The Red Horseman (25 page)

He had studied the map for fifteen minutes and
thought he knew where he was going. He had exactly
six minutes to make the subway station rendezvous and
there was no wayHe had pointed out to Grafton that he
was going to be very late, but the admiral said,
“They’ll wait for you,” and made him take
the time to study the map carefully.

He scurried out the main gate past the bodies
lying in the street, pathetic little piles of rags with
all the life smashed out. His course inadvertently
took him by the body of the woman incinerated by her own
Molotov cocktail. He tried not to look,
looked anyway and almost vomited.

Moscow was not lit up like an American or
European city. Occasional weak streetlights
enlivened the gloom and gave enough light to see, but they
offered little comfort.

Yocke wasn’t alone on the street. People were
watching from doorways and alleys, people staying well
under cover.

Yet they made no move to interfere with him. There
was no traffic at all.

He walked as fast as he could and had to resist the
urge to break into a trot.

If his editor ever heard about this evening’s
expedition he would be fired within two heartbeats for
taking foolish risks. So why had he agreed to this
anyway?

Grafton had laid out the route, the most
direct way to the rendezvous.

His course took him north on
Tchaikovsky Street, through Vosstanija
Square and onto SadovajaKudrinskaja
Street, which was really the same boulevard as
Tchaikovsky Street. The names of the streets of
Moscow changed at every major intersection, a
European tradition designed to baffle tourists and
keep taxi drivers fully employed.

He was getting into the rhythm now, his heart and
lungs pumping as he swung along with a stride that
ate up the distance.

Once he heard running footsteps and ducked
into a doorway. The street was empty. Trying
to stay calm, he stood stock-still for several
seconds as his heart thudded like a trip-hammer.

were they watching? Waiting for him?

“Someone will meet you long before you get there,”
Jake Grafton had said.

Of course someone is watching.

For the first time that evening Jack Yocke felt the
icy fingers of true fear. Unsure of what he should
do now, he finally stepped back onto the sidewalk
and resumed his journey. Where in hell was Shirley
Ross?

His head was swiveling uncontrollably. When
he realized that he was really seeing nothing
because he was trying to see everything, he locked his head
facing forward. Still his eyes swept nervously from
side to side and he couldn’t resist an occasional
glance behind him. But he wasn’t being followed.

They must be watching. Of course!

They. Whoever they were. Watching him hump along
like a bug scurrying across a stone floor. Any
second the shoe would come smashing down and He could
smell himself. He was perspiring freely and he
stank. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and rubbed
his hand against his trousers, which left a wet spot.

A little car came around the corner and drove past
him.

The two heads-two male heads-didn’t turn
his way. The car went up the street and turned right
at the next corner.

A black car.

He was tiring. The nervous energy was burning off
and the pace he was making was too fast. He slowed
to almost normal speed.

Ahead of him on the right a door opened.
Unconsciously he swerved left toward the street
and picked up his pace.

God! He should have accepted that pistol Grafton
offered. Grafton knew what the score was
and offered itwhy didn’t he have the sense to”…In
here, Jack.”

It was her voice, a conversational tone.

Don’tjust stand there,” she said. “Come in here
now!”

He went through the door into a darkened hallway.
She was there, with a man. The man closed the door and
she took his arm. “Through here, quickly. We have a car
out back. Hurry.” She broke into a trot.

“Jake Grafton wants to see you.”

“Where?”

“A park on the south side of the Moskva. He
said-

was Quiet.” She went through a door and they were in
an alley. “Into the car.” She dove into the
passenger seat and Yocke climbed into the back.
Before he could get the door completely closed the car
was in motion. He opened it partially and slammed it
shut.

“Lie down,” she said.

He did so.

The car swerved and accelerated with a blast from the
exhaust.

“Jake Grafton said that-was

“Wait.”

With his head against the the windows. The car was street,
now braking and swerving around another corner.

“When the car stops,” Shirley Ross said, “I
want you seat Yocke tried to look out accelerating
down a narrow to quickly get out. The same side you
got in on. Be sure to close the door. There will be
a panel truck right beside the car. You go into the truck
and I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay.”

And almost immediately the car swerved sideways again.

In seconds the driver applied the brakes.

“Now.”

He sat up and grabbed the door handle and got out
as fast as he could.

There were four vans there, but only one with the rear
doors open.

Shirley pushed him toward it. He scrambled in
and she followed and someone closed the door and the
vehicle began to move.

“Where?” she said.

“A park on the south side of the river four
hundred yards east of the entrance to Gorky Park.
They put the statues there after they tore them down.”

“I know where it is.” She moved forward in the
van’s interior and said something to the driver in
a language Yocke didn’t know.

When she returned to his side she devoted her
attention to a small device she held in her hand.
Then she held it up to her ear. A radio.

Yocke could hear the voices.

“Are we being followed?”

“They are following three of the vans.”

“This one?”

She held up a hand to silence him. After a
minute she went forward to confer with the driver.

How in hell had he gotten himself into this mess
anyway?

Hurtling though the streets of Moscow in a van
that smelled like a garbage truck, being trailed by the
KGB’-HE braced himself against the swaying of the
vehicle as it darted around a corner.

She was back beside him. “In a few minutes we
will switch vehicles again. Stay with me.”

“Okay.”

She listened intently to the radio.

“What’s your real name?”

She didn’t reply.

“What did you want to tell me?”

“You? Nothing. I need to talk to Jake
Grafton and the telephones are all
tapped. He figured it out.”

Jack Yocke opened his mouth again but now her
fingers were against his face, feminine fingers that brushed his
cheek and remained against his lips.

Jake Grafton sat in the grass with his back
against one of Felix Dzerzhinsky’s bronze
legs, facing in the direction of Gorky Park.
About seventy-five yards to the north, his right, was the
south bank of the Moskva River. Farther ahead on
the right, between where he sat and the boulevard in front of the
Gorky Park entrance columns, was a vast low
building, a cultural institute, with its empty
parking lots. Farther to the west the Grecian
columns of the park entrance gate were visible behind
streetlights; on the boulevard. Several hundred
yards away to the south, on Jake’s left, were
block after block of drab apartment buildings ”
Behind him to the east the park went for a quarter mile
until it reached a street.

Toad Tarkington was on Jake’s left lying
on his belly amid some scrub trees and weeds.
Spiro Dalworth was against the corner of the
cultural building. Senior Chief Holley was
behind Jake, watching his back. All three men had
M-16’s.

The city seemed abnormally quiet tonight, Jake
Grafton thought. Perhaps the day of rioting had drained
the energy from the Moscovites and they were home in bed
worrying about their future. They certainly had a
bucketful of troubles to fret about.

Ambassador Lancaster had telephoned as
Grafton was walking out the door of his apartment,
five minutes after dispatching Jack Yocke.
Toad took the call and made some excuse.
Whatever was on the ambassador’s mind would have
to wait a few hours.

Tonight Jake’s .357 Magnum revolver lay
beside him in the grass. All he had to do was drop his
hand to it. In his hands he held a stick that he had
picked up before he sat down. He was whittling upon
it with his pocketknife while he speculated about
what Lancaster had wanted.

Lancaster didn’t seem the type to invite him
to Spaso House for an evening of poker.

No stars tonight.

Another high overcast that might or might not bring
rain.

How long had it been? Twenty minutes?

Over on the boulevard in front of Gorky
Park several trucks rumbled by.

The city was too quiet.

Looking the other way, toward the northeast,
Jake could see the turrets and spires of the
Kremlin, lit up tonight as usual. It was eerie, in
a way, how for centuries that old fortress had
housed czars and czarinas in extraordinary opulence.
Favored by accidents of birth, they had lived out their
lives in that palace and the one in St. Petersburg
while the mass of Russians struggled just to stay
alive. When the Communists came along they moved
right in. Yet like the czars, the days of the Reds were
over, so tonight Yeltsin and his allies were in there trying
to figure out how to ride the tiger. And out here amid
the discarded, smashed statues the Russians were still
struggling to stay alive, just as they always had.

Bracing his elbows against his knees, Jake
scanned the area again with what appeared to be heavy
binoculars. Unlike regular binoculars, this set
picked up infrared light.

He could see Spiro against the corner of the
building. He had told the lieutenant to stay
down, but he was up against the wall, peering this way and
that.

Do the Russians have infrared binoculars?

Toad was nearly invisible. Jake could
see was the faintest indication of a glow where he must be
lying. The senior chief seemed equally well
hidden.

No one else in sight. Not a dog, not a
prowling cat, not a drunk or pair of lovers.
Well, it’s not a good night for drunks or
lovers.

Jake raised the glasses and scanned the
buildings to the south and east.

Somewhere in the city Yocke was playing secret
agent.

That guy! Always sure he knew everything when in
reality he was just stumbling along in the dark with everyone
else.

Maybe he shouldn’t have let Yocke go. If
something happened to him …

Finally he lowered the glasses and zipped up his
jacket.

The evening was getting chilly. Wondering about
Yocke, worrying about Yeltsin and his grand
experiment, Jake Grafton went back to his
whittling.

Jack Yocke couldn’t see any of the features
of the man behind the wheel of the van, even looking in the
rearview mirror. He had dark hair and
wore a dark jacket and whispered with Shirley
Ross in a foreign language that Yocke tried in
vain to identify in the deep silence that had fallen
once the van’s engine was turned off. This was the
third van he had been in tonight. Shirley Ross
apparently had access to a motor pool.

The driver and the woman consulted a map, made more
whispered comments, stared out the window to the left.

The driver had a hand-held radio that now sounded
starttingly loud. He turned down the volume and
held it close to his ear.

Finally she turned back to Yocke. “The
statues are over there about a hundred yards or so,
through the little trees.”

“Who are you?”

“You and I will get out and walk across the grass.
Stay with me. If anything goes wrong, just fall
down on your stomach and stay there.”

“if what goes wrong?”

“Anything. The man in the front seat handed back
a submachine gun.

Shirley Ross put the strap across her left
shoulder, tucked the butt under her right armpit and
grasped the pistol grip and trigger assembly with
her right hand.

The driver got out of the van and closed the door.
In seconds the rear doors of the van opened.

“Let’s go,” she said, and went first.

Jack Yocke took a deep breath, then
followed.

The van was sitting in front of a huge slab of
apartments.

Across the street was the park. She was already moving.

Yocke followed. As they crossed the sidewalk
and entered the weeds and longish grass, it occurred
to him that he had never even got a glimpse of the
driver’s face.

There was just enough light for him to pick up the vague
outline of tree trunks and bushes. He tripped
twice, then had to take several long strides
to catch up to Shirley Ross, who was just a vague
black shape moving quickly away from him.

Once she stopped and he almost bumped into her, then
she was moving again, though in a slightly different
direction.

Just as Jack Yocke was beginning to wonder if she
knew where she was going, she slowed down and spoke
softly: “Good morning, Admiral.”

“Hello, Judith. Come sit over here
by Stalin’s head.”

“I don’t think we were followed, but they might have
fooled me. They’ve been running spot
surveillance on you since you arrived and they’re
hunting really hard for me.”

Yocke almost fell over the marble statue that lay
on its side. He sat down with his back against it.
Shirley sat on his right. Sitting facing them, with his
back against one of the huge bronze statues, the
reporter recognized Jake Grafton. He had
a pair of heavy binoculars in his hands.

“I brought your reporter back,” Shirley
told Jake.

“Where can we put him so that you and I can have a
private conversation?”

“Oh, I think he’s earned a little piece of the
truth. He won’t print anything without my
permission.”

“You trust him?”

Jake Grafton chuckled. “Beneath that polished,
ambitious facade beats a pure and noble heart.”

“Shmarov blew up the Serdobsk reactor.”

“Sure,” Jake Grafton said. “And the KGB
killed Kolokoltsev in Soviet Square. If
we’re going to tell each other fairy stories,
Judith, let’s go find a warm bar that
serves good whiskey.”

“Oh, you know we killed Kolokoltsev. After
we did it the KGB breathed a collective sigh
of relief-the man was an embarrassment to the Old
Guard heavy hitters-and so I thought why not get some
PR mileage out of it, muddy the water.”

“How do you know about Serdobsk?”

“The helicopter pilot that flew them down there
is one of ours. He helps us pay off the
authorities and smuggle Jews out. Then a few
nights ago he was called at home and told to come
in for a priority flight. Five men and their
equipment to the nuclear power plant at Serdobsk.
When he got there he realized things weren’t going right
when his passengers shot one security guard and herded
the other inside. So he waited a bit, then started
the engines and got out of there. The reactor blew up
about two hours later.”

After a few seconds of silence, Jake
Grafton asked, “Who does your man work for?”

KGB.

,And the passengers?”

“Also KGB. The man in charge was a Colonel
Gagarin.”

“How do you know Gagarin blew the thing
up?”

“Obviously I’m adding two and two.”

“Where’s Gagarin now?”

“I don’t know. He never came back.”

“He blew himself up?” Jake asked
incredulously.

“Well, he didn’t shoot the guard at the
front gate for sport, then carry bags full of
equipment inside to equip the local baseball
team. But he and his men could have gotten out somehow and the
KGB then eliminated them. I don’t know.”

“And Shmarov?”

“Gagarin was one of his lieutenants. He
didn’t do anything that Shmarov didn’t know about and
approve.”

“It’s damn thin, Judith.”

“Admiral, in this business you are never going
to get sworn affidavits.”

A, Jake Grafton could see her silhouette
but not her face.

She sounded tired. How many years had it been
since he last saw her? He counted. Five.
Five years running clandestine, covert operations,
five years of false identities, deceit,
risks calculated, chances taken, five
years of stalking enemies of the Jewish state, five
years of secret warfare …

and she had been a covert operations professional
when he first met her in Italy.

“Let’s talk about Nigel Keren,” Jake
Grafton said.

“You guarantee that this reporter … ?”

“If he writes a word that I don’t approve
of, you can shoot him anywhere you find him.”

Jack Yocke didn’t think that was a joke.

The woman was answering Jake: “dis . . Keren was
financing our efforts to get Jews out of Russia.
He gave us about a billion dollars.”

“A billion? That much money-was

“Bribes,” she told him. “Expenses. We
had to pay off the authorities, pay for everything.”
She turned slightly, toward Yocke. “You were
looking for Yakov Dynkin? He’s in Israel
now. We’ll get his wife there as soon as we can.

We bought him out of prison, bought a false
passport and visa. He left from
Sheremetyevo.”

“Keren was a Jew,” Jack Yocke said.

“Keren wanted to help. The CIA finally found out
about it through the KGB and decided to stop
Keren’s contributions. The Arabs want Jewish
immigration to Israel stopped and the CIA was
trying-is trying-to play all sides in the
Middle East. Iraq and Syria are buffers against
Shiite fundamentalism, but they are bitter
enemies of Israel. Give everybody a little,
preserve the status quo. They-was

A shot rang out. Then another.

A stream of muzzle flashes from the darkness.
Jack Yocke threw himself sideways as a surge
of adrenaline shot through him and tried to burrow under the
marble statue of Stalin. Vaguely he was aware of a
silenced, guttural buzzing beside him, more shots, then
a weight fell across his legs. A heavy report
sounded just beside him. More shots.

And as suddenly as it began, it was over. In what,
ten or fifteen seconds?

“Judith? Judith?” Jake Grafton’s
voice.

Yocke tried to move but the weight on his legs
held him.

It was a body. “I’ve got her,” Jake
Grafton said. “Get up, Jack.”

Grafton had a small penlight. “She’s been
shot. Judith, can you hear me?”

Someone else was there. “Two CIA guys from the
em E 223 n

bassy.” Toad Tarkington’s voice.
“They’re both dead.

We’ve got to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Judith’s been shot,” Jake told him. Now
Toad saw the revolver in his hand. “You and Yocke
take her to the car and I’ll get the other guys.”

He took the M-16 from Toad and slung it
over his shoulder.

She was heavy. Jack Yocke got her legs and
Toad her shoulders. Toad wanted to go faster than
Yocke could manage. “Come on, you son of a
bitch,” Toad swore. “Move it!”

They had to carry her a hundred yards. She
seemed to weigh a ton and several times Yocke thought
he might drop her. She was limp, unconscious.
Somehow his savage grip on her bare, shaved legs
seemed obscene, an invasion of her womanhood that
added embarrassment to the stew of emotions surging through
the reporter.

“What happened?” Yocke asked Toad between
breaths as they stumbled along.

“Two men. I got one with the first shot and the other
charged and exchanged shots with Judith. I
think they shot each other or else Grafton or
somebody drilled him. Hell, maybe I got him
too, not that it matters a damn. I got a look
at their bodies. Both CIA guys from the
embassy.”

CIA? Jesus, Yocke swore under his breath,
he thought that story this Shirley or Judith or
whatever her name is had told was all crap!

“What did you say?” Toad demanded.

“Jesus!”

She groaned once, just before they maneuvered her
into the backseat.

Toad jumped in back. “You drive, Jack.

Keys are under the floormat.”

Yocke got behind the wheel and fumbled with the keys.

“Come on, Yocke! Let’s get her to the
embassy before she bleeds to death.”

Somehow Yocke got the right key into the ignition
and the engine started. He pulled the lever into drive and
tried to resist the urge to floor the accelerator.

In the backseat Toad was trying to see where she was
hit. Three bullet holes, as near as he could
tell, all into the left lung area. He had his arm
around her and could feel the warm, sticky wetness.
Damn! One of them must have punched into her
heart.

She whispered something. He put his ear almost against
her lips.

“Hello, Robert.”

“We’ll get you to the doc at the embassy,
Hannah.”

Without thinking, he had used her real name. He
almost bit his tongue.

Her pulse was fluttering, her muscles stack.

And Toad knew. She was dying. Fury welled
in him, all the frustrated bitterness accumulated
through the years from loving a woman when the love
wasn’t returned, couldn’t be returned-now it
washed over him as a wave of pure rage, then as
suddenly dissipated, leaving an emptiness in its
place.

“Judith Farrell,” he whispered, his lips right
next to her ear. “I have loved two women in my
life. You were the first.”

Whether or not she heard him he didn’t know. A
moment later he realized she had no pulse. He
hugged her tighter and sat watching the buildings as the
car sped through empty streets.

SOMEBODY SOLD us ouT.” TOAD
TARKINGTON WAS IN A fine fury, his
face dark, his eyes narrowed to slits.
Unconsciously Jack Yocke took a step
backward.

Senior Chief Holley and Spiro Dalworth
took the full brunt of Tarkington’s anger. They
stood their ground as Toad continued in a low, intense
voice: “Someone here in this room told the CIA
where the meet was, who was going to be there. They
didn’t get it over the phone, they didn’t get it
from a wiretap, they didn’t follow anybody there.

Someone talked, whispered into a spook’s ear, and
because Of that, Judith Farrell died.”

Spiro Dalworth’s face was a study as he
tried to keep it under control.

Toad Tarkington zeroed in, put his face
inches from that of the lieutenant. “Somebody broke the
faith.” He said the words slowly, like an Old
Testament prophet pronouncing the doom of a king.
“Somebody betrayed his shipmates, sold out to the
spook fucks playing power politics. Why
don’t you tell us about it, Dalworth.”

“Commander, I-“You shit!”

“Listen, we’re on the same team. I The
back of Toad’s hand flicked across Dalworth’s
face with a whiplike smack. Dalworth
staggered and almost fell.

“That’s enough, Toad,” Jake Grafton said.

Tarkington stepped back and stood glowering at
Dalworth, who rubbed the side of his face and
looked at the admiral. “Sir, I’m sorry!”
the lieutenant said. “I thought-was His voice
broke. He was near tears.

“Who’d you tell?” the admiral asked in a
tired voice.

“Herb Tenney. We’ve talked before about an
agency job when I get out.

My naval career-was

“When did you tell him?”

“Before we left to go to the park.”

Jake Grafton looked out the window at the
fountain in front of the complex cafeteria. On the
other side of the square was the empty new embassy
riddled with electronic listening devices. KGB
bugs, CIA bugs, maybe Mossad,
MI-5, German bugs, you name it. Was there
anybody anywhere in this uncertain world who was willing
to sleep in blissful ignorance of what the U.s.
ambassador said to his aides? Or his
assistant? Or his wife?

“Admiral, I-

“No.” Jake Grafton thought he knew what
Tarkington was going to say. Toad would desperately
love to go find Herb Tenney and shoot him dead.

Let’s assume Judith was telling the gospel
truth. The CIA learned of the Nigel Keren
operation through the KGB.

And the KGB has just blown up the Serdobsk power
plant, contaminating thousands of square miles and
killing thousands of people, thereby triggering a leadership
crisis that might result in a new dictatorship
of the Old Guard, some of whom lead the KGB.
Assume also that this development would not be frowned upon
by the rogue clique in the CIA that controlled Herb
Tenney. In some crazy way it fitted.

Jake Grafton got that hollow feeling in the
pit of his stomach again.

The Middle East, eastern Europe, the horn
of Africa, southeast Asia …

Every major event affects every person in this
interdependent world. The collapse of communism in the
Soviet Union upset the equilibrium. No,
the collapse of the shah in pro-Western Iran was the
triggering event.

Like shock waves radiating from the epicenter of an
earthquake, these events triggered other
events, upset the balance of power that kept a world with
too few resources and too many greedy men from coming
apart at the seams.

And now the seams were ripping.

He turned from the window. “Toad, you and Jack
take Farrell’s body back to the park.”

“Why not the Israeli embassy, sir? She ought
to have a decent funeral and burial. She deserves
that.”

Jake Grafton thought the white-collar crowd
at the Israeli embassy would be extremely
embarrassed if they received the body of a covert
soldier killed in an operation that the government of
Israel would deny all knowledge of. He merely repeated
his order: “Take her to the park.”

“Aye aye, sir. Come on, Yocke.”

“Senior Chief, go to bed.”

a e n an Spiro Dalworth were standing alone
in the room when Toad Tarkington closed the door.

Out in the car Judith Farrell’s body lay under
a pile of jackets on the backseat. Toad got
behind the wheel and Jack Yocke got in beside him.

The sky was just beginning to gray when Toad turned
the corner and sped south on the wide, empty
boulevard that ran toward the river.