Trinity Factor, page 17
He had awakened her a little past seven-thirty, and she had gotten up and hurriedly dressed as they were pulling into the station.
While she was checking their single suitcase in a locker, Alek had gone outside to watch Groves, who was picked up in front by an army noncom driving a plain sedan.
And then they had had their day together, beginning with a leisurely breakfast at a small café around the corner from the depot.
They had turned the corner onto Sandoval Street, and Badim had quickened their pace, but Jada hadn’t really noticed; she was still thinking about the lovely day they had had.
After breakfast they had gone shopping together, Alek purchasing three wide leather belts with heavy buckles at three different stores, fifty feet of strong rope at a saddle shop, and finally four iron rings, each about five inches in diameter and a large, vicious-looking baling hook with a T-handle at a hardware store.
Before they went to lunch, they had returned to the depot, where Alek had put the things he bought in their suitcase.
When he had relocked the locker, he had turned to her and said an astounding thing. “The rest of the day is yours, Larissa. What would you like to do?”
For several long moments she had just looked at him, her mouth hanging open, and then she had laughed with joy and hugged him.
“First of all lunch, then an ice cream soda, and then a movie … maybe two of them.”
Alek had laughed with her, and arm and arm they had left the depot and had done exactly that.
The movies had been wonderful adventures that even Alek had enjoyed, although he did not want to admit it. The first was a picture called The Mark of Zorro with Tyrone Power (who Jada thought was nowhere as good-looking as Alek), and the second, at a theater two blocks away from the first, was Berlin Correspondent, with Dana Andrews and Virginia Gilmore.
Andrews played an American newspaperman who helped a German professor escape from the Nazis. Although the picture was silly, she had felt almost a kinship with the actors on the screen, who were doing in make-believe what she and Alek were doing for real.
Afterward they had eaten a light supper downtown, and then had taken their stroll, Badim becoming more and more taciturn, and Jada delving into her memories in greater and greater detail.
They crossed the river and turned another corner and suddenly Jada was jerked back to reality, and she stopped short.
A half a block away was the Atchinson Topeka & Santa Fe Depot, and she shivered as she turned to look up into Alek’s eyes. “Must we?” she asked foolishly.
He smiled. “We’re almost there, Larissa,” he said, that variation of her alias sounding soft and loving to her. “Don’t freeze up on me now.”
“What if Oppenheimer isn’t with him?”
“Then we’ll stay here and wait for Groves to show up again and I’ll follow him to wherever Oppenheimer is,” he said patiently. “We have been sent here to do a job. We will do it.”
“Yes, Aleksandr,” she said finally, her mind going numb. He was strong, he was handsome. She would trust him. Completely.
They turned, her arm still linked with his, and continued down the block to the depot, where he gave her the key to their locker and instructed her to retrieve their suitcase and wait with it for him on the platform.
It was just seven o’clock, and the overnight to Chicago was not due to leave for forty-five minutes. Groves and whoever he was taking back with him probably would not show up until later. From what they had been told about the man, he did everything in a rush, and although he was considered punctual, he was rarely early.
The station was teeming with people coming and going, and Jada had to jostle her way down the wide stairs to the lower level, where she took their now heavily laden suitcase out of the locker. Then she went outside to the platform, where the overnighter was waiting on the tracks.
She set the suitcase down next to an ornate iron railing and post holding up the wide roof directly across from their assigned car, and sighed deeply, trying to quell the butterflies in her stomach.
All through their training in Moscow, then on the submarine, and even back in Washington in their hotel room with a murder behind them, this assignment had not been real to her. It was nothing more than an exercise. Some kind of an elaborate game. But now that she was here, and they were very close, she was frightened.
Alek had gone over the details of what they were going to have to do this morning, and she understood everything. The risk would be minimal. And if everything went well, they would get off the train unnoticed in Kansas City. No one would stop them. No one would have any reason to stop them.
She shivered and stepped around the post so that she could get a look at the clock through the windows in the waiting room, when she collided with two men.
For a moment she lost her balance, until one of them, a short, thin, effeminate-looking man, grabbed her arm and steadied her.
“Pardon me, miss,” he said, his voice soft.
Jada looked up and very nearly fainted. The man who had helped her was Dr. Oppenheimer. The other man was General Groves.
“Are you all right?” the general asked, stepping forward.
“I …” Jada squeaked, and beyond Groves she could see Alek thirty feet away, staring at them. It gave her strength she didn’t know she had, and she managed a smile. “Clumsy of me,” she said. “I’m terribly sorry.”
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Oppenheimer asked. He was still holding her arm.
“I’m fine,” she said.
He returned her smile, touched the brim of his wide, floppy hat with two fingers, and he and General Groves hurried down the platform and boarded the train three cars away from theirs.
A moment later Alek passed her and, without stopping or even looking her way, said, “I’ll meet you in our compartment,” and he boarded the same car as Groves and Oppenheimer.
It was five minutes past seven when the DC-3 carrying Lovelace finally touched down at the air strip in Agua Fria, just southwest of Santa Fe. They had been delayed in Louisville with engine trouble, and again in Wichita when a squall line had rapidly moved through the area, causing them to duck down for shelter.
But there was still plenty of time if he could get some cooperation from the people here at the field. He would need a car.
The plane slowed at the end of the runway, turned, and taxied back to the terminal as Lovelace undid his seatbelt and went forward to the main door.
In Louisville he had remained aboard until the engine problem had been solved, but at Wichita he had gone into Base Ops and had called the depot here, where he had learned that the overnight to Chicago was scheduled to leave at 7:45 sharp. He had not been able to reach the Santa Fe police chief, and no one else at the police station knew what he was talking about … spies? assassins?
But he had made it on time. If he could get a car, he would be able to make the train.
The DC-3 finally pulled up, turned again, and then the engines clanked to a stop. Lovelace quickly undogged the hatch and shoved the door open as a ground crew was bringing up the boarding ladder. An open jeep carrying two military policemen came across the field at a high rate of speed, and as he stepped down the stairs and started across to the terminal, the jeep pulled up alongside him and screeched to a halt, both MPs jumping out.
“Captain Lovelace?” one of them called out.
Lovelace stopped and turned toward them. This was trouble. He could smell it. “I’m Michael Briggs,” he said.
One of the MPs smiled. “Could we see some identification, sir?”
“What is it?” Lovelace said tiredly. He hadn’t been able to get much sleep on the trip.
“You’re under arrest, captain,” the MP said apologetically.
“On whose orders, sergeant?” Lovelace snapped, and the MP stiffened.
“General Groves, sir. Said you were to be held here until we could contact a Colonel Lansdale, CIC.”
“Well?”
“Sir?” the MP asked, confused.
“What did Lansdale say?” Lovelace roared.
“The colonel will be calling us soon, sir. He’s in California.”
“Bullshit,” Lovelace swore. “I can’t wait.” He turned on his heel and started toward the terminal when one of the MPs behind him shouted.
“Halt!”
Lovelace stopped and turned back in time to see both young men draw their .45 automatics and point them at him.
“You’re going to have to come with us, sir,” one of them said. “At least until we can get hold of Colonel Lansdale.”
Badim lay on his back in the lower bunk and decided that they had a fifty-fifty chance of success, which was not particularly bad. He had accomplished other missions with much greater odds against him. Only this time he was worried, and he knew it was because of the girl.
After he had spotted the two army intelligence officers tailing Groves and Oppenheimer, and after he had nevertheless managed to get past them in time to see which compartment his targets had entered, he had come back to Jada, who was waiting in their compartment, white-faced.
Before he had said anything to her, however, he went to the window and carefully peered outside, watching until the two men who had followed Groves and Oppenheimer left the platform and went back into the depot, as he had expected they would. They had come along merely to make sure their charges got aboard safely. When that had happened, their jobs were done.
He had turned and gone to Jada finally, held her face in his hands, and kissed her. She’d jumped up from the bunk and clung tightly to him.
“Aleksandr … I was so frightened … I didn’t know what to do … or what to say …” she had blubbered.
“It’s all right, Larissa,” he’d said soothingly. “It’s fine, you did the correct thing.”
They parted and she had looked into his eyes. “Are you sure?” she had asked fearfully.
“I am sure,” he’d said. He stared into her lovely, large eyes for a long time, trying to read the emotions there. But then he sighed tiredly. “There will be much for us to do this evening, and I need my rest. I will sleep now, but you must be sure to awaken me when we come to Springer. That should be around ten o’clock. Maybe a little sooner.”
Jada was nodding. “I understand,” she said, and he could tell that she wanted to say more, but was holding back out of fear.
Again he kissed her, then lay down on his bunk to try to sleep. He kept thinking about her, though. About what would become of them after this night. If and when they got back to Moscow, he was certain Runkov would send him out on another assignment. And then another, and another, until either the war was ended or he was dead. Sleep eluded him.
Either way, he knew, it would probably be over between them. Over.
“Alek,” Jada called softly to him. She was standing by the window, leaning her forehead against the glass.
“Yes?” he said, opening his eyes.
“We’re approaching the little town … Springer … and it is nearly ten.”
“Good,” he said, half under his breath, and for just a moment he held tightly to his thoughts about Jada, but then he blocked all that out of his mind and got up.
She was watching him as he pulled the suitcase out and opened it on his bunk; he could feel her eyes on his back. He took out the things they had bought in Santa Fe and laid them aside, along with his silenced Luger and an extra magazine of ammunition. Then he closed the suitcase and pushed it aside.
“You know what you have to do?” he asked, as he worked.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I will wait for ten minutes after you are on the roof, and then I will go down to their car and wait. When it happens I will be able to see if anyone has noticed and if an alarm is sounded. Afterward, I will come back here to wait for you.”
“Very good.”
Quickly now he checked to make sure his gun was loaded, a round in the chamber and the safety on, before he stuffed it in the holster strapped to his chest. He pulled on a lightweight dark jacket and zipped it up halfway.
Next he threaded two of the wide iron rings on one of the wide belts, and then loosely strapped the belt around his waist. Then he strapped the other two belts around his legs, first looping their ends through the belt around his waist, so that the three belts formed a crude mountain-climber’s harness.
He cut a five-foot section of the rope off the coil and tied it firmly to the T-handle of the large baling hook, then tied the other two iron rings onto the rope.
Finally he threaded the main coil of rope through the iron rings attached to the baling hook, securing one end of the long coil to the rings on his belt, and leaving the other end free.
The spare magazine of ammunition went into a trouser pocket, and he was ready.
Lovelace had his gun, a car, and his freedom, but if he was wrong this time, there would be no second chances. This time Groves would make sure he never wore a badge again. Only Lovelace knew damned well, now, that he wasn’t wrong.
He drove recklessly through the night east on U.S. 56 out of Springer. It was shortly after ten o’clock and he figured he could not be too far behind the train.
Lansdale had absolutely refused to order the train stopped, but had agreed at least to allow Lovelace his freedom if he promised to return immediately to Washington by the first available transportation.
“I’m going way out on the limb for you,” Lansdale had said on the phone. “But I happen to think you’re a damned good cop. This time, though, I have to agree with the general—I think you are chasing hobgoblins.”
“But you’re going to tell them to release me?” Lovelace asked.
“Yes.”
“And return my gun?”
“Absolutely not …” Lansdale started to object, but Lovelace looked at his watch, which read nearly 8:00 P.M., and he cut him off.
“It’s my personal property, colonel. Besides, I’ve given you my word. The only thing I’m going to do is borrow a car and go to the train depot in Santa Fe with a couple of police artist sketches. I just want to ask around if anyone saw these two.”
“If you try to interfere with the movement of that train I’ll join the growing line behind the general and Mr. Hoover to see you court-martialed and put in jail, captain. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Lovelace said, looking again at his watch. “I’ll let you talk to the MPs now. And thanks, colonel.”
One of the MPs had loaned Lovelace his personal car, a beat-up old Chrysler with a souped-up engine, and he had driven immediately to the train depot in Santa Fe, where within a few minutes he had found at least three people who were reasonably certain they had seen the couple at the station.
The ticket clerk said the woman was very pretty, and one of the others said the man had walked with a limp.
From there he had driven northeast out of Santa Fe through Las Vegas on U.S. 85, and then on to the town of Springer, where he had changed over to U.S. 56, most of the time pushing the old car to more than 65 miles per hour.
Although there was a clear sky and a bright moon, he was able to spot the lights of the train in the distance, and he jammed the accelerator pedal to the floor. If he could get to Clayton or one of the other towns down the line soon enough, he could signal for the train to stop.
It took Badim three tries, because of the wind from the motion of the train, to get the baling hook to catch on something above the roof. But then he had it.
“Ten minutes,” he said to Jada, and then he swung out from the open window and started up the rope.
It was much harder to do than he had expected it would be, but his muscles were in perfect tone from his months of training, and despite the wind that tore at his body, and the heaving, lurching motion of the train over the uneven tracks, he made it to the roof, where he lay flat for a moment to catch his breath.
A few seconds later he pulled the rest of the rope from the open compartment window below, and freed the baling hook from where it had caught on an air-conditioner grille, and headed to the rear on his hands and knees.
He worked like a finely tuned, well-oiled machine now, all personal thoughts about Jada or about anything other than the job at hand erased from his mind.
At the junction between cars, the passageway below was covered by a flexible roof, which he gingerly stepped down on, nearly losing his balance and toppling over the edge. But in an instant he had scrambled up on the next car and noiselessly continued.
With any luck no one would be in the passageway when he fired except Jada, and no alarm would be sounded. The bodies would not be discovered until the train arrived in Chicago when Groves and Oppenheimer failed to get off. And even when they were discovered, it would be found that someone had apparently fired the shots at the passing train from outside. By the time anyone figured it out, if they ever did, he and Jada would be long gone. Mission accomplished.
He was more careful at the next junction between cars, and once he was safely over it, he stopped a moment to adjust the heavy coil of rope on his shoulder before he continued.
The countryside they were passing through now consisted mostly of barren rolling hills, mesas, and the mountains in the distance, brightly illuminated by the moonlit sky.
Eight minutes had elapsed when he finally made it to the roof of the car in which Groves and Oppenheimer were riding in the first compartment. Without hesitation he dangled the baling hook over the edge of the roof on the opposite side, catching it on the rain gutter.
Keeping tension on the rope so that the hook would not slip, he looped the free end around his buttocks from the right side, then up over his left shoulder, carefully stood up, and leaned back, his feet spread apart, his knees slightly bent.
He held the rope with his left hand, which he brought up so he could see his watch. Nine minutes. One to go and Jada would be heading toward this car. She would make it within two minutes.
For the moment he let the tension drain out of his body, riding easily with the uneven motion of the roof beneath his feet, almost like a water skier whose knees took up the shock of small waves.
