Guess Who’s Coming to Kill You

Chapter 13

The room, with its musty pine-smoke smell of old ranch houses, was at peace and beyond the open window the red willows and tamaracks stood guard in the morning light.

General Levashev sat behind the mahogany desk in one corner of the room. The curved pipe, its tobacco charred but gone out, lay before him. Near the pipe his right hand rested, to steady itself. It gripped a pistol which was aimed at the center panel of the door, about waist high to a tall man.

At the knock the General called, “Enter.”

The Filipino houseman came in. Behind the houseman loomed a broad-shouldered man with a boyish face and a smile that revealed a gap between two upper front teeth. Behind the broad-shouldered man sauntered a man who looked as if he was recovering from a fall from the Matterhorn.

“Dobroye utro, Aleksei Vassilievich,” Levashev said.

“Good morning to you, General,” Krylov replied in English. He was looking at the pistol, still smiling. “I see you take no chances, not even here.”

“Especially not here,” Levashev said with an answering smile. “Come in, gentlemen, come in. Pazha1’sta. Be seated.”

The Filipino waited for Levashev’s nod. Then the man left, shutting the door without sound. Brook deposited a tape recorder on the table, opened the case, and plugged the machine into a wall socket. Krylov lumbered to a chair, ignoring the weapon in Levashev’s fist. Only when Krylov had lowered himself into the chair did the General drop his pistol into a drawer. He reached for his pipe and relighted it.

“Well, it has been a long time since our last meeting, Aleksei Vassilievich,” Levashev said. He looked to Brook like some wrinkled leprechaun over a cookstove.

“Yes, General.” Krylov seemed uncomfortable in his new American suit. The flowered silk tie he had selected struck a wrong note against the conservative jacket.

Brook said: “Don’t let this machine bother you, gentlemen. Just talk naturally. I’ll throw in a question only if it seems important. All this is preliminary, anyway. We can get down to specifics later.”

Levashev looked annoyed. He said to Krylov: “You have been well?”

“Quite well, General. And your health?”

“Good enough for an old man.”

“I hope to reach your age with the same grace.”

Levashev showed his tired smile. “Life is fragile, Aleksei Vassilievich. Especially for people like you and me. We went through some exciting days.” He glanced at his pipe and produced a penknife, gouged the dottle, and emptied it into an ashtray. “I hear you have experienced some excitement yourself in the past few weeks, Aleksei.”

“There were difficulties,” Krylov said with a shrug. “Mr. Brook managed to overcome them. A good man, Mr. Brook. He would have made a valuable agent for us in the old days.”

Levashev turned his potato nose toward Brook, at the tape recorder. “You hear, Mr. Brook? That is a Krylov compliment. Believe me, they are rare.”

Brook said: “Alex and I got along from the start. But please ignore me, gentlemen.”

Krylov laughed. “But of course I will never know if you were making yourself agreeable, Peter, merely in the line of duty. You see? That is our trouble. We will always suspect motives. Someone comes along and says, ‘Good morning,’ and we say, ‘What is he trying to conceal from me?’”

“It is an occupational disease.” Levashev reached for his tobacco jar and a different pipe.

“The trouble we had, General,” said Krylov, crossing his legs and leaning back, “came from a not unexpected source. I am reasonably sure that at the embassy, and in Moscow, they did not know that I was going to come over, although what they — or that robot Volodya — suspected or may have suspected is another story. But it was our friends the Chinese who guessed it for a certainty.”

Levashev’s heavy brows rose. “So? They improve, our Maoist comrades.”

“Perhaps you recall, General, that after I returned from China — how long ago that seems! — I submitted a report that warned of the Chinese potential, citing what I believed to be excellent reasons. If China was a sleeping giant, as Napoleon stated, she is opening her eyes with a vengeance. I can attest to that.”

“I remember your report.” Levashev lighted his pipe. “It was the subject of two conferences at the time. We felt that your projections were too intuitive, and you know how little stock we place in anything immaterial. No precision, it was said; too little fact. I confess that I was one of those who took that view.”

Krylov waved. “It does not matter now, General.”

“It does not matter at all, I agree,” Levashev said. “For I have discovered that in America, Aleksei — the land of the free, as our new friends like to call it — the bureaucrats are almost as pigheaded as those in the Soviet Union.”

Both men laughed, glancing at Brook. He laughed back.

“Tell me about our Chinese ex-comrades, Aleksei,” said Levashev, “and how you escaped from them.”

“They attacked us from a helicopter at sea. Peter brought them down with a signal flare. It was well that he did, for they meant to kill us. Before that, they had got their hands on Peter and made things uncomfortable for him. There is one thing more that they did — if indeed they were the ones who did it. There was a woman in Tokyo, Lazar Andreivich — if I may address you familiarly?—”

“I am hardly in a position to demand protocol,” Levashev said, smiling. “Of course. Now what is this about a woman—?”

“I fell in love with her. I shall be frank, General. It was because of Kimiko that I decided to defect.” Krylov’s eyes wavered, and he swore in Russian. “I do not like that word!”

General Levashev shrugged. “A word is a word, if a man is a realist. You will have to learn to live with it, as I have. But I am interested in the Japanese girl. Tell me about her, Aleksei.”

“Beautiful. Like porcelain. But a woman to her skin. I cannot describe her. I had thought myself beyond such bourgeois antics. It was like being offered a second chance at life, Lazar Andreivich. She made me feel like a boy. There were other reasons, of course; much like yours, I suppose. But it was Kimiko who brought them to a focus.” Krylov’s tone hardened. “Before I left, she was murdered.”

“The Chinese?”

“I am not sure.”

“But why should they kill her?”

Krylov’s forehead became a terrain of ridges and valleys. “They may have reasoned that I was defecting because of her, and that by killing her they would remove my motive for going over. Who knows how the Chinese think?” Krylov suddenly got out of the armchair. He went to the window and stared out at the clean desert landscape. “If they were responsible...” He struck his left palm with his right fist. “I will take the greatest pleasure in giving any information that would hurt them.”

Levashev was looking at the man’s broad back. “Revenge, Aleksei Vassilievich? Revenge is a pointless emotion.”

Krylov whirled from the window; his jaws were working as if they were grinding nuts. “That is easy for you to say! You did not love her. You did not know her. To kill such beauty! And in such a horrible way. They strangled her, General. A gold cord around her neck.” He made two fists. “For that they will pay. I swear it on the Christ my mother used to worship in secret.”

“Sit down, Aleksei,” Levashev said gently.

“I am sick when I think of it!”

“Time, Aleksei. Time will cure the sickness.”

Krylov came back and sank into the armchair.

Brook had been listening with perfunctory attention. He had doubted that either Russian would say much of value in this first meeting. He had been instructed not to push them, on the ground that they could be expected to hold back until they got over the unavoidable awkwardness of the confrontation. So Brook stood by the table watching the slow spinning of the recorder, only half interested in what was going on.

They kept conversing; they were still taking each other’s measure.

And the alarm bonged in Brook’s head.

It had happened to him once before, when as a totally unimportant lower-echelon fledgling he had first laid eyes on Harold Adrian Russell Philby at a party in Washington. He had been looking forward to meeting the fabulous “Kim” Philby of M.I.6, whose work at that time was liaison with American security agencies; and they had actually shaken hands. It was the touch of Philby’s hand that set off the alarm. Brook had never been able to explain it; he had never told anyone about it. Low men on the security pole did not go about telling their superiors that a respected agent of a friendly power was a traitor without the customary hard facts; they certainly did not do so on the basis of a handshake. Yet something had flashed from Philby’s grip to Brook’s, an unintended message that was better than a lie detector. Years later, when Philby disappeared from Beirut and subsequently turned up in Moscow and the whole story of his lifelong service for the Soviets came out, Brook could only mourn his timidity in not laying his ESP on the line after that Washington party.

Brook casually glanced at Krylov, who had jumped to his feet again and was striding up and down talking his head off. But this time it was more bookkeeping than ESP. Little file cards began to flutter into slots. The explanation for his vague feelings of disturbance throughout the game stood bold against daylight. All the little puzzles, the ones that had scarcely seemed worth solving, were solved.

At this moment he caught Krylov’s eye, or perhaps it was the Russian’s eye that caught his.

Their meeting of the eyes broke up in no more than three blinks. Then Krylov glanced away, still pacing and talking to Levashev.

Brook said to himself: He knows I know.

What happened after that happened fast. Brook turned back to the tape recorder to cover his movement toward his shoulder holster. As he was reaching he heard a slight scuffle behind him. This time he turned not his body but his head only and it was just as well that he did. Holloway’s training usually proved out.

Krylov was behind the desk beside General Levashev’s chair, and the pistol the General had dropped into the drawer was in Krylov’s hand, pointed at Brook.

Brook’s hand remained under his coat.

“No, Peter,” Krylov said. “Remove your hand slowly.”

Brook removed his hand slowly.

Krylov stepped back.

Levashev looked up; there was something oriental in his absolute lack of expression. “So,” he said to Krylov.

“So,” Krylov said; but he kept his eyes on Brook. “Peter, you will open your jacket so that we can see, and you will take out your weapon with two fingers only. You will move as if you were under water. We understand each other?”

Brook nodded.

“Now.”

Brook’s hand inched into view. It was holding the butt of his pistol by two fingers.

“Drop it to the floor.”

Brook dropped it to the floor.

“Too close. Kick it into the middle of the room.”

Brook kicked it into the middle of the room.

“Thank you,” Krylov said. “I must say this is all very quick, Peter. I had not expected you to see through it so soon.” He shrugged, smiling. “So are important events decided. You should have shot me when our eyes met.”

“You’re right, of course,” Brook said. “Will I ever get the chance to be fired by my boss, Aleksei? Or do you have other plans for me?”

“You will enable me, Peter, to leave this place.”

General Levashev said calmly, “Are you both mad, or is this what I suspect it is?”

“Shall I tell him, Peter, or shall you?” asked Krylov.

“It’s brutally simple, General,” Brook said. “The KGB sent him to kill you. His cover was the defection.”

“How else, General,” Krylov asked, smiling, “could I have got close to you here?”

Levashev was silent. Then he said, “I knew, of course. It had to be.”

Krylov said something in Russian that did not go with the smile, and Levashev said something back that made Krylov’s smile vanish. They spoke too rapidly for Brook, with his smattering of the tongue, to get any of it.

The Soviet agent made an effort to regain his composure; at no time, as Brook professionally noted, did Krylov allow him the slightest chance for a move. “But we are being rude to Mr. Brook, General. I have made a mistake, for which no doubt I shall be made to pay when — perhaps I should say if — I return to Moscow. I realized my lapse as soon as it left my lips. One plays these parts too thoroughly sometimes.”

The General said nothing. Since their interchange in Russian he seemed to have dwindled, like Alice. The pipe lay in his old man’s hand, forgotten.

“Tell him, Peter,” Krylov said.

“The gold cord Krylov just mentioned, General,” Brook said with a shrug. “I took it off Kimiko’s neck when I found her strangled and dropped it into my pocket. The Japanese police never saw it; it was never reported in their newspapers. Only someone who had seen Kimiko’s body before I came on the scene would have known what was used to strangle her. That someone would almost certainly have to have been her strangler. I’m curious, Alex. Why did you kill Kimiko? Of course, all this grand-passion put-on of yours was an act, but even so, she couldn’t have known anything. Why kill her?”

Krylov sighed. “She would have complicated matters for me here, in view of my assignment. I had no wish, believe me, to liquidate her. But I was under orders. It was a pity.”

Brook nodded. That was the way it worked, all right.

“She was indeed beautiful. We selected her after examining a number of young women. There had to be a girl, you see, and it had to seem that I had fallen in love with her. This is a complication that Americans are ready to understand, with your sex-ridden culture. I do not have to tell you, Peter — as one professional to another — that few persons defect from their homelands on ideological grounds alone; there is almost always a corollary factor — money, fear for one’s life, public exposure and, especially in the West, love. By involving myself with Kimiko I presented your people with a motive for defecting that you would instantly accept.”

“So,” General Levashev said again.

“Oh, Alex is a cutie-pie, General,” Brook said. It was necessary to keep this going. Only a miracle would serve. He wondered if he would live long enough to hear Holloway’s snort. “They considered Alex’s mission so important that they surrounded the operation with more than the usual hocuspocus. Alex told us that his people were watching him closely. They actually were. But that was for our benefit, not theirs. I’m sure the watchdog they put on Alex never realized that his man was supposed to defect. They knew we expected a tough run, so they gave us a tough run, knowing that if it looked too easy we’d get suspicious. I’m ashamed to admit I fell for it. We actually helped them get Alex in here to do his job.”

“You understand, General,” Krylov said, “that I have no personal feelings in this.”

“When did you ever have feelings, personal or otherwise, Aleksei?” General Levashev asked; there was a certain hoarseness in his throat. “You are still the common assassin you were when you began.”

“I would not use the word common, General,” Krylov said. “You demean yourself. You are big game. The biggest.”

He’s talking beautifully, Brook thought. He has a flair for drama; he can’t resist this scene. “Alex, I never figured you for a blowhard. It takes no special skill to carry out a suicide mission.”

“I would not call it that,” Krylov said. “I had planned to wait for a more favorable moment, of course. Now it will be more difficult, I grant. But I shall get out of here and make my way in time to Moscow.”

“Not a chance, Alex,” Brook said cheerfully. “You won’t get off these grounds.”

“If I thought I would be able to collect,” Krylov said, “I would make you a wager on that.”

Brook had already noticed Levashev’s right hand. The General, his back to Krylov, had reached for another pipe. In moving his hand across the desk, he had touched the buzzer beside the blotter. Brook was positive Krylov had not noticed. So maybe there would be a miracle after all. Brook said, “I’m interested Alex. How do you figure you have a chance?”

“The nearest guards are almost a mile away. They would not hear gunshots from inside this house. Of course, I shall have to kill the houseman, too. And anyone else who may appear.”

“The fence is electrified and patrolled. There are other defenses.”

Krylov looked disapproving. “Is it possible that you underestimate me? We have both gone through patrol lines before, Peter. I assure you you will not talk me out of this. Oh, yes. And we have talked enough.”

Krylov pointed the pistol at the back of Levashev’s head.

The General looked around slowly. When he saw the muzzle three feet from his head he paled. He turned his head back and placed both his palms flat on the desk. Brook saw his lips move. By God, the old Marxist’s praying! he thought.

“Wait, Alex, think it over,” Brook said. “You’ll have to take me out to keep me from coming after you. Because I’m not going to let you pull that trigger without giving it the old college try. My life isn’t worth a damn now, anyway, when my superiors find out how I’ve loused this up. I’m diving for that pistol on the floor. You can either shoot me or shoot the General, but one of us will get to you. Put the gun down, Alex, unless you have a real yen to commit suicide. We can work out a deal.”

“Thank you for reminding me of your pistol. Stand still, Peter. One move and my first shot is for you. I do not think, at the General’s age, that he will give me any trouble. Very still.”

He glided forward, his eyes and the gun on Brook. Brook was glaring at Levashev, trying to communicate. This was their chance! If only the General would jump at Krylov, throw the ashtray at his head, anything to divert his aim... but the old Russian sat there, eyes closed, praying like any muzhik.

Here goes nothing and bye-bye Mr. Holloway, Brook thought. He set himself.

Behind Brook the door opened.

Krylov, in a crouch over Brook’s pistol, fired at the door with Levashev’s. In an extension of the same motion he scooped Brook’s pistol from the floor. Brook hurled himself edgewise in a forward parabola. An instant before he crashed into the KGB man, lightning blinded him and an A-bomb went off in his ear. Krylov had fired again. Brook felt no pain. He and the Russian were grappling now; he had a hard grip on the hand that held General Levashev’s gun. The weapon the Russian had snatched from the floor was back there, dropped at Brook’s lunge.

The struggling men swung about in a slow half turn, like adagio dancers. Brook saw a white-coated figure slumped face down in the doorway — the Filipino houseman who had answered the General’s buzz.

They were locked; there was no room for maneuver. Krylov was very strong. Too strong. He wasn’t worked over by Stark and his China boys two weeks ago, Brook thought. For the first time he considered defeat. Krylov was bending his arm back, gradually breaking the grip on his wrist.

They were eyeball to eyeball; those blue eyes were searching his in a routine way. The Russian’s face was without expression. There was no bloodlust in it; almost no interest.

From somewhere behind them Brook heard General Levashev moving at last. He hoped it was in their direction, with the ashtray. His arm was now bent so far back that the pain was invading his groin. In a moment his grip would be broken, or his arm, and then Krylov would shoot him.

The pain became intolerable. Krylov broke free and shoved him powerfully away. As Brook staggered back, the Russian whirled and got off a snap-shot at an oblique angle. General Levashev, on hands and knees, was scrambling for Brook’s pistol. The old man fell violently forward as Krylov’s bullet struck him, and lay still.

Brook was in a spring before Krylov could turn Levashev’s gun on him. There was no time for subtlety. He swung a haymaker. It caught the Russian on the side of the face, too high to put him out, but stunning enough to make Krylov stumble and drop to one knee and lose his grip on the gun.

So there they were, in that tiny stasis, with both weapons on the floor, facing each other across a few feet of no man’s land, Levashev’s body to one side and their courses predetermined by training and instinct. Brook dived for the nearer pistol, which was his. Krylov dived for the other, which was Levashev’s. And they were on their feet, each with a pistol aimed at the other, in the same microsecond.

Krylov spoke first. “So, Peter. A stalemate.”

“Looks that way.”

Each man’s eyes were fixed, not on the other’s face, but on the forefinger curled about the trigger.

“Marx says somewhere that when you have reached a stalemate you negotiate. I have forgotten the exact quotation. It has been some time since I read the texts.”

“Negotiate,” Brook said. “Which means give yourself time to get the jump. I remind you, Alex, that in a situation like this nobody wins. You might beat me to the shot by a hair, but good old Mother Nature will pull my trigger, too, and there we’ll be — two dead men, or two critically wounded men. Either way you don’t escape.”

“I see,” Krylov said. “Yes, that makes sense. Then let us negotiate in good faith. I have a suggestion.”

“What?”

“I walk out of here. You give me one hour’s grace. Of course, it leaves me at a disadvantage. I would have to take your word that you will not raise an alarm before the hour is up.”

“You’d take it?”

“I see no alternative. Do you?”

“Of course. Drop your pistol. You’ve done your job. You can’t possibly make it home free. Why die for nothing?”

“It is the chance I must take. It is better than committing suicide.”

“You wouldn’t necessarily have to die, Alex. You know how these things go. Life imprisonment, for the record, and an exchange for an American agent later.”

“I do not think so,” Krylov said. “Not in this case. And life imprisonment for me would be the same as dying.” His eyes flicked up for just a moment.

Brook’s did not. His finger tightened imperceptibly on his trigger.

“I see,” Krylov said. “You are very controlled, Peter. So.”

“Bringing us right back to where we were.”

“You play chess, Peter?”

“Yes,” Brook said. “It’s one of my boss’s aberrations.”

“Then you know that in a stalemate the board is cleared and a new game begun. There is no other choice. I will leave through that window. One hour from that moment you may report this. I must have your word.”

“I wouldn’t keep it. You know that.”

“Perhaps. I have the curious feeling you might.”

“You’re a fool.”

“Perhaps.”

They stood there, silent. Then Brook said reflectively, “That’s a report I wouldn’t like to make.”

“Embarrassment before your superiors, even punishment, is better than dying here, is it not?”

“You have a point, Alex.”

“It is more than fair. Under this arrangement the odds are all with you. You cannot possibly die, whereas even with an hour’s start I may well be caught anyway. So then you win the new game with a quick checkmate. I am taking all the risks. Your word, Peter.”

“Let me ask you, Alex,” Brook said. “Suppose our positions were reversed. Would you keep your word?”

The slightest frown appeared between the Russian’s heavy brows. “I am not sure. I should have to find myself in your position.”

“All right,” Brook said, “it’s a deal. You have my word. I suggest we both lower these pistols together, at the same time and rate, very slowly, and we’ll drop them—”

“Rather let us put them in our belts. I shall need this if I am to stand a chance of escaping.”

Brook shook his head. “Nothing doing, Alex. One of my people might be killed. You know I can’t agree to that.”

Krylov considered. Brook could only admire his calm. The Russian was in an all but impossible spot. “Very well,” Krylov said at last, “I concede. Are you ready?”

“Now,” Brook said.

It was a beautiful exercise in unison. Inch by inch the hands holding the weapons lowered. Neither man took his eyes off the other’s gun-hand. When the pistols were pointed at the floor Brook said, “We drop them now, Alex. At the count of three. One... two—”

That was the critical moment. Would Krylov try a shot? Brook was ready. But the General’s pistol dropped from Krylov’s hand. A breath later Brook’s followed.

“You did not trust me,” Krylov said reprovingly.

“That’s why I’m still alive.”

“You could have shot me.”

“I’m a fool, too.”

They almost smiled at each other. “That makes me feel better about my chances,” Krylov said. “However, I have still to get out of this room. I think, Peter, it would be more professional if I did not leave you with the pistol at your feet while I go to the window. Accompany me.”

They walked side by side to the window. Krylov glanced out and around quickly. Then he threw a leg over the sill.

“Goodbye, Peter.”

“Dasvidanya, Alex.”

Krylov was through the window and running. Brook stood there until the Russian was lost in the rolling sandhills among the piñon trees. He glanced fretfully at his watch. He was still undecided. Since when did a FACE agent’s word to the enemy mean a damn? It was downright treason, or would be so called by Holloway. Yet something held him back. Damn it all, he thought, I grew to like the bastard. Maybe I’ll give him ten minutes.

“Mr. Brook.”

He whirled. In a half-seated pose on the floor, leaning on an elbow, was General Levashev.

The old man was holding his bloody side. “I thought you were dead,” Brook said, running over. “Lie back, General. I’ll get a doctor.”

“It is painful, but only a flesh wound, I think,” the Russian said. “If you thought I was dead, so did Krylov. I did not dare let him know that he had missed a vital organ. He would have finished me off.”

“Don’t talk, General.” Brook ripped the old man’s shirt away. The bullet had drilled through the externus muscle in the fleshy part between the rib cage and the hip — messy, but hardly serious. “Is there a first-aid kit somewhere?”

“In the bathroom. It is off the hall.”

On his way Brook paused briefly to check the Filipino. There was no pulse in the carotid artery. The houseman was dead. When he got back with the kit he applied a dressing to the General’s wound, raised him, and helped him to the couch. Then he went to the telephone. Levashev was watching him. “Yes, I’m going to break my word to Krylov, General. It’s the only way I can get a doctor here.”

“I take it, Mr. Brook,” Levashev said, “that except for this you would have kept your word?”

“I haven’t had time to think about it,” Brook said shortly.

“I think that is not so,” the Russian said. “You are strange people, you Americans. Is this what your service teaches you? I am astonished.”

Brook did not reply. It was like being dressed down by Holloway. He was staring down at the dial.

“For the gatehouse,” Levashev said, “you dial nine.”

Brook shook himself alert. “I’ve got to call Washington first.” He took a breath and dialed a long series of digits.

“Special Projects Section.”

“Code Two,” Brook said.

“One moment, sir!”

“Yes?” Holloway’s voice, a knife made from an icicle.

“Brook. Is the wire secure?”

“One second.” There was a click. “Okay, scrambler on. What is it, Brook?”

“Krylov was sent to kill Levashev. He made a play, and there was a hassle. He wounded Levashev — not seriously — and got away.”

“You let him get away?” Holloway had digested the whole thing with the speed of a computer; as usual, he came up with the nitty-gritty.

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. I’ll be interested in the detailed report. How about you?”

“I’m all right.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“Nobody but the General. I haven’t had time to call the guards, wanted to report this to you fast. I don’t see how Krylov can get away. Oh, yes. He killed the houseman.”

“He was no houseman. He belonged to our friends across the Potomac.”

“Well, he’s had it.”

“There’s something about this you’re not telling me, Brook. What is it?”

“You want my resignation, sir?”

“All right, all right,” Holloway said, to Brook’s surprise. “Hold it a minute.” Listening to the humming silence, Brook wondered what was going through that mind. “Maybe,” Holloway’s voice said slowly, “maybe this is the break I’ve been looking for. Yes, I think it is. Still in possession of your baggage?”

“Yes.”

“You couldn’t possibly have been dumb enough to let Krylov get in with a weapon. Did he use yours, or Levashev’s?”

“Levashev’s.”

“That’s what I figured. All right, Brook. Use that one.”

Brook was bewildered. “For what, Mr. Holloway?”

“To kill the General,” Holloway said.