Flight of the Raven (30 page)
It would be as easy as shooting clay pigeons to pick off that bastard Rozonov and his whore Julie McLean right here on the street. But that wouldn’t be smart. Better to attach plastic explosives to the foundation of their house and set a timer. That way he could be on his way to Canada to meet the comrade general when the charge went off.
While the CIA had him in custody down at Newport News, he’d occupied his mind with thoughts of what he would do to Aleksei. Somehow, the idea of bombing the defector into oblivion had become an obsession.
For a moment he closed his eyes, as though to block out the unpleasant memories of what had happened during his captivity. At the navy brig there had been hours of intense interrogation, during which he was sure he hadn’t told them a thing they could use. The trouble was, when he tried to recall the sessions, he couldn’t quite bring them into sharp focus. It must have something to do with Rozonov’s banging his head against the concrete warehouse floor. But he’d certainly been thinking clearly enough to make the most of an opportunity to escape when it had presented itself.
They’d been going to transfer him to D.C. But one of the guards had gotten careless. Hramov had taken the man as a hostage and then shot him in the knee with his own gun before disappearing into the city’s dock area. From there it had been easy to get back to the room he’d rented. The CIA was hamstrung in their search for him because of the need for secrecy. Apparently the Pentagon wasn’t any more anxious to explain Topaz to the American public than the Kremlin was.
* * *
“S
TATION FOUR
, this is station seven. Hramov disappeared into the woods a half hour ago. We believe he’s on his way to pick up the explosives he hid there.”
“Is he heading for station one?”
“We don’t have him in sight, but we will as soon as he comes out of the woods.”
“We should alert Wolfhound and Bambi to sit tight. I don’t want anyone upstairs—or even that reinforced door open—if anything’s about to happen.”
“Affirmative. But I’m having trouble calling Wolfhound. There’s interference on the line.”
“Damn! I’ll bet the remote controls for the two systems upstairs are malfunctioning like they did last week and producing stray signals on the cellular phone.”
“Maybe I should send Sam down to the street toward the creek with a fishing pole. If Hramov’s in the vicinity, that should scare him off until we can get the frequency clear again.”
“Do that and I’ll keep trying to get Wolfhound.”
* * *
A
T THE END OF
M
AIN
S
TREET
, in the bunker, Aleksei pushed the number five button on the automatic dialer to call station five. Instead of a ring-through, all he got was a burst of static from the speaker and a blinking red light on the unit.
Chyort!
He looked at the equipment with disgust. He hadn’t much liked this science fiction plan from the beginning, especially since it put Julie’s life in danger. His condition for consenting had been that Gary Conrad would keep him fully informed about what was going on. Now the damn equipment wasn’t working again.
He turned to Julie. “We had a problem like this with the remote controls on the projectors last week while you were getting groceries.”
“Didn’t Gary fix it?”
“He thought so. But you can hear for yourself that the communications system isn’t working now.” He gestured impatiently at the receiver. “I’m going up to do something about it.”
There was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as he crossed to the cabinet near the five-inch-thick steel door that sealed off their hiding place. She watched as he pulled out a Colt service revolver and checked the ammunition clip.
He weighed the grip uncomfortably. The damn gun had never felt right in his hand. But Borman had balked at the very idea of anyone using a Makarov in a CIA operation. He’d been forced to go along with the change in weapons, since he was out of ammunition clips anyway.
As she watched him tuck the pistol in his waistband, her feeling of apprehension sharpened.
He turned toward a control panel by the door and flipped several switches. “I’d better turn off the system before I leave. It’s disorienting walking around up there meeting images of myself.”
“Aleksei, stay down here. It’s too dangerous if we don’t know where Hramov is.”
“All the more reason why we have to reestablish communications with our eyes and ears on the outside. You stay at the phone and try getting through to Conrad or Greentree.”
Helpless to interfere, she watched in frozen silence as he activated the inside lock and started up the stairs. She knew he’d reached the end of his patience with sitting around letting the CIA make his decisions.
Her hand automatically placed the call again, but she wasn’t listening to the static still on the line. Instead she strained to hear any hint of trouble upstairs. Minutes crawled by, but the only thing she heard was the thudding of her own heart.
She was just turning back to the phone when the sound of gunfire made her finger freeze over the dial.
Oh, God! Hramov must be here! He must have come upon Aleksei in surprise. Instinctively her hand reached out and flipped the switch that activated the projection system once again. Then she pressed the buttons labeled A1, A2, and A3. Then, with no other recourse to save him, she fled headlong up the stairs.
* * *
AP HARMONY
,
VERMONT
.
THREE PERSONS BELIEVED TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH A LEFTIST TERRORIST GROUP PERISHED IN AN EXPLOSION IN THIS SMALL NEW ENGLAND TOWN YESTERDAY
.
THOUGH FEW DETAILS ARE AVAILABLE
,
THE FBI HAS INDICATED THAT THE TWO MEN AND ONE WOMAN WERE UNDER INVESTIGATION IN CONNECTION WITH THE MANUFACTURE OF HOMEMADE MUNITIONS
.
THE BLAST DESTROYED SEVERAL HOUSES AT THE WEST END OF MAIN STREET IN THE LITTLE HAMLET
.
THE MUNITIONS MAKERS WERE THE ONLY FATALITIES
,
BUT TWO RESIDENTS FISHING NEARBY WERE TREATED AT AN AREA HOSPITAL FOR INJURIES CAUSED BY FLYING DEBRIS
.
ACCORDING TO SERVICE STATION OWNER
,
BERT GREENTREE
,
THE BLAST KNOCKED OUT WINDOWS ALL OVER HARMONY
.
HE ADDED THAT TOWNSPEOPLE WERE SHOCKED TO DISCOVER THAT AN ARSENAL WAS BEING MANUFACTURED AND STORED IN THE QUIET LITTLE TOWN
.
* * *
T
HE
F
ALCON’S
expression was enigmatic as he finished the short news story on a back page of
The New York Times
and handed the section to his assistant. In a way it was fitting that this whole thing had started with an explosion and had ended with one as well.
Connie scanned the article. “Well, you told me to expect something like this, but it doesn’t make it any easier to take.”
In a rare show of affection, Gordon reached out and grasped her hand. “Connie, in our profession, we have to be philosophical. I wanted something a lot better for the Raven, too, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
“I don’t like the way we had to work this out. He should have been proclaimed a national hero and been thanked by the President for his tremendous sacrifice.”
“Well, at least he has the satisfaction of knowing that the Topaz material got into the right hands. It’s already having the stabilizing effect on the balance of world power that he hoped it would.”
“We owe him a lot, and Julie McLean too.”
Epilogue
H
is name was Adam Ross. Once he had been a raven. Now he cast his lot with the eagles soaring majestically above the pine-covered mountains. The Black Hills of South Dakota were a perfect refuge for a man with a new name, a new identity, a new profession and a new country, he thought as he looked out over the rugged landscape.
Pushing his chair away from the word processor, he stood up. One thing was certainly true. It hadn’t taken long to get used to his new wardrobe of comfortable jeans and bulky sweaters, he thought, stretching his long arms over his head. There was a nip in the air, and snow flurries had already danced past the floor-to-ceiling windows of the redwood and stone house that was perched to take advantage of the mountain view. He was looking forward to seeing the landscape blanketed in white.
The past few months had been difficult, and he knew there were still plenty of problems ahead. But the solitude and natural beauty of this place were having their own healing effect on the wounds of his body and soul. Throwing open the French doors to the deck that cantilevered over the valley, he stepped out and took a deep breath of the pine-scented air.
Nicole Ross, his slender, dark-haired wife, was standing by the railing. Nicole. They’d picked the name together. He loved the sound of it. He loved her. And he owed her so much.
She had saved his life, not just at the warehouse when Hramov had been pointing a gun at his stomach, but also in Harmony, Vermont. When the killer had surprised him working on the electronics equipment and wounded him in the side, she’d flipped the switch that activated the projectors. Suddenly Hramov had been confronted with multiple images of the man he’d come to kill. They’d drawn his fire long enough for the Raven to finish him off.
It had been Gary Conrad’s decision to blow up the house and Hramov with it.
“That’s what he came here for,” the agent had pointed out. “Bogolubov will think you’re dead and that Hramov somehow got himself killed in his own trap.”
The Raven had seen the wisdom of the decision. The whole point of the Harmony charade had been to satisfy the general’s lust for revenge. The amazing thing was that the CIA had been able to direct Hramov’s actions with posthypnotic suggestions before they allowed him to escape. But as Conrad had explained it, “We’re not programming him to do something that goes against his training or his character. We’re just making sure he does it our way.”
Of course, the assassin was supposed to do his job and report back to the general. The gun battle and his death hadn’t been foreseen. But they’d made that work for them. And now the Raven no longer existed.
As Adam stepped outside, Nicole turned and held out her hand.
“Well, hello,” she said simply. The words were casual, but they conveyed a wealth of emotion. Every time she looked at this man, she realized all over again how deeply she was committed to him. She’d been his wife for only a few months, but already her old life seemed like an eternity away. “What are you thinking?” she asked, seeing the emotions that played across his face.
“How lucky I am to have you.”
“I was just standing here marveling at the same thing.”
Coming up behind her, he wrapped her in his arms and drew her close against the length of his body as he looked out over the valley.
There were still many nights when he woke and reached for her, needing the reassurance that she was really here with him. If his own change of circumstances had been a necessity, hers had been voluntary. She could have opted out before the charade in Harmony, Vermont, and gone back to her own life. Instead she’d chosen to give up everything familiar to come with him. Every time he thought about it, his heart was pierced with a fierce ache that he’d found a woman like her. He knew it was more than luck. Fate must have intervened in their lives to bring them together.
“How’s the writing coming?” she asked softly.
“I finished the chapter,” he announced. He was setting down some of his own experiences now, getting more comfortable with English, letting Nicole show him the fine points of the language with her invaluable editing. That project was a form of therapy for both of them. But soon he was going to try his hand at the fictional stories he had wanted to write for so long.
“That’s wonderful, but I thought it was going to take you till dinnertime.”
A warm smile flickered at the corners of his well-shaped lips. “I believe you mentioned a little incentive for finishing early.”
She smiled back, the golden highlights in her eyes glowing possessively as they caressed his face. “Then perhaps you ought to collect your reward.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8361-9
Flight of the Raven
Copyright © 1986 by Ruth Glick and Eileen Buckholtz
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