Azrael (16 page)

It probably caused more surprise than damage, but it would do. Trotter whipped him across the neck with the aerial before he could recover enough to get off another shot, then dropped the antenna and launched himself on the man in a low, one-legged dive.

Trotter grabbed the wrist of the gun hand and began beating it against the gravel. Once the gun came free, it was all over. Trotter suspected it might. A lot of gunmen identified so thoroughly with a hunk of metal that depriving them of it was like shaving Samson’s head.

A voice said, “Nice job.”

Trotter looked behind him. Joe Albright. “Nice you could make it,” he said.

“It’s a goddam maze back here.”

“You got a gun?”

“Get real, will you? Of course I’ve got a gun.”

“Good. Keep this clown covered while I talk to him. He has a great respect for guns.”

Albright nodded and pointed the weapon at the man’s head.

Trotter said, “What’s your name?” and got no answer. He tried Russian and got more silence, but there was a flicker of fear on the man’s face.

“Was that Russian?” Albright said.

“Pig Latin. Shut up, okay?”

Trotter turned to the prisoner and spoke more Russian. “Who sent you?”

This time he got an answer. “I had orders to shoot you.”

“Yes. I didn’t think it was your own idea. Where did you get the orders?”

“They came. Over the telephone.”

“The number?”

“I receive calls only.”

In English, Trotter said, “The saddest thing about you is that you think I care whether you’re telling the truth.”

The man’s eyes widened a little at that one. So he spoke English. Big deal. The Russians would hardly send in a man who didn’t.

The big question was, what was he going to do with this guy? Chances were he
was
telling the truth, and didn’t know much. It was damn certain this wasn’t the man Bulanin had told him about, the one Borzov called Azrael. This was one minor wet-job specialist, willing to kill, but not especially able. He’d been sufficiently trained to take out an unsuspecting businessman, or untrained women and children, but sending him after a professional like Trotter was like chopping off his head.

Which meant whoever had sent him either didn’t know Trotter was an agent (which seemed unlikely, after that visit to the Soviet embassy in London), or they were ready to sacrifice this guy to some purpose. Something connected to Petra Hudson? Or something totally different?

“You,” Trotter said in Russian, “are a complication.” The guy probably knew nothing. Even if he did know something, it would take hours and expert persuasion to get it out of him. Trotter had the expertise but not the time. He also lacked a place to keep this guy until his father could send other experts. He sure as hell couldn’t take him to the police.

“Joe,” Trotter said, “go home.”

“What are we going to do with this guy?”

“Just go home, I’ll handle it.”

“But—”

“Somebody may report these gunshots. You want to be home if the cops canvass the neighborhood.”

“Trotter, I can’t—”

Trotter turned to look at him. “All you have to do is go home. Go.”

Albright stood there for a few seconds. Then he shrugged and left.

Trotter turned back to his prisoner to see the man scrabbling urgently in his pocket. Trotter grabbed the man by the wrist and squeezed until the fingers came open. Trotter turned the man around and slammed him against the car, then went through his pockets himself.

He found no weapon, just some loose change and something the size and shape of a vitamin capsule. It was made of glass and had a brownish fluid inside.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I should have let you.”

He turned the man back around. He forced himself to look into the gunman’s eyes. He wouldn’t let himself forget that this was a human being. Not much of one, maybe, but a human being all the same.

In an hour, he would be part of a landfill on the west side of town.

Trotter pulled back his arm, then struck once, knuckles on throat.

R
EGINA TURNED HER FACE
to Allan’s chest and bit him. She’d never bitten a man before; she only did it now to avoid screaming, in pleasure or frustration, she couldn’t tell which.

Trotter kissed her gently on the forehead, held her more tightly with the left arm that cradled her. His right hand played in the wetness of her, finger gliding without friction, teasing, teasing, bringing her closer and closer but not quite there. It had been going on for some time now. Regina was afraid she’d lose her mind if it didn’t stop, but she didn’t want it to end.

She didn’t think he’d said a word to her yet. She’d heard the door bell ring in the code he’d arranged. She opened the door, he stepped inside.

There was something in his eyes she hadn’t seen before, something sad and vulnerable. It unsettled her. He was the man with the quick answers, confidence itself, the source of any hope she had that whatever was stalking her mother and those close to her (including Regina herself) could be thwarted. Now he looked like a little boy.

“I—I tried to phone you,” Regina had said. “I was worried about you.”

Then he caught her in his arms and kissed her, hard. He took her to the bedroom and threw her on the bed and began making love to her.

They were naked now, but still on top of the bed, on the quilt she used for a bedspread.

Allan moved now, taking his hand away. Regina gasped, disappointment mingling with relief. Allan kissed her, mouth, throat, breasts. He stroked her and squeezed her, and soon she was gasping again.

She reached for him, feeling him warm and hard and ready.

She said, “Now. Now, darling.”

Now it was. He moved over her, and inside. He kissed her, and his tongue mimicked the thrusts of his hips. Regina exploded almost immediately, but it went on. Again and again she felt herself tighten around him, felt the shudders go through her, heard her helpless, animal moans. Then one last time, when he moaned, too, then kissed her fiercely, and rolled off.

She put her head on his chest. He stroked her hair. He murmured something; she heard it as a rumble in his chest. “What did you say?” she asked. “I said it’s good to be alive.”

They made love again in the morning. Regina’s idea. I’m becoming positively wanton, she thought.

When it was done, she volunteered to fix breakfast.

“Okay,” he said. He was smiling. Together, they’d exorcised whatever had been troubling him. “But let’s be liberated about this. Next time, I’ll get the breakfast.”

Next time, she thought, and caught herself starting to hum. Like Scarlett O’Hara. No. That turned out badly, didn’t it? Not that she kidded herself that the prospects here were any better. Today, she just didn’t want to think of it.

Then Allan went off to the bathroom and started singing in the shower, and she had to fight down a whole new series of crazy hopes.

“French toast,” he said as he sat down at the table. “I’m impressed.”

“Frozen,” she said. “From the toaster. I did the bacon myself.”

“It’s delicious,” he told her. “A tribute both to you and to American technology.”

“This is wonderful. I can be sexed-out and patriotic at the same time.”

“You called me darling last night,” he said.

For a split second, Regina paused with the fork halfway to her mouth. Then she finished the maneuver, chewed and swallowed before she said, “Did I?”

“You did. And I want you to know, I liked it.”

“I thought you were going to tell me it was a mistake.”

“It might have been. But I liked it. More, I needed it.”

“You’re welcome.” She looked down at her plate. “I didn’t expect any of this.”

“I did. Your part of it, I mean. I can make women ... care about me. It’s part of the training.”

Regina looked at him. She wanted to be dead. In a few seconds, the growing sense of humiliation she felt would kill her.

He was still talking. “... but this is new. In a way, I
don’t
like it. It could be dangerous for me, and for you. And we don’t have much of a future, because
I
don’t have much of a future.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Look. I came here to do a job, and I’ll do it, but you are no longer part of it. I’m trying to say last night was real. It’s never been real for me before. I’m a different man from what I was when I got here last night.”

“And this could all be part of the training, couldn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said. “It could.”

Then why didn’t he deny it? If he was stringing her along, he’d have to deny it. Unless he knew she’d think that. But why tell her in the first place?

“For God’s sake, Allan, tell me the truth or lie to me, but stop
confusing
me.”

“I don’t want you confused. I want you suspicious.”

“Suspicious? Of you?”

“Well, wary. Of me, of everybody. My attitude toward you isn’t the only part of this mess that went into a new phase last night.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind about that.”

“Damn
you, this is my mother we’re talking about. It was my brother’s fiancée who was killed.”

“This,” Allan corrected her, “is your
country
we’re talking about. Your family is just the point of attack. All I can tell you is this: You made the right move when you went to Rines for help.”

“I’m supposed to take your word for that.”

“One of the things I like best about you is the way you bounce back from emotional upsets.”

“You’re wrong. You’re no different than you’ve ever been. The ultimate wiseass.”

“I won’t argue with you. The thing is, the other side made a move last night and missed. And now I can begin to—”

The phone rang. Regina choked back some agitated words she had ready and went to answer it.

Allan followed her to the living room. “That could be for me,” he said. “I told them I might be here.”

Regina picked up the phone and said hello, then wordlessly extended the receiver toward Trotter.

He took the phone and said thanks. He didn’t tell her to leave, so she stayed. And listened. It was
her
goddam apartment.

“Trotter,” he said. “Secure from your end? Okay, check. All the way through, I’m on a regular phone.”

He smiled at her while he waited.

“Okay. Good. What have you turned up? Well, then, who’s your favorite possible?”

Regina looked at him. She could almost hear the sizzle of nerve ends firing in his brain. For the first time, she was seeing him completely in his element. She was impressed, and just a little afraid.

“Oh,” Trotter told the phone. “Him. I thought he was a little too good to be true. What did he do, come on too strong to one of our friends on campus? One of our friends’ friends?”

Trotter scratched his nose. “Sure, what the hell. If he bites, you’ll know for sure. No, right away. No time like the present.” He hung up the phone. “Did you understand that?” he asked her.

“Smarter for me to say no, isn’t it?”

“Right. Although I don’t think interrogation is what these people have in mind. They haven’t so far.”

No, Regina thought, just death.

Allan said, “I’m going to stick close beside you for the next few days.”

“All—all right. Why now?”

“I started to tell you before. The situation now is such that I can begin to stir things up. It might start getting a little hairy.”

“So you think I’m in danger.”

He looked at her. “You’ve been in danger since the day you were born. It matters more than ever to me that I get you out of it. I hope you believe that.”

Hope more than logic made Regina decide to believe it. And (she had to face it) she
wanted
him to care about her, as she had come to care about him, however little she understood him.

He asked her if he could make a phone call, and waited until she said of course before he started to dial. He pressed 1, then seven more digits, meaning he was dialing a number outside Kirkester, but within the 315 area code.

“You can learn the number on your next phone bill,” he told her. “One way or another, this will be over by then.”

One way or another,
Regina thought.

Allan spoke to the phone. “Hello, this is Allan Trotter speaking. From the Kirkester
Chronicle.
I’d like to interview you for a possible feature article. We were thinking of calling it ‘KGB—The Ultimate Terrorists,’ and we thought your experiences as a victim of oppression would be a good concept to hang the article on.”

Regina was impressed with how quickly he’d caught on to the jargon.

“No, sir. But I would be honored to meet you. I believe we have mutual acquaintances. When would be a convenient time for me to see you? ... Not at all?”

Allan sighed a sigh that had so much
sincere
disappointment in it, Regina had to suppress a giggle.

“Well, sir,” Trotter said sadly, “if you do change your mind, please call me at the newspaper. In case you do. Anytime, there’s always someone there to take messages. It’s not just a local paper, it’s the Hudson Group. But I’m sure you know that. Thank you for your time.” He hung up.

“Wouldn’t talk to you?” Regina said. She assumed that it was part of this silly game they seemed to be playing for her to pretend she hadn’t guessed it was Professor Smolinski at Sparta University he had been talking to.

“No, he wouldn’t. Too afraid.”

“Maybe he has relatives in the Old Country,” Regina suggested.

“I’m sure he does, but that’s not the reason he’s afraid.” He smiled slyly. Regina had never seen that expression before. “Still, that would make a good hook to hang an article on, wouldn’t it?”

“What would?”

“Did you ever hear of anyone who was afraid to talk because he had relatives in America?”

“Now that you mention it, no.”

“This concludes number seven hundred sixteen in a series of eight thousand installments of ‘Why We Fight.’ Tune in tomorrow for more.”

Regina smiled. “I’ve never seen you like this. You seem more ... real.”

“The key word there is
seem.
Come on, boss, I’ve done my mischief for the morning. Let’s go to work.”