Critical Mass (33 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Critical Mass
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“My name is Ed Lipton. U.S. Navy. I'm here with a team to rescue you. If you'll stand back we'll force the door.”
“Thank God,” Elizabeth cried. “But wait. There was gunfire, and an explosion. Is my father with you?”
“No, ma'am,” Lipton said. “Now, please stand back.”
Someone said something that Lipton couldn't quite catch.
“Ms. McGarvey?”
“They've planted explosives,” Elizabeth said.
“Where?”
“In the stone wall about ten feet below our window.”
“Can you see any wires? Maybe something attached to this door?”
“There are wires outside on the wall, but not in here.”
Lipton looked over his shoulder at Tyrell. “A remote detonator?”
“Makes sense,” Tyrell said. “They wanted to lure McGarvey here. Maybe they figured to let him get this far and then blow the place.”
“But he's not here yet,” Lipton said. “And Spranger's people have their hands full at the moment.”
“Go for it,” Tyrell said softly, after just a moment's hesitation.
“Ms. McGarvey,” Lipton called. “I want you and your mother to get as far away from the door as you possibly can. Have you got a bed in there?”
“Yes, yes, there are two beds here,” Elizabeth called.
“I want you to take the mattress off one of the beds, then crouch down in a corner and cover you and your mother with it. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“I'll give you one minute and we'll blow this door,” Lipton said, and he stepped aside for Joslow, who expertly placed a few ounces of plastique around the door lock, cracked a short acid fuse and stuck it in the explosive.
They all went to the end of the short corridor, and sixty-five seconds later the plastique blew with a respectable bang.
“Get them out of there, on the double,” Lipton ordered. They were at their most vulnerable at this point. If one of Spranger's men had heard the explosion and had realized what was going on up here, he might push the button.
Tyrell and Joslow rushed into the cell, and Lipton called to
Reid who was halfway down the stairs. “Clear, Tony?” he called softly.
“Clear,” Reid answered.
“We're on our way.”
Tyrell and Joslow emerged from the cell leading the two very shaken women. For just an instant Lipton was taken aback by their appearance. Their shaved heads made them look bizarre, but they seemed to be relatively unharmed.
“We're taking you out of here now,” he told them.
“You have to help my father,” Elizabeth cried. “I won't leave without him.”
“We'll help him,” Lipton promised. “But first we're going to get you and your mother out of danger.”
Elizabeth shook her head bitterly. “You're already too late for that,” she said.
MCGARVEY CROUCHED IN THE DARKNESS OF THE VISITOR'S loft above the nave, his breathing ragged, smoke curling off his clothing. His heart was hammering and his vision wavered, but he was alive and he was sure he'd heard a small explosion, a long way off, perhaps somewhere above.
Flames from the still-burning helicopter illuminated the church with a flickering glow, the air temperature was up at least ten degrees, perhaps more.
It was hard to keep his thinking straight. The concussion when the chopper had blown had knocked the wind out of him. But he was aware enough to know what he'd just heard.
If Lipton's team had come ashore they might have run into trouble by now. He didn't want to give voice to what he feared most, but he couldn't stop himself from working out the possible significance of the small blast.
The East Germans had expected him to rush blindly into the monastery complex in an effort to find Kathleen and Elizabeth. They wanted him to make a mistake so that they could corner him. No doubt they'd booby-trapped the area where they were holding the women, turning it into a killing ground.
With explosives?
But he hadn't done what they wanted. Instead he'd climbed up to the second level and doubled back. Spranger's people would be coming to see about their precious helicopter, and sooner or later they would have to enter the church.
McGarvey's grip tightened on his pistol. The only way he could possibly win against such odds was to pick them off
one at a time. Lead them into a blind rush. Cause them to make mistakes.
In the meantime, the one who'd fired on Schade was up here somewhere. He could almost feel the man's presence. Killing him would be a pleasure.
Every joint in his body ached from the concussion, and the ringing in his ears was only just beginning to fade. It felt as if he'd been run over by a railroad locomotive.
But he was lucky to be alive. By some chance the primary force of the explosion had been directed away from him, sending burning fuel from the chopper's port tanks spewing against the buildings on the opposite side of the courtyard, allowing him time to get out of there before he was too badly burned.
It was possible that Schade had calculated the effect that his grenade would have and had tossed it to just the right spot. Every Navy SEAL was trained in the use of explosives. But Schade had been critically wounded. If his toss hadn't been lucky, it had been miraculous.
The kid hadn't one chance in a million of getting out of there alive, of course. The last McGarvey had seen of him, his body was completely engulfed in flames. He hoped the boy was dead before the fire reached him.
The door into the nave from the residence hall crashed open, the sound reverberating loudly in the cavernous hall, and McGarvey edged around a stone pillar so that he could see down onto the main floor.
Nothing moved for a long second or two. The space beyond the open door was in darkness, so McGarvey couldn't see a thing.
He slipped a little farther around the pillar, giving himself a clear shot over the low balustrade at anyone coming through the doorway.
Someone appeared in the doorway for just an instant, and then immediately fell back out of sight.
McGarvey leaned his shoulder up against the pillar for support, and cupped the elbow of his right arm with his left hand, the Walther's front sight lined up just ahead of the
doorway. He had removed the silencer for the sake of increased accuracy. There was no longer much need for stealth.
Someone moved off to his left. The shuffle of shoe leather against the flooring planks?
McGarvey froze. Schade's killer? Or had Spranger's people slammed open the door below as a diversion, directing his attention away from the real attack?
The sound came again, and as McGarvey started to drop down and turn left, someone rushed through the door into the nave and disappeared beneath the loft.
A bullet smacked into the stone pillar an inch from McGarvey's head, flying chips cutting his cheek and forehead.
He fired two shots into the darkness as he continued falling back around the pillar, answering fire coming immediately, but hitting just above him. Then he was down, flat on the floor behind the pillar.
At least two other people came into the nave downstairs. He could hear them rushing beneath the balcony. They meant to isolate him up here, and when they were lined up and ready they would rush him.
The problem for him was the two flights of stairs from below; one at either end of the loft. No matter which stairwell he covered, he would be exposed to anyone coming up the other one.
Adding to his immediate troubles was Schade's killer up here pinning him down until the real attack could begin. That, he suspected, would come in a matter of seconds.
McGarvey took the silencer tube out of his jacket pocket, hesitated for just a second, then tossed it off to his left. Immediately he rolled to the right, to the opposite side of the stone pillar.
He got a brief impression of a large man, dressed in a black, jumpsuit, rising up from beneath an overturned pew, and he fired twice, both shots catching the man in the torso, driving him backwards to crash to the floor.
From where McGarvey was lying he could see the East
German's right shoulder and arm, the Kalashikov six inches from his outstretched hand. He was not moving.
McGarvey scrambled across to where the downed man lay and felt for a pulse but there was none. One down, time now to give the others something to think about.
Stuffing the Walther in his belt, McGarvey silently dragged the East German's body over to the railing. Nothing moved below. By now they'd be waiting just under the balcony, wondering what was going on up here.
McGarvey heaved the German's body up over the balustrade, balanced it there for just a moment, then rolled it over. It fell the twenty feet and hit the stone floor with a sickening thud. McGarvey wasn't sure, but he thought he heard someone mutter the single sound, “Ah,” then nothing.
Seeing their comrade like that would slow them down, McGarvey hoped, just long enough for him to prepare himself for the coming assault. He had hoped to take out Schade's killer, then pick off the others as they came into the nave. But they'd anticipated him.
He understood why when he retrieved the East German's rifle. The same type of walkie-talkie he'd tossed overboard on his way into the port of Thira was propped up against the overturned pew. The others had been warned about the ambush.
His only hope now was that Lipton had brought his team ashore. Short of that he would hold them off here. The longer he did that, the longer they would remain away from Kathleen and Elizabeth.
He'd made a mistake coming up here. The bitter thought rankled as he dragged another solid oak pew over to the first, and muscled it over onto its side. The bench was at least fifteen feet long and had to weigh several hundred pounds. The thick seat bottom would stop just about anything short of a grenade or a LAWS rocket, neither of which was beyond the STASI's ability to acquire.
But he had run out of options by stupidly forgetting that Spranger was a professional. His men would be well trained,
well disciplined, well armed and well equipped. They would communicate.
Hunkering down between the pair of overturned pews which offered him protection from both stairwells, he ejected the Kalashnikov's curved magazine and quickly counted the bullets. There were only eleven, and there were no spare clips lying around. He had reloaded his pistol on the road, on the way up here from town. He ejected the clip. It was empty, which left only one round in the firing chamber.
Twelve rounds with which he not only had to defend himself, but with which he had to prevail and then rescue Kathleen and Elizabeth.
He smiled grimly as he holstered his pistol, and made sure the Kalashnikov's safety was switched off, the selection lever in the single fire position.
Impossible odds, he thought. But still manageable.
LIPTON STOOD WITH THE OTHERS AT THE HEAD OF THE STONE stairs to the dock, listening, but the gunfire had stopped for the moment. The young woman seemed to be in better condition than her mother, but neither of them would be able to withstand much more. They seemed weak, and more listless than they should under the circumstances. Lipton suspected they'd been drugged.
“Tony and Jules will get you ladies off the island, and then call for help,” Lipton told them.
Elizabeth clutched his arm. “My father is here. He's looking for us, but they know he's coming. It's a trap.”
“As soon as we get you to safety we'll see what we can do to help him.”
Elizabeth looked at Lipton's team, and laughed, the sound short and sharp. “I'm sorry, but I hope you brought more men with you than this.”
Lipton glanced at Tyrell. “Why is that, Ms. McGarvey?”
“Because there's a lot more of them than there are of you. And they're very good.”
“We'll take care of it,” Lipton said. “But first, you and your mother are getting out of here.”
Elizabeth looked at him for a long time. “Then good luck,” she said, and she took her mother's arm and they started single file down the stairs.
 
McGarvey held his breath as he tried to distinguish sounds other than the shrieking wind and the annoying ringing in his ears. He thought he'd heard someone on the stairs behind
him, and he had looked over his shoulder, but there was nothing yet.
The flames from the burning helicopter in the courtyard had finally begun to die down, and there was much less light up here in the loft, which was just as well. If he couldn't see his attackers, then they couldn't see him either.
Both stairwells were in darkness, and he kept switching his gaze from one to the other, his eyes barely above the level of the overturned pews, so that he almost missed the movement in the west stairwell.
His heart froze, then steadied, as he switched his attention to the opposite stairwell, bringing the Kalashnikov up and resting it lightly on the pew.
“Take a peek,” he muttered softly. “Just a little peek to see what's going on up here.”
A head and shoulders appeared in the stairwell, and McGarvey fired once, driving the figure violently backward and out of sight.
Switching his aim immediately back to the west stairwell he was in time to see a figure dart left into the shadows toward one of the stone pillars.
He squeezed off a single shot, catching the man in the side, flipping him over the stairwell railing with a desperate cry, and McGarvey heard him crashing down the way he'd come.
 
Spranger could hardly believe what was happening. Dürenmatt was dead, his body lying in a pool of blood on the stone floor where McGarvey had flipped it over the chorus loft balustrade. Scherchen was crumpled in a heap at the foot of the east stairwell. And Magda was shaking and crying silently with rage over the body of her husband lying in the west stairwell.
Their chopper was destroyed, their pilot and maintenance man dead, and aside from Lessing down on the dock, that left only three: Him and Liese at the east stairwell and Magda on the opposite side.
Liese was staring at him, a slight smirk on her beautiful
lips, as if she were saying, I told you so. He had the urge to reach out and slap the look off her face.
Tiny flashes of light were going off inside his head, like police cameras in a morgue, each burst illuminating some morbid scene in the recesses of his mind.
Radvonska's warning in Rome about McGarvey kept coming back to him, and he kept pushing it away. This operation was falling apart at the edges. Monaco, Japan, the States … all unraveling. All because of one man.
He looked up into the darkness of the loft. The two shots that had been fired had come from a Kalashnikov. Dürenmatt's, which in itself was so galling he could hardly stand it.
Who was he?
Intense pain from his burns threatened to blot out what little sanity was left to him. Only through sheer force of will was he able to hang on. To think.
They were going to have to leave this place soon. It wouldn't be long before the Greek authorities began to sit up and take notice that something was going on out here. And Dürenmatt had said that McGarvey had not been alone in the courtyard. Which meant the man had help. Who?
Maybe Lessing had seen something out in the water after all.
He pulled the walkie-talkie around and keyed the talk button. Liese was still staring at him, the same fixed expression on her face, in her eyes. She was, Spranger thought, an enigma even to him.
“Bruno, what is your situation down there?” he said softly into the microphone. “Have you seen anything else?”
He keyed the transmit button, and waited impatiently for Lessing's reply. But there was no response.
“Bruno, do you copy?”
Still there was no answer.
“Bruno, come back,” he transmitted.
“What's the matter, Ernst, are your friends deserting you?” McGarvey's voice drifted down from the loft.
Spranger stepped back a half pace, as if he expected an apparition to appear at the head of the stairs, guns blazing. A
ghost, incapable of being harmed, and yet supremely able to inflict death and destruction.
“Ernst … ?” Liese said softly.
Magda was looking across at them, the big Russian assault rifle clutched in her arms.
Spranger dropped the walkie-talkie on the floor. “Get them,” he told Liese.
“The women?” she asked, blinking.
“Yes. Bring them here.”
Liese looked up toward the loft. “What do you mean to do, Ernst?” she asked. “Let's leave now, while we still have the chance.”
“It would be the end of the project.”
“Fuck the Japanese,” Liese said urgently. “But we can take the women with us. At least the young one. She's fit to travel.”
“Liese,” Spranger said. “Get them.”
She looked directly into his eyes for several long moments, a test of wills, but then her gaze dropped and she turned and hurried off.
When she was gone, Spranger laid his rifle down, took out the detonator, and motioned for Magda to take a position at the top of the stairs. She nodded her understanding and went up.
Spranger gave her a half minute to get into place, and then called up to McGarvey.
“I'm going to come up the stairs, Mr. McGarvey. Unarmed. I want to talk to you about saving the lives of your ex-wife and daughter.”
“What do you want out of it?” McGarvey answered.
“There are only four of us left. We would very much like to walk away from here with our lives.”
“Then go. Turn around and walk away.”
“Ah, but it's not going to be that easy,” Spranger said, much calmer now that he had a plan. He started up the stairs. “Here I come, and as I say, I am unarmed. But I am carrying a small electronic device in my right hand. My thumb is on the button. If the button is pushed a powerful explosion will
destroy the room in which your wife and daughter are being held. There would be no chance of their survival in such a case. Do you understand?”
“No,” McGarvey said harshly.
Spranger stopped halfway up. “Do you believe that I am not serious, Mr. McGarvey?”
“What do you get out of it? You still haven't answered my question.”
“I propose to give you the detonating device in exchange for Peter's rifle and your pistol,” Spranger replied, smiling.
“Then you'll kill me.”
“On the contrary, we will need you alive to effect our escape past your friends.”
The church was silent for a long time. Even the wind howling around the eaves seemed to have calmed down for that instant.
“Mr. McGarvey?” Spranger called.
“Come,” McGarvey said.
“I need your assurances that …”
“Come,” McGarvey repeated.
Holding the detonator away from his body, Spranger went the rest of the way up to the loft. “Here I come.”
He hesitated for a beat on the last stair, then stepped up, out of the deeper darkness. At first he couldn't make out much except for a few vague shapes. Something had been piled up in the middle of the loft.
“Put the detonator down,” McGarvey's voice came from the darkness, but Spranger couldn't pinpoint it. Had he made another mistake with this man?
“I cannot see you. Show yourself.”
“Do it,” McGarvey said, and this time Spranger was sure that the American was at the far end of the loft where he would see Magda if she showed herself.
“All right, I'll do it,” Spranger shouted hastily. He had to distract the man's attention for just a crucial second or two. “I'm putting it down, but you must lay your weapons aside.” He started to crouch down to place the detonator on the floor
when Liese shouted at him from the nave, her voice desperate.
“Ernst! They're gone!”
Magda Schey rose up out of the dark stairwell at that moment and brought her rifle up.
“Nein …” Spranger cried when McGarvey fired once, driving Magda backward, her weapon discharging in a long burst, the bullets ricocheting dangerously off the stone walls.
Then McGarvey fired again, this shot hitting Spranger in the right shoulder before he had time to react, shoving him off balance down the stairs, every fiber in his being raging at the surprise and injustice. It wasn't supposed to end up like this!

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