The Zebra Network

Chapter 5

The cop with the walkie-talkie disappeared from the window; the other one was already on his way down here, probably through the boarding tunnel, and they would shoot before they stopped to ask questions.

McAllister moved quickly away from the aircraft and hurried beneath the overhang to the broad service doors leading into the Pan Am baggage handling area. He was in time to see two crewmen in white coveralls heading away in a small electric-driven cart. His eyes swept past them toward two other crewmen busy loading out-going baggage onto a train. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No one was rushing away. No sounds of alarm had been raised.

He looked again down the broad corridor in time to see one of the crewmen in the retreating cart slump forward and hold his shoulder. It was them. The assassins. And he had wounded one of them. Stay or run? The situation here would only last for a few moments longer. He could put down the gun, raise his hands and wait for the police. Or he could go after the killers.

Carrick and Maas had thought he was a traitor and now they were dead. At least two New York City cops knew that he was a murderer. They had seen it with their own eyes.

What the hell was happening?

McAllister stepped the rest of the way into the baggage-handling area, and concealing the pistol behind his leg edged away from the brightly lit central corridor into the shadows, and then raced after the slowly retreating service cart, careful to make no noise, or expose himself to the other crewmen at work.

The killers were professionals who understood that to rush away would mark them as out of the ordinary, a force to reckon with. Because of this McAllister was able to gain on them. No doubt they had a car parked somewhere outside the international terminal area. There was possibly a driver waiting for them. The operation had been smooth. They had waited for the flight knowing that their targets would be getting off the plane last and would come down the stairs from the boarding tunnel. But Cartick had said they would be met by a car. Had the signals been crossed innocently, or had their pickup’s absence been arranged?

By whom? How? Why? A dozen dark possibilities, each more ominous than the last, crowded into McAllister’s head as he darted in and around piles of boxes and tow carts filled with baggage. The assassins passed through the Pan Am baggage area into Eastern’s, crossed a broad, well-lit tarmac, then turned sharply left through the big service doors that led back outside.

McAllister pulled up short, ducking behind a large crate as someone shouted something from behind him. The two cops had raced into the Pan Am baggage area and were questioning the two crewmen. They were obviously frantic, gesticulating and pointing first in the opposite direction, and then this way. Getting out of here was suddenly impossible. The moment he moved out of hiding he would be spotted.

The baggage train from the Pan Am flight came noisily through the service doors, passing directly in front of the two cops, momentarily blocking their view. McAllister stepped out of the shadows and walked at a normal pace into Eastern’s baggage area. To move any faster would be to attract attention to himself. So far the alarms had not spread, only the two cops behind him had taken up the hunt. So far.

Reaching the service doors, he stepped outside. A big Eastern Airlines jet was getting ready for departure. There was a lot of activity around the aircraft; last-minute fueling, baggage loading, provisioning through a rear hatch. He hung back for a few moments, searching for the killers. He thought they would be moving directly away from the terminal, so he didn’t immediately spot the service cart parked off to the right in the shadows beyond an empty baggage train. They had stopped. He stepped forward out of the shadows as two men, dressed in dark jackets and trousers stepped around from behind the baggage train, and climbed into the back seat of a black Chevrolet sedan.

McAllister knew that he could not use Carrick’s gun. It was not silenced and the noise of the gunshots would mark him immediately. He could feel blind panic rising up inside of him. Already a crowd had gathered around the Pan Am aircraft, and in the distance he could hear the sounds of the first sirens. He was going to have to get out of here now, or else he would be trapped.

He shoved the gun in his pocket as the big car turned and headed off into the night, its taillights winking. He had caught enough of a glimpse of the license plate to see that it was a New York tag; nongovernmental, nondiplomatic.

Even more people were racing to the Pan Am plane as McAllister forced himself to walk calmly to where the service cart was parked. Two sets of coveralls were stuffed behind the seats. One of them had a lot of blood on the shoulder, the other was clean. Airport identification badges were still clipped to the pockets. looking around to make certain that no one had noticed him yet, he took the clean set of coveralls out of the cart and stepped around behind a big truck where he hurriedly pulled them on. By the time he walked back around to the service cart the two cops from the window had raced up from the Pan Am baggage area, and had emerged from the Eastern’s service area. Too late McAllister realized that they might recognize his face. He averted his eyes.

“Did you see anybody coming out of here?” one of the cops shouted. The other was speaking into his walkie-talkie.

McAllister nodded over his shoulder the way the car had gone. “Some guy got in a car,” he said, doing to best he could with a New Jersey accent. “What’s going on?”

“Where?” the cop shouted. “Just now?”

“Yeah,” McAllister said, climbing behind the wheel. “Just now. Headed outta here in a big hurry. Wasn’t wearing no badge either.”

The cop’s eyes strayed to the badge on McAllister’s pocket. Airport security lived and died on such open identification. If you had such a badge you were legitimate. If you didn’t, you did not belong. Another car was drawing up between the Eastern and Pan Am planes as McAllister started the service cart’s motor and backed out. This one he recognized. The plates were United States government, the series the FBI used.

The two cops hurried back to the growing commotion around the Pan Am plane. McAllister swung the service cart around and headed in the opposite direction. The FBI had come to pick up him and his Agency escorts. They would be expecting three men. Once they realized that McAllister was missing, they would seal the airport, although the report from the cops that a ground crewman had seen a man getting into a car and driving off, might confuse them for a little while. long enough, McAllister hoped. It was his only chance at this point.

He drove down the line of planes and around the international terminal, finally angling across the tarmac to where the domestic flights were serviced as the sun began to lighten the eastern sky in a grayish-pink haze. Getting out of the international terminal without going through customs would have been impossible for him. Only his apparent status at this moment as a ground crewman intent on some airport business allowed him to cross the ramp without being stopped and questioned. Nevertheless it wouldn’t be very long now before the entire airport would be closed. Unless he got out before that happened he would be stuck here, and slowly but surely the noose would be tightened and he would be taken.

Washington. The answers were in Washington, and so was his safety. Home base. The free zone where he could surround himself with friends who knew and understood that he of all people could not be a traitor or a murderer. Once he was allowed to tell his side of the story, Langley would understand. But what story was it he could tell them? About the rambling9 of a vodka-crazed old bitter Russian? A former KGB officer? Or, of his own interrogation under torture and drugs? There were, in reality, no concrete answers he could give them. Nothing solid other than the fact the Russians had suddenly let him free with no apparent motive. Even more sirens were converging on the international terminal as McAllister parked the service cart in a row of others and hurried through Piedmont Airline’s baggage area and out into the passenger terminal, nearly deserted at this hour. No one saw the ground crewman in white coveralls enter the men’s room, nor did anyone notice the tall man in civilian clothes emerge moments later and head for the main concourse and the taxi ranks outside.

He was going to have to get down to Washington. To safety. Some sort of a message had been sent from Moscow to Langley: McAllister was the mark, kill him at all costs. He mustn’t be allowed to live.

But by whom? And why?

The Soviets had not returned his gun, of course, but they had been meticulous in returning his passport, wallet, credit cards, a few hundred dollars in American currency, and other things just before he had been handed over to Carrick and Mass at Sheremetyevo. The cabby dropped him off in front of Eastern Airlines at LaGuardia Airport in plenty of time for him to ditch the gun he had taken from Carrick’s body, and then purchase a roundtrip on the eight o’clock shuttle to Washington’s National Airport, with a return on the five o’clock shuttle under the name G. Thompson. A one-way ticket would have been a dead giveaway to the first inquiries the FBI undoubtedly would begin making this morning. It was just one more bit of tradecraft designed to buy him a little extra time. A couple of minutes before he was to board, he found a pay phone just down the corridor from the gate and direct-dialed his house in Georgetown. Bill locey had told him that Gloria was back in the States. He assumed she had reopened their house.

He let it ring ten times before he hung up. If Langley believed that he was a traitor, they might have isolated her either in an Alexandria safehouse, or possibly even down in Williamsburg at the Farm. Nevertheless, he would have thought they’d have placed a monitor on his phone line with automatic switching to bring all incoming calls out to Langley. Nothing that had happened to him since his arrest seemed to add up. He thought with a twinge that by now Gloria would have been informed that something was wrong. What exactly had they told her, and how she had taken the news was bothersome. Their marriage wasn’t on the strongest of grounds, though they had both been trying very hard to make it work. They wanted different things; it was as simple and as terribly complex as that. She wanted Washington on a regular basis, and he wanted… what? Exactly what was it he wanted?

He glanced down the corridor as the first boarding call for his flight came over the speakers. Maybe he didn’t know what he wanted. Maybe he never would. And part of the problem was that she couldn’t stand his searching.

He picked up the telephone and started to dial a second Washington number, but then decided against it and hung up. In the last analysis, boyo, you can’t trust anyone in the business, he’d been told. Which is too bad, because people like us need and demand just that; a trust in something or short of that, a trust in somebody. But not over the telephone lines, he decided. He would have to tell his story face-to-face so that he could gauge reactions from the other man’s eyes. Other men, he corrected himself. How many were there whom he could trust? One, two, a handful? No more than that. But would they believe him? Could they possibly believe him against the weight of evidence that had already been built against him?

Traitor. Murderer. You’ve gone over to the other side. Not an uncommon failing. It was the business that did it in the end. Turn a man, make him sell out his country, take his secrets from him, and on your side of the border he is a hero, but back home he is a traitor. What did that do to such men, and more important at this moment, what did such work do to the agent runner? How did it warp their sense of right versus wrong, of justice, of fair play?

McAllister ran a hand over his eyes. He was sweating slightly, even though the corridor was chilly. The effects, still, of the drugs he’d been given during his captivity, or something else? Fear? Confusion? Shame?

We’re — king progress and I feel very good about it. And so should you. We have finally broken down the first barrier… really quite excellent. You have been cooperative… Mac.

Bits and pieces of Miroshnikov’s words came back to him, like gentle whispers in the darkness, like water moving softly on a sand beach. Frightening and yet oddly comforting. They were reassurances from a source that should not have provided him assurances.

God, what had happened to him in Moscow? What was happening to him now? What did they want? Why him? McAllister stepped away from the pay phone, realizing that the boarding-gate area which had minutes earlier been filled with passengers was now empty except for the airline clerks, one of whom was looking up the corridor toward him. Another, behind the counter, picked up the telephone.

“This is the final boarding call for Eastern’s shuttle service, 1411, to Washington, D.C.,” the clerk’s amplified voice came from the speakers in the ceiling. “Passengers holding confirmed reservations, please board now.”

The answers were in Washington. Pulling his ticket and boarding pass out of his pocket, he hurried down the corridor to the gate. His answers were there, if he could survive long enough to find them.

His flight touched down a few minutes after nine, and twenty minutes later he was heading up the Washington Parkway, in heavy traffic in a rental Ford Escort, the day bright and warm in contrast to Moscow, the city with her parks and monuments gleaming green and white, and at this distance clean and somehow safe. This was the capital. Home base. The reason for his existence, for his life, in fact.

He had decided that whoever was trying to stop him, for whatever reason, would not suspect that he would run here, and so he openly rented a car in his own name. For the moment speed would be more effective than stealth.

Robert Highnote.

McAllister’s mouth was dry, his stomach rumbled and his peripheral vision was still slightly blurry from the cumulative effects of the drugs, the lack of sleep, and the lack of decent food. But he understood his tradecraft at a deeper, instinctual level; covering his tracks, making the proper moves at the proper times, knowing when to hesitate and when to act, were almost like knee jerk reactions to him. Before he approached his old friend, mentor and boss, he needed to know the extent of the Agency’s concern over him.

Crossing the river on the Key Bridge into Georgetown, he reached M Street and turned right, merging with traffic. He stopped for a red light across from the Rive Gauche, a restaurant he and Gloria frequented each time they’d been reassigned briefly to Washington between foreign postings. It gave him an odd feeling to be here like this now.

He turned left up Wisconsin Avenue, the sights and sounds and smells coming back to him like an old familiar jacket one has rediscovered in his closet; oddly out-of-date, and out-of-fashion. Yet oh so comfortable and friendly. New York and especially Moscow seemed like a long way away now, not only in distance but in time.

Highnote would listen to him, would help him, if anyone would, or could. But first he had to know one thing. A couple of blocks past the Georgetown Theater he took the Street over to 31st, that ran at an odd angle up toward Montrose Park, then slowed down two blocks later, passing the intersection with Avon Lane. This was a neighborhood of three-story brownstone houses each attached to the next. His was six doors from the corner on the upper side.

McAllister had participated in enough surveillance operations over the past fourteen years to know what he was looking at. A Toyota van, its windows blocked with reflective film, was parked twenty yards beyond his house. A yellow cab was parked at the far corner. Behind it the cabby and a big burly man in shirtsleeves were looking at something beneath the raised hood of a Mercedes.

They were waiting for him. Expecting him to come here. Two hours ago when he had telephoned from New York there’d been no answer at his house, no switching equipment. If they’d been waiting for him two hours ago, the telephone would have been manned.

This surveillance had been ordered up because of what had happened on the ramp at JFK. A traitor is loose; a dangerous lunatic who has killed two of our own is heading our way.

McAllister realized that he was shaking. Violently. Sweat had popped out on his forehead and yet he was freezing cold. He turned east on R Street and a couple of blocks later pulled over across from the Oak Hill Cemetery.

Life was going forth at an ordinary speed all through the city. McAllister felt as if he were a tree limb snagged in a swiftly moving stream, the waters swirling around him. He was helpless. Once he was caught up in the swift current he would drown. There was no avoiding it.

They were waiting for him.

God in heaven what was happening? What did they think he had become?

Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. He had been to Moscow, and here he was in Washington. But look for what, for whom?

He was driving through Arlington National Cemetery across the river from the Lincoln Memorial, and there was very little traffic. It was early evening and behind him the city lights were beginning to mingle with the darkening star-studded sky. Being here like this now, he was struck with a sense of unreality, not only with what he was doing, and why, but with the fact he was doing anything at all. He was on the outside looking in. It was very strange.

If anyone had the answers it would be Highnote. Earlier he had driven out to Dulles International Airport where he had left the rental car in the long-term parking garage, because if they were expecting him to come to Washington they’d be checking with all the car rental agencies and his name would turn up.

It had taken him less than a half hour in the busy air terminal to find a man about his own height, general build and age, lift his wallet as he stood at one of the cocktail lounge bars, and using the man’s driver’s license and credit card, rent a car from the Hertz counter.

By the time he had hurried back to the cocktail lounge, the man — Thomas Hobart from Muncie, Indiana-was still at the bar. McAllister dropped his wallet on the floor, then turned and left, retrieving the Ford Taurus from where he had left it out front.

In the afternoon he had had a late lunch at a roadside restaurant south of Alexandria where he had searched the Washington and New York afternoon papers for a story about the shootout at JFK, but there’d been nothing. He would have been surprised if there had been.

At first he had watched in his rearview mirror each time he turned a corner, switched lanes, or changed speeds. But so far as he had been able to tell, no one was on his tail. They might suspect, at this point, that he was in Washington, but so far he had not been spotted. That wouldn’t last, of course. It couldn’t last. Sooner or later someone would see and recognize him, especially if he kept moving around. As it began to get dark he had driven back up past National Airport and into the cemetery where he had slowed his speed. If they got to him now and shot him to death, would he be buried here at Arlington with his father? It wasn’t likely. He was a traitor and a murderer. But was there any peace for him, could there be any peace for him even in death? Somehow he doubted that as well.

He passed through the western edge of the vast cemetery, crossed Washington Boulevard and was in Arlington Heights, a nice but unpretentious neighborhood of pleasant homes. It was dark by the time he reached Astor Avenue, parking in the middle of the block, and shutting off his lights and engine.

Highnote’s house was located at the end of a cul-de-sac. Except for a light over the garage door and another on the front porch, the place was dark.

McAllister got out of his car, walked the rest of the way down the block, and crossed the lawn between Highnote’s house and his neighbor’s, also dark. Somewhere in the close distance a dog started barking, and McAllister stopped a moment in the darkness. After a few seconds the dog stopped, and he continued around to the rear through a tall hedge, and across the patio past the swimming pool. The kitchen light was on, but Highnote’s study was in darkness.

At the study window, McAllister put his ear to the glass. He could vaguely hear someone talking, or a television set playing, and through the curtains he could see that the study door was closed.

Stepping back he took off his jacket, wrapped it around his right elbow, and using as little strength as possible, broke one of the small square windowpanes just at the lock. The noise seemed very loud in the still night air, and for several seconds McAllister held his breath waiting for the sounds of an alarm to be raised. But there was nothing. He reached inside, undid the lock, slid the window open and crawled through.

McAllister had been in this room before. Quite often. He and Gloria had been friends with Highnote and his wife Merrilee for years, despite the age difference of fifteen years. He knew the layout well. The desk was directly opposite the window, a leather couch and coffee table were to the right, and on the left was the door to the tiny bathroom. Books lined two walls, and a third held framed photographs and certificates of achievement. With the curtains open he could see well enough in the dim light coming from outside.

Sitting down at the desk McAllister opened the bottom left drawer and took out Highnote’s Walther PPK. The flat automatic, which at one time had been the weapon of choice among British Secret Intelligence Service field operatives, had been a gift from Kim Philby when the Brit was stationed here in Washington. Highnote always said the gun gave him a lot of ironic pleasure. He’d been one of those, even as a young man, who’d thought Philby was too good to be true.

He checked the action of the gun. It was well oiled and loaded. There were two telephones on the desk; one was the house line, and the other was Highnote’s private number. McAllister picked up the second one and dialed the house number. The connection was made and he could hear the telephones in the rest of the house ringing. Highnote picked it up on the second ring.

“Yes?”

“Hello, Bob,” McAllister said. The gun was on the desk in front of him. He was watching the door. “Jesus,” Highnote whispered. “Where the hell are you? Are you alone?”

Highnote said something away from the phone. “Just Merrilee and me. Are you in the city? Can I come and get you?”

“I need some answers, Bob.”

“So do I. Where the hell are you?”

“Here,” McAllister said. “At your desk in your study.”

“Good lord,” Highnote said after the briefest of hesitations. “I’ll be right in.” He hung up. McAllister put down the phone and picked up the Walther. Whom to trust? He didn’t know any longer. Perhaps he never really knew. The door opened seconds later and Robert Highnote, deputy director of operations for the Central Intelligence Agency, entered the study. He was a man of medium height, with a mostly bald head, wide honest eyes, and a manner of speaking and bearing that were almost old-worldly elegant. He was a Harvard graduate, a Rhodes scholar, and a deeply religious man. Every evening of his adult life he had spent at least one hour studying the Bible. He was something of an expert on it. His life was a story, but then so was everyone else’s in the Agency; the business seemed to attract them like flies to honey. His eyes went to the gun in McAllister’s hand. “Do you mean to shoot me too, Mac?” he asked softly.“I didn’t shoot Carrick and Maas. I think ballistics will bear me out,” McAllister said.

Highnote came the rest of the way into his study, closing the door behind him. He was coatless, but he still wore his tie. He’d probably just returned from his office. He sat down across from McAllister and reached for the desk light.

“No,” McAllister said.

Highnote stayed his hand, hesitated again, then sat back in his chair. He shook his head. “You have come as a surprise, Mac. A very big surprise.

“They were waiting for us when we got off the plane. Two of them, in ground-crew uniforms. Our pickup car was late. Carrick and Maas never had a chance.”

“But you did,” Highnote said. “I was lucky.”

“You were seen with a gun.”

“Carrick’s. I managed to wound one of them.”

“But they got away.”

“They had a car waiting for them, Bob,” McAllister said. He leaned forward a little. “They were waiting for us, goddamnit. How did they know?”

“I can’t answer that….” Highnote pursed his lips, his eyes suddenly wide. “What are you trying to say?”

“Who knew that I was coming in on that particular flight?”

“A lot of people. Smitty and his crowd. They made the actual arrangements. Finance. The crew chief.”

“And the FBI office in New York?”

Highnote nodded. “They were supposed to take you over to the shuttle terminal right there at JFK.”

“How, Bob? What was my status?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“What were the FBI told about me? And why bring them into it?

I could have walked with Carrick and Maas over to the shuttle.”

“We wanted to avoid customs.”

“You didn’t need the FBI for that… not unless I was being brought back as a criminal and you wanted no publicity.“Highnote reacted. McAllister could see it in his old friend’s eyes. Was it fear? Disgust?

“Is that it, Bob?” McAllister asked, softening his voice. “Do you think I’m a traitor because I caved in? They had me for a month, and they’re very good. Even better than they taught us out at the Farm.”

“We suspected that from the beginning,” Highnote said. “Because of… what started to happen. What’s still happening.”

“Our networks?” McAllister asked, the words catching in his throat because he knew the answer even before Highnote gave voice to it. He’d known it instinctively. Miroshnikov was more than good. The man was the devil.

“Our foreign operations are in a complete shambles. Years of work gone down the drain. A lot of good men have fallen. There’ve been a few killings, but mostly arrests, exposures, expulsions. Under the circumstances not much of a public fuss has been made, but we’ve been devastated. You can’t believe how bad it’s become.”

“Because of me.”

Highnote nodded sadly. “They went to extraordinary lengths to keep you. The President even canceled his meeting with Gorbachev in Zurich, over it. Still they didn’t budge.”

“I was a gold seam.”

“The mother lode,” Highnote said, nodding. “Once we realized what was happening, we began pulling our people out of the way, but it was already too late.”

“Christ, you can’t know how sorry I am, Bob. I tried. God help me, I tried.”

There was no compassion in Highnote’s expression, only a distant coolness and something else. His eyes went again to the gun in McAllister’s hand. “Let’s go back to the office. See what we can put together. If we know what you told them, we might be able to minimize some of the continuing damage.”

“I don’t know what I told them,” McAllister said. “But that’s not it, anyway, is it. They released me. That’s what has you worried. No exchange, no concessions, nothing, they just handed me over to our people at the airport and let me leave.”

“It worried us,” Highnote said dryly.“Then who tried to kill me in New York and why?”

“Maybe they weren’t gunning for you, Mac. Maybe they did exactly what they set out to do.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” McAllister said with frustration. “No, it doesn’t,” Highnote agreed, the same odd look in his eyes. It suddenly dawned on McAllister what Highnote had to be thinking. “You don’t believe me,” he said. “About the two men in New York”

“No one saw them,” Highnote said patiently. “I fired back and hit one of them. You’ll find a pair of bloody coveralls in a service cart at the Eastern baggage handling area.” McAllister explained exactly where it had been parked. “Has a ballistics check been made on the bullets that killed Carrick and Maas?”

“I haven’t seen the report.”

“Well do that much at least for me.”

Highnote nodded. “We’ll do that and more if you’ll come in with me. I’m on your side, Mac. So is Gloria. I talked to her again this morning. She told me that no matter what happens, no matter how it turns out, she’ll stick with you if you’ll just turn yourself in. Before it’s too late, Mac. For God’s sake.”

The words stung worse than the wet Turkish towel his Soviet guards had used on him in the prison corridor. “What was Gloria told?”

“Under the circumstances, I couldn’t do anything but tell her the truth. Surely you can understand that.”

“What truth?” McAllister asked, his voice rising. “That there was a very good possibility that you’d been turned. That they were sending you home in the hope that you would somehow come through your debriefings with a clean bill of health. That there was a possibility you would actually become operational again. They’d gotten everything they needed from you, and now they were hoping for a little gravy, a little frosting on the cake.”

“Is that what you think, Bob?” McAllister asked. Highnote looked at him for a very long time. “What else can I think?”

McAllister pushed back his chair and got heavily to his feet. Highnote started to rise too, but McAllister motioned him back. “Check with ballistics, and find the coveralls, and you’ll see that I didn’t kill Carrick and Maas. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“I can’t let you leave here.”

“I’m sorry, but you don’t have a choice in the matter right now.” Highnote bared his teeth. “Goddamnit, Mac, I trusted you! We all did. But it’s not your fault. Those bastards pumped you so full of drugs you didn’t know what you were doing. We can fix it for you. Trust me, Mac, for God’s sake..”

McAllister yanked the two phone cords out of their wall sockets.

It would only take Highnote a few seconds to get to one of the other telephones in the house, but it was something. Highnote had watched with narrowed eyes. At the window McAllister looked back at him.

“I’m not a traitor, and I didn’t kill those two in New York, Bob. But until we find out who did, and why, I won’t have a chance in hell of convincing you, let alone anyone else, that I’m innocent. Find those coveralls, and look at the ballistics report. I’ll call you in the morning.”

As he raced across the lawn back to the street he pocketed the Walther. If Highnote didn’t believe him, who would? Worst of all it hurt that Gloria thought he had been turned. What was happening?

The police would be here very quickly, but they didn’t know his car. Getting away would be difficult, but not impossible.

As he reached the curb, an automobile’s headlights raced up from the end of the block, and someone stepped out from behind the hedges. He started to turn when something very hard smashed into the back of his skull and he fell forward, his head bouncing off the pavement. “Kill him,” someone said above him, in Russian. “Not here, you fool.”