I Minus 72 (18 page)

I minus 36

Thurmond left ten minutes after Sam and this
time it was like a parade. He hailed a taxi right outside the
hotel. Close behind, Vladimir flagged down an empty taxi and told
him to follow the taxi ahead. Garcia, at his usual post sitting at
the bus stop, saw Thurmond leave and in his haste to grab a taxi,
completely overlooked Vladimir. Now there were three taxis, one
after the other, less than a block apart. Both Vladimir and Garcia
had their eyes glued to Thurmond’s taxi and the traffic was heavy
so they didn’t notice each other. Thurmond, because of what
happened last time he went out, was alert and watching to see if he
was being followed. Unfortunately, since traffic was so frantic and
with every third car on the road an identical looking taxi, it was
impossible for him to tell one from another. Taxis were all around
him, zooming in and out of traffic, most of them carrying only one
passenger and most of the passengers were male. So much going on
that, even with his experience, Thurmond completely missed both of
the other men.

Traffic thinned somewhat when they entered
the street the café was on. At that point, he was only a couple of
blocks from the café, so Grant started looking towards the meeting
place and paid less attention to the other cars on the street.

Sam, meanwhile, sitting on the same bench in
the park, saw Grant exit his cab and enter the café. She noticed
two more taxis stop down the block, not more than thirty yards from
each other. No one got out of either taxi. That was curious, she
thought, so she continued watching them.

In the traffic madness, Vladimir’s taxi had
been passed by Garcia’s on the way, so he was now in the taxi at
the rear of the procession. Leaning forward to hand the driver some
cash, Vladimir realized that the passenger exiting a taxi just
ahead of him looked a lot like the guy he thought he had killed in
the crash the day before. Damn. How did he survive that fire? If it
was him, these guys had nine lives. Now what was he going to do?
Not having a lot of other options, he decided to lay low in the
back seat of the taxi and watch what the guy did. Vladimir couldn’t
believe it. They guy just sat down at a bus stop less than half a
block from the café. What the hell was he doing? Was it the same
guy as before?

Sam watched as a man dressed in ordinary
workman’s clothes wearing a snap brim hat finally got out of the
foremost taxi. The taxi drove away and the man walked up the street
about half a block and sat at the bus stop closest to the café. The
hat was pulled so low that at this distance she couldn’t see his
face. She thought it strange, though, that the guy got out of a
taxi and sat at a bus stop. Maybe he just decided that the taxi was
getting too expensive and he was going to take a bus the rest of
the way. Not sure what he was doing, she decided to keep an eye on
him. At the same time, she noticed the second taxi was still double
parked near the end of the block. That’s interesting, she thought.
Why is he just sitting there? Surely she was reading too much into
these things. She must be getting jumpy. Just the same, Grant said
to notice anything out of the ordinary, so she kept watching both
the man at the bus stop and the taxi parked down the street.

Grant, unaware of it all, had a coffee and
pastry in front of him and was completely focused on the upcoming
meeting. This was the part of the operation where Sam had to earn
her keep by watching his back, he thought. If she saw anything
unusual, she was supposed to let him know. Knowing that she was
watching everything else would let him concentrate on the meeting
and not worry about movement around him. As a precaution, in the
taxi he had taken the 9MM out of his jacket pocket and tucked it
into the back waistband of his pants. He left the spare magazine in
his coat pocket. Although it was a little uncomfortable, with the
gun close at hand he was confident he could defend both himself and
Sam. He was calm. He felt he was getting back into the groove.

After fifteen minutes of everyone just
sitting, Vladimir had had enough. He pulled out the silenced 9MM he
had bought from a minor gangster weeks earlier in Moscow. It was
not a brand he recognized, just some older Eastern European or
Russian model, but it was untraceable. He leaned forward over the
front seat as if he wanted to talk to the driver and with just a
very quiet pfft sound, shot the driver at the base of his skull. He
casually got out the street side door, opened the driver’s door,
pushed the driver to the side and got behind the wheel. He rolled
down the driver’s side window and accelerated down the street
coming quickly to a stop just in front of the bus stop where Garcia
was sitting. He managed two quick shots out the driver’s side
window at Garcia. In his hurry to get to his next target, Vladimir
didn’t take time to make sure the shots hit home but he did see the
man fall on the ground. He immediately accelerated and drove
quickly the half block to where the woman was sitting. Slowing but
not stopping, Vladimir reached out the window with his left hand
and fired two shots at her. Pfft, Pfft. He then floored the taxi
and rocketed down the street disappearing from view. The only sound
anyone else heard was the roar of the taxi’s engine and the squeal
of tires.

Garcia was surprised when the taxi screeched
to a stop directly in front of him. But his training kicked in.
Fearing the worst, he dropped to the ground and rolled, hoping to
throw off the aim of anyone who might try shooting at him. Two
bullets slammed into the bench where he was sitting just seconds
before. He watched as the taxi barreled off down the street. “What
the hell?” he thought. Then he ran.

Sitting at one of the café’s outside tables,
Grant heard the taxi tires screeching, turned towards the sound and
watched as the taxi then tore off only to pause again twenty yards
from where Sam was sitting. He also saw a man rolling on the ground
in front of the bus stop. The man looked just like every other
workman in Warsaw, so Grant was puzzled. He watched as the man got
up, look for just a moment at the taxi going away from him down the
street, then sprint in the opposite direction. What the hell? he
thought. Completely alert now, the hair on the back of his neck
stood up. He then looked at Sam, saw her holding her hand to her
neck and immediately leapt to his feet. Because of his injuries and
bulky overcoat it was an effort for Grant to jump over the short
wrought iron fence surrounding the outside seating area of the
café. But over the fence he went anyway and ran, gun in hand, to
where Sam was sitting.

Sam also saw the whole thing play out and
was completely thrown, not knowing what to do next. She realized it
had happened so fast she didn’t register the faces of either the
taxi driver or the guy at the bus stop. When the taxi driver slowed
near her, she was so distracted by the man at the bus stop rolling
on the ground, she didn’t notice the taxi driver reach his hand out
the window and shoot at her. She only realized what happened when
the bullets struck the wooden bench she was sitting on, splintering
the weathered wood and sending shards of wood into the side of her
face and neck. By the time she recovered, the taxi was gone. Did I
just get shot? she thought as she reached up to touch the stinging
pain in her neck. She hadn’t even stood up and was still sitting
there stunned with her hand on her neck when Grant arrived by her
side.

“Are you alright? You’re hit, let me see.”
He checked her neck. There was blood, but it looked
superficial.

“I don’t think I was hit by a bullet, just
wood fragments,” Sam stammered.

“Can you walk? How bad is it?”

“Yes, I’m sure I can walk,” she said with a
catch in her voice.

Grant helped her up and said, “Okay, then
let’s get out of here before the police arrive. We’ll check you out
more thoroughly back at the hotel. Here, hold my handkerchief over
the wound to stop the bleeding.”

They quickly moved through the far side of
the park and walked another two blocks before Grant slowed
down.

“Here, let me take another look at that. You
might need to see a doctor.”

Getting her voice a little more under
control, she said, “No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t really hurt
that badly, just stings a little.”

After examining Sam’s neck and face more
closely, Grant concluded that she was right. It was just
superficial and she wouldn’t need to see a doctor.

“That was a close call.
Too close,” Grant said. We know for sure now that someone is after
us. At least you. Not sure whether they even saw me. You were a
pretty easy target sitting out in the open like that and that’s my
fault. Damn, I must really be rusty to expose you like that.
I
know
you’re not
trained for this shit. How could I do that?” Grant paused for a
moment and when Sam didn’t reply said, “Now that you’ve become a
target, we’re going to need new tactics to keep you safe. We’ll
work on those this afternoon. What was up with that guy at the bus
stop? Did he get shot at too?”

“I don’t know, I couldn’t tell. By the time
I saw that he was down, the splinters were hitting my neck. I
didn’t even see who shot at me. He was in a taxi, though, that much
I know.”

“Well, whoever he was, he sure got out of
there in a hurry. You’re lucky the splinters didn’t hit your eye.
Could have caused a lot more damage. Let’s get back to the hotel
and try to sort through all this.” Grant took her arm and they
walked away looking for a taxi.

Meanwhile, Vladimir was over a mile away
looking for a convenient place to ditch the taxi. He had to get
another car. Taxis were just too much trouble. He drove to a quiet
alleyway a few blocks from the train station, locked the car doors
and walked away, leaving the driver lying in the front seat. Anyone
who saw the taxi would think the driver was just taking a nap. It
would be a couple of hours at least before the body was discovered.
By that time he’d be long gone. He entered the train station and
bought a one-way ticket to Krakow. He was on his way to steal
another car so he could be back in Warsaw by tomorrow morning. He
still had more to do. He had no idea if he hit either the man at
the bus stop or the girl. Piece of shit gun. He had to go back to
get rid of Thurmond. He had wasted enough time. If the girl had
survived, he knew she wouldn’t be far from Thurmond, so he could
get her anytime. Anyway, he was sure she couldn’t identify him, so
there was no real hurry with her.

The only problem was that
he didn’t know anything about the other man. It had to be either
the Russians or this Garcia guy, but if so, where was he staying?
How could he find him? If it
was
Garcia, was he working with Thurmond or acting on
his own? CIA maybe? After mulling it over for another half an hour,
it hit him how to get Thurmond where he wanted him. He was sure
Thurmond had gotten the contact information for all the informants,
including his, and was watching the personals. He’d just place an
ad calling for a drop. He’d make it at midnight. If, as he thought,
Thurmond had gotten his contact information from Granowli, he would
know the details. If he saw the ad and showed up at the meeting
place, Vladimir would kill him on the spot. He could be back in
Moscow the next day, planning his trip to the United
States.

While he was looking out the train
compartment window, Vladimir thought about what he might want to do
in America. Over the past thirty years, he had lived frugally. With
most of his ordinary living expenses paid by his Soviet
controllers, he’d been able to put away a considerable sum of money
in a bank in Switzerland, funds that were hard to trace. Just
before he left for America, he’d have it transferred in small
increments to multiple banks around the country. After this whole
thing was over he’d travel all over America. He’d certainly see New
York. Maybe he’d splurge once and rent a limo to drive him around.
America was full of rich people and he had to play the part to fit
in. Then, maybe, Chicago. Also, Miami—yes, he had to see Miami.
He’d wait for winter to go there. Then San Francisco— it was a
famous city, though he wasn’t sure what for. Hawaii; absolutely,
Hawaii. Once he became a citizen, he could, if he wanted, get a
passport and travel to all the places around the world he ever
dreamed of. He would be a rich American tourist. He smiled at the
thought.

I minus 36

Back at his hotel, Garcia sat thinking about
what happened. Obviously he’d been spotted and taken completely by
surprise. But by whom? The guy Thurmond was after? Probably. Was he
trying to get all of them at the same time? Garcia had a lot of
questions, and not many answers. He was gonna have to be a lot more
careful in the future. Funny, though, he was sure no one could
recognize him with his workman’s clothes. How did the guy get on to
him? Could the man that had crashed into him in the taxi have
recognized him? It was time to change his disguise, and time to
start shooting back.

Grant and Sam eventually flagged down an
available taxi and after arriving at their hotel, went in through
the side door and used the stairs to avoid being spotted from the
lobby. In their room, Grant took another look at Sam’s wounds.

“You’ll be alright,” he said. “But, we need
to pull out a couple of splinters. Got any tweezers?” He looked at
her.

“Yes, in my makeup bag. I’ll get them,” Sam
said without meeting his eyes.

Tweezers in hand and Sam seated in front of
him, Grant said, “This might hurt a bit. Want a drink first?”

“No, just pull them out,” Sam replied. She
winced when he pulled the first one out. “Sorry,” he said. “Two
more to go.” She met his eyes this time, her reserve slipping.