Crossfire Read online

  “I’ll try for one of the planes,” McGarvey shouted. “You guys take care of the beacon. But if we find ourselves outgunned, don’t try to stand and fight. They came here for the gold, and no matter what happens, if you get out of their way when they start down the hill, they’ll ignore you.”

  McGarvey drew the AK-47’s ejector slide back, released it, and switched off the safety as they burst over the crest of the hill and bounced violently up from the lip of the stream bed onto the valley floor itself.

  There seemed to be noise and lights everywhere. Noise so deafening it was nearly impossible to think, and lights so strong they were blinding.

  But then McGarvey could make out the individual runway lights strung along the valley, and the brilliant landing lights of one large plane nearing touch down, and at least two others coming in behind it.

  He motioned for Ghfari to make directly for the incoming plane, and the Iranian jammed the accelerator pedal to the floor, the big Range Rover surging forward.

  They shot past a parked automobile, and Abbas began firing rapidly from the back window.

  McGarvey glimpsed a man running at an angle toward them, shooting as he came, the bullets from the automatic weapon smacking into the side of the car.

  “It’s him!” Abbas screamed.

  Kurshin. For a split second McGarvey fought the urge to tear the wheel out of Ghfari’s hands and go back, but then they were past, and Abbas stopped shooting. Perhaps he was out of ammunition.

  Several hundred yards up the valley, Ghfari skidded to a halt at the same moment the converted Russian bomber touched down, bounced once, and twice, and came roaring toward them.

  McGarvey leaped out of the car and began firing at the big plane, one shot after the other in a rapid but measured sequence of about five shots a second.

  At first nothing seemed to happen. Ejecting the spent clip, he slammed a second thirty-round clip into the weapon and continued firing as the plane came nearly even with where he stood.

  It was barely one hundred feet from him when the landing gear in the nose suddenly exploded in a shower of sparks, and as if in slow motion the bomber tipped forward, plowing dirt and rocks in a huge furrow.

  The port-side landing gear collapsed, pulling the aircraft to the left. That wing brushed the ground, then dug in and ripped away from the fuselage, pulling things out of the interior in a screeching, tangled, nightmarish scene.

  McGarvey glimpsed a long row of canvas seats, bodies still attached to them, tumbling on the ground, and then the aircraft rolled over on top of them and began to slow down as it continued breaking apart.

  Ghfari and Abbas watched with open mouths. There was no fire, but there would not be many, if any, survivors.

  The second and third aircraft had immediately increased power and pulled up sharply. They roared directly overhead, making a tight turn just above the peaks to the east.

  There would be no possibility of using this landing site, and the pilots knew it. For them, at least, this mission was over.

  “Are they all dead?” Ghfari asked in awe.

  “I don’t know,” McGarvey replied.

  The downed bomber had finally come to a halt a thousand feet beyond them, the main section of the fuselage ripped from the nose all the way back to where the tail surfaces had broken off. Parts of the plane were scattered for two thousand feet or more.

  “No matter what, they won’t be taking the gold,” Abbas said harshly. He looked up at the sky.

  Already the sounds of the other aircraft were fading in the distance. They had circled around to the northwest. They wouldn’t come back.

  “Now Kurshin,” McGarvey said.

  Abbas looked at him. “Is that what he’s called?”

  “We’ll do it together,” McGarvey said. “And then we’ll get the hell out of here before SAVAK shows up.”

  “I want him,” Abbas said, his voice shaking with emotion.

  “Don’t underestimate the man,” McGarvey said.

  Abbas suddenly fell to the ground, blood spurting from a bullet wound in his left leg.

  It was Kurshin! McGarvey shoved Ghfari down behind the Range Rover and snapped off a couple of shots.

  At the same moment, the sounds of a helicopter somewhere down the hill became audible on the wind.

  51

  KURSHIN WAS ENRAGED THAT success had been so suddenly and decisively turned into disaster by the one man he had least expected to see in Iran. McGarvey’s presence here was almost beyond belief, yet Kurshin had seen the man with his own eyes.

  He should be in Lisbon with the Argentinian woman, searching for Nazi gold. What was he doing here?

  “You are correct, Arkasha, in saying that I am no Baranov,” Didenko had told him. “He was a man for his times, and he was nothing short of amazing. But these now are different times, with their own peculiar difficulties and problems.”

  “I will kill you if you fail to live up to your promise to me,” Kurshin had told the general.

  “Ah, and you would be right to do so,” Didenko had said smoothly. “It is up to us now to save the Union before it is too late.”

  “Don’t underestimate McGarvey …”

  “I do not, believe me in this, Arkasha. I have a great deal of respect for that one, just as I have for you. But there is no reason for him to abandon his search in Lisbon and come to Iran. No reason whatsoever. What happened in Paris was enough to keep the CIA after him for the moment.”

  Kurshin stared through the AK-74’s powerful night vision scope at the Range Rover three hundred yards up the valley, but there was no movement.

  He’d aimed for McGarvey, but Abbas had gotten in the way, and he hadn’t had a chance for a second shot before McGarvey’s return fire had caught him off guard. It was as if the man could see in the dark.

  And now the rest of the strike force was leaving, the sounds of the big planes fading on the wind.

  Turning his scope on the downed aircraft, he studied the wreckage for a moment. It wasn’t likely that any of the troops had survived, and even if they had they would be injured and in shock, useless as an assault team.

  Which meant the gold was lost to them.

  But he’d never really cared about that. All he’d ever wanted was to face McGarvey. Just the two of them. Well, he had gotten his wish. One of them would not leave this mountain valley alive.

  He brought the scope back to the Range Rover. Still there was no movement. Abbas was down, but Kurshin did not know how badly the man was hurt. He did know, however, that the chief of station was a driven man now. Abbas would be a dangerous opponent with a weapon in his hand. Kurshin had seen the look in his eyes.

  And there had been a second man with McGarvey. An unknown. Too many variables, but he had come too far to simply turn and run.

  He heard a helicopter, and for a split second before he recognized the sound for what it was, he thought the other planes were coming back.

  He looked over his shoulder from where he lay, behind the ridge of a small depression about ten yards from his car, in time to see a big transport helicopter coming up from the east.

  The markings on the tail identified it as an Iranian air force machine, but Kurshin was almost certain it belonged to SAVAK.

  The beam of a powerful spotlight flashed across the end of the runway and then stabbed out toward the wrecked aircraft, and the helicopter banked sharply to the right and headed directly across the landing strip.

  Kurshin brought his rifle around to aim at the machinery just beneath the rotor. A hand-launched rocket leaped up from the wrecked Badger on a fiery orange tail. The chopper swerved sharply left as it dived for the ground, but an instant later the missile struck its tail and blew with a sharp report, the flash momentarily blinding.

  It was almost impossible to believe, but someone had survived the crash of the Russian aircraft and had brought down the helicopter. And almost as impossible to believe was the fact that anyone could have survived in the chopper, yet McGarv
ey could make out the figures of at least a half-dozen men emerging from the wreckage, silhouetted in the dark against the flames rising fifty feet into the night.

  At first the only sound they could hear was the steadily rising wind, strange after the roar of the big airplane and the chopper, and the sounds of the crashes and explosions.

  But they heard automatic-weapons fire clearly from the general vicinity of the Russian plane, and at least one of the Iranians went down.

  “Merde! Let’s get the hell out of here!” Ghfari said.

  “There’s no place to go, for the moment,” McGarvey muttered not taking his eyes off the battle scene. The chopper had come down about five hundred feet away, almost directly between them and the downed Russian plane.

  The helicopter had probably brought SAVAK troops up from Qom, but how did they know about this spot? Unless Iranian radar had spotted the incoming Soviet aircraft despite their precautions.

  It didn’t matter. There would be more coming. The entire country would mobilize, if need be, to protect the gold shipment. It was their lifeblood. Meanwhile Kurshin was still out there.

  Even more troops were scrambling out of the wreckage of the helicopter, deploying themselves in a tight semicircle to the south, effectively cutting off the Russians from escape down to the highway.

  Whoever was leading the SAVAK unit was damned good, but the few Russian survivors, though they were badly outnumbered, were even better. And they were determined. They had nowhere else to go. They would either fight their way past the Iranians or they would die there in the mountains.

  In a way McGarvey had to admire them.

  He turned back to Abbas. Ghfari had gotten a first-aid kit from the Range Rover and was hastily bandaging the man’s wound. Kurshin’s bullet had hit Abbas high in the left thigh, exiting cleanly in the back. He’d been lucky.

  “How do you feel?” McGarvey asked.

  Abbas looked up, his eyes glinting. “He’s the devil,” he rasped. He pushed himself up on one elbow and grabbed McGarvey’s arm.

  “Take it easy, and we’ll get you out of here.”

  “Kill him,” Abbas said. “Kill the son of a bitch! For me. You must do this, for me!”

  Ghfari’s eyes were wide and he was swallowing rapidly.

  McGarvey glanced again downfield, toward the still raging battle. From what he could tell, neither side had the advantage yet, but the Russians would have to make their move soon if they were to have any chance of breaking out. Other SAVAK and Iranian army units would be streaming toward this valley even now.

  A huge explosion lit the night sky, and a second later the heavy crump rolled across the floor of the valley, a warm pressure wave following directly on its heels. The Iranian helicopter had blown. Even more flames whipped by the increasing winds leaped more than a hundred feet into the air, and two Iranians, their clothing on fire, raced out into the open like human torches.

  The Russians immediately laid down a heavy curtain of weapons fire, mercifully hitting both of them before they had gotten ten yards.

  The other Iranians held their ground and returned a steady barrage of answering fire, raking the Russian aircraft and everything around it.

  “That’s not going to last very long,” Abbas said through clenched teeth.

  “I agree,” McGarvey said. He looked at Ghfari. “Get him into the car and head back up into the valley as far as you can go.”

  “No, wait!” Abbas said, trying to struggle the rest of the way up.

  “We’re probably going to have to hold here out of sight until the dust settles. At least through the day. With any luck the Iranians will be so busy picking up the mess, and so relieved that their gold got through, that they won’t come looking for us. Tomorrow night we might be able to get the hell out of here.”

  “What about you?” Ghfari asked.

  “I’m going after Kurshin.”

  “But how will you catch up with us? How will you find us if we’re hidden?”

  “I’ll manage,” McGarvey said. He peered up over the hood of the car in the direction Kurshin’s shot had come from, but there was nothing to be seen. The darkness was made more intense by the furiously burning helicopter.

  “What if you don’t make it?” Abbas asked.

  “Call Langley for help. Carrara knows the situation. In fact they’ve already got at least one rescue scenario worked out.”

  “He’s very good,” Abbas said. “The Russian.”

  McGarvey nodded. “Yes, I know.”

  “You’ve been up against him before?” Abbas asked, his skin almost rosy in the flickering light of the distant flames.

  “Once or twice,” McGarvey said, laying down the rifle. “I’ll give you a hand.”

  He and Ghfari carefully lifted Abbas, and keeping the Range Rover between them and Kurshin’s last position, they managed to get the station chief into the back seat of the car.

  “It’s up to you,” McGarvey said.

  Ghfari nodded uncertainly.

  “Jaziraf said that you were okay. He was right.”

  “Merci,” the younger man said.

  Again McGarvey looked down the valley from where Kurshin had fired. Nothing could be seen. He picked up his rifle. “Give me a couple of minutes to get clear before you go.”

  “Yes, sir …” Ghfari said, but McGarvey had left abruptly, disappearing into the night, and the French-born Iranian shivered.

  If the Iranians did not receive reinforcements very soon, the KGB troops from the downed Badger would overrun their position. It gave Kurshin a certain satisfaction, and a faint surprise at the back of his head that he cared.

  He’d managed to work his way to within seventy-five yards of the Range Rover, giving a wide berth to the fighting on the field, when over the wind he heard the car starting.

  For just an instant he was confused. He rose up from behind the small hummock where he’d been crouching. The Range Rover started away. He brought the AK-74 to his shoulder, and something slammed into his side, sending him sprawling, a hot feeling spreading from his left hip to his armpit.

  He’d been hit.

  A second and third shot kicked up dust and small rocks next to his face, cutting his cheek. He scrambled farther down the hill to get out of the direct line of fire.

  McGarvey.

  McGarvey had sent at least one of the others away in the Range Rover while he remained behind in ambush. It was so like him.

  Once again a dark rage rose up from Kurshin’s gut. He wanted to leap up and rush forward, killing everything in his path. But that was exactly what McGarvey wanted him to do.

  Slowly he brought himself back under control. His entire side was numb. He realized that he was beginning to hear the sounds of battle from across the field again. He’d temporarily lost his hearing. The wind roared in the high passes again.

  Fuck your mother, what was happening to him? What had happened?

  He rolled over and crawled to the crest of the low rise, mindless now of the blood leaking down his side, and the stinging sensation in his cheek.

  For some reason he remembered a scene from his childhood. They’d played Red Army–White Army. It was the Revolution all over again, and they were good Communists, Komsomol members then. He’d finally earned his red scarf, yet he preferred to play the enemy. The maverick. He’d always preferred that. There’d been another hill, behind which he’d waited for the army colonel to come along. He was supposed to join the army and report what he had learned behind enemy lines. Instead he had leaped down on the unsuspecting officer and killed him.

  “Kirk McGarvey,” he called into the wind.

  After a second or two, McGarvey called back. “Arkady Aleksandrovich, I thought I had killed you this time.”

  “I don’t think you allowed for the wind. I’m here and I’m going to kill you. But I won’t do such a poor job of it as you did.”

  McGarvey’s laughter drifted over the wind. “You’d better hurry. Those Iranian reinforcements will
be here at any moment.”

  “That will not be to your advantage, I think. We Russians are their neighbors. Your people are their enemies.”

  “It’s not an American plane over there.”

  “American markings …”

  “Russian troops fighting SAVAK. It’ll be tough to explain. And this time you won’t have your general to help you out, to provide your cover and your contacts and your operating expenses.”

  What was the man talking about? Was it some sort of a ruse? Something to throw him off guard?

  “Or haven’t you heard, Arkasha?” McGarvey continued.

  Had his voice shifted farther to the left? Kurshin rolled over on his side and pointed his rifle in that general direction.

  “Heard what?” he shouted.

  “About the people’s revolt in Azerbaidzhan. And General Didenko’s arrest in Moscow. He’s being charged with treason, of course. Your KGB pals were coming here to snatch the gold for themselves. Most likely they would have killed you. No one wants a man like you underfoot.”

  McGarvey was definitely to the left. But close.

  “Or you,” Kurshin shouted back, turning his head away so that the direction of his voice would be confusing to McGarvey.

  “That’s right,” McGarvey replied after a long time. “So now it is just us, Arkasha. Two assassins come to pay their mutual respects.”

  “If you kill me and somehow manage to get out of Iran, where will you go?”

  “That’s none of your business, Arkasha,” McGarvey said disdainfully.

  “Lisbon, I should think, so that you can be with your little Nazi whore.”

  “At least I attract women, Arkasha. I wonder what kind of scum interests you?”

  Kurshin’s jaw tightened. No other man on earth could get to him this way.

  “They’re not women, they’re policemen. When they fucked you it was because they’d been ordered to do so. It must make you feel like quite the man, McGarvey.”

  A rocket suddenly streaked from above and behind them and struck the downed Russian Badger just over its remaining wing. The plane blew with a tremendous earth-shattering explosion that threw debris hundreds of feet into the air.