Black Ghosts (6 page)

“Sure.”

“I left you a second bag in that box.” He headed for the door. “That's all I have with me. If you need more, call our friends.” Edward sensed that he didn't want to get involved.

Edward escorted the man down, letting him out by the back door. Then he went into the dining area, where Natalie was nursing a cup of coffee.

“It's over,” he told her. “Now it's up to Larry.” They went back upstairs to where Larry lay sleeping.

“Did he get the bullet out?”

“Yes.” Edward pointed to the small tray by the bed. He felt better now that it was out. The entire time the bullet was lodged in Larry's chest, Edward had felt something pressing down on his own.

Natalie seemed relieved too. With a sigh she sat down, pulling off her green sweater. Edward nodded toward the bathroom. “Why don't you go take a shower, you'll feel better.”

She slowly got up, picking up her duffel bag on the way. Just before closing the bathroom door, she turned to him, then hesitated for a moment.

“Larry is a remarkable man, to have such friends,” she finally said.

Edward shrugged silently.

“Thanks,” said Natalie.

“Don't mention it.”

The bathroom door closed behind her. Edward cleaned up the place, tossing anything that had any blood on it into the plastic bag the medic had left. This he took downstairs and buried among the half-eaten steaks and cold vegetables of the bistro's refuse.

Edward sat in the bedroom, listening to the water running in the shower and Larry's slow, rhythmic breathing. It had been a long day. Edward tried to analyze his situation, only to realize he was working in a vacuum. Bits and pieces of unrelated information were running through his mind, like frantic rats lost in a maze. There were far more questions than answers, and the questions were of the worst kind: the kind that spawn more questions.

The medic had said there was no guarantee Larry would pull through.

“Goddamn it, Larry,” Edward cursed aloud through clenched teeth. “Why didn't you fill me in when you had the chance?”

 

The motorcade slid through the neon jungle like a giant boa. Two of New York's finest, on gleaming Harley-Davidson electric-light motorcycles, led the way, leaving the UN Secretariat Building on First at 42nd Street, heading north. Three Secret Service escort cars, a black stretch limousine between them, followed the motorcycles. Two more Harleys and two unmarked NYPD squad cars brought up the rear. It was an impressive sight, all that glittering metal and chrome moving in unison, with the arrogant confidence that comes with numbers.

Captain McPhee of the NYPD Seventh Precinct sat in the tail squad car, chewing on a cigar stub as he barked his orders into the microphone. His thick voice with its heavy New York whine filled the cockpits of both Huey police helicopters circling above, on the lookout for unexpected obstacles along the route.

The motorcade slowed as it approached First and 52nd. A black-and-white patrol car had already secured the intersection. McPhee was running three black-and-whites on duty this morning, verifying that one was always at the next intersection as the motorcade approached it.

“So far, so good,” McPhee snarled at his driver.

“Yep,” answered the driver, unwilling to say anything that could ignite the captain's extremely short fuse. Besides, there was little else to say. It was a standard security operation, and it was proceeding as planned.

McPhee nodded. If it hadn't been for his nagging toothache and that obnoxious little Russian security chief—“call me Boris”—McPhee could easily have graded this morning as okay. But his tooth did ache and Boris—well, Boris was a pain too. He hadn't liked the man from the get-go, he thought, scratching his bull-like neck. Something wasn't quite right about him, not wanting to ride in the limo with the general. Giving that lame excuse about Russian security protocol. Protocol my ass, thought McPhee, the general probably doesn't like him either. McPhee had the misfortune to work with Russians before, but this guy took the cake.

Barely half an hour ago, at 2:30 in the morning, the general's conference had ended. From McPhee's point of view, the timing couldn't have been better. The city that never sleeps was numb, its asphalt arteries not yet clogged by traffic. They could take the Queensboro Bridge on their way out to LaGuardia Airport, rather than using one of the tunnels. McPhee disliked tunnels; if something went wrong in a tunnel, you were trapped like a rat in a drainpipe. Not that he was expecting anything to go wrong. His cargo, he'd been told, was a popular guy, both here and back in Russia. Still, there were too many agencies involved for McPhee's liking. He preferred to work alone, knowing all the angles. He ran his finger around his neck. The shirt collar was too tight. He loosened his tie. “Fuck ‘em,” he said, bringing a cautious grin to his driver's face.

General Kozov settled comfortably into the soft leather upholstery of the limousine. Things had turned out very well.

The conference produced most, if not all, of what both sides had expected. President Konyigin had made it very clear to him that neither side wanted total nuclear disarmament. “For a start,” the president had said, “safe disposal of nuclear warheads is far more expensive than keeping them poised for action, and not nearly as reassuring.” He had talked to the veteran soldier about the “what if” factor: What if some Third World upstart got a hold of a bomb and decided to play cards with the big boys? “No,” Kozov could hear the president saying, “disarmament is definitely not an option.”

So they came up with the next best thing: trust and verify, as the old Russian proverb went, or as his American counterpart had said, “In God we trust; everybody else pays cash, baby.”

What this translated to in practice was the deployment of several hundred Russian technicians who would be seated at computer consoles in all American strategic command posts, such as the Strategic Air Command Center, known simply as SAC, near Omaha, Nebraska. The technicians would be keeping a lookout for any targeting changes for the intercontinental ballistic missiles, referred to as ICBMs in the tedious documents the general had to read over the last several days. The technicians would be patched into the central computer, and as long as the readout confirmed that no missiles were set to land anywhere on the territory of the Confederation of Independent States, life went on as usual. At three hundred and seven locations, more than a thousand people would keep their eyes open and fixed on the screens, one shift after another, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Each technician would be connected at all times to the Supreme Command Center of the new Russian army in Kolozny. The telephone line would be a constant open link, emitting an electronic pulse every one-hundredth of a second. If even one of the pulses was missed or out of sync, a state of emergency would be declared.

And, of course, for each Russian technician in the U.S., there would be an American in Russia—not a very fair trade, the general chuckled to himself. Each American would be connected to the Pentagon by a similar pulse line, likewise trusting and verifying.

The general and the American negotiator had concluded the agreement in the early hours. The final text they had arrived at would be the primary document to be signed in less than three weeks' time, when the president of the United States of America would fly to Moscow for the historic ceremony, “paving the way,” as President Konyigin had put it, “for Russia's onward march to peace, prosperity, and a place of honor among the world's democracies.” Not to mention, the general thought, the huge American aid package and the boost that the deal would give to both the Russian and American presidents in their respective bids for re-election.

The general was proud of his day's work. The sense of achievement energized him, although he hadn't slept for twenty-one hours. He thought with pleasant anticipation of the journey ahead. First, a brief stop at the hotel to pick up his luggage, already packed by his trusted aides. Then the drive to LaGuardia, the flight toward dawn, and the return to Mother Russia. It had been a very satisfying day indeed.

When it reached the Avenue of the Americas, the motorcade turned right, heading toward Central Park. Two blocks farther, it turned again along Central Park South, and the lights of the Plaza Hotel came into view. They turned in front of the hotel and parked opposite the Pulitzer Memorial Fountain.

The hotel doorman in his gold braided uniform attempted to open the limousine door but was politely and firmly ushered aside by the Secret Service men who bolted out of their cars. The general's aides were waiting in their trench coats and fur hats, unafraid of the winter chill. They quickly loaded the suitcases into the trunk of the limo, then climbed into the spacious interior, sitting side by side on the seat facing the general. Few words were needed; they could see from the general's calm smile and the triumphant gleam in his eye that all had gone well.

The lead motorcycles were revving. When Captain McPhee's terse order came through on their headsets, the two riders edged forward. They wheeled around the fountain, the Secret Service car followed, then the limo and the rest of the motorcade. They headed north again, turning almost immediately onto 59th Street and heading east towards the Queensboro Bridge.

All was quiet on the bridge. A lone car sped across, its driver oblivious to everything except the need to get home to Queens and go to bed. If his eyes had turned to the right, instead of fixing upon the road ahead, he might have noticed the men dressed in all black, their faces obscured beneath the frog eyes and gaping mouth of a gas mask, standing silently, each by one of the massive steel girders that reached skyward along the side of the bridge.

Near the end of the span, between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island, Yazarinsky looked at his watch and listened tensely for the sound of the helicopter. Shouldn't be long now. He had it all planned to the last second, but it was the prey who would spring the trap. His men were in position, twenty-four of them, waiting, their backs pressed against the rivets that held the bridge together.

Yazarinsky was a small man with thick eyebrows and tiny rodent's eyes that barely moved behind the orbs of the gas mask. Under his bulletproof vest and black protective clothing, he was an unremarkable specimen. His somewhat oversized head sat directly on his shoulders, and he tended to tilt his entire body in the direction he was looking. You might even regard him as somewhat comical—until you got to know him. Then you might discover something remarkable about Yazarinsky: his uncommon talent for hurting people, and the enormous pleasure he got from watching them suffer.

Boris had filled him in on the proposed route less than twenty-four hours ago. Good old Boris. Yazarinsky would make sure he received due reward for his efforts.

Now he could hear the helicopter thumping above. The motorcade was on its way. Yazarinsky's men, affectionately referred to by General Rogov as “Yazarinsky's morticians,” readied themselves. In order to succeed they must act with split-second precision. No room for error; they knew their foes were not amateurs. When dealing with the American Secret Service, Yazarinsky had told them, there was no middle ground. “We are dealing with people who are mentally prepared to die; we must therefore accommodate them.”

At twenty-seven minutes after three, the motorcade turned onto the entry ramp to the Queensboro Bridge, each car sounding a thud as it rolled over the metal mesh. The general heard the motorcycle team changing gears as it slowed slightly on the bridge. Captain McPhee made contact with a new escort team that was waiting for the motorcade to enter Queens. The radio mike thrust against his teeth, he exchanged a word with the helicopter pilot who had by now checked the route all the way through to the Queens Plaza. Somewhere above, the second chopper was circling back.

Yazarinsky leaned out from his niche in the steel girder. He saw the empty pavement of the bridge stretching back to Manhattan. Then, at the mouth of the bridge, the lead motorcyclists came into view, their red and blue lights flashing. Silently, Yazarinsky waited. The motorcade drew closer. He could feel the bridge vibrate beneath his feet. In his mind, he had marked a diagonal line from where he stood to a point on the other side of the road.

The Harley was almost thirty feet from him when it crossed the line. It was time. He stepped out from his shelter, submachine gun tucked hard into his shoulder. When the motorcyclist's white helmet filled his sights, he squeezed the trigger.

That first volley was the signal. Six more figures stepped out from their hiding places as one man, each with a Heckler and Koch MP5 machine gun spitting fire.

The Heckler is a handy little gun; it can discharge a salvo of fifteen 9 mm bullets in one second. Reload, and you can fire another forty-five rounds from the extended cross clip. Because of its light weight, high accuracy, and excellent reliability, the Heckler is the weapon of choice for hostage-rescue work—and for other, more evil activities.

Yazarinsky's armor-piercing bullets exploded the lead motorcyclist's helmet and what was in it. For a moment the bike careened on wildly, lurching across the pavement like a chicken with its head cut off. Then it keeled over and was immediately struck by the second leader bike, now likewise out of action and blocking the road.

The first of the cars—with Boris and the two American Secret Service men in it—veered and skidded to avoid the remains of the motorcycles. Behind it the limo slammed on the brakes, as did the two other Secret Service cars that were following. Stopping was against every bit of training the drivers had ever been given. But to proceed, you need a path, an opening, and Yazarinsky had made sure they had none. As the cars were being hit by one burst of machine-gun fire after another, any of the Secret Service men who were still living rolled out of the cars onto the ground, aiming their weapons at the source of the deadly storm. It was then that the six shooters and Yazarinsky moved back into the safety of the metal girders, as twelve other morticians stepped out with double the firepower, and from a new position down the road, they opened up. The men on the ground didn't have a chance; not one shot had been returned from the motorcade.