Whirlwind (38 page)

Sam could barely breathe. Everything around him was speckled yellow and red. He was going to die, goddammit, die in an Air Force V.I.P jet, and there was nothing

“Speak to me, Sam. I am beaten and bruised and full of pain. My mood is poor, and even the saints in heaven would not blame me for hurting you more than you can believe.”

“Honest to God, I don’t know! If I did, I’d tell you! You know that!”

“You get one sentence to make me believe you.”

“She didn’t come. We staked out the Russians, Schmidt staked out the Russians, and she didn’t come. Then Schmidt got a phone call. Someone reported that Kolodenkova called your home, left a message on your answering machine. Jesus! Don’t hurt me! Please, I’m telling the truth!”

“Five sentences. Put a premium on conciseness, Sam, or there will be consequences.”

Consequences? There will be consequences? He said that earlier. When? Was it only four days ago?

“Next question, Sam. What was the message?”

“Something about you being her saint. Saint Charlie, she said you were Saint Charlie.”

The dangerous old fuck’s eyes flashed. Was there some hidden meaning in what that bitch had said? If so, Sam didn’t get it. And neither had Johan, that was for goddamned sure.

“Where’s Schmidt and his trained gorillas?”

“Can you take that knife away from my ear? It hurts.”

“No.”

Fuck you, man, just fuck you! Four days of non-stop needling, acid sarcasm, withering insults, and insufferable arrogance and that, baby cakes was all she wrote. Sam had had enough, more than enough, and fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. All at once he was over the edge, off the deep end, blood in the water, rage that murder wouldn’t begin to appease, the border of the nation called Berserk far behind, and he was in a place where he couldn’t care, didn’t care, and he’d kill you, kill you, kill you and drink your fucking blood!

“Schmidt, Sam? Answer my question or what I do to you will be one hell of a lot nastier than what he did to me. And, Sam,” Charlie dropped his voice low and intimate, “what he did was pretty damned nasty.”

Meat, McKenzie, you are raw meat on the butcher’s counter. I will cut you up and eat your fucking liver. You’re dead now, do you know that? Dead! I’m getting through this alive and in one piece, but you, you cocksucker, are going to be bite-sized goblets on my dinner plate!

Damn it felt good. It would feel even better if he said it, no, roared it as loud as he could. It was hard to resist, almost impossible. The only thing that stopped him was Charlie’s knife that and the look in his eye. “He left some watchers,” Sam said. It was difficult to voice those words; the other words were screaming to be heard. “I mean at the Russian residence. Then he headed south. Schmidt and his people. He dropped me off at the airport on the way. That’s the whole story, that’s all there is.”

“There had better be more. Look, meathead, my son Scott…” He nodded at the young doctor, so, yes, Sam had been right, he was Charlie’s son, cut from the same cloth, and the little shit was going down like his dad. I’ll have the rotten fuck’s kid killed first. Schmidt’ll unwind his entrails. And you’ll get to watch, Charlie, oh, yes, you’ll get to watch it all. “.. . tried to tail Irina. I never taught him any tradecraft. She shook him off in five minutes. So he drove straight here. He knows my style; he guessed I’d show up in a chartered plane. He was watching for me when you arrived. Together with a convoy of monster trucks, he said. Plug-uglies driving each and every one….”

The pilot’s voice came over the loudspeaker: “Gentlemen, we are number one for takeoff. Please make sure your seatbelts are tightly fastened around your waist, your tray tables are up, and any loose items are stowed safely beneath the seat in front of you.”

The pilot. He’s got a gun. Air Force officer. Bound to have a gun. Come back here, you dumb bastard, come back here and kneecap this cocksucker. Then leave the rest to me.

Charlie raised his voice. “… From what Irina told him the night before,

Scott figured those guys were the source of all her woes hers and mine both. They booted your fat ass out on to the tarmac, and he’s been watching you ever since. When he saw you climb aboard this fine aircraft, he came and found me. Bad luck for you, Sam. I was getting ready to hightail it out of Dodge. If Scott hadn’t spotted you, if he hadn’t had an eye out for me, you’d be able to spend what’s left of your life with two ears, all your fingers “

Out of the plane. Say ten thousand feet. You can breathe at that altitude, Charlie, and you’ll scream all the way down. Where is that fucking pilot? “Be careful with that damned knife! We’re taking off! What if we hit turbulence?”

“Like you say, shit happens. Now tell me where Schmidt is.”

He bellowed. No more soft-spoken voice. That was beyond his power. It was hard enough saying what he was supposed to say rather than what he wanted to say. “Headed for the coast, you fuck! Said he’s deploying his men all up and down the Pacific to watch the marinas! Thinks she’s going to try to steal a sailboat! Cocksucker, Jesus! Put away that knife!”

The plane jolted off the ground, Sam felt a trickle of blood run down his neck, and he wanted to howl like a wounded animal. Instead he tried to tell it all, and tell it true. “On the plane out here, he read her father’s file. The same file I sent you. Ow, you motherfucker, be careful! He kept looking at those pictures. The ones you saw. He said he thought she had a thing for boats had an issue with boats. Said she was going to grab one and sail solo down to Baja. Goddamn you, McKenzie, stop it!”

Charlie pursed his lips. Sam felt the knife lift from his ear. He tried to sigh, couldn’t manage it, his lungs were puffing like a locomotive. Hyper-ventilation. Blood pressure sky high. Old hormones flooding his bloodstream. He could take him on, he could take him on and beat him to a bloody pulp. If only the old sonofabitch didn’t have that knife….

“Sam, you’d better not be lying.”

“Truth, Charlie. Every fucking word.” And it was. He shouldn’t have let it out, he should have used the truth as a bargaining chip, but, you know, he really didn’t give a shit.

“Dad… ?” It was the kid. He even sounded like his fucking old man.

“Put a bandage on this worm, Scott.”

“Is this Schmidt guy right, dad? Is Irina going to try to take a boat to Mexico?”

“I doubt it. However Johan has drawn a very unfortunate inference.

Irina is headed for the sea. She will be near sailboats. And yeah, she does have a … well, ‘issue’ is probably the right word … with sailboats. Also with older guys hell, with men in general.”

Sam didn’t understand a word of it. Calling Dr. Freud, calling Dr. Freud.

“You’re wrong, dad. We talked last night, talked a lot. She told me all about what her father did, and she told me she’s gotten over it. I believe her. I think she’s… well, she’s the most together woman I’ve ever met.”

The kid’s got a thing for that Russian cunt. Same as his bastard old man. Good. Once Schmidt gets her, we’ll dissect her in front of your eyes, you cocksuckers, conduct an amateur autopsy, vivisection while you watch, and I’ll wash your ugly faces in her blood!

“Dad, how can we find her? The California coast has to be nine hundred miles long.”

Wetting his lips, Charlie answered hesitantly. “I can make a guess. Let’s hope it’s the right one.”

You prick, you know it will be right. You’re reading her mind, or doing whatever voodoo you always do, and I’m going to sit here very quietly, and if I’m lucky you won’t read my mind because if you did… “Will Schmidt guess the same?”

“Maybe.” Charlie blew between his teeth. “He’s smart enough. Best we can do is get to her before he does.”

Two knives, a matched set, Charlie sonofabitch McKenzie held one in each hand. Fingers clinched, knuckles white, Sam gripped his armrests.

Resignation in his voice, Charlie said, “Which means another major felony. Damnit, Scott, I never wanted you involved in this.”

“There’s no place I’d rather be.” Same fucking smile, the both of them smile like goddamned werewolves.

“Sam, I’ve got some good news for you and some bad news.” Now what? “The good news is that I can’t handcuff you to your seat because I need all four sets of manacles those MPs were carrying.” What’s the motherfucker mean? “The bad news is that I can’t let you out of that chair.”

Sam almost saw it coming. He almost began to move out of the way. He almost but not quite was fast enough.

Charlie’s two knifes stabbed down, pinioning Sam’s hands to the armrests.

The shock was so great that Sam couldn’t scream. At least not for a while.

Friday, July 24. 1530 Hours Pacific Time

HOLLY STREET EXIT-SAN CARLOS

An hour and half before Sam began to scream, Schmidt a few miles south of the San Francisco airport spotted the sign. But of course, he thought. San Carlos. Saint Charles. How obvious.

If memory served, Saint Charles was a reformer, and therefore a pest. Schmidt had seen monuments to him in Milan. Ah, Milan! A wretched city, but a fine opera house.

Swinging his Mercedes M-Class SUV onto the exit ramp, he murmured an order at his scout. “Keep your eyes open. Kolodenkova may be closer than I imagined.” Milksnake, a Yemenite Sunni, and not the brightest star in the mercenary sky, cocked a Beeman air pistol modified to fire tranquilizer darts.

Schmidt wondered if he’d misjudged Kolodenkova’s plans. Perhaps she did not intend to make her escape by sea; perhaps her sad little message to “Saint Charlie” conveyed a secret meaning: meet me in San Carlos.

But no, a quick tour persuaded him otherwise. It was just another American suburban purgatory: a strip mall here and there, shabby taco shops, too many gas stations, motels that likely did more daytime than nighttime business there was no focus to the place, no obvious location for a runaway spy to hide. Kolodenkova was elsewhere. She was, as he originally hypothesized, fleeing for the water.

But then again … A fresh thought. He snapped his fingers. “Milksnake, do you know how to use my laptop computer’s GPS?” The idiot was attempting to clear the Bee-man. “Just fire the dart into the floor mat. Never attempt to de cock an air gun.”

“Yes, suh.” The Yemenite’s accent was thick, and his command of English was barely adequate. Schmidt would not entirely miss the man if he shot himself in the foot.

The pistol, quite powerful for its kind, recoiled as Milksnake discharged it. “I well-trained on de Global Bositionin’ System.” Like many Arabs, Milksnake couldn’t pronounce the letter P. It came out as B instead.

“Let us hope so. Search the database for towns named Saint Charles.” Better safe than sorry, Schmidt spelled it for him.

Milksnake opened Schmidt’s sleek Sony featherweight computer like it was a jewel box. Schmidt swung back toward the freeway as the man maladroitly pecked on the keyboard. Some long moments passed before he had an answer. “Five Yankee Sain’ Charles.”

“Any in California?”

“No. Louisiana an’ “

Impatiently, Schmidt snapped, “Try San Carlos.”

Milksnake moved his lips as he typed, whispering each letter. Schmidt felt himself becoming immoderately annoyed. “Got me two here. Dis town we leavin’. Other one’s called San Carlos do Cabo.” He pronounced it “Dew-Cabew.”

Schmidt didn’t bother to correct him. Do Cabo. Of the cape. On the cape. In other words, on the water. “Pull up the map, Milksnake. Tell me where this interestingly named metropolis might be found.”

“Uh, lemme … no dat’s not right… uh, you gotta do dis. Uh, yeah. Got it. It’s… how you say… long ways away, south on da California coast, north of dis blace called San Lewis Obiss “

“San Luis Obispo. Milksnake, you really must work on your pronunciation. Is there an airport nearby?”

“Lemme try this key… San Louie O-Biz-Bo be da nearest. Sixty mile. San Carlos, she’s a little blace. Bobulation is tree fifteen hundred, I mean tree hundred and fifteen. Combuter says no motels or nutin’.”

“Fishing village,” Schmidt mused. “What driving time does the computer predict?”

“More ‘an tree hours.”

Schmidt weighed his odds. Kolodenkova had called McKenzie’s daughter just around two in the afternoon. No surprise, the Federal Bureau of Ineptitude’s phone tappers had not had time to pinpoint her location. The most they’d been able to ascertain was that she was in the 650 area code somewhere between San Francisco and San Jose, a distance of roughly fifty miles.

It had taken him thirty minutes to assemble a convoy, another thirty to reach the airport, and an irksome ten-minute detour to deposit Samuel at the airport. Assuming she was at 650’s southern boundary when she called, under the worst of circumstances, she had a ninety-mile lead.

Overtaking her would be difficult, although not impossible. But wouldn’t it be faster to return to the airport, fly to San Luis Obispo, and drive to the flyspeck coastal town to which Kolodenkova might or might not be running?

Schmidt calculated the travel time: Twenty minutes to the general aviation terminal. A half hour to get flight clearance, and quite possibly more. Another twenty minutes taxiing on the runway. Forty-some minutes flying time followed by another hour on country roads. Just shy of three hours if I’m lucky, considerably longer if I am not.

He’d keep to the highway it would be as fast, possibly faster. Besides, there was no guarantee his prey was on her way to San Carlos do Cabo. She just as easily might be running for any one of the thirty-plus marinas between San Francisco and San Diego.

I have no desire, he reflected, to be trapped in an airplane, thirty thousand feet and three hundred miles from the woman when one of my teams locates her.

When, not if.

Make no mistake: they would find her. A dozen truckloads of men were speeding down the coast from San Francisco. Another two dozen were sweeping up from the south. Soldiers would be peeling off at every marina and boat basin along the way. Kolodenkova was in a vise.

“Milksnake, you said the computer estimates our driving time is more than three hours. How much more?”

“Tree hours and twelve minutes, she say.”