Crossfire Read online

South of Treptow they crossed the Spree River, and skirted the Grösser Muggelsee, traffic this far out in the country nonexistent.

  Kurshin held his emotions in check with an iron will as they turned down a familiar dirt road that plunged into the dark woods, the snow-laden branches of the trees nearly meeting over the narrow track. He’d been here before, under similar circumstances. But that time, however, he’d come at Baranov’s bidding. He’d not been a man to be trifled with. He’d been a power in the Soviet secret intelligence services since the early fifties. An unstoppable power, an unmovable force … until McGarvey.

  To this day Kurshin could hardly believe it. Yet he had gone up against the man three times himself, and had very nearly lost his life. It rankled deeply.

  They were stopped by the general’s people at the gate about two miles from the main highway. The rear door was yanked open, and Kurshin got out. He was quickly and efficiently frisked by one of the guards, while the other two stood off, holding their AK-74 assault rifles trained on him. He was relieved of his pistol and his overnight bag, as well as a small penknife he carried.

  One of them radioed up to the main house with a walkie-talkie, and another got in the car with Kurshin and rode the rest of the way up the hill. They pulled up in front of the big house, which in the old days had been a Nazi general’s country retreat, and until two years ago had belonged to Baranov.

  At least two other armed guards stood at the edge of the woods, and one appeared in an upstairs window. General Didenko had been Baranov’s closest aide, and he knew how his boss had finally fallen. It had been arrogance that had killed him, and Didenko was taking no chances of his own.

  Kurshin was escorted onto the porch and inside the entry hall. The guard who’d come up with him took his coat.

  “Up here, Arkasha,” General Didenko said from the head of the stairs. He had the same flair for the dramatic as Baranov had had.

  Kurshin went up, and at the top Didenko stepped back, his dark complexion even darker in the shadows. His hair was combed back and had a sheen of oil. He was not one of the modern Russians who strove to look Western, something even Baranov had managed when the need arose. Didenko was definitely from the old school. “A Chekist,” he was fond of calling himself.

  This evening he wore an open-collar tunic, rough workmen’s trousers, and boots that were still wet with snow.

  He motioned for Kurshin to precede him down the corridor to the study at the back of the house. A fire was burning in the fireplace, giving the room a cozy, comforting atmosphere.

  “I won’t keep you long,” Didenko said, coming in and drawing but not completely closing the door.

  “It’s not such a difficult trip these days.”

  “It no longer matters.” Didenko leaned against the edge of his desk. He did not offer Kurshin a chair. “Now we have their attention, Arkasha.”

  “Paris was not a complete success.”

  “I talked with Stepan Bokarev. Under the circumstances your action was effective enough. The Paris station is in ruins. It will be years before they recover, and with a little help from our French friends, they might never completely restore their operations.”

  “Then we should hit Rome next. After that Bonn, Lisbon, Athens. The letters are written.”

  “Yes, I know,” Didenko said with a cold look. “It was a nice touch on your part. Unnecessary, but nice.”

  “Which city?”

  “Plans have changed. We are finished in Europe for the moment.”

  “Then you are ready to go ahead with your main objectives in Washington?”

  “Not quite, Arkasha. First I have another assignment for you. One easily as important as Paris, perhaps more so.” Didenko picked up an eight-by-ten photograph from his desk and handed it to Kurshin. It was a picture of a dark-haired man in a trench coat coming out of what appeared to be an office building, possibly in the States. Kurshin did not recognize him, though he looked American.

  “His name is Richard Abbas,” Didenko said. “Currently chief of station for CIA operations in Tehrn.”

  Kurshin looked up, confused, his stomach knotting.

  “I want you to go to Iran and kill this man as soon as possible. Within the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours.”

  “What about Europe, your plans to draw off as much talent from Langley as possible, leaving them shorthanded and ripe for penetration … ?” Kurshin stopped abruptly, understanding suddenly that he’d been lied to from the beginning. That had never been Didenko’s plan.

  “You need not know everything,” Didenko said. He slipped his right hand into his trouser pocket. Kurshin could see the tenseness in the man’s eyes. He was expecting trouble.

  Kurshin again willed himself to remain outwardly calm, though inside he was seething. “I’m not to know your final objective?”

  “Not yet,” Didenko said flatly. “Nor will you need the letters you wrote on Kirk McGarvey’s typewriter. Nor will you need the rest of the frozen blood samples you managed to come up with from the American Hospital, or your new set of his fingerprints or his hair samples.”

  Kurshin very nearly lost control. A red haze seemed to rise up and blot out his vision. Again he could feel the cold water rising up over his head. He could feel McGarvey’s bullets slamming into his body. The pain. The humiliation. The frustration. They were almost more than he could bear.

  “You may think you have a vendetta against this man,” Didenko continued, unaware of exactly how close to death he was. “That’s counterproductive, Arkasha. Believe me. I want you to leave Mr. McGarvey to his own people. You have done your damage. You will get your revenge in the end. Think—what could be worse than death for a man such as McGarvey? Imprisonment, of course. For him to lose his precious freedom.”

  By a tremendous force of will Kurshin let his shoulders sag, as if he were a man defeated. He looked away. The general had lied to him. Tehrn had been the direction of this operation from the beginning. Paris was a diversion, but it was the only diversion.

  “You’re right, Comrade General,” Kurshin mumbled.

  “I understand how you feel, Arkasha. Believe me, I do,” Didenko said smoothly. “I’ll promise you this: if for any reason McGarvey is not killed or jailed by his own people, you may go after him once you are finished in Tehrn. We are keeping an eye on him.”

  McGarvey’s eyes bored into Kurshin’s skull. Kurshin looked up and smiled for the general. “Thank you.”

  Didenko returned the smile. “You fly to Baghdad tonight from Schönefeld Airport. You’ll be met and your transportation across the border arranged as soon as you arrive.”

  “Yes.”

  At the door, Kurshin hesitated then turned back, willing a perfectly neutral, even humble expression to his face. “Where is he at this moment?” he asked. “Have his people picked him up yet? Is he still in Paris?”

  “Why, no,” Didenko said. “As a matter of fact the man is in Freiburg in the Black Forest at this very moment. With a young woman … Argentinian, I believe. For what reason I couldn’t tell you, except that they’re apparently poking around old Nazi records.” Didenko’s eyes narrowed. “You have a flight to catch, Arkasha. It would be unfortunate if you were to forget our agreement.”

  “Oh, I won’t, Comrade General. Believe me in this. I will not forget.”

  It was about power, Kurshin decided, calming down on the way back into the city. General Didenko had planned all along to tell him that McGarvey was in Germany so that he could exhibit his power over his subordinate.

  But he’d learned something else: Didenko was having him followed, and meant to have him killed if he did not comply. Tehrn had to be vitally important to his plans, whatever they were.

  In the darkness of the back seat of the Mercedes, Kurshin took out his gun and by feel investigated whether it had been tampered with while it was out of his possession. As far as he could tell it had not been.

  They were not far from Schönefeld Airport. Kurshin could see the airpo
rt’s rotating beacon in the distance, perhaps five or six miles away. But he could also see sparks, like fireflies glittering in his head. The muscles in his legs were twitching as if he were running … or treading water.

  He turned and looked out the back window. In the distance behind them was a pair of headlights. There was no other traffic.

  “Slow down,” he told the driver.

  “What are you talking about? I am taking you to the airport,” the man said.

  Kurshin brought his pistol over the back of the seat and laid the muzzle against the base of the man’s skull. “I want you to pull over and park.”

  At first the driver did not respond. Kurshin pulled the hammer back.

  “Fuck your mother, I’ll stop,” the driver snarled, jabbing hard on the brakes.

  “Easy,” Kurshin warned. “Wait till I tell you.” He glanced out the rear window. The headlights were much closer already.

  They came to a track that led off to the right, probably toward a farm. It looked as if it had been plowed recently. “Pull in here.”

  The driver complied, the big car skidding slightly as they made the turn and came to a halt a few yards off the highway.

  The moment the engine was off, Kurshin shot the man in the back of the head at point-blank range, the driver’s body slamming forward with a violent lurch.

  Kurshin got out of the car, and holding the pistol out of sight behind his right leg, he walked back up to the highway.

  The other car had pulled up about ten yards away. A man stuck his head out the window on the passenger side. “What is it?” he shouted in Russian, and Kurshin smiled. He was one of Didenko’s people.

  “It’s my driver. Something’s the matter with him. I think he might have had a heart attack.”

  After a moment, the man in the car shouted, “That’s impossible.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Kurshin replied. “But I’ll be damned if I’m just going to stand around here like this in the middle of the night. I have a plane to catch. How about a ride, comrade?”

  There was another hesitation, but then the car moved closer. Kurshin stepped aside as it pulled up, idling. With the headlights no longer in his eyes, he could see that there were only two men in it.

  “Now, what’s this all about?” the one on the passenger side asked as he started to open his door.

  Kurshin shot him in the face. Before the driver could react, he shot him in the throat and then in the forehead.

  The car lurched forward a couple of yards, coming to rest in a ditch.

  Holstering his weapon, Kurshin walked back to his car, pulled the driver out into the snowbank, cleaned the blood from the dashboard and windshield, and headed back into Berlin, away from the airport.

  Tehrn might be important to the general, but McGarvey had somehow gotten out of Paris. He was still at large, traveling in an unexpected direction. Kurshin’s original plan had been to lure McGarvey to various European capitals, killing the CIA chief of station in each the moment McGarvey had shown up.

  He’d wanted to place McGarvey in a cross fire between his own people, the local authorities, and Kurshin’s own gunsights. In the end McGarvey’s death would be celebrated in his own home. He would end up despised.

  But already things had changed, and Kurshin found he was having trouble controlling himself. Only one thing was certain in his mind now: no matter what happened, he was going to kill McGarvey. No force on earth could stop him.

  16

  “YOU BELIEVE I HAD something to do with Paris, don’t you,” Maria Schimmer said.

  She and McGarvey stood across the street from Freiburg’s famous Rathaus waiting for the traffic to clear so they could cross. For the past twenty-four hours McGarvey had been getting the feeling that they were being watched. This morning it had come on strong from the moment they’d left their hotel on Rotteckring.

  He’d not told Maria, nor had he made any effort to mask their movements or elude whoever it was behind them.

  At first he thought it might be the federal police, but they would have been more open about their approach. And so far he and Maria had done nothing wrong there, though it was possible his name and photograph had been flagged at the border crossing. Former CIA assassins tended to make people nervous, especially when they were on the move.

  But he did not think it was the Germans, nor did he think it was his own people. This left either the Russians—by now he was convinced that the Russians had been behind the embassy explosion—or someone unknown following Maria for some reason.

  They’d been together now for the better part of two days and two nights, and still he had no real idea who she was, or what she was all about. She was reserved without being aloof. She was quiet without being moody. And she seemed open, answering every question he put to her, but she was lying about almost everything. He could see that in her eyes, and at the corners of her mouth.

  “I wouldn’t be here otherwise,” he said to her.

  Her nostrils flared, but she held herself in check. “Is that why you keep looking at reflections in storefront windows?”

  “Just a precaution,” he said. The traffic light changed. He took her arm and they hurried across the street.

  “Are you a spy, then?” she asked on the other side. “I thought you might be from the first. Everyone at the embassy seemed frightened of you. I’ve seen that look before.”

  “I’ll bet you have.”

  “The third floor, that’s where the CIA has its little nest of secrets. Reid was one of them too, wasn’t he?”

  They were to meet McGarvey’s old friend from Switzerland at the Hansahaus Bierstube at noon, but McGarvey walked past the place. Maria knew enough by now not to make any outward sign that their plans had changed.

  “This is serious, then,” she said, lowering her voice as they continued to walk.

  “Someone is back there,” McGarvey said. “Anybody coming after you that you know about?”

  She shook her head. “You?”

  “Plenty,” McGarvey said. “But whoever it is, they’re damned good. Better than yesterday.”

  “How do you know we’re being followed? For sure. Can you see them?”

  “Him,” McGarvey said, catching another flash of the man in the dark homburg just rounding the corner behind them. It was the third time he’d caught a glimpse, but only a glimpse. Whoever was back there was very good.

  “Is he behind us now?”

  “He has been since the hotel.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know,” McGarvey said, looking at her. Was she expecting Kurshin, or was he on a wild-goose chase after all, coming here with her like this? “Nobody’s after you because of this submarine of yours?”

  “There’d be no reason for it, unless they were Israelis still with a grudge,” she said.

  “Could be,” he replied, knowing she was lying. He steered her across the street and down a narrow alleyway.

  They came out on a broad square dominated by a tall fountain that was shut down for the winter. Dozens of quaint small shops faced the center. There were a lot of pedestrians, but apparently no cars or trucks were allowed. Across the square they spotted a taxi rank, and they hurried over to it, climbing into the first cab in the row.

  “To Denzlingen, please,” McGarvey told the driver. It was a separate village to the north, but barely five miles away.

  McGarvey looked back as they pulled away, hoping to catch a last glimpse of the man in the homburg, but he did not appear.

  “What about your friend we were supposed to meet at the Hansahaus?” Maria asked. “He may have found something for us.”

  “Denzlingen is his home. We’ll wait there for him,” McGarvey said.

  They rode in silence for a few minutes. Freiburg was a pretty city with a large historic cathedral and a small but good university. But it had never been important, other than as the capital of the Black Forest region, until well after the war, when German naval records had been
deposited there after they’d been microfilmed in Washington.

  “I was serious back there,” Maria said, breaking the silence.

  “About Paris?” McGarvey asked.

  She nodded. “You’ve not told me what you were doing in the embassy that night, or why you dropped everything to come here with me. What else am I supposed to think, except that I’m a suspect?”

  “You are, and you will be until you stop lying to me,” McGarvey said. “But then maybe Dr. Hesse will have found out something, and at least a part of the mystery will be cleared up.”

  “What mystery?” she flared. “What are you talking about?”

  “What you’re really after.”

  “I want to know about my grandfather—”

  “Bullshit,” McGarvey snapped. The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

  “Then what?”

  Perhaps he was getting jumpy. His feelings about her and about the situation were confused at best. And a picture of Kurshin kept forming in his mind’s eye. When the man had been directed by Baranov, he’d been nothing short of brilliant. But Kurshin was dead, and so was his puppet master.

  Perhaps he was grabbing at straws. Paris had been over for him, and by his own admission he’d been looking for an excuse to leave.

  But a lot of lives had been lost. CIA operations in Europe would not be the same for years.

  His name and passport number had been used by the terrorist to gain entry to the embassy. That had to have been more than mere coincidence.

  There were connections within connections. Plots within plots.

  Something, he kept telling himself. There was something just beyond his understanding that would suddenly become very clear to him if only he continued with Maria. Somehow, she was the key.

  “Then what am I after, if not that?” Maria repeated.

  “I don’t know,” McGarvey said slowly.

  For some reason that answer, or lack of answer, seemed particularly disturbing to her.

  Denzlingen was a charming little village of less than one thousand people. They stopped at a Gasthaus on the village square and McGarvey telephoned the Hansahaus in Freiburg, leaving a message for Dr. Hesse that they had been unavoidably detained, and that they would like to meet at two that afternoon at the doctor’s house. It would give Hesse time to finish his own lunch and return home.