I paused to look up. The top of the wall didn’t seem to be ten feet tall anymore—it seemed to be twenty. “We can climb the ivy,” I told Dutch as he stood back to survey the gate and the lock too.
He looked from the gate to me, and I swear he almost smiled. “In that dress, Edgar, that’s something I’d like to see, but not today.”
He then aimed his gun right at the padlock and fired three times in rapid succession.
The lock took all three bullets and held together. “Son of a bitch!” he swore, stepping forward, about to yank on it.
All of a sudden the brick next to me exploded and I screamed, dropping to my knees as bullets pummeled the wall right above my head. Dutch had also dropped down and he crawled over to me, half-pulling, half-dragging me to a nearby stone bench. The gunfire continued right over our heads, and with great effort Dutch pushed the bench over to give us some cover. A second later I heard the bench take several bullets, and small chunks of concrete flew up only to pepper my hair with debris.
Instinctively I covered my head and tried to make myself as small as possible while Dutch held me close. When the gunfire stopped, he whispered, “Stay here.” Before I could even react, he’d moved to a crouch and darted away.
Gunfire followed after him and I wanted to cry—I was so scared for him. After a time the bullets chasing Dutch stopped, and I worried about what that meant. And then I got angry. Very,
very
angry. Footsteps through the foliage alerted me that someone was approaching the bench, slowly and cautiously, and the way they moved closer so carefully told me that it definitely wasn’t Dutch. I looked down at my shaking hands and realized somewhere between the gate and the stone bench I’d dropped my pistol, but my clutch was still parked firmly under my arm.
A plan formed in my head, and after rummaging through my purse, I moved carefully onto my stomach, listening to the footsteps draw closer and closer. My heart was pounding in my chest like a jackhammer, but my brain was focused on one thing, and when I felt someone tug hard on my shoulder, I came up with all the rage of a tigress, using the edge of my palm to inflict an uppercut to the guard with one hand before zinging him good in the groin with the stun gun. He slammed to the earth with a hard thud, knocked out cold.
I sat next to him panting for a few beats, thinking my CIA trainer would’ve been so proud.
Quickly, however, I snapped my attention back to getting the heck out of there. I returned to the gate and looked around for something to hit the padlock with. My eyes lit on the gardeners’ shack and the tools spilling out from inside. Moving quickly, I grabbed the heaviest shovel I could find among the clutter and hefted it above the lock, bringing it down hard onto the casing.
My aim was slightly off, and the shovel only half hit the metal, but to my surprise the whole lock fell apart as if it had only just been holding itself together. I threw down the shovel and tugged at the latch, then heaved the rusted metal gate open, but I didn’t go through. Instead, I turned away and began moving off in the direction I’d seen Dutch go. I wasn’t leaving without him.
I took two steps in his direction when I felt the cool steel of a gun in the center of my back. “Where you go, pretty girl?” I heard a heavily accented voice say.
I knew that voice and it made my blood turn to ice. I stood stock-still while I considered my options, and I knew I was definitely out of them when I felt his hand clamp down on my shoulder and spin me around. I stared right into a face I detested. A face without mercy and murderous intent. “Where Grinkov?” Yurik demanded.
“Dead.”
“Good,” he said, his free hand moving to the neck of my dress, and I knew he was about to rip it right off me. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists and then an explosion sounded so close to me that it knocked me backward, right out of his grip.
I fell on the ground, and in a haze, I looked up to see Dutch, standing over Yurik’s dead body, seething with anger while smoke still curled from the barrel of his gun. To add to my surprise, in his other hand he held a familiar small black box and I knew what had taken him so long.
Dutch’s gaze then swiveled to the soldier I’d taken out, and while I watched, he nodded in approval. I had no time to even thank him for saving me or express how glad I was to see him, because across the lawn we heard one of the other soldiers call out for Yurik.
In the next instant Dutch had me under the arm and was lifting me to my feet. “Get through the gate!” he ordered, then turned to the unconscious guard and pulled him into the garden shack, shoving him in with all the clutter and barely managing to get the door closed.
Meanwhile I stood there staring dumbly, not wanting to leave him alone. “What about you?” I asked, seeing my stun gun in the grass and picking it up to tuck it inside my dress.
When I looked up again, I saw that Dutch wanted to toss Intuit to me, so I held out my hands and caught the device, which was much lighter than expected. He then bent over Yurik and gripped him under the arm. “Get moving!” he said again. “I’ll be right behind you!”
I bolted through the gate and nearly went down amid the tangle of foliage. Somehow I managed to stay upright and behind me Dutch kept saying, “Go, go, go!” to encourage me, so I kept moving, deeper into the thick tangle, trying to pick my way quickly away from the wall. About fifteen yards into the surrounding forest, I turned back to see Dutch still struggling with Yurik’s body.
“Why are you bringing him?” I whispered to Dutch. Even from here we could now hear multiple voices calling for the soldiers’ leader.
“They won’t stop until they find him,” Dutch said, coming up to me and breathing hard. “And if they find out we’ve killed him, they won’t stop until they hunt us down.”
“We can’t drag him around with us!” I protested. Yurik was at least six-two and two hundred twenty pounds.
Dutch let go of the dead man and wiped the rain out of his eyes. “We’ll need to hide him.”
I had an idea and shoved Intuit at him while I told him to wait there. Then I dashed back to the little shack near the wall, being careful to go quietly and keep out of sight, grabbed a shovel and a garden hoe from the ground near the shack, and pulled the iron gate closed behind me.
I picked my way back to Dutch and he actually smiled.
Wordlessly I gave him the shovel and started digging frantically at the ground with the hoe. We had to hurry because eventually the men would find the torn ivy and the broken padlock and put two and two together. Not to mention that the guard inside the shack could wake up at any moment, although I doubted he’d come to his senses anytime soon.
It didn’t take long to bury the guard; much of the ground was covered by leaves and dead foliage, so we only had to dig a shallow grave and push Yurik into it before we started piling the stuff back on top.
Somewhere along that effort, however, my engagement ring slipped off and Dutch had to practically fight me to leave it and run with him when the gunfire erupted again.
Picking our way through the wet foliage and following an old path worn into the ground, we were lucky enough to discover a hunting lodge and we rushed inside to crouch down and wait for the pursuit to die down.
Dutch had taken Yurik’s assault weapon, and while he stood guard, I tried to stay warm by huddling in a corner.
I was soaked through and the late afternoon was finally turning chilly. My feet were killing me, and I had no idea how I was going to run through miles of forest to the other landing strip.
To make matters worse, while I was looking at Dutch, I saw his posture stiffen. He turned silently to me and made a motion with two fingers pointing to his eyes; then he held up those same two fingers and pointed out to the right of the shack.
At least two of the soldiers had followed our trail. I felt my breath quicken. My radar was screaming at me that Dutch mustn’t fire his weapon, as it would alert all the others hunting for us and they’d corner us in the shack and kill us; I was sure of it. Dutch pointed to my hand and made his fingers into a gun. I shook my head. I’d left my pistol somewhere back in Vasilii’s garden. I showed him my stun gun and he frowned.
He then reached into his holster and took out Des Vries’s Beretta, holding it out to me. I shook my head again vigorously, and pointed to my temple. “No shoot!” I mouthed, then cupped my ear and made a motion with my hand to indicate the others would hear.
Dutch looked at me grimly, then removed the strap of the assault weapon and laid it softly on the floor. He inched his way over to me and thrust the gun in my hand. Leaning in to whisper in my ear, he said, “I’ll take care of it. You stay here.”
I shook my head again—I didn’t want him to leave me—but he had already turned away to retrieve the assault weapon and move to the open window on the other side of the shack. Carefully, he crept out of it and left me alone.
I took deep breaths while I huddled in the shadows, holding the gun close and waiting in the dark for something to happen. The steady drone of the rain outside prevented me from hearing the soldiers’ approach, but it wasn’t long before I saw the beam of a flashlight wave across the door to the shack. I was out of the glare of the light, but that didn’t keep me from trying to push back deeper into the shadows.
Again my heart thundered in my chest and I tried to steady the Beretta in my hands, but the weapon was much heavier than I was used to and my hands were slick with moisture. I figured I’d have one shot in the darkened shack, and then, even if I missed, I’d have to get up and bolt out the same window Dutch had gone through.
I wondered where he was, and what was keeping him, and the beam kept getting closer and closer to the door. Someone was coming right for me.
In the next instant, the beam went out and its absence stunned me. What’d happened? Had Dutch attacked him? Did he move off in another direction? Had he dropped the flashlight?
I was shaking with fear, waiting tensely for something to happen, so when it did, I was caught off guard. A dark figure appeared in the doorway, moving stealthily in. The breath caught in my throat and I raised the gun unsteadily. I wanted to pull that trigger, I swear, but something made me pause, and in the second that I hesitated, the lone figure was tackled to the ground by someone else.
It was too dark to see who had tackled whom, but I had to assume Dutch had attacked one of the soldiers and they were now each involved in the fight of their lives. I trained the gun on them as they rolled around, trying through the din to pick out Dutch from the other man, but it was impossible.
And then I saw one of them gain the advantage and straddle the other. A hand rose up and I could see the outline of a knife in the tiny trickle of light from outside. With a hard thrust I saw the knife come down, and I cried out. I was positive Dutch hadn’t been wearing a knife.
The man on the floor gave a grunt of pain and lay still, and I was so horrified by the scene that I simply crouched there, my eyes welling with tears.
The man who’d won pushed away from the figure on the ground, wiped his blade clean, and stuck it into his belt before turning to face me. I didn’t know how he knew I was there, but it seemed his eyes were better than mine, and maybe he’d heard my cry.
I pointed my gun at him again, but my vision was blurred by the tears. “Dutch?” I whispered hoarsely, knowing it wasn’t him.
“No,” he said, and there was something about that voice. . . .
“Abigail, it’s me,” he said right before a shadow burst through the doorway and tackled
him
to the ground!
Alarmed, I jumped to my feet and ran over to the two figures wrestling there. “Stop!” I cried, seeing who the new assailant was. “Stop it! Dutch, please stop!”
Somehow I got the two of them apart, but not before Dutch split open Maks’s lip.
For his part Maks kicked Dutch and swore at him in Russian. Dutch spat back a similar expletive and they nearly went at it again, but I forced myself between the two and insisted they calm down. When I was sure they weren’t going to pummel each other, I turned to Maks and demanded, “What are you doing here?”
“I followed your map,” he said, wiping his lip with his hand while glaring hard at my fiancé.
I remembered then how I’d found the map with my note to Dutch in Maks’s pocket after he’d killed Mandy. “Why did you kill Mandy?” I demanded next.
Maks looked at me incredulously. “
I
didn’t kill her,” he said frankly. “Rick did.”
It was Dutch’s turn to look surprised. “
I
didn’t kill her!”
“Liar!” Maks barked. “I went to your room and found her there, hanging from the door.”
“Listen,” Dutch said, leaning in to get in his face. “I didn’t kill Mandy. The last time I saw her alive was last night right after dinner, when I left her
alive
in the room to find another place to sleep.”
“You stayed in another room?” I asked, quite puzzled by the order of the events leading up to Mandy’s death.
“Yeah.”
“But she gave you the message to meet me in the garden this morning at six thirty, right?”
“What message?” he asked, and now I knew why he hadn’t shown up.
I ignored his question and turned back to Maks. “If you didn’t kill her, how did you get the map?”
Maks folded his arms across his chest defensively. “I thought you ladies were acting very suspicious, and then you called Rick ‘Dutch,’ and I knew something wasn’t right, so I went to her room to demand she tell me what was going on, and I found her hanging there with the map still clutched in her hand. I took it and left the room, locking it behind me so that no one would discover her body until I had a chance to tell Vasilii about it. That was what I was trying to tell you when I got hit with the dart. I wanted to convince you that you were trying to protect a killer.”