They came around a traffic circle at the center of which was a towering monument to Cristóbal Colón, which was the Spanish name for Christopher Columbus. If anything, traffic was much heavier now. There seemed to be an urgency throughout the city. A stridency to the note of the horns, to the snarl of the engines, to the movement of the pedestrians crossing against the lights and in the middle of the blocks.
Banners still proclaimed the opening of a new gallery in the Banco International next to the Hotel Continental and the statue of Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec emperor, still rose above the intersection with Avenida Insurgentesâand all of it was cast in a violet glow from the streetlights. Mexico City was a pagan arena.
They could hear the roar of the crowd before they could see it. Traffic began immediately to slow. Evita looked up and sat forward.
“What is it now?” she asked.
“I think it's our embassy,” McGarvey replied absently as he looked for a place to turn around. He did not want to get caught in a traffic jam here.
A blue and white police car, its lights flashing and its sirens blaring, raced past, followed by three ambulances. In the distance they could hear gunfire.
“What's happening?” Evita cried, holding her ears.
Two canvas-covered army trucks roared up from a side street and careened around the traffic circle, pulling to a halt on the grass. Immediately two dozen armed soldiers leaped from the trucks and on their officer's orders took up positions across the
boulevard. Traffic came to a complete standstill and began to back up. A huge explosion lit the night sky with a tremendous flash and a heavy thump. A ball of fire rose from a building on the next block. Some of the soldiers looked over their shoulders, while others ran forward up the broad boulevard, motioning with their weapons for the cars and trucks to turn around. But it was impossible. Already traffic was backed up for several blocks.
People began piling out of their cars, talking excitedly with each other, shouting at the soldiers and pointing toward the flames and sparks shooting up into the sky. In the distance, from all directions, it seemed, they could hear sirens converging on the scene of the explosion. McGarvey had little doubt that it was the American embassy. Already he was considering the danger he was in because of his nationality. Evita might get by, but he didn't know more than a dozen words in Spanish. The mood of the crowd on this side of the army barrier was rapidly turning ugly. He'd found out what he wanted to find out in any event. The mood in Mexico City was rabidly anti-American, and the Soviet embassy had seemed to be on standby for an emergency.
They were near the head of the traffic jam. McGarvey eased the Volkswagen out from behind a taxi and bumped slowly up onto the median strip, ignoring the shouts for him to go back. One of the soldiers rushed down from the traffic circle, brandishing his rifle and shouting for them to stop.
“You're sick,” McGarvey told Evita. “We have to get you to the hospital.”
Evita's eyes were wide. She looked from the advancing soldier to McGarvey and back.
“Hospital! Hospital!” McGarvey shouted out the window.
Another grim-faced soldier raced over. Evita
suddenly held her gut and doubled over, screaming in what sounded like agony.
McGarvey took his pistol out of his pocket and laid it on the seat beside his right leg. He'd come too far, he decided, to be caught like this without a fight.
“Hospital,” he shouted out the window again. And Evita moaned as if she were half-dead. It was a convincing performance.
A crowd was beginning to gather around them. The soldiers held a hurried conference and then stepped aside, waving McGarvey onto the traffic circle toward a side street that headed north.
“Hospital de la Raza,” one soldier shouted. “De la Raza.” He was gesturing toward the north. “Insurgentes Norte,” he shouted as McGarvey passed.
The other soldiers watched them curiously as they drove past. Before they turned up Calles Rhin, McGarvey got a clear view down the broad boulevard at the huge crowd. The front of the U.S. embassy had been blown away and had collapsed into the street. Half the block was engulfed in flames. Soldiers seemed to be everywhere. The sounds of gunfire were clearly audible over the screaming and shouting of the crowd, the sirens, and the blaring bullhorns warning the people back.
They had to wait for three army trucks racing down from Avenida Lerma before they were able to cross and head back east, making a wide circle around the traffic backed up along the Paseo de la Reforma.
“Where are we going now?” Evita shouted.
“I want to see Baranov's house,” McGarvey said, turning south along Avenida Bucareli. Traffic was heavy here, too, but in the opposite direction. The entire city, it seemed, was rushing toward the U.S. embassy.
“You're crazy. Let's go to the airport. Now. We've got to get out of here.”
“First Baranov. And then we'll return to the hotel and stay there, out of sight.”
“No.”
“Yes, Evita. We've come too far to be stopped now. He's not going to win this time.”
“He already has,” she cried. “It wasn't the Russian embassy that was blown up. He's won, can't you see it? What use will it be if we're killed?”
McGarvey looked over at her. She had pinned up her long hair, but it was coming loose and hung in wisps around her face. She looked vulnerable. There was an hysterical edge to her voice now, and her eyes were a little wild.
“Do you think it'll make any difference if we return to New York? If he wants us, he'll get us no matter where we are.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
“Maybe he'll make a mistake.”
“And then you'll kill him? Is that it? Is that what you're doing here?”
“If need be.”
“But it's not just him you're after,” she said.
“You want Darby, too, and maybe someone else. Is that it? Is there someone else? Another spy?”
“I don't know.”
“Then what are we doing here like this? I'm supposed to telephone someone tomorrow? Who? What am I supposed to tell this person?”
They turned onto the broad Fray Servando Teresa de Mier; traffic was still heavy but moving much faster now, allowing McGarvey to speed up.
“If I'm to help you, I need to know what I'm supposed to do.” She was trying to be reasonable.
“I want to see Baranov's house. I want to see where he lives.”
She looked out the window. “What if I don't give you directions?”
“He's near Ixtayopan,” McGarvey said tiredly. “I'll ask around.”
“You're completely crazy.”
“Probably. But I'm not going to stop.”
“You'd never find him.”
“It would take time, but I'd find him,” McGarvey said. “Because he wants to be found. He knew that I was coming to see you, and he knew that you would help me.”
She closed her eyes. “I don't understand.” “Neither do I,” McGarvey said.
“What?” she asked, opening her eyes.
“Did Baranov tell you why I would be coming to see you?” he asked her. “Did he tell you that I would be coming after your husband and that you were to cooperate with me? Did he make you promise to tell me all about Mexico City in the early days? How your husband was a spy and how he worked for the Russians as well as the Americans?”
“It doesn't make any sense.” She was avoiding his questions.
“It's all right if it scares you, Evita, it scares the hell out of me, too.”
“But what is he after? What kind of a plot has he hatched?”
“It has something to do with the Soviet missiles here. And something else. Someone he may be trying to protect.”
“Valentin wants Darby to be found out. He wants you to arrest him.”
“I think so.”
“But why?”
“I don't know, Evita. But that's why we're here. It's the one thing Baranov did not expect us to do.”
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To the southeast the road rose in tiers from the high plateau valley toward snow-capped mountains. Back the way they had come the city spread itself out across half the horizon, wonderfully lit avenues and streets stretching across the valley like long necklaces; tall buildings, radio towers, and even moving traffic along the broader avenues were clear despite the smog that blanketed the valley. They passed through Culhuacan, Tezonco, Zapotitlan, Tlalenco, Tlahuac, and Tulyehualcoâcities that had been all but swallowed by the city's sprawl. Each was a little smaller than the previous one, and each had its own character, but they all seemed in a touristy way to want to return to the days of the Aztecs. Eighteen miles out from the center of the city traffic had finally thinned out so that now, driving southwest out of San Juan Ixtayopan toward the peak of Cerro Tuehtli, they were finally alone on the dark road. Their car was very loud as they crossed the mountains, but then McGarvey wasn't interested in hiding his presence; he wanted Baranov to know that someone was coming, that his Mexican fortress wasn't as impregnable as he might suspect it was. So what are you trying, you bastard? Everything points toward Darby Yarnell, your old pal and confidante, even your lover if Evita is to be believed (and he thought she was). Did he quit on you? Did he get too big for his britches, demand too much? Or did he want asylum just when you finally tired of him and wanted to get rid of him? Or had Darby Yarnell simply outlived his usefulness, and now it was time to dump him? What was he missing? McGarvey asked himself. Where was the one twist, the one fact, the one lie that in the light of day would make everything clear?
As they crossed a bridge spanning a deep ravine, they could see a large house alive with lights perched
on the edge of the mountain above them. The road entered the trees and curved left before switching back. Suddenly they could see the house again, much closer now, and they could pick out dozens of automobiles parked in a front courtyard. Japanese lanterns hung in the trees, and they could see people dancing on a broad veranda that was cantilevered out over the side of the hill.
McGarvey pulled up a hundred yards below the house, doused his lights, and shut off the engine. In the sudden silence they could hear music and laughter and even bits of conversation, voices raised in celebration. Baranov was Nero: he was throwing a party while Mexico City burned.
He hadn't expected this. Baranov should have been at his embassy. The country was in crisis. And yet there seemed to be a logic to it. Baranov had envisioned some master plan, and now he was apparently celebrating his victory. The notion made the hair on the back of McGarvey's neck stand on end.
Evita sat back in her seat, shivering. She was remembering what it had been like for her in the old days.
“He's an arrogant sonofabitch,” McGarvey said, reading her thoughts. “He
does
think he's won.”
The band stopped playing and they could hear applause. McGarvey got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. He took out two cigarettes, lit them both, and handed her one through the open window. At first she didn't move, but then she reached up and accepted the cigarette from him.
“The question is, what has he won?” McGarvey drew deeply on his cigarette. He stepped a few feet down the road so that he could better see the house
above. “He must really impress the Kremlin. Do you know that the Russians have apparently constructed missile bases just south of our border? Mexico has come a long way since the sixties.” Someone laughed from above and the music started again; this time the tune was a rumba. “He likes people. Have you any idea what he's up to?”
“He wants to take over the world,” Evita said from just behind him.
McGarvey didn't bother to turn around. But he knew she had gotten out of the car. He heard the door close softly.
“He was afraid that the moderates would someday take control of the Soviet Union and give away everything they had gained since the war,” she said.
“He wanted to speed things up.”
“He wanted to be first secretary and premier.”
“Maybe he will be.” McGarvey flipped his cigarette off the side of the road and walked back to the car. Evita stood, one hand on the roof, her hip leaning against the door as if she needed support, which in a way she certainly did.
“I could go up there now and he would welcome me with open arms.”
“Do you want to take the car, or walk?”
She looked up toward the house. “Who's to say he isn't right?”
“And I'm wrong?”
She looked at him. “Yes.”
“Depends upon the geography. If we were standing below his dacha outside Moscow, I'd have to concede that he was right. But we're not.”