Spyfall Page 15

  “Still got that portfolio?” Walt asked Ian.

  The writer patted his breast pocket.

  “Still know where we’re going?” I asked.

  Ian stopped and I almost stumbled into him.

  “I know this place,” Fleming said, recognition softening his face. “We dug a communications tunnel not more than four hundred yards from here back in ’52 to intercept Russian teleprinter cable traffic.”

  Agent Poole quietly sighed. “Yes.”

  Fleming started walking forward again. “And then it rained. Leaked into the cable line and they sent repair trucks out to fix the break.”

  “What happened?” I asked, adjusting my grip on the rifle.

  “The Russians arrived with tommy guns,” Ian continued, stepping around a large pot hole. “Most of us got out in time, but one chap died here.”

  “William Adams,” Poole said.

  Again Ian stopped, acting slightly dazed or amazed. We waited. “Yes, Adams. He took a bullet that was meant for me. I’ve never gotten over the guilt.”

  I could identify with the feeling and thought again of Max. “And you never will,” I said.

  We started moving again. The writer said, “We left a sign in the tunnel for them to find. It read, ‘You are now entering the British sector.’”

  I had to laugh, quietly.

  “Anyone have an aspirin?” Walt asked.

  We came to a gravel drive that led back to a bombed out and abandoned Catholic church. A few bats from central casting fluttered overhead in the dim moonlight as we made our way around to the back to gather in a small, unkempt graveyard. A high stone wall enclosed us on three sides. I didn’t like the feeling that came with this gothic location. Weather-worn inscriptions in old German on the headstones around us dated the graves as far back as 1540. It would have made a great new location at Walt’s theme-park. Macabreland.

  We shuffled over and stood by the weeds at the back wall, unhindered. The night air smelled of loam and dead flowers. There were other dead things all around us, but I tried not to think about that. I breathed in the cold night and decided it was an improvement over the smog back home, which was about the only thing I liked about the place.

  “I think I hear an owl,” Walt said, stretching his back.

  “This is the very definition of a dead end,” I told Ian. “How will we get out?”

  “You’ll see soon enough,” the writer said.

  An ugly thought struck me. “Oh, crap! Not the miserable sewers, I hope. That would be like hell.”

  “We’re going the other way,” Walt commented.

  I decided to try a different tack. “I wonder if you know that your eyes change color slightly whenever you lie.”

  He looked at me like I was a comical sidekick. “Uh, you mean like Pinocchio, or something?”

  “Or something.” I went back to my previous query: “So where do we go from here?”

  “I told you. We wait,” Fleming answered, inserting a Player in his mouth. Then, probably imagining the cloud of smoke it would create, he slid it unlit back into the pack and placed the pack back into his pocket.

  I scraped my fingernails along the stubble on my chin and noticed the similar fuzz sprouting on the dark faces of Ian and Walt. What a scruffy and wild bunch we were becoming. International intrigue could do that to you.

  I wondered again about Ian Fleming. Here was a writer who had considerable experience with espionage. He wrote about the subject in his fiction, but acted as if it were his true calling. A spy whose cover story was spy stories. As improbable as it seemed, in this business of double-double agents, it almost made sense. Almost as much as a cartoonist/movie producer who worked for the FBI/CIA.

  It was clear that both of these men had more than one career and more than one cause that drove them. Fleming probably never left his country’s secret service and had contacts all over the world. For all I knew, some other guy ghostwrote his Bond novels. Probably Shakespeare’s ghost.

  Walt, on the other hand, was first and foremost a businessman. But, at some point in his past, he’d been recruited into his other guise and its web of intrigue. Now, he wouldn’t, or couldn’t get out. I wondered why, especially when he had so much going for him elsewhere in his life. Rescuing Poole almost seemed like a personal quest on his part.

  I considered the woman again and her possible past. Was there an old romance there between them? She was the right age to have been Walt’s lover or mistress in the past. And they did exchange significant glances from time to time.

  I noticed that the left sleeve of my coat had a three-inch gash in it and tried to backtrack through the trail of events to review what little I knew of her. An American agent during the war. Undercover in some role during the filming of Ben Hur. Supposedly, she knew of another agent who’d died during filming.

  Both Ian and Walt had known she was involved with spy plane operations over the Soviet Union, channeling information back to the US. The Russians had found out about the flights crossing high over their border and taken her captive. Was she a pawn, or a queen?

  If she was on the side of the Communists, then the Goldenheart information was likely a hoax. But we couldn’t take the chance of ignoring it. And both Walt and Ian acted as if the threat was heart-attack real. So, what was the truth? And would I ever know it, assuming that I ever saw it within this double-dealing business?

  I realized I’d just gone around in a mental circle.

  I stamped my feet to keep warm, or maybe because I was so frustrated with half-truths and half-answers. Checking my watch and doing a quick calculation, I realized that it was 9 p.m. Saturday evening back home and I’d just missed the season premiere of Perry Mason.

  “They’re coming,” Walt said.

  I stamped my feet again and blew out a cloud of steaming breath. I could hear a car approaching, but couldn’t tell from which direction. I moved closer to the wall, still holding the rifle, and the other members of my group automatically followed. There was no way to climb over, dig under, or blast through.

  Headlights swept closer from the side of the church. The car’s tires crunched the gravel.

  We all ducked for what scant cover we could find, trapped in an enclosure of stone, surrounded by tombs. My mind stupidly flashed on another grave site I’d visited earlier in the year, Chandler’s grave. A spotlight flared from the approaching car, pinning us in its yellow-white beam.

  The car’s engine stopped.

  We huddled behind the ancient tombstones.

  “Raise your hands to the perpendicular,” a voice called out in English from behind the glare. “Or we will shoot.”

  I ran my tongue over my teeth and tasted accumulated scum.

  Someone on the other side of the car said, “Lace fingers behind your head.” I started to heft the rifle, but thought better of it, since I recognized the second voice as that of Nikkita Reed. “Put weapon down,” she commanded. “And stand straight.”

  Again I looked around, this time with the help of the vehicle’s dazzling searchlight, but there was still no way out. Our two attackers came forward, carrying side arms. I let the rifle fall to my feet.

  “I told you that we should have stayed with them, instead of going to that meeting,” Yuri said.

  He was chiding Nikkita, confident now that they had the upper hand.

  “You were one who wanted to meet with head of MVD,” the woman replied. “Always looking for a promotion or to expand your influence.”

  “And you are just as ambitious to advance your career,” he answered.

  “You don’t need us to work out your differences,” I said. “We’ll just be running along now.”

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Yuri barked. They were backlit by their car’s headlights. Perfect targets.

  “There’s a tracking device in the portfolio, isn’t there?” Ian said. “I should have checked.”

  “Yes, you should have,” Nikkita said. “You westerners are such naive fools.” />
  “Isn’t that a line from one of your books, Ian?” I asked.

  “Give me credit, Wade. I don’t write that low level of pulp fiction.”

  “Shut up!” Yuri shouted, louder this time, stepping closer. “The world will soon learn that the great western filmmaker and the famous Commander Fleming have defected to the East.”

  “So that’s your plan now,” I said. “You’re pretty confident.”

  “And with good reason,” Nikkita replied, also moving forward. “Soon I’ll have revenge for death of my brother and our side will have everything it seeks to confirm your U-2 flights.” Her eyes were dark--and not from heavy makeup. “Bat even more important, with Project Goldenherz, Mother Russia will reward us with high honors, elevated position, and great riches.”

  “So, you’re both capitalists, after all,” Walt commented.

  Nikkita smirked. “The American dream.”

  “There is nothing you can do to stop us,” Yuri declared. In his zeal, he cast around for the right threat. Then he found it. “We will bury you behind the Iron Curtain.”

  At gunpoint in a graveyard. A terrific title. What was I thinking?

  “Get on your knees, now,” Yuri said.

  A loud roaring noise thundered up from the other side of the wall behind us.

  “This is it,” Walt called out. “They’re coming.”

  The sound grew louder.

  “What are they doing?” I yelped. “Drilling from China?”

  The roar increased, sounding more and more like a helicopter. Yuri and Nikkita backed away.

  A wind kicked up, sending dead leaves and dirt into my eyes, as a huge disk rose over the top of the wall.

  It hovered there, like a flying saucer. A man stood on top of it, behind a railing that ran all around the upper edge of the thing. The giant horizontal fan wavered and tilted slightly, slipping over the confining wall to float to the ground with the sound of a thousand lawn mowers.

  The two Red agents retreated in the direction of their car.

  I took a chance and grabbed the rifle back up, firing it at our attackers.

  Walt didn’t hesitate to drag Poole toward the hover device. They climbed under the railing and stood next to the operator, gesturing for us to follow. Ian turned to be sure I wasn’t frozen in my tracks.

  ‘Holy shit!’ the Noir Man said.

  I fired again, but the soviet weapon jammed. Yuri and Nikkita stayed behind their car, sending a few bullets in our general direction, but striking nothing. Fleming yanked my good shoulder. We stumbled aboard even as the thing began to rise again off the ground.

  I stared down through the tight grillwork and saw the earth moving away under my feet and the whirling blades.

  Shots wanged off the metal enclosure and the tone of the engine shifted. We rose higher, dipped, swerving due to the extra weight, and glided past the top of the wall into the night sky and no-man’s land.

  The pilot wrestled with the controls. He wore US Navy blues and slumped to the left while the platform went to the right. Then he slumped to the deck-work, still holding fast to the steering assembly with an upraised hand. Blood poured from his chest.

  Ian gathered the man to him. I reached over and tried to correct our tilting flight.

  “Can you fly a chopper?” Walt yelled at me.

  “I usually fly an X-15,” I said, biting my sore lip to keep from giggling.

  “Then get us to the train station,” Ian commanded.

  “Ten-four,” I shouted back. Nobody caught my error in jargon. They were all too busy hanging on for dear life.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Anyone know how to land this thing?” I shouted.

  They were all clustered together, clutching onto the railing that circled the parameter of the weird craft.

  “Ian,” I hollered, grasping the flight controls. But the writer was busy stuffing papers into his coat pockets and jettisoning the portfolio with its tracking sensor over the side.

  “Take it up,” Walt commanded.

  “How, dammit?”

  The giant fan beneath our feet growled. We tilted more to the left and the wind tore at our clothing. Poole was slumped to her knees between the two men. The pilot’s body slid to the edge, one arm dangling over the side.

  I held fast to the controls and spread my legs wide, trying desperately to hold myself erect.

  We had passed some thirty feet beyond the wall as the whining craft eased up and over a flatbed truck which must have delivered the hover craft to the site on the western side of the church’s walled enclosure.

  The horizon tilted again, this time to the right.

  I worked the throttle and shoved an acceleration lever forward. We whizzed up above a small stand of trees. I could see a road down below that fed into an empty highway.

  Something went crack and a round from a firearm behind and below us buzzed past my ear. Another bullet zinged into the underside of the blades spinning beneath us.

  I shifted my weight, as if that could help steer the monster, and took us lower, accelerating along to the crossroads.

  “Take it more to the right,” Walt yelled. “Near those buildings.”

  We were level again, scooting along the highway, surfing at a good speed away from our attackers.

  The pilot almost slid off the metal platform, but Ian caught him by the back of his collar and heaved the poor man farther aboard.

  “Keep going,” Walt cried as we dipped down at a tremendous speed.

  I fought the controls to keep us airborne.

  “I can’t hold him,” Ian said.

  I glanced back in time to see the pilot’s body roll and cast free into the night.

  “Shit,” was my single reply through clinched teeth.

  “Up, up,” Walt shouted. “You’ve got it now.”

  “I don’t want it!”

  “More to starboard. That way. Up, up!”

  I shifted my stance and caught sight of the glow in the eastern sky. My arms were beginning to cramp from holding the steering column and urging the crazy craft onward.

  Walt shouted into my ear, “That way.”

  I looked where he was pointing and saw three rows of railroad tracks stretching into the countryside.

  We soared past and over more trees and a couple of rural wooden buildings. A herd of dairy cows scattered in all directions as we flew down and along the rails.

  “Take the one that goes south,” Ian directed.

  The three tracks below began to separate to their designated destinations. I had no idea which of the three lead south. Then I got my bearings from the rising sun and we sped along, clipping the treetops.

  In the far distance, I saw the long dark snake of a train curving away from us, around a bend. I eased the controls in that direction and the whirly-fan came nearer to the train and its trailing cloud of steam.

  Ian’s voice rose above the motor’s howl. “Down, down.”

  Did he want us to hit the train?

  We hovered above a crawling line of boxcars. Walt came along the railing, hand over hand, to help with the controls.

  “Leave me alone,” I told him. “I’ve got the hang of it now.”

  He pointed down at an empty flatcar speeding below that seemed as big as a paperback book.

  The sun was high enough now that I could clearly see the idiotic thing that he wanted done.

  I gave him my sternest expression.

  He nodded and pointed down again with more authority.

  “You’re totally nuts!” I declared.

  The train under us must have been traveling at a rate of thirty miles an hour. That meant we were also skimming along at least as fast above it.

  I shook my head, ignoring the pain and his command. A thick cloud of steam filled my throat and eyes.

  Walt and I struggled over the controls for a couple of seconds and the craft banged down on the wooden surface of the speeding train. We bounced back up eight or nine feet and almost tipped into the b
ack of the rear boxcar.

  The throttle slipped from my grip. Walt caught it and the hovercraft banged again onto the deck of the moving car.

  The roar of the fan scaled down. The craft skidded along the wooden surface, sending up splinters and grit.

  We were almost down, but grinding our way more and more toward the edge of the speeding flatcar.

  I yanked Walt’s arm, hoping to drag us back to center. A screeching cry of metal against metal bore into my ears.

  The craft bounced again and thumped into the back of the forward boxcar, settling into place like a pinball into a slot.

  Ian and Poole fell on their backs, jerked free of the railing by the impact.

  The engine shut down like a dying siren.

  “Off, off,” Walt ordered, while trees and telephone lines flashed past on both sides.

  “I am never doing that again,” I swore.

  Behind me, the British writer said, “Me too neither,” as the train picked up speed and plunged into the black mouth of a long tunnel.

  The roar of the train’s exhaust reverberated like a hundred bass drums. Soon a tiny circle of light materialized ahead in the darkness and quickly grew wider, as the train burst into the bright sunlight with a noise like thunder.

  “We’re not climbing over top of any freight cars to get to a coach,” I screamed. “Poole will never make it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Walt called back. “This is not an express. It’s a steam-driven local, making limited stops. The next one should come up sometime soon.”

  Ian pulled the rail schedule from his pocket. It almost whipped out of his hand, as he said, “We can get off then and buy tickets to Frankfurt.”

  The long-chassed locomotive panted with the labored breath of a dragon dying of asthma in the October air. I was reminded of Walter Mitty’s ta-pakita-pakita.

  “I’ll contact the military and report the location of the hover platform and the pilot’s body,” Walt said.

  “What about Norman and Molly O’Dee?” I asked.

  “They should already be onboard in one of the carriages, waiting for us to show up,” Ian replied.

  “Please.” Poole’s breath wavered in her throat. “Don’t say ‘Up.’”