lick; he flew backward through the air and landed in the road.
I felt two thumps as I ran over him. I jammed on the brakes. The car slid toward the other car, coming to rest parallel to it, with the right front fenders almost touching. I slammed the transmission into park and bailed as I jerked Grafton’s Colt from behind my back.
The other car shot backward, its tires screaming. The driver opened his door, stuck his head out, and spun the rear end into Jarrett’s drive. I squeezed one off and missed him. The car ripped forward before I could get off another shot. It accelerated away toward Durbin, its engine howling.
I glanced behind me at the guy I had run over. He wasn’t moving.
But was that the only car? Or had another vehicle preceded it up the driveway?
I ran to the driveway and looked. Couldn’t see the cabin. Ran up the road fifty yards until I could. No other cars.
I lowered the hammer on the Colt and put it back behind my belt, then walked down the drive to my car. Jarrett was kneeling beside the man on the road.
He looked up at me as I approached, his face drained of color. “He’s dead,” he said.
“I hope so,” I replied curtly. I didn’t have any juice to waste on one of those sons of bitches. I looked in the car. Goncharov was sitting in the back seat, carefully picking pebbles of glass from his clothes.
I walked around to the dead man. He was a mess. The car had rolled across his abdomen, bursting it. I intended to search him, but when I saw the corpse I lost interest.
Jarrett turned his back to the corpse. He retched once but nothing came up. With his hands on his knees, he took some deep breaths. He looked at me. “Your face is bleeding,” he said.
My cheek and forehead were burning. I explored them with my hand. Yep. I extracted several glass shards.
“Lucky that glass didn’t hit your eyes,” Jarrett said.
My eyes? The bastard was shooting at my head! I picked up the MP-5. It didn’t appear damaged. I could see the gleam of spent brass lying in the road. “I’m fucking shot with luck,” I muttered. “Just hope to Christ I haven’t used it all up.”
“Who the hell are you?” Jarrett asked.
That’s when I violated every security reg the agency had. “Name’s Tommy Carmellini, Mr. Jarrett. I’m with the CIA.” I pulled my Langley building pass from my hip pocket and handed it to him. My honest phiz and real name were encased in plastic.
Jarrett examined the plastic and matched the picture to my face. As he returned the pass he tittered nervously. “A spy for the CIA!”
“I work for the agency, but I am not a spy. Get a grip, Mr. Jarrett.”
He rubbed his face with both hands.
I nodded toward the car. “That is Mikhail Goncharov. He’s a Russian defector, used to work for the KGB.”
Jarrett gestured at the corpse. The Russian was squatting beside the body, examining the face. “Who’s he?”
“Some son of a bitch who came here to kill Goncharov and the rest of us. Tough shit for him. Come on, let’s go up to the house.”
Goncharov had managed to get his hands covered with blood. He stared at the blood, rubbed his fingers together to feel it, smelled it.
“Jesus Christ,” Jarrett said. “This man is coming apart.”
Jarrett took off his shirt, and we cleaned up Goncharov as best we could, then put him in the back seat of the car.
“You want to wait here at the cabin while I go get the sheriff?” Jarrett asked me as he inspected his bloody shirt.
“No. I’ve got to collect the translator and get the hell out of here with Goncharov before more of these guys come back. I strongly suggest you and Fiocchi do the same.”
“What about your car?”
I looked at the heap. No windshield and a pretty good dent in the grill and hood. Thank heaven Grafton was on the rental agreement — he was going to have to explain this one to the rental agency. I wondered if he had paid extra for the liability waiver.
“We’re going to have to trade cars, Mr. Jarrett. My agency will reimburse you for any loss. You drive this heap into town and call the sheriff. Maybe he can get you a ride home.”
That is what we did. Thirty minutes later Kelly Erlanger, Goncharov, and I were crossing Allegheny Mountain, heading east. I kept the MP-5.
We left the squashed guy lying in the road beside the river.
