Erlich felt the reaction and smiled. “Ah, so you haven’t forgotten the lessons I taught you.”
Suddenly the room seemed to press in against Mark more heavily. He wanted desperately to escape. But more than the gun held him here. If he was going to get himself out of this, he had to concentrate.
Orion, Orion, Orion,
his mind began to chant again. It was like a silent mantra.
Orion, Orion, Orion.
“All right, let’s go, Colonel,” Erlich instructed as he handed the case to Günther for safekeeping.
There was another menacing gesture with the gun. Yet even as he followed Erlich down the hall, Mark’s own sense of being in control was strengthening.
“This way,” the doctor directed, stepping into the staging area. He began to wind his way among the odd assortment of goods stowed about the room. In one of the gilt mirrors, Mark caught a glimpse of the three of them. They made a grim procession, with Günther and his revolver bringing up the rear.
As he followed Erlich, Mark’s eyes darted from cabinet to statue to rolltop desk, wondering if there was anything he could use as a weapon. Several yards ahead he saw a pair of black-booted feet just sticking out from behind a large
Schrank.
Now he knew why the guard hadn’t been at his post at the door.
His mind raced. Erlich’s companion had two guns—not three. Probably the guard’s was still in his holster—if Günther hadn’t tossed it away.
If it was there, could he get it? Mark wondered. It might be his only chance. He was just passing one of the carousel horses, which was propped precariously against a marble Grecian column.
Now,
his mind screamed and his body obeyed. He turned slightly, his leg catching an upturned hoof. It was enough to throw the heavy wooden horse off-balance and into Günther’s path. At the same time, Mark dived in the direction of the boots. He wasn’t quite fast enough. He heard another coughing noise and then felt a sharp, stinging pain in his calf.
“No, you fool!” Erlich’s voice shrieked. Mark didn’t know whether the words were for him or Günther, and he didn’t give a damn. Then the East German doctor’s voice took on a different—yet horribly familiar—quality. “Colonel Bradley, stand up and come to me now!” The command was imperative; his puppet had been programmed to obey.
Gritting his teeth, Mark focused on the pain in his leg, willing that to slice through the power Erlich was trying to wield. In one sharp, agonizing maneuver he rolled over the body of the guard.
“Colonel Bradley! You will do as I say!” Erlich screamed.
In a matter of seconds, Mark’s hand had closed over the cold metal of the man’s revolver. He felt a stab of elation that he had resisted Erlich’s command.
As Günther came around the corner, Mark squeezed the trigger twice. From the string of profanity he heard, he knew at least one slug had done some damage. But despite his own injury, the East German got off another round before jumping back.
Mark heard spitting noises above his head as wood shattered around him. At the same time he felt a searing pain in his shoulder, then something warm trickling down his arm. Sweat broke out on his forehead. The only consolation was that the second hit was on the left side. It wouldn’t affect his ability to aim a gun.
Dimly he heard other feet and then a sharp command in Russian. God, was he going to have to fight off Rozonov too?
* * *
O
UT IN THE GALLERY
the auctioneer’s voice had taken on the fervency of a man who knows he is presiding over a drama of high excitement. “Thirty thousand marks, I have a bid of thirty thousand marks. Do I hear thirty-five?” He looked expectantly from Eden to the Russians who had been systematically topping her bids.
The offer of thirty thousand had come from the East German in the back. Eden stole another glance at her watch. A minute to go to make ten, but she was going to give Mark more time, just in case. After all, she thought with almost hysterical logic, he was supposed to get the money from the sale since the diaries belonged to him.
She raised her gloved hand.
“I have thirty-five,” the auctioneer announced. “Do I hear...”
His words were drowned in a series of small explosions from the back of the building. Most of the audience reacted with stunned silence.
Eden saw Downing leap up and dash toward the exit at the rear of the hall just as another loud report rent the air.
“Artilleriefeuer!”
a man shouted.
“Terrorists,” another man screamed. It took only a moment for panic to break out. All at once the well-dressed patrons were scrambling over each other in their haste to get out of the building. Eden was on her feet, too. But her intentions were quite different.
However, as the human wave swept forward, she was helplessly dragged along with them and carried through the exit. Once in the hall, she somehow managed to press herself against the wall. She couldn’t let herself be propelled out of here along with the rest of the frightened patrons. Mark had told her to run the other way if there was trouble. She’d known then as she knew now that she wasn’t going to do it. She had to get to him.
Another volley of shots rang out. Instinctively she turned in that direction and edged along the wall. Someone grabbed her shoulder and shouted,
“Stoppen!”
She wrenched away and continued down the hall. When she was free of the crowd, she started running toward the gunfire, afraid of what she might find.
* * *
R
OSS
D
OWNING
had beat the mob out of the room and was several minutes ahead of Eden. Like Mark, he had cased the building earlier that morning. He couldn’t picture a gun battle going on in the little room where the Ludendorf material had been sequestered. So where was it?
The only other possibility was the staging area by the loading dock. He had no idea what he was going to find there, but he reached the door with his own revolver already drawn.
A flicker of motion in a gilt-framed mirror caught his eye. He whirled in that direction and in the reflection saw Mark Bradley pulling himself up against a row of filing cabinets. His slow movements indicated that he was wounded. There was a ping from somewhere to the left, and a bullet whizzed past his own ear. Automatically Downing ducked for cover behind a suit of armor.
Another slug exploded into the desk to his left. It was followed by the screech of a ricochet off the armor. The careening bullet hit a mirror, sending up a burst of glass shards. One hit Downing just below the right eye and he gasped. Then two shots rang out from the right, drawing the fire that had been directed at him. It was the tall, military-looking man he’d pegged earlier as a KGB agent. He’d assumed the guy was here to finish off Bradley. But he wasn’t shooting at the colonel, he was aiming at two other men near the exit—one dark and tough looking, the other blond and more aristocratic—who were shooting at both him and Bradley. The Russian was drawing fire away from Bradley and himself.
What in the name of God was going on? Ever since Pine Island he’d been trying to put the pieces of this crazy puzzle together. Was Bradley a pawn of the Russians, the East Germans, or just a poor son of a bitch trying to fight his way out of a death trap? He’d thought he’d been able to fit some of the picture together. But now he felt as though someone had just kicked the table and sent the pieces of the puzzle flying across the floor of this impromptu shooting gallery.
Downing peered out from behind the armor’s metal shoulder. Where did
he
fit into the picture? He was on strict orders to bring Bradley back alive. And for the moment, that was going to have to take precedence.
Another volley of shots rang out. A crystal chandelier crashed to the floor, sending more glass flying. And then Bradley fell backward, vanishing behind the cabinet.
The men who were heading toward the door sprinted from behind the cover of a marble statue. Downing fired in their direction. So did the Russian. Marble chips flew as one man went down. The other made it through the door, but Downing noted with satisfaction that he was doubled over. A trail of blood marked his progress across the floor.
The Russian, his hand bleeding, was out from behind his cover and running forward as the bulky man slumped to the floor. “This one’s finished,” he growled. Downing saw him remove something from the man’s hand and pocket it. The Russian looked back at him. “You help your man, I’ll go after the one who got away.”
“Wait,” Downing began, oblivious to the blood trickling down his own cheek. But the Russian didn’t stop. He was already out the door.
Downing took a step in the Russian’s direction. Then he heard Eden Sommers call, “Mark! My God, Mark.”
She must have been watching the battle from the doorway. She was across the room and kneeling behind the cabinet before he could put a restraining hand on her arm.
“Get an ambulance,” she ordered. “He’s going to bleed to death if you don’t get an ambulance.”
Now that the rain of gunfire had stopped, the room was suddenly full of German police. Then in the distance there was the wail of a siren.
Downing could see Eden cradling Bradley’s head in her lap. She was leaning over him murmuring something too low for anyone else to catch.
“Eden...” the voice was barely audible, but there was a look of triumph in his eyes. “I gave Erlich the wrong one.”
She leaned closer to catch his words. The wrong what?
“In my breast pocket...the microdot in a metal case. See that the Falcon gets it.”
“Mark, you’re going to make it,” she promised, even as she took the metal case. Then her fingers entwined with his, trying to give him her strength.
His eyes fluttered closed. With what appeared to be a great effort, he opened them again and looked up at her. “I love you,” he whispered, just before he lost consciousness.
Chapter Seventeen
I
t was amazing that even halfway around the world an American military hospital waiting room still looked the same, Ross Downing thought as he opened the door and glanced toward Eden Sommers, who was sitting with her eyes closed on a hard plastic couch. From the rigid way she held her body, however, he knew she couldn’t be asleep.
For a moment he studied her. She was still dressed in the same designer suit she’d been wearing eighteen hours ago when he’d first seen her at the auction gallery. Only now it was rumpled and stained with Bradley’s blood across the bottom of the skirt.
The woman had guts, he thought again. She had been right all along, and now he was going to have to say something to her about it.
He rubbed the bandage on his face where the flying glass had cut him. It hurt, and the pain was a reminder of unfinished business. Nevertheless, he hated apologies, especially when he had to make them.
Just hours ago, over the secure military communications link between Berlin and the Pentagon, he’d had a most informative conversation with the Under Secretary of Defense. He had a pretty good idea that until a few hours ago the Secretary hadn’t known what was going on, either. The insight didn’t make him feel any less of a fool for his own part in this colossal fiasco.
“Dr. Sommers?” he began tentatively.
Her eyes flew open, and for an unguarded moment she seemed to flinch away from him. Then she visibly pulled herself together.
“How is Colonel Bradley?” he asked, taking the seat beside her.
“Lucky to be alive. He lost a lot of blood, and it seemed as though he was in surgery half the night. But he’s resting fairly comfortably now, and they’ve told me he’s doing much better.”
“Have you seen him?”
“For ten minutes. But he was pretty much out of it from the anesthetic.” She glanced at her watch. “They’re going to let me go back in when he wakes up.”
“I’m glad.”
She searched his face. “Then you’ve changed your mind about Mark?”
“Yes.” That might be as close as he came to an apology. “I have a message for you,” he continued. “The information Colonel Bradley gave you has been delivered.”
A weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “Mark almost died getting that evidence. I hope it was worth it.”
“It looks like it. There was an arrest in Washington this morning. Someone you’ve probably never heard of named Humphrey Strickland. But he was right up there in the inner circle at the Pentagon.”
“They can arrest someone that quickly?”
“In a case like this. The evidence Mark had on that microdot proves Strickland was a Russian agent, and an extremely effective one because he was so trusted. Apparently that was why Bradley was assigned to the Orion weapons project in the first place—to expose the spy.”
Eden nodded, as though the information were some sort of revelation. It was better not to give away how much she knew.
Downing paused and then seemed to make a decision. “Strickland was in my chain of command, too. He’s the one who was pressing for me to get results down at Pine Island.”
Their eyes locked for a moment. Both of them understood very well what those results would have meant for Col. Mark Bradley.
“And was he the one who ordered you to use the RL2957 on Mark?” Eden asked quietly.
“Yes.” The former chief of station would never be able to look back on that particular episode without feeling uncomfortable. He wanted to argue that he’d just been doing his job. But he knew that in future he would be less likely to blindly obey commands that might be immoral. Maybe if he’d listened to Hubbard, the two of them could have done something. But he’d been too arrogant to take the doctor seriously, and now Hubbard was dead. That, too, was a regret he’d have to live with. The thought triggered another.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but Strickland also pulled some strings to get Wayne Marshall on the Pine Island medical staff,” he admitted.
The mention of that name made the blood drain from Eden’s face. Suddenly Downing wondered just what had happened on that beach before she and Bradley had escaped. He’d only heard Marshall’s version of the incident. Now he remembered the pair of handcuffs at the foot of one pine tree and the ropes around the trunk of another. God knows what the male nurse had done to her.