when the speeding van drew abreast of the alley, Cody tapped the VW’s brakes lightly, throwing the stickshift into neutral, tugging the steering wheel hand-over-hand to guide the racing van into the alley, his passengers bracing their arms against the sides of the van as the vehicle tilted dangerously during the sharp, sudden turn into the narrow space.
The front left headlight and fender caught the corner of a brick wall, and the van lurched before righting itself from the turn.
Cody pumped the brake pedal. The van nose-kissed the pavement of the alley, lurching everyone inside, stopping to rock back and forth on its shocks no more than one hundred paces into the alley. He elbowed his door open. The others followed his lead and debarked also.
The closing-in rumble of the pursuing armored car altered slightly as the driver braked, downshifting, the BTR-60 preparing to chase the van into the alley.
“Hawkeye, take them from the roof of the van. Richard, Rufe, behind that dumpster. You know what to do.”
“I’ve got a bloody good idea.” The Brit nodded.
They fell away from the van, following Cody’s commands.
Narda turned wide, worried eyes on him.
“What about me?”
He hurried away toward the outline of a fire-escape ladder against the side of one of the buildings at the mouth of the alley.
“Keep your head down.”
He saw her withdraw the Bidja from her purse.
He executed a small, reaching jump to fist the bottom rung of the fire-escape ladder. The ladder squeaked a rusty groan under his weight. He pulled himself up to climb to about fifteen feet off the ground.
Just in time.
The armored car’s high beams swung into the alley, and so did the BTR-60, the driver obviously expecting to give chase down the alley into which he had seen the van turn, not having had the time to consider that the van’s driver would do anything else, as what Cody had done.
The driver of the armored vehicle stood on his brake. Narda saw it coming and pushed away.
The militia vehicle practically stood on its nose and, due to the automatic reflex response of the driver, only tapped the back of the van with enough punch to catapult Hawkeye from atop the van and onto the roof of the other vehicle.
Cody let go of the fire escape, kicking off to drop onto the BTR-60 Murphy and Hawkins used the closed lid of a dumpster at the entrance of the alley for their jumping-off point, Cody’s Army swarming all over the vehicle, moving together with combat precision before the three-man crew of the armored car could think to lock their doors; the last they had known, they had been sitting back at the mouth of that alley waiting to pick off scared black-market drug peddlers like sitting ducks, no danger to them, then the minute or so of this chase, and now—
Cody dragged out the punk from behind the steering wheel, his right fist grabbing the front of the guy’s tunic, his left hand slashing down with his combat knife, the wide blade severing the driver’s jugular vein, pitching away a dead man like garbage.
Similarly Hawkeye took permanent care of the officer in the passenger seat while Caine and Murphy took out the guy behind the turreted machine gun in a classic one-two before the unlucky slob could get his machine gun around.
Cody saw Narda pull away, shielding her eyes from the horror of what had to be done. He knew in that instant that she was tough—plenty of that; she’d had rough experiences— but she was a stranger to this kind of behavior, even if it was directed against barbarians sanctioned by the state. She was face-to-face with something like this for the first time.
Hawkins pitched his dead man over against an alley wall, and Murphy and Caine gave the machine gunner the heave-ho, then they jumped down to where Narda hurried over to join Cody.
She kept her eyes averted from the corpses.
“Wh-what now?” she asked.
She had only flinched for a moment, and Cody could not blame her for that.
As yet, this stretch of warehouses offered no noise of the other armored cars giving chase, but they would.
“We’ve got enough of a head start on the blighters now,” Caine said, “but we’d best move damn fast.”
“We will”—Cody nodded—“but they can’t know where we are exactly, and those other two won’t fan out too far on their own without some reinforcements and cleanup for that warehouse.”
The dash radio of the armored car crackled with the voice of a dispatcher who could not keep the excitement from his voice going over the airwaves. All available units of the militia and the KDS were ordered to close in immediately on this district.
Hawkeye sauntered over to snap off the radio.
Narda said, “But how far can you get… in this?” She nodded to the BTR-60.
“I reckon far enough at this time of the morning,” Hawkeye opined, then looked to Cody. “If only we had an idea where the hell it is we’re going.”
“Padomir,” Cody said to Narda. “Is that a name? Do you recognize it?”
“It is a town thirty kilometers southwest of here,” she said.
“It’s the only lead we got back at Charova’s,” Cody toid her. “That and the fact that the KGB is involved.”
“Charova?” she asked.
“Deader than Greenville, miss, on a Tuesday night,” Murphy intoned with mock solemnity.
The young woman’s mind was racing, cataloguing the possibilities.
“Padomir is a small town, little more than a village,” she told them. “I have driven through there on occasion. I used to have friends there, but the only thing I can think of is… there is a house—an estate, actually—on the outskirts of Padomir.”
“Tell us about it,” Cody urged.
“The locals know nothing about it,” she said. “It is a government facility of some sort, but it’s located in a house… a very old house that was taken over by the State.”
“Bingo.” Hawkeye grinned.
“There are guards stationed there,” Narda went on. “I’m afraid that is all I know. Will it help?”
“It’s a thin thread we’re following,” Cody said, “but if this town is as small as you say it is, I’d say that site is our next stop.”
“In … this?” She indicated the armored car.
“Do you think this spot in Padomir is where we’ll find Kamal and Vronski?” Caine asked.
“I think we’d better get directions there and find out,” Cody replied.
On the map Cody produced, Narda showed them the best way out of the city to Padomir and where near the village the mysterious estate was located.
“You wish me to accompany you?” she asked.
“Now, a van and an armored car tooling around together just might draw attention our way,” Murphy pointed out.
Hawkeye nodded agreement.
“There’s a reason we didn’t just waste this crew with our Uzis where they sat,” he told Narda, indicating the armored car and the bodies. “Didn’t want to mess up the interior.”
“I imagine one of these BTR-60s is much like the ten-thousand-pound bulldog,” Caine said with a grin. “It goes wherever it damn well pleases.”
“But…what about me?” Narda asked.
“You,” Cody told her, “are going to let us get our gear out of your van, then you are going to drive back to wherever you came from, Narda, with our thanks and our blessings for a job well done.”
“But—”
“There’s no more time,” Cody told her curtly. “Go, Narda. You’ve done your part. More than your part. And if you’re gone from here when the militia closes in, there’s no way you can be traced to what happened tonight.”
“But…how will you get out of the country?”
“We’ve got our ways,” he assured her. “Now go. You don’t have time to spare, and neither do we.”
He could tell that everything inside of her did not want to give up the fight, not yet, just as they had not wanted to leave Yydasgrei and the Bulgars to deal with the border patrol hours earlier. But she made up her mind now with the same strength Cody had sensed in Narda Rykov from the first moment he set eyes on her in that clearing alongside the Bistritza River. Yydasgrei was right, he decided. This lady probably did have the blood of the Bulgars flowing in her veins from somewhere back in her family tree.
“I will do as you say,” she said. “You are right. There There is nothing more I can do for you this night. I am not a soldier. But there is much I can do for my country.”
Caine returned from having taken a look down the street from the mouth of the alley.
“I shouldn’t wish to be abrupt, but perhaps the old adage about the shortest good-byes being best applies doubly to a situation such as we presently find ourselves in.”
“Damn, tea bag,” Hawkeye said, chuckling, “you sure do have a way with words.”
“But he’s right enough.” Murphy nodded. “We’d best make tracks if we want a chance in hell of nailing Kamal and this Vronski if they are headed to the place Narda told us about.”
“I will leave, then,” said Narda, looking from one face to another of these broad-shouldered fighting men who dwarfed her. “I do not even know your names, but thank you from the bottom of my heart on behalf of myself and a boy I once loved … and the Bulgarian people. Thank you.”
She did not wait for any sign of response. She turned sharply on her heel, hurried over to the driver’s side of her van, still averting her eyes from the messy corpses, Cody noticed.
He and his men moved to reclaim their packs from the van.
Narda started up the engine. The van pulled down the alley, away from them, without a glance from her.
At the far end of the alley the van turned left, heading in the direction away from Charova’s warehouse to leave the warehouse area, disappearing from their sight.
“There goes one hell of a filly,” Hawkeye intoned to no one in particular.
“I’m glad she made it out alive.” Caine nodded.
They loaded their gear into the personnel carrier.
Murphy surveyed the BTR-60 as if for the first time. “This is going to be one hell of a long shot, even if we do pull it off.”
Cody eased himself in behind the steering wheel.
“So what else is new? Hawkeye, take the machine gun. Richard, Rufe, climb in here and let’s see what this baby does on the open road.”
Hawkins wedged himself in behind the armor-plated machine gun turret. Caine and Murphy joined Cody.
He fired the engine to life and slipped the heavy machine into gear, easing it to the far end of the alley. He braked, headlights off, to look carefully up and down the street, which, to their right, stretched deeper into the maze of warehouses and, to their left, out of the district on the way to Ruski Boulevard, Sofia’s main street, which would connect with the highway to Padomir.
Sirens could be heard drawing closer through the city in this general direction in response to the dispatcher’s summons, but none of the responding official vehicles were using this street.
The dead militiamen in the alley would not be found until dawn, and in the confusion there was every chance that the Nersko-Tsopska personnel carrier would not be missed immediately.
Every chance—sure.
Cody knew damn well that he and these hard-ass men of his would need every chance to pull this one off: driving through the city, even if it was sleeping, to travel thirty-five kilometers through open country without encountering trouble.
And if they reached Padomir?
Narda’s description of the government facility on the estate on the outskirts of the village made it sound like a fortress; a likely next stop for a couple of child-murdering vermin named Vronski and Kamal.
If it wasn’t, Cody had a feeling the whole damn thing was over.
Abdul Kamal and his KGB connection would have escaped justice for the murders of Laura and Daniel Parker, and of the American servicemen at the embassy in Rome…
He flicked on the headlights. He steered the BTR-60 left onto the shadowy street. The armored militia vehicle lumbered away.
* * *
Vronski’s driver glided the ZIL limousine to a smooth stop in front of the iron-bar gate set into the ten-foot-high brick wall that ran the full perimeter around the estate, one kilometer northeast of Padomir.
The gate slid open automatically. The limousine purred through.
Kamal did not expect the stable sense of relief he experienced when that gate clanged securely shut behind the ZIL.
This land, which had been “appropriated” from a powerful Party man well before Kamal had taken a part in this scheme of things, was the base of operations from which he and Vronski organized the missions which had made Kamal’s name famous in the world of Palestinian guerrilla groups.
Kamal hated the Balkan climate. He hated the Bulgarian people he and his jihad brothers had to work with to realize their own ends. He most particularly hated Colonel Vronski, whose security force patrolled and guarded these grounds. But he could not deny that right now was the first time since he had left Rome that he had been able to truly relax and feel that he did not have to keep looking over his shoulder.
The chauffeur stopped the car in front of the brick guardhouse located just inside the gate.
Three uniformed men stood waiting for them, two positioned on the crushed stone driveway directly in front of the ZIL, blocking its progress, assault rifles resting on their hips, aimed at the black sky, both sentries scrutinizing the limousine with sharp, unblinking eyes.
The third Soviet officer strode to Vronski’s side of the car.
Vronski lowered his automatic window.
The man outside bent down to peer into the tonneau. He recognized Vronski. He touched his hand to the visor of his cap in a crisp salute.
“Good evening. Colonel. Or rather, good morning.”
Vronski acknowledged the salute with a slight nod.The automatic window raised back into place.
The sentry spoke to the two in the driveway, who stepped aside.
The ZIL glided past on its way up to the main house.
Kamal eased back into the plush cushions of the car seats, as if experiencing the soothing caress of the upholstery for the first time.
The sentries had recognized the colonel’s limousine but had stopped to look in, anyway, another example of how good Vronski’s security was here. An example of how safe this place was.
Kamal felt an inner shame now that he appreciated the degree to which he had been bothered by his encounter with the man Cody and those who fought with him. He assured himself that he would forget about that.
A day’s rest here, then on to Libya where he and Vronski would visit the main training camp established in the desert near Tripoli.
He would recruit the best men there, the most dedicated of Palestinian fighters, whom he knew would be those men who had lost the most; those bearing the most hatred for the American and Zionist evil ones. He would put together the deadliest terrorist force in existence because he would take only the deadliest killers he could find. Then his power among the Palestinian factions would be secure despite the failure of the previous day’s mission in Rome.
All of this would be his, and there would be no need to worry about Cody, whoever that hellion was.
There would be a bright future of yet more daring and effective strikes against the mortal enemies of Abdul Kamal and Allah Himself….
The limo halted before the main building.
He broke himself from his reverie. He realized that Vronski was eyeing him with more scrutiny than usual from those beady eyes that so reminded him of the eyes of a snake.
“I trust, friend Abdul”—Vronski’s metallic voice sneered the first words he had spoken since they had left Charova’s warehouse—“that poor Charova’s fate was a lesson made all the more telling in that it was at your hand by which he met his fate.”
“I told you, Colonel. I knew nothing of his attempts to deceive you.”
Vronski started to respond to that when he became aware that one of his men was running toward them from the main entrance of the house.
“What is this?” Kamal wondered aloud.
The Russian got out of the car. Kamal joined him to meet a somewhat breathless orderly.
“Colonel, a message transcript for you. For your immediate attention.”
Vronski snatched the onionskin from the other’s hand and waved him away absently, irritably. His snake eyes scanned the message on the paper not once but several times, until Kamal could no longer contain his curiosity.
“Does it pertain to us?”
Vronski looked up as if he had forgotten that Kamal was there.
“What’s that?” he said distractedly, then, “Yes, I should say it does concern us, friend Abdul. There was activity only a short time ago at Charova’s warehouse.”
“Activity?”
Kamal cursed the catch in his voice. He felt relaxed no longer.
“The armored cars I requested to watch the warehouse in the event that Charova had others he was dealing with, such as our Corsican, uh, competitors. Someone showed up, but we don’t know who.”
“I don’t understand,” Kamal heard himself say, although he knew who was responsible.
“Details are sketchy,” Vronski snapped, “but the Nersko-Tsopska is short three men who were slain, and one of their BTR-60s is”—he looked at the onionskin again, as if he did not want to believe the words he read there— “unaccounted for.”
Kamal spoke the word on his mind without thinking.
“Cody.”
“Cody, Cody,” Vronski repeated, snapping the fingers of one hand restlessly. “I must put in a tracer immediately. I know that name.”
“Was there no description of the men encountered at the warehouse?”
“The men who saw them were those who died.” Vronski could not seem to keep his eyes off the words printed across the onionskin
“They fought with military precision….”
Kamal did not recognize the look that came into Vronski’s expression then. The Russian’s snake eyes glittered.
“Something, Colonel?”
“Cody,” said Vronski. ““Seven years ago, Bonn. I was attached to our embassy there. A matter concerning a defector we were prevented from terminating in time. The Americans managed to whisk him away, nullifying seven of my best agents in the process. We later learned that the man who led that mission, who organized it and carried it out and inflicted all that damage, was an American ex-serviceman named John Cody who worked for the CIA. The reason I didn’t make the connection immediately was that I’d been under the impression for some time that he’d left their service.”
“It would seem that he is back,” said Kamal. “The kind of man you speak of. He was the one in Rome. The same man. I feel it.”
“He was the one,” Vronski agreed. “I wonder how he traced us, you, to Charova. Cody is as wily and smart as he is tough and tenacious.”
“You sound as if you respect him.”
“I respect worthy opponents. John Cody and the men with him are that.”
“Do you think they will trace us… here?”
“It is possible. I don’t see how, but perhaps it would be a prudent caution to somewhat alter our itinerary.”
“How so?”
“I had thought to postpone our leaving for Libya, but that was before we paid our visit on that son of a whore, Charova. Now we know where he hid what is ours. I can send one of my men to retrieve the shipment from where he hid it. It was only in dealing with Charova’s treachery that I wished to take a direct hand, and that has been most adequately attended to. would you not say?”
Kamal heard no more after the first words.
“We leave for Libya … when?”
“You have no wish to encounter Cody a second time, is that it?”
“Nor do you, Colonel.”
Vronski ignored that.
“We depart at once. I will have a plane fueled, waiting for us at the airfield.”
“ “And … if this man Cody trails us here—and from here to Libya?”
Vronski stalked toward the building in purposeful strides which Kamal kept up with.
“We left Charova dead. There is no way the Americans can track us here. We leave at once only as a precaution. Also as a precaution, I will double our security and instruct Captain Kleb to be fully prepared for the possibility of a paramilitary assault within the next hour or two.”
“A welcoming party, eh?”
“Precisely. If Cody and his team do come to Padomir, they will go no farther, whilst you and I, Abdul, will be safely in Libya under the good graces of Colonel Kaddafi and the blessing of his protection.”
“I am pleased, my Colonel.”
“I quite thought you would be.” Vronski paused to turn and face Kamal, eye-to-eye. “You know, Abdul, the Americans must want you terribly to send a team, such as the one led by Cody, across international borders illegally with the sole purpose of tracking you down and exterminating you.”
“The Americans know who I work for, Colonel, even if much of the world at large does not. John Cody is after us.”
“I wonder. I wonder if you have not become a liability after the incident of the child’s murder.”
“You have had others before me, working for you in a similar capacity as myself, have you not?” It suddenly occurred to Kamal that in this unexpected, low-key exchange, he was arguing for his very existence. “Have you ever had one in my capacity lead men as I do, Colonel? Have you ever encountered a mind as skilled at understanding and penetrating the enemy’s weaknesses?”
“I must admit that you are an inspired and clever leader of men. Until yesterday.”
“I did what I did in Rome knowing full well that it would achieve what will be achieved. You know this to be so. Their outrage will work against them, as ours works for us. All the world knows the name of Abdul Kamal, and in that is power, Colonel Vronski, yours and mine, for with such a reputation I can draw to me the best fighters the cause of Islam has ever seen.”
Vronski chuckled, as if at some mild joke, and waved a hand, dismissing the subject.
“Very well, Abdul, very well. In some former life you must have been a camel salesman.”
The Russian resumed striding; the moment passed, as if it had not happened at all.
Kamal knew it had happened, though, and he recognized anew how imperative it was that he and Vronski depart for Libya immediately. In the desert they would be on Kamal’s home ground. Vronski would be the one whose uncertainty would make the KGB man all the more impressed with the respect Kamal would command when he strode tall among his own people.
They entered the building that served as the headquarters of Vronski’s unit.
“Remember, Colonel. The sooner we are gone from here, the better.”
“It will not take but five minutes for what I have in mind,” Vronski said. “I intend to leave behind a welcoming committee capable of destroying ten John Codys.”
Kamal felt himself relax inside again. Then the thought occurred to him that it was not a far drive from Charova’s warehouse to Padomir. There was the possibility that this fighting devil, Cody, and his men could be on their way to Padomir already.
When he realized this, he again became nervous, anxious to be gone from there.