The Red Horseman

14

Jake was in the empty office next to the switchboard when Toad Tarkington returned. “Looks pretty deserted out there, Admiral, all things considered. A few people gawking at the bodies but that’s about it.”

“They haven’t picked up the bodies?”

“No, sir.”

“Any Russian cops around?”

“Not a one in sight. They split early this morning.”

“Go get a car. Open the gate and bring it into the compound. No, get two cars. Go.”

Toad went. One of his great virtues was that he never had to be told anything twice. Nor did he ask foolish questions or want directions clarified. He just grabbed the ball and ran with it.

Spiro Dalworth came in leading Jack Yocke, who looked grim.

“Go help the chief with the maps and weapons,” Jake told the lieutenant, who closed the door behind him.

Yocke glanced at his watch. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Sit down.”

Yocke did so. “Dalworth said you wanted to see me.”

Jake just nodded. Yocke was wearing jeans, moderately dirty tennis shoes, and a nondescript sweater. Jake dimly recalled seeing Tarkington in that sweater a few days ago. Yocke must have helped himself. He still looked as American as a ball park hot dog. Jake Grafton pulled out the lower drawer of the desk he was sitting behind and parked his feet on it. A muffled report of a gun penetrated into the room. Jake closed his eyes and massaged his forehead.

“Admiral,” Yocke began impatiently, “I really—”

“How long do you think you’ll last out there before the KGB picks you up?”

Jack Yocke’s face first showed surprise, then darkened into anger. “You were listening! Damned if I will—”

“Shut up!” Grafton’s voice cracked like a whip. He softened it a little and continued, “You aren’t naive enough to think it’s possible to have a private conversation on a telephone in this country, are you? They tell me that sometimes there are so many eavesdroppers on the line that there isn’t enough juice left to ring your phone.”

Yocke leaped to his feet, grabbed a bound report off the desk and hurled it against the far wall. He planted his feet in front of the desk where Jake sat and glowered down at the admiral. “I’m about fed up to here with this cra—”

“Sit down and we’ll talk this over.” Jake nodded at the chair Yocke had vacated.

When Yocke was back in his chair, Jake continued. “You’re a good reporter, Jack. Somewhere deep inside that polished chrome Post ego I think you really do give a teeny-tiny damn about the people you write about. But, honest to God, when are you going to see that you are in about ten miles over your head?”

Yocke merely stared at the admiral.

“I want you to keep your date with Shirley Ross. We’re going to help you.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. The U.S. government wants to help little ol’ me, praise the Lord! I don’t know whether to shout hosannas or just let the pee tickle down my leg.” He took a long deep breath and exhaled slowly while he examined his hands. Finally he said, “What do you think she wants to talk to me about?”

“I don’t know.”

Yocke thought that over. “Her name isn’t Shirley Ross, is it?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you level with me, Jake?”

“I am leveling with you,” Jake Grafton said, the soul of reason. “The truth is that you can’t tell the wrong people what you don’t know. I suggest you take a little comfort from that fact. There are people in Russia who could make a stone sing — they’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Boy, they’d be wasting their talents on this kid. You still haven’t even told me why you want me to go out there tonight. For some strange reason I have this sneaky suspicion it ain’t got nothing to do with writing stories for the Washington Post.”

“I want to have a private chat with Shirley Ross. You’re going to get her for me.”

Jack Yocke didn’t reply. He worried a fingernail and glanced at Jake Grafton from time to time, but he had nothing more to say.

Senior Chief Holley and Spiro Dalworth returned carrying maps and guns. Jake Grafton selected a map of the city and spread it out on the desk. Then Toad came breezing in. “Cars are ready,” he announced and glanced at Yocke, who ignored him.

“Gather around.” Jake leaned over the map. He pointed out the embassy and the Rizhsky subway station, which was a transfer point for the adjoining train station.

“The first assumption is that the KGB listened to the call. They monitor all calls to the embassy. Shirley Ross knows that. So she will have to pick Jack up before he gets to the rendezvous. Now there are two ways to figure the KGB — either they think Shirley and Jack are who they seem, two neophytes playing games, so they merely go to the subway station and wait for them to arrive, or they figure that these are two pros and the meet will occur on the way, so they try to follow Jack from the embassy. My guess is they’ll play it both ways, try to follow Jack and have people at the station, just in case.”

“Third possibility, sir,” Toad said. “Maybe they’ll think the subway station was just a blind and the meet is on for someplace else.”

“So they follow Jack,” the admiral said. He looked at the reporter. “The second assumption is that they really want Shirley. Want her alive or dead. You’re just bait.” Jake Grafton shrugged. “I may be wrong. They may try to grab you as soon as they lay eyes on you. Are you in?”

“Want her alive or dead? Why?”

Jake thought about it. How much could he tell Yocke? “By this stage of the game the folks in Dzerzhinsky Square may have gotten an inkling or two that Ms. Ross is the source of some of their painful difficulties.”

Yocke’s face was flushed. “You’ve assumed all along that I was going to help you. I haven’t decided.”

Jake Grafton had had enough. “Don’t get pissy with me, kid. You’ve got ten seconds to decide. Yes or no.”

The pistols that the senior chief had put on the desk were 9mm automatics. Jake picked one up, popped out the magazine and reached for a box of cartridges on the desk.

“Why do you want Shirley?” Yocke asked.

Jake Grafton’s open palm descended onto the desk with a vicious smack. “In or out?” he snarled.

“Fuck! I’m in.”

“We’ll meet you here.” He stabbed his finger at the map and everyone bent over to look. “It’s that park on the south bank of the Moskva River where the statues are, about four hundred yards east of the entrance to Gorky Park.” He looked at the reporter. “You’re going to have to find it in the dark. Study this map carefully. When Shirley picks you up, you bring her here. If you’re followed there will probably be shooting. I want Shirley Ross alive and uninjured. She’s your responsibility.”

“What if she doesn’t want to meet you?”

“Make sure she does. Tell her anything you want.”

Jack Yocke looked from face to face. He swallowed once. “I don’t get paid anywhere near enough to do this shit.”

“When this is over we’ll get you a tattoo.”

Toad Tarkington slapped Yocke on the back. “Relax, Jack. Everybody has to contribute their mite. And under our enlightened system of government you only have to die once. That’s right in the Bill of Rights along with all the freedoms — freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of sexual satisfaction, freedom from ex-wives, free—”

“Kiss my ass, you silly son of a bitch.”

“Do this right and I’ll kiss your ass at high noon on the front steps of the Washington Post.”

“I want a story out of this,” Yocke told Grafton.

“You know the rules,” the admiral replied mildly. “If and when I say.”

Jack Yocke bit his lip. He was going to write a story about this whether Jake Grafton liked it or not. Grafton knew damn well who Shirley Ross was — probably an American agent: he had known from the moment Yocke first mentioned her name. And Grafton didn’t even cheep. And Tarkington — always with the smart mouth and shit-eating grin because he knows something you don’t. Yocke’s slow burn began to sizzle.

Jesus, what if that story she gave him about the Soviet Square killings wasn’t true? Could it have been a setup? The possibilities swirled in Yocke’s mind as he examined the admiral through narrowed eyes. He looked at the nose a touch too big, the short salt-and-pepper hair, the cold gray eyes. Grafton could have set it up! Sure.

Say Shirley’s story was all true except for the identity of the person who made the telephone call to the KGB agents. Say the agents thought they were talking to Demodov and it wasn’t really him. What if Demodov was the fall guy? What if Demodov’s denial was true?

Was Jake Grafton capable of a stunt like that?

Like what? Faking the phone call to set up Kolokoltsev? Or killing that neo-nazi and his aides? Kolokoltsev was no great loss to anybody. In fact, his demise was one of the few bright spots in a Russia trying to come to grips with a sordid past and an uncertain future. That bigoted demagogue…was …

Staring at the admiral now, Jack Yocke felt the cool hard shape of truth as rigid as steel. Jake Grafton was capable of doing whatever he thought was right. God help the poor bastard who wandered into the way! Jake Graf—

“You want a gun?” Jake was holding out an automatic. Dalworth and the senior chief were loading M-16s.

The reporter stared at the pistol, his train of thought broken. A gun. He shook his head. “If I get caught with a gun the Post will fire me.”

Toad was incredulous. “I knew civilian jobs were hard to get, but… You’d rather be dead than unemployed?”

“If I’m unarmed they may not shoot me. Killing reporters is damn poor PR. Sooner or later they’ll get tired of feeding me and ship me home to the bony bosom of my editor.”

Jake Grafton shrugged and tossed the pistol on the table. “Your choice.”

“And I thought you’d decided to get into the game,” Toad Tarkington said.

“Been a lot of reporters buried because they knew too much,” the senior chief remarked.

Yocke flipped a hand in acknowledgment but refused to change his mind.

Jack Yocke walked out of the embassy with nothing but his passport in one pocket and a wad of rubles in another. He had studied the map for fifteen minutes and thought he knew where he was going. He had exactly six minutes to make the subway station rendezvous and there was no way. He had pointed out to Grafton that he was going to be very late, but the admiral said, “They’ll wait for you,” and made him take the time to study the map carefully.

He scurried out the main gate past the bodies lying in the street, pathetic little piles of rags with all the life smashed out. His course inadvertently took him by the body of the woman incinerated by her own Molotov cocktail. He tried not to look, looked anyway and almost vomited.

Moscow was not lit up like an American or European city. Occasional weak streetlights enlivened the gloom and gave enough light to see, but they offered little comfort.

Yocke wasn’t alone on the street. People were watching from doorways and alleys, people staying well under cover. Yet they made no move to interfere with him. There was no traffic at all.

He walked as fast as he could and had to resist the urge to break into a trot.

If his editor ever heard about this evening’s expedition he would be fired within two heartbeats for taking foolish risks. So why had he agreed to this anyway?

Grafton had laid out the route, the most direct way to the rendezvous. His course took him north on Tchaikovsky Street, through Vosstanija Square and onto Sadovaja-Kudrinskaja Street, which was really the same boulevard as Tchaikovsky Street. The names of the streets of Moscow changed at every major intersection, a European tradition designed to baffle tourists and keep taxi drivers fully employed.

He was getting into the rhythm now, his heart and lungs pumping as he swung along with a stride that ate up the distance.

Once he heard running footsteps and ducked into a doorway. The street was empty. Trying to stay calm, he stood stock-still for several seconds as his heart thudded like a trip-hammer.

Were they watching? Waiting for him?

“Someone will meet you long before you get there,” Jake Grafton had said.

Of course someone is watching.

For the first time that evening Jack Yocke felt the icy fingers of true fear. Unsure of what he should do now, he finally stepped back onto the sidewalk and resumed his journey. Where in hell was Shirley Ross?

His head was swiveling uncontrollably. When he realized that he was really seeing nothing because he was trying to see everything, he locked his head facing forward. Still his eyes swept nervously from side to side and he couldn’t resist an occasional glance behind him. But he wasn’t being followed.

They must be watching. Of course!

They. Whoever they were. Watching him hump along like a bug scurrying across a stone floor. Any second the shoe would come smashing down and—

He could smell himself. He was perspiring freely and he stank. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and rubbed his hand against his trousers, which left a wet spot.

A little car came around the corner and drove past him. The two heads — two male heads — didn’t turn his way. The car went up the street and turned right at the next corner. A black car.

He was tiring. The nervous energy was burning off and the pace he was making was too fast. He slowed to almost normal speed.

Ahead of him on the right a door opened. Unconsciously he swerved left toward the street and picked up his pace.

God! He should have accepted that pistol Grafton offered. Grafton knew what the score was and offered it — why didn’t he have the sense to—

“In here, Jack.”

It was her voice, a conversational tone.

“Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Come in here now!”

He went through the door into a darkened hallway. She was there, with a man. The man closed the door and she took his arm. “Through here, quickly. We have a car out back. Hurry.” She broke into a trot.

“Jake Grafton wants to see you.”

“Where?”

“A park on the south side of the Moskva. He said—”

“Quiet.” She went through a door and they were in an alley. “Into the car.” She dove into the passenger seat and Yocke climbed into the back. Before he could get the door completely closed the car was in motion. He opened it partially and slammed it shut.

“Lie down,” she said.

He did so.

The car swerved and accelerated with a blast from the exhaust.

“Jake Grafton said that—”

“Wait.”

With his head against the seat Yocke tried to look out the windows. The car was accelerating down a narrow street, now braking and swerving around another corner.

“When the car stops,” Shirley Ross said, “I want you to quickly get out. The same side you got in on. Be sure to close the door. There will be a panel truck right beside the car. You go into the truck and I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay.”

And almost immediately the car swerved sideways again. In seconds the driver applied the brakes.

“Now.”

He sat up and grabbed the door handle and got out as fast as he could. There were four vans there, but only one with the rear doors open. Shirley pushed him toward it. He scrambled in and she followed and someone closed the door and the vehicle began to move.

“Where?” she said.

“A park on the south side of the river four hundred yards east of the entrance to Gorky Park. They put the statues there after they tore them down.”

“I know where it is.” She moved forward in the van’s interior and said something to the driver in a language Yocke didn’t know.

When she returned to his side she devoted her attention to a small device she held in her hand. Then she held it up to her ear. A radio. Yocke could hear the voices.

“Are we being followed?”

“They are following three of the vans.”

“This one?”

She held up a hand to silence him. After a minute she went forward to confer with the driver.

How in hell had he gotten himself into this mess anyway? Hurtling through the streets of Moscow in a van that smelled like a garbage truck, being trailed by the KGB — he braced himself against the swaying of the vehicle as it darted around a corner.

She was back beside him. “In a few minutes we will switch vehicles again. Stay with me.”

“Okay.”

She listened intently to the radio.

“What’s your real name?”

She didn’t reply.

“What did you want to tell me?”

“You? Nothing. I need to talk to Jake Grafton and the telephones are all tapped. He figured it out.”

Jack Yocke opened his mouth again but now her fingers were against his face, feminine fingers that brushed his cheek and remained against his lips.

Jake Grafton sat in the grass with his back against one of Felix Dzerzhinsky’s bronze legs, facing in the direction of Gorky Park. About seventy-five yards to the north, his right, was the south bank of the Moskva River. Farther ahead on the right, between where he sat and the boulevard in front of the Gorky Park entrance columns, was a vast low building, a cultural institute, with its empty parking lots. Farther to the west the Grecian columns of the park entrance gate were visible behind streetlights on the boulevard. Several hundred yards away to the south, on Jake’s left, were block after block of drab apartment buildings. Behind him to the east the park went for a quarter mile until it reached a street.

Toad Tarkington was on Jake’s left lying on his belly amid some scrub trees and weeds. Spiro Dalworth was against the corner of the cultural building. Senior Chief Holley was behind Jake, watching his back. All three men had M-16s.

The city seemed abnormally quiet tonight, Jake Grafton thought. Perhaps the day of rioting had drained the energy from the Muscovites and they were home in bed worrying about their future. They certainly had a bucketful of troubles to fret about.

Ambassador Lancaster had telephoned as Grafton was walking out the door of his apartment, five minutes after dispatching Jack Yocke. Toad took the call and made some excuse. Whatever was on the ambassador’s mind would have to wait a few hours.

Tonight Jake’s .357 Magnum revolver lay beside him in the grass. All he had to do was drop his hand to it. In his hands he held a stick that he had picked up before he sat down. He was whittling upon it with his pocketknife while he speculated about what Lancaster had wanted. Lancaster didn’t seem the type to invite him to Spaso House for an evening of poker.

No stars tonight.

Another high overcast that might or might not bring rain.

How long had it been? Twenty minutes?

Over on the boulevard in front of Gorky Park several trucks rumbled by. The noise carried oddly, sounding abnormally loud. The city was too quiet.

Looking the other way, toward the northeast, Jake could see the turrets and spires of the Kremlin, lit up tonight as usual. It was eerie, in a way, how for centuries that old fortress had housed czars and czarinas in extraordinary opulence. Favored by accidents of birth, they had lived out their lives in that palace and the one in St. Petersburg while the mass of Russians struggled just to stay alive. When the Communists came along they moved right in. Yet like the czars, the days of the Reds were over, so tonight Yeltsin and his allies were in there trying to figure out how to ride the tiger. And out here amid the discarded, smashed statues the Russians were still struggling to stay alive, just as they always had.

Bracing his elbows against his knees, Jake scanned the area again with what appeared to be heavy binoculars. Unlike regular binoculars, this set picked up infrared light.

He could see Spiro against the corner of the building. He had told the lieutenant to stay down, but he was up against the wall, peering this way and that.

Do the Russians have infrared binoculars?

Toad was nearly invisible — all Jake could see was the faintest indication of a glow where he must be lying. The senior chief seemed equally well hidden.

No one else in sight. Not a dog, not a prowling cat, not a drunk or pair of lovers. Well, it’s not a good night for drunks or lovers.

Jake raised the glasses and scanned the buildings to the south and east.

Somewhere in the city Yocke was playing secret agent. That guy! Always sure he knew everything when in reality he was just stumbling along in the dark with everyone else.

Maybe he shouldn’t have let Yocke go. If something happened to him…

Finally he lowered the glasses and zipped up his jacket. The evening was getting chilly. Wondering about Yocke, worrying about Yeltsin and his grand experiment, Jake Grafton went back to his whittling.

Jack Yocke couldn’t see any of the features of the man behind the wheel of the van, even looking in the rearview mirror. He had dark hair and wore a dark jacket and whispered with Shirley Ross in a foreign language that Yocke tried in vain to identify in the deep silence that had fallen once the van’s engine was turned off. This was the third van he had been in tonight. Shirley Ross apparently had access to a motor pool.

The driver and the woman consulted a map, made more whispered comments, stared out the window to the left. The driver had a handheld radio that now sounded startlingly loud. He turned down the volume and held it close to his ear.

Finally she turned back to Yocke. “The statutes are over there about a hundred yards or so, through the little trees.”

“Who are you?”

“You and I will get out and walk across the grass. Stay with me. If anything goes wrong, just fall down on your stomach and stay there.”

“If what goes wrong?”

“Anything.”

The man in the front seat handed back a submachine gun. Shirley Ross put the strap across her left shoulder, tucked the butt under her right armpit and grasped the pistol grip and trigger assembly with her right hand.

The driver got out of the van and closed the door. In seconds the rear doors of the van opened.

“Let’s go,” she said, and went first.

Jack Yocke took a deep breath, then followed.

The van was sitting in front of a huge slab of apartments. Across the street was the park. She was already moving. Yocke followed. As they crossed the sidewalk and entered the weeds and longish grass, it occurred to him that he had never even got a glimpse of the driver’s face.

There was just enough light for him to pick up the vague outline of tree trunks and bushes. He tripped twice, then had to take several long strides to catch up to Shirley Ross, who was just a vague black shape moving quickly away from him.

Once she stopped and he almost bumped into her, then she was moving again, though in a slightly different direction.

Just as Jack Yocke was beginning to wonder if she knew where she was going, she slowed down and spoke softly: “Good morning, Admiral.”

“Hello, Judith. Come sit over here by Stalin’s head.”

“I don’t think we were followed, but they might have fooled me. They’ve been running spot surveillance on you since you arrived and they’re hunting really hard for me.”

Yocke almost fell over the marble statue that lay on its side. He sat down with his back against it. Shirley sat on his right. Sitting facing them, with his back against one of the huge bronze statues, the reporter recognized Jake Grafton. He had a pair of heavy binoculars in his hands.

“I brought your reporter back,” Shirley told Jake. “Where can we put him so that you and I can have a private conversation?”

“Oh, I think he’s earned a little piece of the truth. He won’t print anything without my permission.”

“You trust him?”

Jake Grafton chuckled. “Beneath that polished, ambitious facade beats a pure and noble heart.”

“Shmarov blew up the Serdobsk reactor.”

“Sure,” Jake Grafton said. “And the KGB killed Kolokoltsev in Soviet Square. If we’re going to tell each other fairy stories, Judith, let’s go find a warm bar that serves good whiskey.”

“Oh, you know we killed Kolokoltsev. After we did it the KGB breathed a collective sigh of relief — the man was an embarrassment to the Old Guard heavy hitters — and so I thought why not get some PR mileage out of it, muddy the water.”

“How do you know about Serdobsk?”

“The helicopter pilot that flew them down there is one of ours. He helps us pay off the authorities and smuggle Jews out. Then a few nights ago he was called at home and told to come in for a priority flight. Five men and their equipment to the nuclear power plant at Serdobsk. When he got there he realized things weren’t going right when his passengers shot one security guard and herded the other inside. So he waited a bit, then started the engines and got out of there. The reactor blew up about two hours later.”

After a few seconds of silence, Jake Grafton asked, “Who does your man work for?”

“KGB.”

“And the passengers?”

“Also KGB. The man in charge was a Colonel Gagarin.”

“How do you know Gagarin blew the thing up?”

“Obviously I’m adding two and two.”

“Where’s Gagarin now?”

“I don’t know. He never came back.”

“He blew himself up?” Jake asked incredulously.

“Well, he didn’t shoot the guard at the front gate for sport, then carry bags full of equipment inside to equip the local baseball team. But he and his men could have gotten out somehow and the KGB then eliminated them. I don’t know.”

“And Shmarov?”

“Gagarin was one of his lieutenants. He didn’t do anything that Shmarov didn’t know about and approve.”

“It’s damn thin, Judith.”

“Admiral, in this business you are never going to get sworn affidavits.”

Jake Grafton could see her silhouette but not her face. She sounded tired. How many years had it been since he last saw her? He counted. Five. Five years running clandestine, covert operations, five years of false identities, deceit, risks calculated, chances taken, five years of stalking enemies of the Jewish state, five years of secret warfare…and she had been a covert operations professional when he first met her in Italy.

“Let’s talk about Nigel Keren,” Jake Grafton said.

“You guarantee that this reporter…?”

“If he writes a word that I don’t approve of, you can shoot him anywhere you find him.”

Jack Yocke didn’t think that was a joke.

The woman was answering Jake: “…Keren was financing our efforts to get Jews out of Russia. He gave us about a billion dollars.”

“A billion? That much money—”

“Bribes,” she told him. “Expenses. We had to pay off the authorities, pay for everything.” She turned slightly, toward Yocke. “You were looking for Yakov Dynkin? He’s in Israel now. We’ll get his wife there as soon as we can. We bought him out of prison, bought a false passport and visa. He left from Sheremetyevo.”

“Keren was a Jew,” Jack Yocke said.

“Keren wanted to help. The CIA finally found out about it through the KGB and decided to stop Keren’s contributions. The Arabs want Jewish immigration to Israel stopped and the CIA was trying — is trying — to play all sides in the Middle East. Iraq and Syria are buffers against Shiite fundamentalism, but they are bitter enemies of Israel. Give everybody a little, preserve the status quo. They—”

A shot rang out. Then another.

A stream of muzzle flashes from the darkness. Jack Yocke threw himself sideways as a surge of adrenaline shot through him and tried to burrow under the marble statue of Stalin. Vaguely he was aware of a silenced, guttural buzzing beside him, more shots, then a weight fell across his legs. A heavy report sounded just beside him. More shots.

And as suddenly as it began, it was over. In what, ten or fifteen seconds?

“Judith? Judith?” Jake Grafton’s voice.

Yocke tried to move but the weight on his legs held him. It was a body. “I’ve got her,” Jake Grafton said. “Get up, Jack.”

Grafton had a small penlight. “She’s been shot. Judith, can you hear me?”

Someone else was there. “Two CIA guys from the embassy.” Toad Tarkington’s voice. “They’re both dead. We’ve got to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Judith’s been shot,” Jake told him. Now Toad saw the revolver in his hand. “You and Yocke take her to the car and I’ll get the other guys.” He took the M-16 from Toad and slung it over his shoulder.

She was heavy. Jack Yocke got her legs and Toad her shoulders. Toad wanted to go faster than Yocke could manage. “Come on, you son of a bitch,” Toad swore. “Move it!”

They had to carry her a hundred yards. She seemed to weigh a ton and several times Yocke thought he might drop her. She was limp, unconscious. Somehow his savage grip on her bare, shaved legs seemed obscene, an invasion of her womanhood that added embarrassment to the stew of emotions surging through the reporter.

“What happened?” Yocke asked Toad between breaths as they stumbled along.

“Two men. I got one with the first shot and the other charged and exchanged shots with Judith. I think they shot each other or else Grafton or somebody drilled him. Hell, maybe I got him too, not that it matters a damn. I got a look at their bodies. Both CIA guys from the embassy.”

CIA? Jesus, Yocke swore under his breath, he thought that story this Shirley or Judith or whatever her name is had told was all crap!

“What did you say?” Toad demanded.

“Jesus!”

She groaned once, just before they maneuvered her into the backseat. Toad jumped in back. “You drive, Jack. Keys are under the floormat.”

Yocke got behind the wheel and fumbled with the keys.

“Come on, Yocke! Let’s get her to the embassy before she bleeds to death.”

Somehow Yocke got the right key into the ignition and the engine started. He pulled the lever into drive and tried to resist the urge to floor the accelerator.

In the backseat Toad was trying to see where she was hit. Three bullet holes, as near as he could tell, all into the left lung area. He had his arm around her and could feel the warm, sticky wetness. Damn! One of them must have punched into her heart.

She whispered something. He put his ear almost against her lips. “Hello, Robert.”

“We’ll get you to the doc at the embassy, Hannah.” Without thinking, he had used her real name. He almost bit his tongue.

Her pulse was fluttering, her muscles slack.

And Toad knew. She was dying. Fury welled in him, all the frustrated bitterness accumulated through the years from loving a woman when the love wasn’t returned, couldn’t be returned — now it washed over him as a wave of pure rage, then as suddenly dissipated, leaving an emptiness in its place.

“Judith Farrell,” he whispered, his lips right next to her ear. “I have loved two women in my life. You were the first.”

Whether or not she heard him he didn’t know. A moment later he realized she had no pulse. He hugged her tighter and sat watching the buildings as the car sped through empty streets.