Mirror Image

CHAPTER SEVENTY

When she first saw the spy's surprising twist on the stairs, Valya thought that she intended to shoot her and her instinct was to duck. The Russian started to go down, but when she realized that the spy was falling, Valya checked herself and darted after her. It was always surprising what one could get from a wounded or dying individual. Often their guard was down or they were so dazed that they said things, sometimes important things.

Guests gasped but stood aside as the woman rode down the twenty or so steps on her shoulder, appearing not to hit her head, then reaching the landing with an awkward somersault over one shoulder onto her side. She lay moaning in a fetal position, her legs moving weakly, as visitors gathered around. One called to a guard for assistance, while two others knelt, one of them doffing his jacket and slipping it under her head.

"Don't touch her!" Valya yelled. "Get away!"

The Russian reached the bottom of the stairs and pulled a snub-nosed pistol from an ankle holster.

"This woman's a wanted criminal," she said. "Leave this matter in our hands."

The Russians backed away quickly. The foreigners saw the gun and did likewise.

Valya hopped over Peggy so that she was facing her.

Then she looked up at the stragglers.

"I said leave!" Valya shrilled, and swept outward with the back of her hand. "Go!"

The last of the gawkers did, and Valya looked back at Peggy. The spy's eyes were shut and her right arm was under her chest, her hand against but under her chin. Her left arm was limp at her side.

Valya didn't care what might be broken or damaged inside of her. Holding the gun under the woman's chin, Valya rolled her onto her back.

Peggy winced, her mouth formed a pained little oval, and then she relaxed again.

"That was an unpleasant fall," Valya said in English. "Can you understand me?"

With apparent effort, Peggy nodded a little.

"You British are dropping like autumn leaves," Valya said. "First I terminated the comic book publisher and his team, now you." Valya pushed the mouth of the gun into the soft flesh under Peggy's throat. "I'll see that you get to a hospital," she said, "after we talk."

Peggy's lips moved. "Be… before—"

"No, no," said Valya with a wicked grin. "After. I want to know some things about your operation first. For instance, in Helsinki, what was the name of—"

Peggy moved so quickly that Valya didn't have time to react. She raised the closed fist that had been resting on her chin, the fist in which she held her lapel knife. The blade was pointing down, and Peggy jammed it into the depression above Valya's clavicle and tore inward, toward the larynx. At the same time, she used the elbow of her left hand to push Valya's other arm to the floor, in case the gun discharged.

It didn't. The Russian woman released the gun and grabbed desperately at Peggy's fist with both of her hands, scratching vainly to dislodge the knife.

"What I was going to say," Peggy sneered, "was, 'Before you worry about taking me to a hospital, make sure the fall was an accident!' " She pushed the knife harder and Valya gurgled and slumped to her side. "That agent you killed was my autumn leaf," she added, "and this is for him."

"Don't move!" a voice shouted in Russian from the top of the staircase.

Peggy looked up at a slender, ascetic-looking man in the uniform of a spetsnaz colonel. At the end of his outstretched, very steady arm was a P-6 silent pistol. Behind him, still gasping and rubbing his throat, was the man Volko had attacked.

"I'm going to get out from under your friend," Peggy replied in Russian. She turned to her side to throw Valya off. The woman's eyes were shut and her face was white as her life poured haphazardly onto the marble floor.

The Colonel was walking down the steps behind his firearm. Peggy dumped Valya onto her back and rose, her own back to the steps.

"Arms up," the officer said to her. If he felt any remorse about Peggy's victim, she didn't hear it in his voice.

"I know the drill," Peggy said, turning wearily as she started to raise her hands.

When they were chest-high she turned suddenly, holding the snub-nosed pistol she'd picked up when she threw Valya over. There were no tourists in the way as she fired at Colonel Rossky, who stopped where he was, seven steps up, and took her salvo as if he were in a duel. He met it with fire of his own.

Peggy didn't stay where she was. Immediately after firing her short burst, she threw herself to the left, onto the ground, and rolled until she hit the banister.

After several seconds, the echoing gunfire stopped and only a pungent, rising, rapidly thinning tester of smoke remained of the exchange— that, and the crawling red stains on the front of Colonel Rossky's uniform.

The officer's expression didn't change. His breed had been trained to suffer pain in silence. But after a moment the extended arm wavered, the P-6 fell to the floor, and then Rossky followed it, doing a delicate turn as he dropped to his back. His arms splayed, head facing down, the spetsnaz warrior slid to the landing, where he came to a stop beside Valya.

Peggy trained her pistol on Pogodin, who had been crouching at the top of the staircase, behind the ornate newel. She had seen him kill Volko and he deserved to die. But he seemed to read her thoughts, or perhaps saw the promise of death in her eyes, and broke suddenly from the staircase, running back toward the gallery. Peggy heard the distant clatter of running feet; whether it was security, panicked tourists, or even strikers itching for a fight, she had no idea. But as much as she wanted Volko's killer dead, there wasn't time to chase him.

Turning, Peggy tucked the gun inside her shirt and ran down the stairs screaming in Russian, "Help! The killer is up here! He's a madman!"

As security forces pushed past her, she hurried, still shrieking, through the main entrance. There, Peggy quieted as she lost herself among the strikers who had crowded inside, hoping that it wasn't one of their own— or a government plant pretending to be one of their own— who had gone berserk