Snow Wolf (31 page)

Because that's what's going to happen to
the bitch if you don't talk. Then I kill her. Slowly."

Vassily's eyes came open drowsily. He
seemed to be having difficulty breathing. "Don't ... don't hurt her."
Braun grinned. "You help me, and I won't.' But before Vassily could speak
again his eyes rolled and his head slumped to one side. Braun hit him across
the face, again and again, in frustration. but Vassily didn't return to
consciousness.

Lombardi said, "You're wasting your
time, the hick's out of it, he's lost too much blood."

Braun picked up the shotgun and moved
toward the stairs.

He said to Lombardi, "Search the
storage room search downstairs thoroughly."

"Where you going?"

"To see what else I can find."

Fifteen minutes out from Buzzards Bay the
clear air was turbuient and Barton had to increase altitude to five thousand
feet to avoid the worst of it.

The takeoff had been bumpy to say the
least, but Barton seemed to know exactly what he was doing. The Seebee had
finally lifted off gracefully and climbed to two thousand feet before beginning
northwest.

It was growing dark in the cabin @and
they could see the vast speckle of lights that was Boston coming on in the dusk
off to the right. Barton turned back and said above the engine noise,
"Another ten minutes and we'll be over the state line into New Hampshire.
I'll try to get as close to the cabin as I can, but I can't promise, mind.
Depends on what the water's like." Stanski said, "Forget the cabin. I
want you to land further away up the lake, a mile up the shore. And leave off
the landing lights on the way in."

Barton looked puzzled and glanced from
Stanski to Massey. "You folks said this was an emergency?"

"it is."

"Well, I need those lights to see
what the water's like," Barton protested. "If I hit whitecaps too
damned hard they can crack the prow or make me dip a wing into the water."

Stanski put a hand on Barton's shoulder.
"Just do as I ask, Abe. And as soon as you touch down and we get away, do
me a favor and wait half an hour in case we need you to take us back. No longer
than that, or you'll have trouble landing back in Buzzards Bay."

I got trouble enough as it is doing what
you ask. I need those damned lights."

"Please, Abe, just do as I
say."

Barton frowned in puzzlement, then he
shrugged and turned back to the Seebee's controls.

Brun went through the rooms upstairs one
by one. Even though he knew the house was empty he moved cautiously, stepping
into each bedroom with care, the shotgun ready in his hands.

He found the woman's room first and
searched through her clothes and a small suitcase under the bed. There was
nothing of interest, but when he found her underwear he fondled it and smiled.

The other rooms were bare and functional.
The old man's had nothin- much besides tatty clothes, some tobacco and a couple
of old books in Russian.

When he found Stanski's bedroom he went
through it with much more care. He searched through the clothes in the
wardrobe, emptying the pockets, and two leather suitcases full of old clothes,
lying at the bottom. He turned over the mattress and looked underneath, but
found nothing.

In frustration, Braun kicked over the
bedside locker and it toppled onto the floor. He went to the window and idly
lit a cigarette, and as he stood there something made him look down, The locker
had rattled the wooden floorboards under the window and one of them felt loose
as he stepped on it. He knelt and pried it with his nail. He saw the rusting
biscuit tin in the recess and opened it. After several moments examining the
contents he flung them away. Then he saw the file lying below. There were four
pages inside the folder headed "Joseph Stalin," and he read them
quickly.

For several moments he stood there,
guessing the value of his discovery, then he smiled to himself. Moscow would
pay for what he had just found, no question.

He folded the file and tucked it
carefully down his trousers, then searched through the rest of the contents of
the box before discarding them without interest. When he had finished checking
the other rooms thoroughly he went back downstairs.

It was growing dark outside and Lombardi
was trying to light an oil lamp. He burned his fingers in the process and said
to the old man slumped unconscious in the chair, "Ain't you hicks ever
heard of fucking electricity?"

Lombardi looked over at Braun.
"There were only provisions downstairs, The rest of the place is clean.
What did you find?"

"Nothing," Braun lied.

Lombardi said. "So what next?"

"We leave and take the woman with
us."

"I thought we were going to wait for
the broad's friends'."'

"There isn't time."

Lombardi frowned. "Whatever you say.
What about the old man?"

"He's seen our faces. Kill
him."

The Seebee circled the lake in a perfect
arc, then Barton nosed her down to three hundred feet above the water.

Dusk was falling rapidly and the lake was
in almost complete darkness, just a faint shimmering of silver light on the
water. Barton insisted on flicking on the landing lights briefly to see what
the water surface looked like below. It seemed calm enough but toward the shore
there were choppy waves, and as Barton turned back he said to Stanski,
"Better make sure you're strapped in and holding on, this could be a mite
bumpy."

There was sweat on Barton's brow as he
dropped down to a hundred feet and started gently to ease the flying boat down,
They were headed toward a stretch of shore about a mile north from the cabin,
coming in alongside the land, about a hundred feet from the bank.

At sixty feet the Seebee started to bump
with the updraft over the water, a sudden gust hitting them and throwing them
off to the left, closer to the land.

Barton said, "Jeez ... . and
corrected, then continued to ease forward the control stick. At twenty feet he
pulled back on the throttle and the Seebee hit the water hard, bumped, then
settled, and it was down, skimming and bumping over the lake as the propeller
idled and Barton let out a sigh, easing the boat closer to the shore before
looking back over his shoulder.

"This is as close as it gets. You
folks are going to have to get wet."

They were twenty feet from the shore, and
Stanski was already tearing open the cabin door and climbing out, Massey behind
him. Stanski jumped out into the waist-hbigh water and started to wade toward
the bank.

Barton said to Massey, "I'm waiting
no longer than half an hour, understand? What the hell kind of emergency is
this, anyhow?"

Massey didn't even reply but plunged into
the water after Stanski, who was already at the shore.

"You hear something?"

Lombardi had crossed to the open door,
then he stepped toward the veranda and stood there, his head cocked to one
side. He looked back in at Braun. "I heard a fucking engine."

Braun came and stood beside him,
listening. Finally he said, "I hear nothing,"

"It sounded like a plane."
Lombardi cocked his ear again. "But it's gone."

Braun shook his head. "Forget
it."

He crossed to the table and picked up the
oil lamp and said to Lombardi, "Untie the ropes on the old man."

"Why'? What you got in mind?"

Braun removed the glass cowl on the oil
lamp. The flame guttered for a moment, then burned brightly again.

Lombardi frowned. "You going to set
the place on fire?"

"As a lesson to our absent friends.
The nearest town is five miles away. With this terrain no one will see the
flames. First, go outside and shoot out the tires on the jeep and pickup."

Lombardi took the .38 from his pocket.
"You're not going to plug the old man?"

Braun smiled coldly. "I thought that
pleasure would be yours.

A mile into the woods and Massey was out
of breath.

He saw Stanski racing ahead of him in the
dusk, running like a man possessed as he scrambled through the forest. He was
running fast and silently, but Massey had trouble keeping up, tripping over
deadwood and fallen branches.

Five minutes on and he saw Stanski slow
and look back, pointing to tell him he was going on ahead, and Massey waved
back. He saw Stanski give a burst of speed and then he disappeared.

A hundred yards on Massey had to slow
down to catch his breath, then suddenly, somewhere off in the distance back
toward the lake, he heard the roar of an engine and recognized the sound of the
flying boat.

Massey swore. Barton hadn't waited long.

Suddenly Massey heard another sound, a
gunshot, then another, half a dozen shots one after another and then moments
later a couple more.

When Lombardi came back he undid the
ropes around Vassily. Braun lit a cigarette from the naked flame of the oil
lamp, then said calmly, "Move back."

Lombardi stepped back and Braun tossed
the lamp into a corner of the room and the fuel spread on the wooden floor and
ignited.

As the flames started to lick the corner
walls, Braun said to Lombardi, "I'll take the woman to the car. Finish the
old man."

"A pleasure."

Braun stepped out. Vince came back in
moments later and Stood at the door. "Mind if I watch?"

Lombardi handed him his shotgun and took
out the pistol again and held it by his side as the knife flashed in his other hand.

"You might learn something, kid.
I'll show you how to gut a shitkicker. Watch closely, this is going to be
quick."

As Lombardi went toward Vassily, he
sensed a presence behind him.

Lombardi looked around as an angry voice
said, "Touch him and I kill you."

A blond man stood there in the kitchen
door, his face covered in sweat. He had a pistol in his hand.

Lombardi said, "What the fuck ...
?"

The pistol in Lombardi's other hand came
up and Stanski shot him in the eye. Lombardi screamed, then Stanski shot him
again in the head, and as Lombardi was punched back out of the door, the second
man fired both barrels of his shotgun in panic.

It went wide and the blast hit Vassily in
the chest and flung him back into the flames.

Stanski screamed, "No!"

As the second man wrenched out a pistol
and went to shoot again, Stanski fired, hitting him in the head, then the
chest, then the head again, a terrible rage in him as he kept firing.

The flames rose and spread in the cabin
and smoke filled the room, choking the air, and as Stanski tried to move
frantically toward Vassily's limp and bloodied body engulfed in flames, he
already knew there was nothing he could do.

Braun was hardly fifty yards from the
cabin when he heard the shots and the scream, instinct telling him something
was terribly wrong.

He looked back and saw the flames lick
inside the cabin but no sign of Lombardi and his bodyguard. The woman suddenly
tried to struggle free and Braun grabbed her and dragged her at a run toward
the car, impulse telling him to get away.

"Move, you bitch! Move!"

He had gone another twenty yards when he
looked back and saw the blond man come down the veranda dragging a body out of
the burning cabin, then the man looked up and saw Braun and broke into a run
toward him. Braun fired oft' two quick shots in his direction, then pulled the
woman against him as a shield and shouted to the man, "Come any closer and
I kill her!"

The man slowed but kept coming, and then
Braun saw the gun in his hand. He recognized him from the photographs. Stanski.
The Wolf.

He flicked an anxious look back at the
Packard. It was thirty meters away along the narrow track through the woods.

Close enough to get away.

He moved backward smartly, still holding
the woman in front of him.

He looked back. Stanski had started to
move toward him again.

Braun pressed the gun hard into the
woman's head and roared, "Another step and I kill the bitch!"

Stanski halted thirty meters away. There
was sweat on Braun's face as he reached the car, but he knew now Stanski was
too far away to stop him. He smiled as he yanked open the driver's door and
shoved Anna inside. He fumbled for the keys in the ignition. They were gone.

"Kurt Braun?"

Braun spun around in his seat, a look of
panic on his face as he heard the voice.

Another man sat behind him in the back,
rage in his eyes and a .38 in his hand, the weapon aimed at Braun's face.

"I asked are you Kurt Braun?"

Before Braun could reply Massey squeezed
the trigger.

The cabin was still in flames as Stanski
held a storm lamp over the bodies laid out a distance away.