Hot Siberian (50 page)

Forty rows in. Nikolai and Vivian dove forward into the shallow depression between rows. They paused there, rolled over to catch their breath and decide their next move. After a moment they heard three forceful spits, each followed by a series of sounds like a razor blade slitting paper. Shots being fired at them from a silenced pistol, bullets tearing through the tulips. How close? The bright red blossoms directly above them had quivered, and several riper precarious petals had given up their hold and dropped. One petal fell upon Vivian's forehead. Deep red, it looked like a pooling of blood. Nikolai refused to accept that as a portent. There! How easily Vivian directed her breath upward from the corner of her mouth and blew the red away. From those near misses, however, it was evident that their location was exactly known. The swath they had trampled through the tulips gave them away, would lead to them. They had to go on.

Vivian led the way, down on all fours now. They kept to the bare dirt space between those rows of reds. The rows were planted so straight that anyone who came to the furrow they were in would surely spot them and have an unobstructed shot from behind. Any second Nikolai expected to feel the jolt and sear of a bullet going into him. They scrambled along for about fifty feet. Nikolai had Vivian remain there while he crawled across the row of tulips on the left. He forced his way through them and continued on across five more rows before reversing direction and crawling back to Vivian over the same course. The trail he'd made was conspicuous and convincing, with snapped stems, crushed scarlet blossoms. Now he gave his attention to the tulips of the row on the right. At mid-stem level he inserted his hands and arms through them and slowly pushed them aside. He took extreme care not to put too great a strain on the stems, not to disturb the blossoms, and both stems and blossoms seemed to respond to this gentler treatment, allowed themselves to be parted enough for the crouching Vivian and then Nikolai to step over and through. At once Nikolai and Vivian set about to help those stems straighten, to untangle those blossoms that had bunched and been caught by their throats. That done, it was not evident that anyone had crossed over the row; not a single petal had chosen to fall.

They crossed ten rows in this manner without leaving a discernible trail. That brought them to where the red tulips gave way to their sisters of yellow—a yellow so pale and pure it immediately persuaded the eye to respect its silent conceit. But no time to appreciate. Again Nikolai and Vivian hurried along on all fours, keeping to the depressed furrow between rows. Within a short distance they were presented with an interruption in the yellows, a narrow, nearly undetectable path that led off to their right, no doubt one used by workers to cut across the field. Without hesitation, Nikolai and Vivian took it, passed quickly through all the yellows and on through the adjacent section of pinks and on into the whites. The blossoms of the whites seemed larger. Was it an illusion that they seemed to be held higher? Were they compensating for their lack of color?

In the whites Nikolai and Vivian felt a degree of sanctuary and stopped. Nikolai pictured their position, using his memory of the total view he'd had of the tulips from the inn's upper bedroom. As he recalled, this section of whites was situated less than halfway across the field. Deep enough? He considered the evasive tactics they'd taken and decided at least for the time being they would stay put. It was, he thought, not impossible that they were already lost in this vast field—and wouldn't be found. They could, if they had to, remain in this spot all day, stay right there until after dark and then make their way out of the field and away. Another moonless night would be a help. Under no circumstances would they return to the inn or try for the BMW. There was also the possibility these three killers would soon give up, might well be more impatient than relentless. They might thrash around in the field for a couple of hours, then step back and take a look at it and consider how much of it there was to be hidden in and decide to hell with it.

Either way, Nikolai thought, it was going to be a long day, or, worse, a short one.

A breeze came up, a vigorous errant little breeze that could not resist the tulips. Nikolai was momentarily startled when it scuffed across the whites and caused them to sway various ways like a fat, unsynchronized
corps de ballet
. The metaphor made him recall what Savich had said about the special sexual talents of ballet dancers. What a peculiar time for that to come to mind. He made the thought scurry back to its place in his memory and brought his look down to Vivian. She seemed to be studying the text of his eyes. In hers he saw what he believed was a mixture of anger and fright, but the anger was not yet a fury nor was the fright yet panic.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

He nodded that he was and felt urgently the need to tell her he loved her, knew that his desperation to say that, to keep saying that as often as he could for as long as he could, was compelled by the proximity of death. He said it once and she smiled, pleased as much as if he'd said it countless times. It was then that he noticed her knees. While he'd had the advantage of trousers, her bare knees had been victimized by the soil and rubble. Dirt was ground into the caps of them and the skin was scraped raw. Yet she hadn't complained and didn't now. Like a child who'd just skinned herself during hard play she used her saliva to try to scrub the dirt away and better see the sore spots. Nikolai thought how removed she was under these circumstances from the beautiful London woman he'd known. She who had come walking down the aisle that day at the auction at Sotheby's to affect him forever. She didn't belong here crawling for her life. She belonged in a designer's afternoon dress with her feet in elegant shoes so barely worn they still had their maker's finish on their soles. She belonged at lunch on Archer's terrace tossing her laughter across the table, unconcerned about anything crucial. How could she be so displaced and yet so involved? He was to blame, but she'd never admit it.

She still had most of that heel of tough brown day-old bread in the pocket of her cardigan. She offered it to Nikolai, but if there was any hunger in him it was obscured by adrenaline. She sank her teeth into the heel of bread and held it clamped to her mouth while she took her Beretta from its holster. “Am nu ih uh iow a mal,” she said around the bread.

“I'm not giving up without a battle” was what Nikolai thought she said. He watched her handle the Beretta with deft familiarity. She released the clip, examined it, rammed it back in smartly, then shifted the safety so a red dot was displayed, indicating the pistol was ready to be fired. Her mouth had soaked the bread soft by now. She tore a bite from it, chewed, and swallowed. “Do you think we should stay here?” she whispered.

“What do you think?”

“Good a place as any. Did you bring along your spare clips?”

“No.”

“Maybe you won't need them,” she said hopefully.

Nikolai took out his Sig. He'd checked it just yesterday on the ferry but he checked it again and took it off safety. For some reason it felt lighter to his hand now and the grip of it was a better fit. Quickly as that it had changed from stranger to comrade, from being a mere metal object to saying,
Use me, don't hesitate to use me
.

They sat back to back in the dirt between two white rows. That way they could see anyone coming up that corridorlike space in either direction. For a while they sat erect with not only most of their spines in touch but the backs of their heads. As the minutes passed, however, their shoulders became heavier and demanded slouch. It wouldn't be unbearable to sit like this all day, Nikolai told himself. The sun wouldn't poke along, it would see what was going on and sympathetically run across the sky.

Vivian jabbed him sharply with her elbow.

He held his breath to listen. He too heard it. Off to his right, to Vivian's left. Someone tromping across the rows, unconcerned about how much noise was made, carelessly wading through those tall tulips, forcing them aside with legs causing rustling and scraping sounds against clothing. How near? There was no way of telling. Nikolai guessed thirty rows, just a guess. He was tempted to crawl up for a peek but surely even just the top of his dark head would be distinguishable among all these identical whites. The tromping noises continued and didn't seem to be getting any closer. Perhaps whoever it was would pass right by. The tromping stopped, then started again. Evidently just then the person had decided to change direction, because now the tromping was louder, drawing nearer. And nearer.

Vivian stood up.

Nikolai had no chance of preventing it. What the hell was she doing?

She popped up suddenly with her arms raised in surrender.

The youthful-looking killer, the one who called himself Charlie, saw her at once. He was twenty rows away, about a hundred feet. He brought his pistol up to fire, but apparently, as expected, the woman was unarmed, so he waded closer through the whites to make a surer shot. Besides, he figured, if the woman was here the man would also be. It would be a credit to him if he got the both of them. The woman had given up, was just standing there afraid. He moved in on her, glancing aside, keeping an eye out for the man. He didn't see the man anywhere.

Nor did he notice that Vivian had the right sleeve of her baggy, oversized cotton cardigan stretched up over her right hand, concealing not only her hand but the pistol it held. In a single swift motion she brought the arm down and fired. At fifty feet if she'd been able to take careful aim it would have been an easy shot for her. As it was she had only the briefest instant to aim and squeeze off two rounds, so she was off her mark. Instead of hitting the killer in the center of his chest, both bullets went in a bit high. There was an expression of total disbelief on his face when the impact of the first bullet drove him back and the second bullet drove him back more. The first bullet entered him in the spot above his chest where his collar bones came together. It struck the top edge of his manubrium, that uppermost bone of the sternum, chipped a piece off that, and glanced upward at an angle to rip through the sheathing muscles of the neck. At a velocity of a thousand feet per second, the 105-grain bullet tore on through fibers and membranes, severed the right carotid artery and the internal jugular vein. The second bullet struck only half an inch lower than the first but was deflected more steeply upward and imbedded itself in the thickest area of the jawbone. The youthful-looking killer lay in a contorted position over a row of the whites. As though it had never liked him, eager to be relieved of its responsibility, his heart took less than thirty seconds to pump out his life.

Vivian dropped to her knees. She was stunned, like someone who'd just witnessed a horrible accident. She gazed at the Beretta in her hand, then looked to Nikolai, wordlessly conveying to him that she hadn't intended it to come to this. The Beretta felt as though it were now a permanent extension of her arm, grafted by experience. Even if she flung it away it would still be there.

“We can't stay here,” Nikolai told her. The remaining two killers, the heavyset man and the woman, knew their location now. Also now the killers realized they were armed, would be cautious, coming on more slowly.

“I'm okay,” Vivian said with forced confidence. “One offed, two to go.”

She led the way, crawling along on all fours again. Down the space between those two rows for about fifty feet, then across the four rows on the right, careful, as before, not to leave an obvious trail. They were still in the section of whites. Nikolai paused and sighted ahead. These rows were extremely straight; they seemed endless on that flat land, went all the way to the sky. He caught up to Vivian. She was waiting where another narrow access path intersected. They took the path, and soon saw it was leading to some sort of structure. What a welcome sight. Practically anything would provide cover more substantial than tulips. It turned out that the structure was an open metal bin, twenty feet square by seven feet high. They crawled around to the far side of it and then felt concealed enough to stand. It was blessed relief to at last be upright, able to bow their spines and stretch.

The bin smelled terrible. It had a wide, heavy-hinged gate that was slightly ajar. Nikolai looked in and saw rotting tulips, a mucilaginous heap being gone over by squadrons of huge blue flies and gnats. The buzz of the insects was acoustically amplified by the confines of the bin and sounded like an electric motor in the throes of going bad. Nikolai thought the inside of the bin might be good for cover. He pulled the gate open another foot. The huge hinges of the gate complained with a sharp screech, metal against metal. Nikolai was sorry he'd touched the gate, but there was nothing he could do about it now except hope that screech had gone unheard or been taken for the cry of a hawk or some other creature.

With the bin to sit against and serve as a shield, Nikolai and Vivian felt a few degrees safer. They were much deeper in the field now and most likely out of sight. Possibly they could wait out the day there. How many more hours until night? The sun wasn't even through with the morning sky. It was taking its time, not performing at all like an ally, more like an entertained observer, Nikolai thought. He watched Vivian giving attention-as-usual to her Beretta. Although she'd only used two rounds of twelve she replaced that clip with a fresh, full one. She appeared recovered from her recent reaction, getting ready to kill again if need be. Nikolai thought he should admire her resilience.

On that far side of the bin there were only about a dozen more rows of whites. Beyond the whites was a wide section of pinks, an intense, shocking shade. Quite a way out in the pink section was a tractor. A bright blue one. Evidently it had been left where it was at the end of yesterday's work. This entire field of tulips was ripe. It would be harvested a section at a time to make sure each color was kept separate. It was, of course, a business matter of bulbs, not blossoms. No solicitude for the blossoms; not a one would see a bouquet. Every blossom would be cut from every stem, so that as much as possible of each plant's potency would be forced down into its bulb. The bulbs would be turned up out of the ground, looking like onions but far more precious. They'd be gathered by a conveyor, sacked and tagged and taken north to the auction markets at Killegom and Lisse. The bulbs of this particular well-bred species, these extra-long-stemmed, gigantic-blossomed beauties, would be choice. They'd bring a pretty price. As for the blossoms, hadn't they by their compulsive display of vanity rather invited sacrifice? They'd be used for mulch or as fodder for cows.