Assassin's Express (16 page)

The KG-9 was empty.

Frost snatched the Metalifed Browning High Power from the Alessi rig under his jeans jacket, the hammer already cocked, his right thumb wiping down the safety. The pistol bucked once, then once more, in his right hand as he fired into the mass of KGB men storming toward the ditch. The .44 Magnum went off beside him and three men fell—two by Frost and one by O'Hara as Frost judged it.

Frost glanced to his right—Jessica Pace wasn't even looking toward the battle; her eyes had a faraway look to them. The Walther was in her hand, the hammer cocked, her right first finger stroking the trigger so gently the gun wasn't discharging.

“What the hell are you doing?” Frost snapped, clamping his hand over the gun and working the safety. The girl glared up at him.

Frost said nothing. Having dropped the pistol in her lap, he swung the muzzle of the KG-9 over the top of the ditch and fired strings of two-round bursts. The KGB men had fallen back, the burning wreckage of the airplane between their positions and to Frost's far right.

“Well—what d'ya think?” O'Hara rasped through gritted teeth.

Frost, looking back over the lip of the ditch, reloaded the KG-9 magazines by feel and answered, “I think we're in trouble, O'Hara. I don't know how you feel about—just call it a gut reaction I've got.”

“Smart ass!”

“How's my neck look?” Frost asked, ignoring O'Hara.

“Terrific,” O'Hara snarled. “If ya' like gunshot wounds. You'll live. I had worse; so've you.”

Frost rubbed at his neck, feeling the blood trickling more slowly there, then nodded silently in agreement.

“I got this all figured,” O'Hara muttered.

Frost looked at him. “What?”

“This—this whole deal how we get the young lady out o' this.”

Frost looked at Jessica Pace on his right, her eyes staring up over the lip of the ditch now.

“Just how do we do that—or is that something they only teach you in G-man school?”

“Shut up, will ya—you're about to have a brilliant plan whipped on ya—and you make light of it. Boy, what a—”

There was a long burst of automatic-weapons fire. “They're comin' again,” O'Hara snapped.

“Like they say in the western movies—I'm runnin' out of ammo. I got half a load or so in the Browning, four extra magazines and about half a stick in the KG-9. I figure you've got two or three speedloaders left and some loose spares, right?”

“Two speedloaders exactly,” O'Hara snorted, “and maybe a dozen loose rounds in my pockets—then five rounds and a speedloader for the Model 60,” he added.

“Wonderful—this assault!” Frost fired two more rounds, taking his time, nailing a KGB man with an M-16 coming at them in a zig-zag run, “. . .and one more and we're out.”

“Yeah—well—I got that figured, too, see,” O'Hara said. “You get the woman to leave me her peashooter there so I can make 'em think there's more than one of us here. Then you take her around behind that stand of trees where the airplane crashed and steal one of the Ruskie's cars and boogie out of here—I'll link up with ya' later.”

Frost fired a two-round burst; a chunky-looking KGB man went down as he crossed from one side of the clearing separating them to the other. Frost turned around and looked at O'Hara. “You're signing your own death warrant, O'Hara.”

“Baloney—that's crazy talk. Once they see you guys pull away in the car, they'll be after you—I'm givin' myself a break, can't ya see that?”

“Bullshit,” Frost said quietly. Frost looked at the girl, then back at O'Hara. “You don't have to do it—she'll stand a better chance of getting by the CIA and FBI people with you.”

“Look—we don't have time for all this. I'm a federal officer—let's say I'm deputizin' you. Now do what I tell ya to.”

“What?” Frost asked, swapping two shots over the lip of the ditch and bringing down another KGB man. Two more cars had pulled up, dumping out another dozen men. “You gonna arrest me?”

“Yeah—maybe.” O'Hara smiled.

Frost looked back at the girl. “Give your gun, to O'Hara, Jessica. We're cuttin' out—you and me.”

Frost started to move but before he could twist around toward her, he realized it was too late. At the edge of his peripheral vision, he could see O'Hara's chest almost thumping as the slugs tore into it. O'Hara's left arm spouting blood, O'Hara falling back against the rocks at the side of the drainage ditch. Frost reached out for the gun in Jessica Pace's right hand, reached for it as he almost felt it going off. In slow motion he saw the action working back as he felt the explosion in his head, saw the colors in front of his eye . . . his head exploded; he felt, sensed, almost as if he were standing there watching it—until the blackness flooded across his eye. . .

Frost opened his eye. He decided it was the ultimate insult. Here he was, obviously dead, and there was O'Hara—dead, too—still rattling on and complaining. Frost listened to the words. “... among the livin' there, sport.”

“Living?”

“Yeah—what's—”

“You're dead—I saw you take three rounds in the chest.”

“God bless the folks at Second Chance—first thing I do when I get dressed in the morning is put on the old vest, ya know? Looks and feels just like a good old American T-shirt, stops them bullets just great. 'Cept when she shot me in the arm here.” O'Hara gestured toward his left arm in a sling, the arm bandaged around the bicep.

“What are you talkin' about?” Frost groaned. His head ached, his mouth felt as though he'd smoked six cartons of cigarettes in a row.

“She shot me, I stumbled back—hit the old noggin on a rock and the lights went out—just as she shot you.”

“She shot me in the head,” Frost stammered.

“Yeah—good thing for you she didn't aim for a vital area—ha!”

“Oh, shut up.” Frost groaned. He started to move his head but felt as though he were going to throw up.

“You must've zigged when she zagged—creased your skull good. Another quarter of an inch and I'da got nailed with a bill for flowers for your funeral, Frost. You realize what flowers cost?”

“O'Hara—” Frost started to push himself up on the bed; his head ached as though someone were hitting him there with a rifle butt. He saw the floaters—red and some other color he couldn't identify—washing in front of his eyes.

He thought he heard O'Hara—still rattling on—shout, “Hey—get the croaker in here!”

Frost opened his eye. It hadn't been a nightmare. O'Hara was sitting on the end of the bed, left arm still in a sling, a crazy smile on his face. “You're up, huh! Good—like I was tellin' ya, the Pace dame—”

“How long have I been out?” Frost asked, his voice sounding tired and weak to him.

“Two hours or so. Try not to pass out this time, Frost—I need ya. I'll get the guys.”

“What guys?” Frost started to ask, but O'Hara was already up, moving toward the door and opening it. There was a loud whistle—like someone calling a taxicab—and then Frost heard O'Hara muttering something that sounded like, “Yeah—sorry, nurse—yeah—I know there's people sleepin'—right, gotcha, sweetheart.”

Frost tried moving his head, to turn away from the door. “What guys?” he muttered.

He couldn't move his head, so he looked at the doorway. There was O'Hara again, and with him six men, one of them wearing a police uniform.

“Gentlemen—this is Capt. Hank Frost—my old buddy from up in Canada there where we did that number on those terrorists.”

“Captain Frost.” One of the older men smiled, extending his right hand. Frost feebly reached out his right hand and shook with the man.

“Frost,” another man muttered; the rest of them just grunted things Frost couldn't understand.

“Now—gotta get this Jessica Pace thing nailed down, huh?”

Frost moved his head—slightly, slowly—and looked at O'Hara. “Mike,” he said, using O'Hara's first name for only the second time in his life, “what the hell is going on?”

“Better tell him, O'Hara,” the older man Frost had shaken hands with said, his voice oozing authority.

“Yes, sir,” O'Hara said. Then O'Hara turned toward Frost. “See—I don't know exactly what happened. Got the bump on my head, here.” O'Hara rubbed the back of his skull dramatically. “The Pace dame evidently went all the way in the bonkers bureau and decided to smoke us both. Did such a convincing job of it, the KGB guys must've let us alone. They wanted her to begin with—at least we think so.”

“What are you talking about?” Frost asked, feeling sick to his stomach. “Give me a cigarette, somebody.”

Suddenly Frost felt as if he were in the center of a consumer taste test. Five packs of cigarettes were extended to him and Frost—not seeing his own brand—grabbed a Pall Mall. Somebody—he thought it was the uniformed policeman—lit it for him. Frost inhaled the smoke, hard, and, his head starting to reel, fell back against the pillow.

He shook his head, the motion making his head ache again, but he dragged on the cigarette once more. His eye focused on the man in the police uniform. He seemed awfully old for a uniformed policeman, Frost thought. Then he noticed the tailoring of the uniform, the brass on the epaulets.

“Thanks, there, commissioner,” O'Hara snapped.

Frost looked at O'Hara, then asked, “Commissioner?”

“Yeah, Frost.” O'Hara smiled. “This is Commissioner Bohen, with the police. This is Assistant Bureau Director—”

“Bureau?”

“Yeah—FBI—you know. Assistant Director Craigin; this is CIA Assistant Deputy Director Morris Filtchner; this is—”

“Wait—what's goin'?”

“Maybe I'd better explain.” Frost turned his head, slowly. It was the man from the FBI, the one O'Hara had identified as a deputy director or assistant something. Frost couldn't remember, but he remembered the man's name was Craigin. “See—it's clear Jessica Pace shot you and Special Agent O'Hara, Captain Frost. But why is what we're uncertain of at this juncture.”

“I don't—” Frost began, then felt his voice drifting off, his throat tightening.

“Don't try to talk—just listen. It's important that you do. First of all,” Craigin said, clearing his throat as if preparing for a long speech, “we cleared up all the charges against you. Regardless of what Miss Pace is up to, it's clear you and your superior, Mr. Deacon, were acting with the best of motives—and I am personally seeing to it that Special Agent O'Hara gets a commendation for his part in this thing. But be that as it may,” Frost hated the expression, “we have a problem, and only you and Mr. O'Hara can assist us in the resolution of this difficulty.”

“I don't—”

“You will—at least as well as we understand it, Captain Frost. The problem, simply put is that we don't know who Jessica Pace really is. From what Special Agent O'Hara has told us, it seems she was under a great deal of mental strain, something like combat fatigue. That could have been genuine, or just an act she put on to throw you both off. Consider the possibilities.”

Frost started searching for an ashtray, thinking the man named Craigin sounded as though he were selling him a used car with a built-in vacuum cleaner and a set of encyclopedias in the trunk. He found the ashtray when someone put it in front of him.

“We know that there really is a Jessica Pace—or at least was. That she was supposed to have been substituted for a KGB agent to whom she was nearly identical physically. But, was the Jessica Pace you were bodyguarding the real Jessica Pace, or was she Irena Pavarova?”

“I don't follow you at all,” Frost told Craigin, shaking his head, searching out another cigarette—this time a Chesterfield.

“It's simple, sport,” O'Hara began. “The only thing that makes sense in this thing is the facts. I woke up out there, my gun full of mud and crap, my arm bleedin' like it was goin' out of style and you with a head wound that looked like somethin' out of an old first-aid film. You were in shock, too. I found myself the road, tried hailin' down a ride, finally got a trucker to stop when I waved my badge at him. I used his CB to call home, got the ambulance out there—the whole nine yards. Anyway, she shot you and she shot me. We know that. Looked as if she was crackin' up—I don't think it was an act. Those KGB guys took off either after her or with her. We don't know. Calvin Plummer is still so trusted by the President that Mr. Craigin here couldn't get the president even to admit to the meeting—but our private sources say it's scheduled. So—so, we got this dame who's either a fruitcake or an assassin. And maybe she's got this list—”

“If she has, we can't avoid the meeting because the information is so important it's got to be revealed. And we must see that she remains unharmed,” Craigin said solemnly.

“But if she isn't Jessica Pace, or if there's somethin' else screwy goin' on, we gotta stop her,” O'Hara said through his teeth.

“The possibilities are endless, aren't they?” Frost said, his voice sounding tired to him.

“I concur,” the man introduced as Filtchner said. Frost seemed to remember the man was supposed to be with the CIA.

“I decided to gamble and call in the good guys—the ones I knew were the good guys, Frost. Had to,” O'Hara said, his voice oddly serious-sounding.

Frost tried to nod, then grunted something instead. “What, ahh—”

“It must be determined,” Craigin said, “just who the young lady in question is—first and foremost. Is she Jessica Pace? Is she Irena Pavarova and Jessica never replaced her at all? Did Irena perhaps have a twin sister and the Russians got wise to Jessica Pace and took her out of the picture and replaced her with a third look-alike? Basically, can we trust Calvin Plummer to bring this girl in contact with the President of the United States. What will she do? And if she is Jessica Pace, is she still sane enough to be relied upon? All questions that need answers—and you and Mr. O'Hara have to get them.”

Frost started to laugh—then stopped. Nobody else was laughing.

“We have men—joint teams to keep an eye on each other, really,” Filtchner said. “They have Miss Pace or whoever she is under a sort of loose surveillance.”

“What he's tryin' to say is they know approximately where she is, but nobody's seen her,” O'Hara snapped.

“You—” Filtchner sighed. “You are right—but we're working to correct that. We've got surveillance teams at all the airports, railway stations, bus depots—everywhere. And we're also picking up every KGB man we can find—for everything from bad visas to overdue parking tickets. We're trying to get her safely into the Washington area, but keep her from getting to the President—until we know. And that is what you and O'Hara are supposed to find out about.”

“How can—” Frost let the question hang, gesturing across his body in the hospital bed.

“Doctors say you can be up and around tomorrow if it's important enough. May have some bad headaches, but we can get you a prescription for that. O'Hara's arm doesn't discount him either. You are the two men in whom we can place ultimate trust. You both had ample opportunity to kill Jessica Pace and neither of you did. You can't be on her list, Captain Frost—you're not in FBI or CIA. Obviously O'Hara isn't or he would have killed you both or died trying. We have no one else we can send.”

“Send where?” Frost asked Craigin.

“This little place Plummer has in the Smoky Mountains.” O'Hara smiled. “Kind of a combination safe house, training area, and retreat. He's supposed to have Irena Pavarova there.”

“What?”

“When Jessica Pace was supposedly substituted for Irena Pavarova—” Filtchner said. “Well, it was decided by all concerned that it was best to keep the real woman on ice—just in case she was ever needed for a trade, etc. Plummer's had her there. It's not really a prison—she's free to move around, write, read, do what she wants as long as she doesn't try to escape the grounds. There was a rumor that she'd tried once and Plummer's people got her back.”

“We gotta go see who he's got there—Jessica or Irena,” O'Hara said finally.

“We're all crazy,” Frost said. “I can barely lift my head up and tomorrow I'm supposed to penetrate a tight-security prison in the Smokies and find a woman who looks just like the woman who shot me. Then what do we do—ask her a bunch of questions? How do we know if it's really Jessica or Irena?

“And what do we do when we find out who's who?”

“If it's Irena, Frost,” O'Hara said, “we pat her on the fannie and give her back to Plummer. If it's Jessica—well,” and O'Hara paused.

“If it's Jessica,” Filtchner said, “either you and O'Hara kill Plummer or we do—and then we stop Irena or whoever she is from assassinating the President of the United States.”

“And what if we can't determine?” Frost asked.

O'Hara smiled. “We improvise.”

Frost started to say something, but instead he dragged on the Chesterfield. Improvise, he thought—that meant kill everybody, just in case.