The Shadowmen

Thirty-six Hours Later

McGarvey, the Beretta he’d taken off the men who had tried to mug him in Monte-Carlo in hand, stood at the open door of the caretaker’s apartment outside the Castelo de Oro. Pete, her subcompact Glock semiautomatic also out, was two steps behind him, making sure Kallinger wasn’t somewhere in the darkness at their six.

The old man lay on his side in his sitting room, his head at a loose angle to the left. His neck had been broken.

McGarvey stepped inside, bent down over the body, and felt for a pulse in the carotid artery. There was none, but the old man’s skin was still pliable and warm.

“How long?” Pete asked.

“Maybe a few minutes, but less than an hour.”

“He was waiting until we showed up at the bottom of the hill.”

They had arrived in Lisbon early yesterday afternoon when Pete phoned Didenko to tell him where they were, and they’d holed up in a suite at the Hotel Avenida Palace to wait for Kallinger to show up.

Martine’s car had been found abandoned in Marseille, but Otto had been unable to find any trace of Kallinger after that — no last-minute bookings that matched his profile on any train or airline that day. The only reasonable assumption was that he’d rented a car — stealing another one would have been too risky — and had driven the thousand miles or so to Ponte de Sor northeast of Lisbon.

“What if he doesn’t come to you?” Pete asked, and Otto had asked the same thing.

“He probably won’t,” McGarvey said. “But he had the general tell me that he was heading to Portugal, and I told him, ‘Here I am. Come get me.’”

“But he wants you to go to the castle where you killed the man he thought was his brother,” Pete had pressed.

They were seated at a sidewalk café overlooking the busy Tagus River, the day pleasantly bright and breezy.

“He wanted me to come to Arlington to see his handiwork, and he wanted me to come to Monte-Carlo. Now I want him to come to me.”

Pete watched a large, two-masted sailboat work its way past. “What was so important about the castle?”

“The Nazis had hidden gold they’d taken from Jews in the crypts underground. It’s a long story, but we ended up together there, and he drowned when he set off a gas explosion and the tunnels flooded. They didn’t find his body until they recovered the gold when the water was finally pumped out and the crypts were repaired. That was fifteen years ago.”

McGarvey could feel the darkness all around him and the water rising over his head. It had been one of the most horrible experiences in his life — other than witnessing the murders of his wife and daughter. He’d felt a sense of helplessness and panic both times, because he’d not been able to fight back.

“Call the military intelligence people; let them go out there and arrest him,” Pete said. “He’ll be charged with two murders.”

“No.”

“Why, goddamn it? Can you tell me that much? You could get yourself — both of us — killed. At least let me know why we’re doing this.”

“Why I’m doing this.”

“All right — you!”

“Katy and Liz.”

Pete had looked away. “Shit,” she’d said softly.

Now that the gold had been found and taken away, there was no need for security. During the day, there would be employees tending to the tourists, but at night, after the castle was closed to the public, it was only the old man. There was no reason for Kallinger to have killed him except to send another message.

McGarvey left the body where it lay and brushed past Pete. Otto had found out that of the three openings into the crypts, two were blocked by heavy steel bars, leaving only one way in or out. The entrance was just beyond an inner gate to the west of the caretaker’s house and halfway along what remained of one the walls on the side of the castle facing out across the countryside, mostly filed with olive groves.

The gate was open, and moving low and fast, Mac and Pete made their way to the entrance to the crypt, its steel gate also open. Stairs led down to the first chamber of what had originally been part of the castle’s keep about fifty feet below. From there, low tunnels lined with coffins or remains wrapped in linen sloped back under the hill, in some places to a depth of two hundred feet. Small electric lights illuminated the stairs, but the bottom was lost in darkness.

They were crouched on the right side of the open gate, out of the dim illumination from inside.

Pete put a hand on Mac’s arm. “This is crazy. He’s not going to let himself be cornered down there.”

“He’s found another way out,” McGarvey said. “In his mind, it was his brother I killed in the tunnels, and he wants to re-create the scenario.”

“The other two gates are blocked.”

“Then he’s gone ahead and stuck a quarter kilo of Semtex on one of them.”

“Or he’s stuck a few kilos of it on the ceiling just at the bottom, and like saps, we go inside, and he pulls the trigger.”

In his head McGarvey was down there again, fifteen years ago in the total darkness. Kurshin had been a driven man, insane with so much hate that all could think about was lashing back at the only man in his career who’d bested him. He’d been willing to give his life if it was the only way he could kill McGarvey, and he had almost succeeded.

But the Russian at the casino was a different breed. He was moved more by ambition than revenge. He was Spetsnaz trained and tough, but he was young and inexperienced. It was why he’d not been promoted to field officer.

“You’re right. Now go,” he said, and he ducked inside.

Kurshin, waiting below the crest of the hill about thirty meters away at the edge of the first rows of olive trees, watched through a night-vision monocular as McGarvey went into the crypt. The woman said something to him but then looked around frantically as if she were trying to decide whether to follow him inside or run away.

Suddenly, she turned and sprinted along the ruins of the castle wall back toward the gatehouse, beyond which was the parking lot where they’d left their rental Fusion.

He pocketed the scope and entered four sixes on his cell phone, his thumbed poised over the Send icon on the screen.

In his experience, when it came down to a matter of life or death, loyalty and almost always love lost out to survival. It was simple in his mind. If you had to choose a partner or your own life, you had to choose the latter. Die and it was over. But live and you could find another lover.

He waited another full five seconds to make certain that McGarvey, no matter how cautious he might be, had reached the bottom of the stairs, and then he pushed Send.

A flash of light in the stairwell was followed a moment later by the explosion, and a vast plume of dust and some rock debris blew up out of the doorway.

He shut down his phone and pulled the Austrian-made 9mm Steyr autoloader he’d found at Martine’s out of his belt. He headed after the woman to finish the night’s work before he returned to London, where he would write a complete report for Moscow. It was one that he was certain Putin would hear about and would like.

When the muffled boom of the explosion blasted out of the tunnel entrance, Pete barely missed a step. She’d expected the crypt had been wired, and unless the Russian had set the trigger on a motion detector or even a trip wire at the head of the stairs, it meant he had to be somewhere near from where he could see Mac going through the gate.

Reaching the caretaker’s house, she ducked inside, stepped over the body, and went to the window. She figured that Kallinger wouldn’t be too far behind her, and if she had a shot, she would take it. But she lingered in that position just long enough to check outside before she moved into the deeper shadows in a corner.

Kurshin was certain that the woman would go directly to their car in the parking lot, but he was only surprised for a moment when she went into the caretaker’s house instead.

Still just inside the line of olive trees, he held up for just a moment. She knew he was here somewhere, and she would be watching for him through the front window.

He sprinted to the left, well out of sight on anyone watching from the front of the house, and made his way in under a half minute to the rear door, which was unlocked, as luck would have it.

Making absolutely no noise, he slipped inside and headed across the tiny kitchen to the front room.

But she wasn’t at the window. For a moment, he thought that she might have seen him heading around the house and had run for her car, after all, but then he detected a slight movement in the darkness, and he switched aim, intending to bracket the corner. No way she would survive this night.

“Fire and you’re a dead man,” McGarvey said from less than eighteen inches behind.

Kurshin spun lightly on his heel, ducking left and batting McGarvey’s gun hand aside, while bringing his own pistol around.

He pulled off one shot, but McGarvey had ducked out of the line of fire.

The instep of McGarvey’s foot smashed into Kurshin’s left knee, and a lightning bolt of agony crashed through his lower body as he staggered backward.

He managed to bring his pistol up, but the old man was on him again, shoving his hand to the left, the shot plowing harmlessly into the ceiling.

Kurshin stepped back another step, but McGarvey was relentlessly on him, this time snatching the pistol out of his hand and tossing it aside.

Instead of trying to get away, Kurshin suddenly leaned forward, grabbing McGarvey’s gun hand and forcing it to the left while smashing his other fist with every ounce of his strength into the American’s face.

McGarvey deflected the next blow with his free hand and with his bulk forced Kurshin back against the doorjamb. He began to slowly bring his pistol to bear, the last of Kurshin’s strength all but gone.

“Why?” McGarvey demanded.

He let his body go loose. “It was just business,” he said. “You have been a thorn in our side for a very long time. I was sent to take you out.”

“Why not a long shot with a sniper rifle?”

“Not very sporting.”

“Then why Arlington? Why my wife’s gravestone?”

“To get your attention,” Kurshin said.

McGarvey said nothing.

“Which it did,” Kurshin said, but something in the old man’s eyes suddenly made everything clear. “I give up. You may take me under arrest.”

“You made a mistake at Arlington,” McGarvey said.

Kurshin never heard or felt the shot to the middle of his forehead that killed him.