Message From -Creasy 5 (33 page)

Creasy was going backwards. The recoil had moved him back a couple of feet, as he had
expected, but then his feet had caught a bunch of loose stones and the weight
of the launcher had tipped him backwards with gathering momentum. He managed to
slam it down on to the path, but in the cumbersome protective clothing, he
could not stop himself from rolling. When he finally came to rest, he looked
up. The tree trunk that de Witt had pointed out was to his right. It was about
seven metres away. He was lying in the minefield.

Guido heard Creasy crash down behind him. He did not look back; his instinct was in
control. The gate was blown wide open, the Dutchman was next to him. Guido
shouted to him, "Go left!"

Part of his brain was listening for an explosion behind him...the explosion that would
tell him Creasy was gone for ever. The rest of it focused on the expanding view
of the compound: the temple at its centre; the two bulky, yellow-clad figures
one at each corner. He ducked through the entrance, moving to his right,
crouching with the wall at his back. There was no explosion.

Guido's thought processes were in neutral: his body, and all its nerve endings, knew
exactly what to do. His SMG was aimed slightly to the left of the yellow-clad figure
his side of the temple.

As he squeezed the trigger, and clamped down on the recoil, he traversed the muzzle
to the right, sending an arc of bullets across the target. He saw the muzzle
flashes of return fire and crouched lower as bullets smashed into the wall
above his head and the target was punched backwards, emitting a high-pitched scream.

Guido turned to his left. De Witt was lying crumpled against the wall, his posture
proclaiming death. Across the compound, to the left of the temple, another
yellow-clad figure sprawled on the ground.

At least he got one of them, he thought, his eyes sweeping the compound, looking
for the other hostiles he knew were there. Instinct and logic meshed: the two
dead would be guards. Connie Crum and Van Luk Wan would be the second phase.

His thoughts strayed to Creasy. Still no explosion, so he was alive. But if he had
come to rest on the pathway he would have arrived by now: he must have slipped
into the minefield and somehow avoided contact. He would not come rushing out,
Lady Luck would not be so generous. Creasy would probe his way out as
cautiously as a boy opens a girl's buttons on his first date.

Guido would have to give him time, so he could not rush the temple. He eased himself
to his right, giving himself a better angle of fire to the temple entrance.

Connie Crum and Van were behind the temple. She was struggling for composure while
emitting a stream of curses. The moment the gates blasted open was the lowest
point in her life since the day she had looked at her father's charred body. In
an instant she realized that Creasy had tricked her. They had been gazing up at
the sky, searching for parachutes and then the white flash of light, the
rolling explosion, and the gates buckling off their hinges to frame two yellow figures.

The entire scenario flashed through her mind in seconds. The aircraft was a decoy;
Creasy had come overland. He had forced or persuaded de Witt to guide him
through the minefield; they had found the spare anti-gas suits. She felt a rare
start of fear, quickly overlaid with hatred. She would not be stopped now.

Connie peeked around the corner of the temple wall and saw the dead figure of one of
her guards. She presumed the other was also dead. There was a prone figure by the
gate, and she caught a glimpse of someone else by the wall. She pulled back and
assessed the situation.

Something bothered her. She knew Creasy's methods: he would not hesitate. Maybe the dead
one was the Italian, and Creasy was biding his time, waiting for her to make
her move. He would not have to wait long.

She turned to Van and whispered, "I think it's Creasy against the left-hand
wall. Make your way to the other side of the temple, and then move forward
firing when I shout 'Go!' I'll attack from this side."

The Vietnamese stood as solid as if petrified. She pushed him, hissing: "We
kill him or he kills us." Slowly, Van moved to her right, clutching his
SMG like a child clutching its mother's breast.

Creasy knew the density of the minefield, and knew what luck it was that his tumbling
roll had not set off a mine. He also knew that luck and his own skill would
have to get him back onto the path; there was nobody to help him. And one false
move would send his torn body straight to hell.

He lay still, listening to the bursts of fire above him. Heard the one shrill, female
scream, then silence. Then, very slowly, he pulled out the knife which was
strapped to his right leg and began to probe gently at the soft earth in front
of him. As he worked, he mentally kicked himself very hard. He should have
adjusted to the slope and the surface before he fired. His mistake could cost Guido his life.

Then he kicked away the remorse. There was not time for it. If Guido was alive, the
only way he would stay alive was for Creasy to get himself out of this fucking minefield.

He drew in a deep breath, and began probing again.

Guido calculated that, at most, Creasy could only have slid four to five metres into
the minefield. But it would still take him many minutes to get out. He glanced
at the dead Dutchman, and then at the temple entrance. He decided that Connie
Crum was too smart to let herself be trapped in the building, so he
concentrated on the rear corners.

The concentration paid off. He saw the yellow figure erupt from the left, and was
already squeezing the trigger of his SMG before the target could line up his
weapon. The target spun to the ground, and Guido gave it another half burst to make sure.

Guido could change a magazine in less than three seconds. It was during those three
seconds that another figure dashed out, this time from the right. He saw the
white muzzle flashes, and felt the splinters from the wall beside him. His
magazine clicked in and it was too late. The enemy was traversing. The bullet
smashed into his right shoulder, spinning him around. His SMG clattered to the ground.

Creasy paused at the renewed burst of fire. He recognized Guido's characteristic
half-second bursts; then silence.

He looked at the tree de Witt had pointed out as delineating the path. It was
still about three metres away. One part of his brain wanted him to make a dash
for it. The other, more disciplined, part steadied him down. He probed again,
felt the hard object and inched around it.

Guido lay on his side, watching the figure approach him cautiously. From the feline
movements, he knew it was Connie Crum.

He was helpless. The palm of his left hand was pressed to the hole in his suit, to
staunch the blood and in case the gas could penetrate the skin. His pistol was
at his right side, under his body.

The woman took in the situation. Distorted by both their masks, he heard the cruel
laugh. She edged away to his right, always keeping her AK47 lined up on his
chest. At the compound gate she glanced down the empty path, and laughed again;
then she moved back towards Guido and stood over him.

The AK47 was now pointed at his head. Guido knew he had to buy time. He sent a
mental message down the path: "Don't be too long, old buddy."

He heard the woman's voice through the mask and felt the hatred in it.

"Are you Creasy?"

Of course in the protective suit, he was unrecognizable. Guido looked down the
barrel of the gun and heard his own voice imitating Creasy's slight American
accent, "Yes, I'm Creasy."

Sheer triumph emanated from the yellow-clad figure. She said: "I'm Connie...Bill
Crum's daughter. I've waited a long time. I saw you kill my father in the
temple in Hong Kong." She gestured. "His ashes are in a tomb in that
temple. You're going to burn on top of that tomb!"

Creasy's knifepoint encountered something hard. He gently pulled it back and probed to
his right into the soft soil, then inched forward behind it. Seconds were
passing like hours, but he had also heard the faint, deep voice of Guido. He
knew the woman would not kill him immediately. That was not in her character.

The death would be slow.

He still could not see the path with the white trail of sugar, but he could
faintly hear the woman's voice from above and could hear the gloating triumph
in it. That part of his brain which controlled his emotions urged him again to
leap for the path, but the part that controlled his instincts was stronger. He would
be no use to Guido if he blew himself up. He kept his elbows and knees and feet very
close together, and his body moved and rippled along the ground like a snake.

It took him another ten minutes to reach the sugar. Then he stood up, put the knife
back into its sheath, and crept up the hill to the submachine-gun.

"Get up!" Connie Crum said. "Or I'll shoot you where you are!"

She had backed off about two metres, with the barrel of the AK47 never wavering.

Guido put his left hand on the ground and pushed himself to his feet with a grunt of
pain, immediately putting his gloved left hand over the hole in his protective
clothing. She laughed.

"You're going to die anyway, Creasy! I'm going to watch you burn, just as my father
burned."

Guido did not move. He had to play for time still.

"I fooled you," he said. "You thought you outguessed me, but I'm smarter
than you. You've studied my history and you thought you could read my mind. You
were standing there like an idiot looking up at the sky, waiting for a
parachute that never came. You're not as clever as you think."

He saw the barrel of her AK47 drop, and saw the flame shoot from the muzzle. The
bullets tore up the ground within inches of his right foot. But then, as she
expertly changed the magazine in a blur of speed, her voice carried more venom
than the bullets.

"The next time you open your mouth, Creasy, I put a single bullet into your stomach.
You will die slowly." She moved half a yard closer. "Now move."

Very slowly, Guido shuffled forward, towards the entrance of the temple. Connie Crum
waited until he was alongside the inert body of de Witt, then she flicked her
SMG on to single fire and fired a bullet into the back of the Dutchman's head.
She laughed and said: "That's just to make sure your friend Guido is stone
dead. I assume de Witt told you the way. I should have killed the bastard the
minute the last mine was laid." She gestured with the gun. "Now move,
Creasy, or take the bullet right here."

Again, Guido turned slowly and shuffled towards the entrance.

"Faster!" she demanded.

"I'm wounded, damn it," Guido said, trying to remember to keep Creasy's accent.

"So
was my father," Connie Crum hissed. "He was crippled in both legs
with arthritis and he was dying of cancer. He couldn't move out of that chair
without help, and you just shot him as though you were aiming at a rat."

Guido
had reached the entrance of the temple. Over his shoulder he said, "So I
did him a favour. Anyway, he was a murdering, lying, corrupt son of a bitch who
had no place on this earth. Just like his vile daughter."

He was
looking at the black sarcophagus and the branches covering its top. He sent a
silent prayer to any god that might be listening, that Creasy would soon probe
his way out of that minefield.

Her
laugh could have been a pleasant sound in other circumstances. She said,
"Take a good look, Creasy. This is where you die. First you're going to
climb onto those branches. Then I'm going to shoot you in both kneecaps and
both elbows." She gestured to a black Zippo lighter on the table to her
right. "Then I light your funeral pyre and then I watch you burn. This is
the moment I have worked for since the day I watched you shoot and burn my
father. You will burn just as he burned. I will savour every second, Creasy."

From the darkness behind her, a voice said: "You've got the wrong man, Connie.
This is Creasy. And I don't like pyromaniacs!"

She turned twisting, swinging the AK47. Guido dropped flat to the ground as he
heard Creasy's SMG bark into life. A second later she was lying across his
body, gasping out her final breath.

Creasy's masked face loomed over him. "Are you hit bad, Guido?"

"Nothing fatal. But I took one in my right shoulder."

"Don't move. Wait while I look around. It seemed like de Witt finally got his
ticket." The face backed away.

Guido lay under the body and waited. A few minutes later the weight was lifted from him.

Creasy said: "There were four of them, including Van Luk Wan." He gestured
towards the sarcophagus. "She had a nice little reception waiting for us.
A nice little ceremony." He reached down, put a hand behind Guido's neck
and helped him to his feet.

"Can you walk?" Creasy asked.

"Yes, it's just the fucking shoulder!"

"Keep your hand over the hole," Creasy said. "I don't know what nerve gas
she used, but it could be the type that penetrates through the skin." He
was looking down at Connie Crum's body. Then he glanced over to the table and
the Zippo lighter. He walked over, picked up the lighter, and lit the paper under the wood.

It must have been soaked in petrol because immediately the flames shot up. Creasy laid
his SMG on the floor, picked up Connie Crum's body, tossed it onto the flames and said to
Guido: "Pity to waste all the preparations. Let there be ashes to ashes."

"I had no choice," Elliot Friedman said down the phone. "That guy has
some influence. For one thing, he's a consultant to the State Department. I had
a lot of pressure the guy even stood in my office threatening me with physical violence."

"He knows I'm at the Dusit Thani Hotel?"

"Yes. He left Washington yesterday. I guess he'll be there any time soon. Now, what
about the remains?"