The Moscow Vector Read online

  “Nobody important. An American businessman, I think. He’s just a fare I’m taking to the airport,” Masek mumbled in answer. The big man was openly perspiring now. Tiny droplets of sweat slid down his forehead. Smith could sense the fear growing inside the cabdriver, gnawing away at his confidence and self-control. “He says he has a flight out this morning.”

  “Don’t panic,” the patrolman said with a disinterested shrug. “The American should still make his trip on time.”

  “Then we can go now?” the cabdriver asked hopefully.

  The policeman shook his head. “Not quite yet, friend. I’m afraid this is not your lucky day. The government has another flap on about vehicle safety, especially for taxis. That means a complete inspection.” He turned away, calling toward his colleague. “Hey, Edvard! We’ll take this one.”

  Smith’s eyes narrowed. Something about this man’s profile tugged at his subconscious, sounding a faint but insistent alarm. Looking more closely, he noticed a tiny perforation, some kind of piercing, in the man’s earlobe. That was odd, he thought. How many middle-aged Czech cops wore jewelry off-duty?

  The policeman looked back at Masek. “Park over there,” he said, pointing toward the side of the road, indicating a space between the two unmarked cars. “Then just sit tight. We’ll have you out of here as soon as possible.”

  “Yes. Yes. Of course.” With a shaky smile, the taxi driver nodded obsequiously, bobbing his massive head up and down. He steered the Skoda over onto the grassy shoulder, backed in carefully between the parked cars, and then slowly reached down to switch off the ignition. His hands were trembling.

  “No, don’t,” Smith said abruptly, still looking out the window. “Leave the engine running for now.” Both of the Czech policemen were bending down to talk to the driver of the black Mercedes. There were no other cars waiting to go through the checkpoint. The tree-lined access road behind them was completely empty.

  He shook his head, irritated at himself. What was he missing? Those little alarm bells inside his head were growing louder. It was time to play it safe, he decided. “Give me your pistol, Václav,” he said quietly. “Now.”

  “My pistol?” The big man’s eyes widened in surprise. Warily, he glanced over his shoulder. “Why?”

  “Let’s just say that I’d like to avoid any unfortunate accidents,” Jon told him, careful to speak calmly. There was no point in spooking the other man—not yet, anyway. Not until he could figure out why his fight-or-flee instincts were hammering so hard on the gates of his conscious mind. He thought fast. “Do you have a permit for that weapon?”

  Reluctantly, Masek shook his head.

  “Swell. Just swell.” Smith frowned. “Look, these cops are already looking for trouble. Getting a ticket for something like a burned-out brake light is bad enough, a real pain in the ass. But do you really want to get nailed for carrying an illegal firearm?”

  The cabdriver turned even paler beneath his full, tangled beard. He swallowed hard. “No, I do not,” he admitted. “The penalties for such offenses are very…severe.”

  “Then give it to me,” Smith said forcefully again. “Let me handle this.”

  Eagerly, Masek unzipped his parka and tugged the pistol out of his shoulder holster. His big hands were shaking even harder now.

  Jon reached across the seat and took the weapon away before the other man could drop it. The pistol was a CZ-52, a Czech-manufactured autoloader using the same 7.62mm round as the Second World War–era Soviet Tokarev. Once a standard Warsaw Pact military sidearm, thousands had been sold as “surplus” to private citizens—both legally and illegally. He made sure the manual safety was still set in the middle “safe” position and then hit the magazine release. There were eight rounds inside the small clip, the standard load for a pistol of this make. He slid the magazine back in and again glanced out the window.

  Outside, the two Czech policemen slowly straightened up from the black Mercedes. After exchanging a few muttered words, they turned in unison and stalked back toward the parked taxi.

  Smith stiffened.

  Each man’s face had become a rigid, unreadable mask, utterly without any discernible emotion. It was as though some terrible force had erased all traces of humanity from them, leaving the surface features, but wiping away any real sign of life and personality. One of them, the older patrolman who had checked Masek’s papers reached down almost casually and drew the sidearm holstered at his side.

  And suddenly Jon knew where he had seen this man before.

  On the Charles Bridge, he realized grimly. Fading back before Valentin Petrenko’s wild, desperate swings right after burying a knife deep in the Russian scientist’s stomach. Like his two comrades, the gaunt-faced man had been wearing a small silver skull, a death’s head, in that tiny piercing in his right ear.

  This “police checkpoint” was a trap, a carefully arranged killing ground.

  For one long, terrible moment, time itself seemed to stop, but then Smith’s trained reflexes kicked in. A sense of movement and the ability to act came flooding back into the once-frozen world around him. “Get us out of here!” he shouted to Masek. “It’s a setup! Go! Go!”

  Horrified, the big man slammed the Skoda into gear, stamped down on the accelerator, and reversed, frantically trying to get enough maneuvering room to pull forward out onto the narrow road. Smith thumbed off the safety on the pistol he had taken from Masek, pulled back on the slide and let it go, moving a 7.62mm round from the magazine into the firing chamber.

  And then he was thrown forward as the taxi crashed into the empty car parked close behind and rocked to a stop. Glass and torn metal crunched. Jarred by the collision, the Skoda’s engine stalled out and died.

  Desperately, Masek fumbled with the gearshift and ignition, trying to restart his battered cab.

  It was too late, Smith realized abruptly, watching the gaunt-faced man bring his Russian-made Makarov up on target in what seemed like slow motion. The second phony cop had his pistol out, too. Hell.

  Jon was already diving sideways toward the right-side passenger door when the windows on the left side shattered. Cubed shards of safety glass flew inward, shattered by the impact of several shots fired rapidly at close range.

  One round hit Masek just above the left ear. The big man’s head exploded, blown apart by a copper-jacketed bullet moving at more than a thousand feet per second. Blood and bone fragments sleeted across the Skoda’s front seat and dashboard.

  Another round punched into the cloth-covered seat close by Smith and ripped through a tangle of coils and springs. It ricocheted off the cab’s steel frame, tumbling upward in a shower of sparks, smoldering pieces of torn fabric, and white-hot metal splinters. Christ! He grabbed the handle, shoved the rear door open, and threw himself out onto the ground.

  Moving fast, he rolled to the right and came back up crouched behind the taxi’s right rear tire. He risked one quick glance over his shoulder. Not far behind him the ground fell away sharply, descending ever deeper into the surrounding woods. Most of the trees here were ancient oaks and beeches, standing tall and leafless against the gloomy, overcast sky. There was almost no undergrowth, just a few small saplings and withered weeds.

  Not really enough cover, Jon thought coolly. Just the tree trunks themselves. Anyone in pursuit would not have to work too hard to get a clear shot at him. If he wanted to run, he would somehow have to buy himself a decent head start.

  More shots rang out and the Skoda rocked sharply, hit several times in rapid succession. More glass shattered. More metal tore. Ricochets spanged off the engine block and frame and whirred off into the trees, splintering branches and twigs.

  Smith breathed in. One. Two. Three. Now.

  With his pistol held ready in both hands, he reared up over the back of the taxi. His narrowed eyes flickered rapidly from side to side, hunting for the men who were trying to kill him. There! One of the fake cops, the older man, was standing just meters away, steadily squeezing off aimed r
ounds from his sidearm, methodically shooting up the taxi from front to back.

  Smith whirled toward him, moving fast. Both the front and rear sights of his Czech-made pistol settled on the other man’s chest. He squeezed the trigger and the pistol barked once, bucking upward as the slide slammed back, feeding in another round. Quickly, he brought the weapon back down on target and fired again.

  Blood splashed high in the air. Hit twice, the gaunt-faced gunman spun toward the American who had shot him. His mouth fell open in stunned disbelief. Then, slowly, he fell to his knees and pitched forward onto the road. More blood pooled red on the black asphalt.

  His colleague, a younger, heavier man, dropped prone. Grim-faced, he immediately fired back at Smith without bothering to aim carefully. He was clearly shooting wildly in an effort to drive the American back into cover.

  One bullet from the Makarov whipcracked through the air close to Smith’s ear. Another ripped across the top of the taxi’s trunk, tearing a fiery crease through the rusting metal and cracked and peeling paint.

  He ignored them. Instead, he swung his own pistol through a short arc, zeroing in on the prone gunman. He squeezed off two more rounds. The first missed narrowly, sending broken chunks of asphalt and bits of gravel spinning away. But the second 7.62mm bullet tore off the top of the younger gunman’s skull.

  An eerie silence fell across the little clearing.

  Smith breathed out slowly, scarcely able to believe he was still alive. He could feel his heart beating at an incredible tempo, only gradually falling off as his pulse settled. Now what? he wondered.

  Suddenly he heard car doors slamming open. The people inside that black Mercedes were coming out, he realized. Still kneeling behind the bullet-riddled taxi, he swiveled. He caught a quick glimpse of two men, both of them wearing thick brown overcoats and fur hats, dropping into cover on the other side of the big luxury sedan. They were heavily armed. Each carried a compact Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine gun cradled in his gloved hands.

  Smith grimaced. One of those men had bandages plastered across his narrow face—no doubt covering the mangled remains of the nose Smith had crushed yesterday on the Charles Bridge. So he was facing two more enemies, and there was no chance whatsoever of surprising them.

  He glanced down at the pistol he held in both hands. Four rounds. He had just four rounds left in the magazine. He shook his head. That was not enough. Not against two high-powered automatic weapons that could easily shred the taxi he was crouching behind into a smashed heap of mangled metal.

  Staying here meant dying. It was time to go.

  He dropped back behind the ruined Skoda. Then, staying low, he loped away, sliding right over the edge of the steep slope leading down into Divoká Sárka, the shadow-filled valley of the Wild Sarka.

  Chapter Seven

  Georg Liss rose slowly from behind the Mercedes, sighting carefully along the short barrel of his MP5K submachine gun. His finger tightened on the trigger.

  Nothing moved anywhere on the narrow stretch of road or behind the bullet-torn taxi slewed awkwardly across the shoulder. His face darkened. Two of his best field agents lay sprawled on the ground. They were both dead, gunned down by this damned American. The corners of his mouth turned down in frustration. First the near-catastrophe on the Charles Bridge, and now this disaster. The ambush he had planned should have been perfect, a mere matter of killing an unarmed man, like a sheep led to the slaughter. Instead, it had come apart in sheer bloody ruin. Where had that devil Smith gotten his hands on a weapon?

  Still peering intently at the wrecked cab, Liss stood motionless, waiting for something, for anything, to shoot at. Suddenly, he heard the distant sound of dead leaves crackling somewhere in the woods beyond the road. The American was already running, heading straight down into the rugged Sarka valley. What would the men in Moscow say to him if Smith escaped now? More to the point, he thought grimly, what would they do to him?

  “Dragomir!” he snapped to his driver. “Signal Eugen and get him up here from the main road.” He nodded toward the two dead men wearing Czech police uniforms. “Shove those bodies into the trunk and take the American’s luggage. Then both of you clear out. Head for the airport. If you see Smith arrive, kill him if you can. Otherwise, make for the safe house. I will contact you there later.”

  “What about our other vehicles?” the Romanian asked.

  “Leave them,” Liss growled through gritted teeth. “They are clean. Nothing inside can link them to us.”

  “Understood.” Ilionescu nodded. He hesitated. “But what will you do?”

  The man code-named Prague One glared back at him. “Me?” He nodded down at the compact submachine gun gripped in his hands. “I am going hunting. I have unfinished business with the inconvenient Dr. Smith.”

  Jon Smith bounded down the steep, wooded slope, skidding and slipping across patches of loose soil and damp rock. He was running all-out now, letting gravity work in his favor, narrowly dodging tree trunks and low-hanging branches as they loomed up suddenly in front of him. He knew he was going too fast, much too fast, but the danger he sensed somewhere behind kept him moving at top speed.

  And then his feet slipped out from under him as he raced through a pile of dead leaves. He came down hard and started sliding, completely out of control now. Swearing silently, Smith rolled and tumbled downhill, clawing frantically with his hands, stabbing his fingers into the dirt in an effort to slow his descent. Instead, he slammed shoulder-first into the trunk of an old gnarled oak. Pain flared across the whole left side of his body. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs.

  For several endless seconds, he lay right where he had fallen, groggily trying to reclaim his scattered wits. Get up, his mind demanded at last. Get up if you want to live.

  Still winded, Smith sat up slowly. He winced as muscles driven well beyond their natural limits protested wildly, sending sharp flashes of agony spiking all along his nerves and into his brain. Ignoring the pain with an effort of will, he pushed himself back to his feet. He flexed his dirty, cut, scraped, and aching fingers, and then stopped.

  His pistol! Where was it?

  Smith spun around, staring back up the steep slope he had just come tearing down. Heart pounding, he started climbing, closely examining the swathe of torn and gouged earth and the scattered drifts of fallen leaves.

  There! He spotted the pistol beside the base of another tree, a towering beech still dappled with a few red, orange, and brown leaves. He leaned down, scooped it up, and checked the weapon over, quickly brushing away clumps of dirt caked around the muzzle and the hammer.

  Then a submachine gun chattered, firing a short, three-round burst from somewhere up the hillside. Nine-millimeter rounds snapped past him and smacked into the tree trunk at waist-level, spraying jagged chunks of bark across the forest floor. Reacting instantly, Smith threw himself flat and rolled behind the trunk.

  Another burst tore the ground just to his right.

  With the pistol extended out in front of him, Jon rolled back out to the left, squeezed off a single shot, firing blindly uphill, and kept rolling across the slope. He ended up crouched behind another tree. The submachine stuttered again. More bullets hissed past, tearing at the forest around him. Smaller tree boughs and branches shattered. Other rounds whirred away, bouncing off boulders farther down the gorge in showers of rock splinters and fragments.

  Smith risked a quick glance around the bole of the tree. He caught a glimpse of a man in a brown overcoat and fur hat moving cautiously downhill toward his position. There were bandages plastered across the man’s narrow face.

  He ducked back into cover. Hell. The range was about a hundred meters. Too far for a pistol—especially one with only three rounds left in its magazine. He would have to keep running, trying to stay out of the gunman’s sights long enough to break clear or find a better fighting position. Frowning, he looked back over his shoulder, rapidly considering his options. None were especially good.

  Below
, the ground fell away even more suddenly, plunging down a steep, forty-degree incline all the way toward the distant floor of the Sarka gorge. Smith shook his head. Trying to move fast in that direction meant risking another wild, rolling tumble. And he couldn’t afford that, not with an enemy close behind him and in hot pursuit.

  That left only one real alternative.

  Smith took a deep breath and then exploded out from behind the tree he had been using for cover, sprinting fast across the slope to the left. Caught off-guard by this sudden move, the gunman who had been advancing downhill stopped in his tracks and swore aloud. Then he opened up again with his MP5K, firing a series of rapid, aimed, three-round bursts at the American crossing his front.

  Smith saw the ground ahead of him kicking up, ripped apart by 9mm bullets. He angled left again, dodged another tree, hurtled over a small boulder half-buried in the ground, and kept going.

  The man hunting him stopped shooting.

  Jon ran on through the woods, zigzagging wildly between trees and around little clumps of saplings to avoid giving the gunman a steady target. The downhill slope on his left grew ever steeper. Soon it fell almost vertically to the valley floor, well over forty meters below. There were fewer trees and the ground near the edge of this cliff was rockier, dotted here and there by cracked and weathered slabs of limestone spearing up through the soil.

  He raced on, straining to draw enough air into his lungs. He stumbled once, forced himself upright again, and kept moving. The spot right between his shoulder blades tingled as he anticipated the sudden agonizing impact of a 9mm round fired at close range.

  Suddenly Smith came out into a large clearing, a wide, open meadow carpeted in winter-browned grass and tufts of taller weeds. Another copse of sheltering trees beckoned on the far side, but those woods were at least three hundred meters away. To his right, the meadow stretched all the way to the distant upper rim of the valley. On the left, the clearing ended abruptly in the craggy limestone cliff he had been following, which plummeted toward the bottom of the gorge.