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“Damn it,” Leopov snarled. “I hate that you were right about him.”
“Me too,” Maddock admitted. “Let’s go.”
He started across the lawn, heading east along the front of the building at a brisk walk. For the moment, at least, none of the bystanders had any clue what was happening in their midst, and Maddock wanted to keep it that way.
After rounding the northeast corner of the building, Maddock peeked around the corner to check on the pursuit. Tweedledum was about twenty yards away, shuffling along at a slow trot, but he appeared to be alone. The others had probably gone around the long way, hoping to cut off their escape.
“Now what?” Leopov asked.
Maddock did a quick visual survey of their surroundings. The museum building was a long rectangle running more or less east-west. The grounds were mostly open, dotted with trees which would provide some cover, but offered little in the way of concealment for an escape. The road, where their rental car waited, was only about fifty yards away, but to get to it, they would have to get past the Russians.
He wondered what Nadia and her twin goons were planning to do with them. The Russian mobsters probably hadn’t thought that far ahead. Clearly, this confrontation had been neither planned nor desired. Telesh’s intention had been, as Maddock had surmised all along, to have them followed in hopes that they would eventually reunite with Lia Markova. No doubt, Petrov had been covertly supplying them with updates on their search for more information about Helen’s Charm—information which Telesh probably already possessed. Now that the deception had been exposed, Telesh’s next move would probably be damage control. Eliminating loose ends.
“This isn’t Moscow,” he said. “I doubt they’ll try anything in front of all these witnesses.”
“Are you willing to bet your life on that?”
“Good point.” He sighed. “Okay, I’ll try to lead them off. Keep them distracted. Get to the car if you can. If not, find a phone and call the local police. There must be some kind of law enforcement out here.”
Leopov shook her head. “No. We stay together. Splitting up didn’t do us any good before.”
Maddock could tell that she was not going to change her mind, and they didn’t really have time to debate the merits of his plan. Besides, she was probably right; they worked well together, and she had more than proven her capability.
“Fine,” said Maddock. “New plan. We rush that guy—” He jerked a thumb toward the corner where Tweedledum was approaching unseen. “And make a beeline for the car.”
“Ready when you are,” she said, confidently.
Maddock gave a nod and then broke from cover, right in front of the lumbering Russian. The big man registered surprise at the sudden reappearance of his prey, but immediately threw his arms out in an attempt to scoop Maddock up. Maddock ducked under the sweep, and juked to the man’s left. As the Russian pivoted toward him, Leopov dashed out from behind the corner and slipped past them on the opposite side. As she did, she aimed a back kick at the man’s right knee. The strike had about the same effect as it would have if she’d kicked a tree. The Russian merely grunted, and then pivoted away from her to make another grab for Maddock who had doubled back to launch an attack of his own. He struck from the Russian’s blind spot. His fist connected solidly with the man’s jaw, but it might as well have been a love pat for all it accomplished. Tweedledum shrugged it off and reached for Maddock again, and this time, one of his groping hands managed to snag Maddock’s shirt.
Buttons flew like machine gun bullets as Maddock’s chest was suddenly bared. He backpedaled away, squirming out of the ruined shirt before the brutish Russian could reel him in like a prized marlin. His wristwatch caught momentarily on a shirt sleeve, but a hard pull tore him loose. He stumbled away, losing his footing along with his shirt.
Damn, he thought as he felt the cool grass tickling his exposed back. This is getting to be a thing.
Tweedle tossed the ruined shirt away and began stalking toward him. The Russian’s face was a study in casual indifference—it was the same dull-eyed expression he’d shown just before snapping the neck of Lia’s decoy in the Moscow underground.
Rather than attempt to rise and meet the brute on his feet, Maddock pushed up to a sitting position and then scooted backward, keeping one hand and one foot raised to ward off any attacks. It was the standard defensive position taught in military combatives classes for fending off attacks from a standing foe. Hypothetically, he could have kept his foe at bay indefinitely, or at least until an attack was attempted, at which point he would have been able to easily wrap the big Russian up in a jiu jitsu hold, but it was a hypothesis Maddock did not feel like testing.
Leopov looked as if she was about to launch another attack from behind the Russian. Maddock caught her eye and shook his head, hoping that she would get the unspoken message.
Don’t bother.
Leopov, correctly interpreting the look, sidled away.
Maddock scooted back several more feet, flipped over into a prone position and then pushed up into a sprint take-off. There was no longer any need for subtlety. The altercation had arrested the attention of the other visitors, though judging by the general look of bemusement, nobody quite understood what was going on.
With Leopov just a few steps ahead of him, Maddock cut across the lawn and headed straight for their waiting rental car. As he moved, he fished out the key fob and pressed the unlock button. The car’s headlights flashed twice, signaling that the command had been received. The alarm had been deactivated, the doors were unlocked.
But as he got to within ten yards of the vehicle, he saw that something was amiss. The car was canted at an odd angle, as if the road sloped away on the opposite side. A few more steps brought him close enough to see the reason for the tilt—both of the passenger side tires were flat.
Maddock briefly debated attempting to drive off anyway—driving on flats was difficult but not impossible, and they only needed to put a little distance between themselves and the Russians. Ultimately, the decision was taken out of his hands, for as he and Leopov skidded to a stop alongside the car, Nadia rose from a crouch on the far side of the vehicle, pointing a compact Makarov semi-automatic pistol at them from across the hood.
Maddock mentally kicked himself. He had underestimated their foes. Rather than chase them around the museum grounds, Nadia had chosen to set a trap at the one place they would eventually have to go.
She aimed the gun at him. “Where do you think you—”
That was all Maddock heard. As soon as the woman began speaking, he dropped flat behind the car, removing himself from her line of sight. Leopov hit the deck as well, probably recalling the same advice he had heard repeatedly in self-defense training—it was virtually impossible to pull the trigger on a gun while talking. It was like trying to rub your stomach and pat your head. The process of synchronizing mental gears required only a fraction of a second, but it was an interval which could be exploited.
Getting out of the line of fire was only a temporary solution however. Nadia was still armed and would almost certainly be moving in order to reacquire her targets. The only question was which direction she would go. He glanced back at Leopov who nodded and started low crawling toward the rear of the disabled car. Maddock headed toward the front end. Rather than try to increase the distance between himself and Nadia’s pistol, they were both determined to get a lot closer.
He squirmed up to the front bumper, poked his head out for a millisecond, just long enough to register Nadia coming around on the opposite side. The business end of Nadia’s pistol snapped toward him, but he had already pulled back behind cover.
He did not keep retreating however, but instead crouched there, poised to launch himself at her like a striking rattlesnake as soon as she showed her face. He would go in low, under her gun, maybe try to take her legs out from under her. It would be a risky move, but no more so than staying put or even trying to run away.
He waited there a full second, then another, and then heard the thud of an impact followed by a cry of pain. A moment later, Nadia appeared before him, but there was no need to rush her. She sprawled out on the ground, face-first, making no effort to even arrest her fall.
Leopov emerged right behind her, now holding the Makarov and grinning triumphantly. Her elation was short-lived. As she turned her head toward Maddock, her eyes went wide. “Dane! Behind you!”
Before Maddock could react, he was yanked off the ground and enfolded in a crushing bear hug. His arms were pinned against his torso, useless. He reflexively tried to squirm out of the grip, kicking out with his feet in a futile attempt to find the ground and get some leverage against his unseen foe—almost certainly Tweedledee.
The pressure increased as his assailant tightened his hold, squeezing the air from his lungs, suffocating him. Maddock fought the natural impulse to resist and instead went limp in the other man’s grasp, as if succumbing to the darkness. The big Russian wasn’t deceived into relaxing his hold, but he did take advantage of the apparent victory to reposition his feet to accommodate the dead weight of his seemingly vanquished opponent. The adjustment brought him a few inches closer to the car, close enough for Maddock to reach the front fender with one outstretched foot.
He immediately pushed off, driving himself into his attacker. Unbalanced, the Russian toppled backward. He managed to maintain his hold on Maddock throughout the fall, but when he finally crashed down on his back, Maddock’s full weight slammed into him. The secondary impact loosened the hold enough for Maddock to maneuver. He threw his legs up, rolling into a reverse somersault that finally broke the embrace. As he came out of the roll, he hooked an arm around the big man’s neck, locking the chokehold in place with the other.
The Russian clawed at Maddock’s arm, and when that didn’t work, he tried to shake Maddock loose. Maddock countered by wrapping his legs around the man’s waist, hooking his ankles together. Like many big men, the Russian was used to relying on his size and strength to win battles, and had no clue how to get out of the hold Maddock now had him in. His thrashing grew more frantic as the disruption of oxygenated blood to his brain sent him into a primal panic, and then abruptly ceased as the man collapsed in a puddle on the ground. Maddock held on a few seconds longer, riding the unconscious man down, maintaining the chokehold to ensure that the big Russian was out of the fight.
Maddock’s heart was pounding, his pulse throbbing in his ears like a waterfall, but as the adrenaline of the fight ebbed and his tunnel vision widened, he became aware of Leopov standing a few feet away, now armed with Nadia’s Makarov. She was shouting something—he couldn’t quite make out what—and inexplicably pointing the weapon at him....
No, not at him, but at someone behind him.
He let go of Tweedledee and threw himself sideways, narrowly avoiding Tweedledum’s headlong charge. Maddock finished the combat roll in a crouch, and backpedaled away as the lumbering Russian pivoted and came at him again. There was a fire in the big man’s eyes now, a fierce determination to avenge his fallen brother.
Maddock had no desire to grapple with the man. That he had defeated Tweedledee owed more to desperation and fickle luck than to his own prowess in unarmed combat. He could see Leopov tracking the big man with the business end of the Makarov.
Shoot him, damn it, he thought, even though he knew why she was holding back. A public brawl was one thing, but discharging a gun—or God forbid actually killing someone—would bring a whole new level of unwanted attention down on them. She would use the weapon only if the Russians gave her no alternative.
And maybe she wouldn’t need to. With Nadia and the other Tweedle out of the fight, the odds had swung in his and Leopov’s favor.
“Check for keys,” he shouted to Leopov, hoping she would understand what he was asking, and then after a quick glance over his shoulder to mark the position of the path leading back to the museum, he started backing away from the big Russian. It would have been the simplest thing in the world to outrun the man, but Maddock wanted to keep him close.
A dozen quick steps and another glance back.
Almost there.
According to legend, wily King Odysseus of Ithaca ended the ten-year-long war with the Trojans with an infamous act of subterfuge. Regardless of whether or not there was any factual basis for the legend, the episode had left a permanent imprint on the collective consciousness of the Western world—the term “Trojan horse” was synonymous with the use of deception and trickery to outwit a foe. Now, three thousand years later, Dane Maddock was going to borrow a page from Odysseus’ playbook.
He turned, and then immediately ducked behind one of the upright wooden legs supporting the museum’s Trojan Horse mock-up. The Russian tried to follow, but Maddock easily eluded him, snaking between the legs, always just barely out of the other man’s reach. With each dodge by Maddock, the rage in Tweedledum’s eyes grew hotter and his attacks, while more furious, became sloppier. Maddock wove around the horse’s rear legs, slid under the long playground slide that was the re-creation’s tail, and then nimbly flipped up onto the sloping metal-sheathed surface. His boot soles slipped a little at first, but with both hands gripping the siderails, he got enough traction to propel himself up the slide, toward the opening to the wooden beast’s hollow interior.
Suddenly the slide shook with an impact. Maddock’s feet slipped out from under him and he fell flat against the sloped surface. A quick look down revealed that Tweedledum had clambered onto the slide and was attempting to snag Maddock’s dangling feet. Maddock didn’t bother trying to regain his footing, but instead heaved himself the rest of the way up, thrusting himself headfirst into the barrel-like belly of the wooden horse. The whole contraption shook violently as Tweedledum fought his way up the slide.
Despite the impression of roominess from without, the interior was dark, cramped and utilitarian, with a short flight of steps leading down from the top of the slide and an even shorter walkway that ended at the ladder which descended back down to the ground.
Had the big Russian stopped to think for just a second, he would have realized that the smartest course of action would be to simply step back and wait Maddock out. There were only two ways out, and both would leave Maddock momentarily vulnerable. But the cat-and-mouse game had left the Russian too frustrated for rational considerations—which was exactly what Maddock had been hoping for.
After pulling himself inside, Maddock flipped around to face the slide and brought his legs up under him. When Tweedle’s head appeared in the opening at the top of the slide, Maddock was ready for him. Gripping the rails to either side, he lashed out with both feet together, driving his heels into the man’s brutish face.
As his dazed foe slid away, Maddock thrust himself back out onto the slide, but instead of riding it all the way down, he rolled over the side, landing easily on the grass below.
A loud braying sound rolled across the lawn toward him—the blast of a car horn. He oriented toward it and saw Leopov, waving to him from the open window of an idling black Mercedes M-Class.
He sprinted toward the sport utility vehicle, giving the unmoving forms of Nadia and Tweedledee a wide berth, and circled around to the passenger side.
“Nice ride,” he said as he collapsed into the seat.
“Thanks,” replied Leopov, smiling. “I traded up.”
As she pulled away, Maddock spotted Petrov. The historian ducked his head as Maddock’s gaze met his, perhaps afraid of reprisal, or maybe just embarrassed. Maddock briefly considered going after him, if only to keep him from revealing what they had discovered to Telesh. He dismissed the idea. Dragging an unwilling hostage along would only hinder their subsequent movements, and besides, the Russian gangster had almost certainly known about the connection between the Blutfahne and Helen’s Charm before ever enlisting Petrov’s help.
“Where to now?” Leopov asked as Ankershagen shrank into the distance behind them.
Maddock leaned back and closed his eyes. “As much as I like the car, we’re going to need to get rid of it ASAP. I’m sure somebody back there already called the cops.”
“Well, obviously,” she retorted. “I was thinking more big picture.”
“Big picture?” He opened his eyes and turned to her. “We’re going to find the Blood Flag and destroy it. Or at least make sure that it stays lost forever.”
“You really think it has some kind of magic power?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but regardless, it’s an abomination.” He paused a beat, then added. “Oh, I guess I’m going to need to buy another shirt.”
Leopov laughed. “You don’t have to dress up on my account.”
Maddock allowed himself a smile.