The Holcroft Covenant (68 page)

Yakov crashed his shoulder once more against the door; it loosened. He had to get out fast: The fires behind guaranteed the explosion of the fuel tank. Up ahead, the driver of the police car was slamming it into the Rolls; the second man was on the road, reaching into Holcroft’s window, yanking at the steering wheel. They were trying to send the car over the embankment.

Ben-Gadíz hammered his whole upper body against the door; it swung open. The Israeli lunged out on the snow-covered surface of the road, his wounds producing a hundred red streaks on the white powder. He raised his pistol and fired one shot after another, his eyes blurred, his aim imperfect.

And then two terrible things happened at the same moment.

The Rolls went over the embankment, and a roar of gunfire filled the snow-laden air. A line of bullets kicked up the road and cut across Yakov’s legs. He was beyond pain.

There was no feeling left, but he twisted and turned and rolled wherever he could. His hands touched the slashed rubber of the tires, then steel and more steel, and cold patches of glass and snow.

The explosion came; the fuel tank of the Maserati burst into flames. And Ben-Gadíz heard the words, shouted
in the distance. “They’re dead! Turn around! Get out of here!”

The attackers fled.

Helden had slowed the car well over a minute ago. Noel should have been in sight by now. Where was he? She stopped at the side of the road and waited. Another two minutes went by; she could not wait any longer.

She swung the car into a U-turn and started back up the hill. Pushing the accelerator to the floor, she passed the half-mile mark; still there was no sign of him. Her hands began to tremble.

Something had happened. She knew it; she could feel it!

She saw the Maserati! It was demolished! On fire!

Oh,
God!
Where was Noel’s car? Where was Noel? Yakov?

She slammed on the brakes and ran out, screaming. She fell on the slippery road, unaware that her own wounded leg had caused the fall, and pushed herself up, and screamed again, and ran again.

“Noel!
Noel!
”

Tears streaked down her face in the cold air; her screams tore the raw nerves of her throat. She could not cope with her own hysteria.

She heard the command out of nowhere.

“
Helden!
Stop it. Here.…”

A voice. Yakov’s voice! From where? Where was it
coming
from? She heard it again.

“Helden! Down here!”

The embankment. She raced to the embankment and her world collapsed. Below was the Rolls-Royce—overturned and smoking, crushed metal everywhere. In horror she saw the figure of Yakov Ben-Gadíz on the ground next to the Rolls. And then she saw the streaks of red on the snow that formed a path across the road and down the embankment to where Yakov lay.

Helden lunged over the embankment, rolling in the snow and over the rocks, screaming at the death she knew awaited her. She fell by Ben-Gadíz and stared through the open window at her love. He was sprawled out, immobile, his face drenched with blood.

“No!… 
No!
”

Yakov grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. He
could barely speak, but his commands were clear. “Get back to your car. There’s a small village south of Treyvaux, no more than five kilometers from here. Call Litvak. Près-du-Lac’s not so far away … twenty, twenty-two kilometers. He can hire pilots, fast cars. Reach him; tell him.”

Helden could not take her eyes off Noel. “He’s dead.… He’s
dead!
”

“He may not be. Hurry!”

“I can’t. I can’t
leave
him!”

Ben-Gadíz raised his pistol. “Unless you do, I’ll kill him now.”

Litvak walked into, the room where Ben-Gadíz lay on the bed, his lower body encased in bandages. Yakov was staring out the window at the snow-covered fields and the mountains beyond; he continued to stare, taking no notice of the doctor’s entrance.

“Do you want the truth?”

The Israeli turned his head slowly. “There’s no point in avoiding it, is there? At any rate, I can see it in your face.”

“I could bring you worse news. You’ll not walk very well ever again; the damage is too extensive. But, in time, you’ll
get
around. At first with the help of crutches; later, perhaps, with a cane.”

“Not exactly the physical prognosis needed for my work, is it?”

“No, but your mind’s intact and your hands will heal. It won’t affect your music.”

Yakov smiled sadly. “I was never that good. My mind wandered too frequently. I was not as fine a professional as I was in my other life.”

“That mind can be put to other uses.”

The Israeli frowned, looking again out the window. “We’ll see when we know what’s left out there.”

“It’s changing out there, Yakov. It’s happening quickly,” said the doctor.

“What about Holcroft?”

“I don’t know what to say. He should have died. But he’s still alive. Not that it makes much difference in terms of his life. He can’t go back to who he was. He’s wanted in half a dozen countries for murder. The death penalty’s been restored everywhere, for all manner of crimes, the
laws of defense a travesty. Everywhere. He’d be shot on sight.”

“They’ve won,” said Yakov, his eyes filling with tears. “The
Sonnenkinder
have won.”

“We’ll see,” said Litvak, “when we know what’s left out there.”

Images. Shapeless, unfocused, without meaning or definition. Outlines etched in vapor. There was only awareness. Not thought, nor any memory of experience, just awareness. Then the shapeless images began to take form; the mists cleared, turning awareness into recognition. Thought would come later; it was enough to be able to see and to remember.

Noel saw her face above him, framed by the cascading blond hair that touched his face. There were tears in her eyes; they ran down her cheeks. He tried to wipe away the tears, but he could not reach the lovely, tired face above. His hand fell, and she took it in hers.

“My darling.…”

He heard her. He was able to hear. Sight and sound had meaning. He closed his eyes, knowing that somehow thought would come soon, too.

Litvak stood in the doorway, watching Helden sponge Noel’s chest and neck. There was a newspaper under his arm. He examined Holcroft’s face, the face that had taken such punishment from the fusillade of bullets. There were scars on his left cheek and across his forehead and all over his neck. But the healing process had begun. From somewhere inside the house came the sounds of a violin being played by a very professional musician.

“I’d like to recommend a raise for your nurse,” said Noel weakly.

“For which duties?” Litvak laughed.

“Physician, heal thyself.” Helden joined the laughter.

“I wish I could. I wish I could heal a lot of things,” replied the doctor, dropping the newspaper at Holcroft’s side. It was the Paris edition of the
Herald Tribune
. “I picked this up for you in Neuchâtel. I’m not sure you want to read it.”

“What’s the lesson for today?”

“ ‘The Consequences of Dissent’ would be a fair title, I imagine. The editorial staff of the New York
Times
have been enjoined by your Supreme Court from any further coverage of the Pentagon. The issue, of course, is national security. Said Supreme Court also upheld the legality of the multiple executions in your state of Michigan. The Court’s opinion expresses the profound thought that when minorities threaten the well-being of the general public, swift and visible examples are to be made in the cause of deterrence.”

“Today John Smith is a minority,” said Noel weakly, his head resting back on the pillow. “Boom, he’s dead.”

This is the world news, reported by BBC of London. Since the wave of assassinations that took the lives of political figures across the globe, security measures of unparalleled severity have been mounted in the nations’ capitals. It is to the military and police authorities everywhere that the greatest responsibility falls, and so that international cooperation at the highest levels may be achieved, an agency has been formed in Zurich, Switzerland. This agency, to be called Anvil, will facilitate the swift, accurate, and confidential exchange of information between member military and police forces
.…

Yakov Ben-Gadíz was halfway through the scherzo of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto when he found his mind wandering again. Noel Holcroft was stretched out on the couch across the room, Helden sitting on the floor beside him.

The plastic surgeon who had flown from Los Angeles to operate on his unidentified patient had done a remarkable job. The face was still Holcroft’s, yet not entirely. The scars that had resulted from the facial wounds were gone, in their place slight indentations that lent a chiseled look to the features. The lines on his forehead were deeper, the wrinkles about his eyes more pronounced. There was no innocence in the slightly altered, restored face; instead there was a touch of cruelty. Perhaps more than a touch.

In addition to the changes, Noel had grown older, the aging process swift and painful. It had been four months since they had taken him from the embankment on the
road north of Fribourg, but, looking at him, one might judge the time elapsed to be nearer ten years.

Still, he had his life, and his body had sprung back under the care of Helden and the rigor of the never-ending exercises ordered by Litvak, supervised by a once-formidable commando from Har Sha’alav.

Yakov took pleasure in these sessions. He demanded excellence, and Holcroft met the demands; full health was required in the physical instrument before the real training could begin.

It would begin tomorrow. High in the spring hills and mountains, beyond the scrutiny of prying eyes, but under the harshest scrutiny of Yakov Ben-Gadíz. The pupil would do what the master could do no longer; the pupil would be put through the rigors of hell until he excelled the master.

Tomorrow it would begin.

“Wire! Rope! Chain!”

“Use your fingers! They’re weapons; never forget it.…”

“Scale that tree again, you were too slow.…”

“Climb the hill and get back down without my seeing you.…”

“I
saw
you. Your head was blown off!”

“Press the
nerve
, not the vein! There are five nerve points. Find them. With the blindfold on.
Feel
them.…”

“
Roll
out of a fall; don’t crouch.…”

“Every action must have two alternate, split-second options. Train yourself to think in those terms.
Instinctively
.…”

“Accuracy is a question of zero-sighting, immobility,
and breathing. Fire again, seven shots; they
must
be within a two-inch diameter.…”

“Escape, escape,
escape! Use
your surroundings;
melt
into them! Don’t be afraid to stay still. A man standing motionless is often the last person seen.…”

The summer months passed, and Yakov Ben-Gadíz was pleased. The pupil was now better than the master. He was ready.

As was his colleague; she was ready, too. Together they would form the team.

The
Sonnenkinder
were marked. The list was taken out and studied.

The couple walked down the street in Zurich’s Lindenhof district, on the left bank of the Limmat River. The man was fairly tall, but stooped, a pronounced limp impeding his progress through the crowds, the shabby suitcase in his hand a further hindrance. The woman held his arm, more as though guiding an irritable responsibility than with affection. Neither spoke: They were a couple grown to an indeterminable age together in mutual loathing.

They reached an office building and went inside, the man limping after the woman toward the bank of elevators. They stopped in front of the starter; the woman asked in decidedly middle-class German the office number of a small accounting firm.

She was given a number on the twelfth floor, the top floor, but as it was the lunch hour, the starter doubted anyone was there. It did not matter; the couple would wait.

They stepped out of the elevator on the twelfth floor; the hallway was deserted. The moment the elevator door closed, the couple ran to the staircase at the right end of the corridor. Gone was the limp; gone were the somber faces. They raced up the steps to the door of the roof and stopped on the landing. The man set down the suitcase,
knelt, and opened it. Inside were the barrel and stock of a rifle, a telescopic sight clamped to the former, a strap to the latter.

He took the parts out and attached them. Then he removed his hat with the wig sewn into the crown and threw it into the suitcase. He stood up and helped the woman take off her coat, pulling the sleeves through, reversing the cloth. It was now a well-cut, expensive beige topcoat, purchased at one of the better shops in Paris.

The woman then helped the man reverse his overcoat. It was transformed into a fashionable gentleman’s fall coat, trimmed in suede. The woman took off her kerchief, removed several pins, and let her blond hair fall down over her shoulders. She opened her purse and took out a revolver.

“I’ll be here,” said Helden. “Good hunting.”

“Thanks,” said Noel, opening the door to the roof.

He crouched against the wall by an out-of-use chimney, inserted his arm through the sling, and pulled the strap taut. He reached into his pocket and took out three shells; he pressed them into the chamber and slapped the bolt into firing position.
Every action must have two alternate, split-second options
.