The Hunted (20 page)

Eugene stuck his face out the window and smiled broadly. “Of course I am. Why, do you like Americans?”

“Oh yes. Americans good. Ronald Reagan is big hero for me. Every Slovakian loves this Reagan. He tells the Russians to go
kiss his ass. You know him?”

The young guard was now smiling pleasantly. Not many Americans used this backcountry crossing—in fact, none ever had, come
to think of it. The heavy man in the backseat was the first American he’d ever encountered in person. He was obviously delighted
and enthusiastic to try out his very limited English. Under improved lighting he looked barely old enough to be in high school,
much less securing his nation’s boundaries, with a lanky frame, pimply-faced, a pumpkin-sized head his features hadn’t yet
grown to fit. America was such a small land, of course everybody knew everybody.

“Oh… well, he’s a dear old friend of mine. A dear, dear friend,” Eugene rambled. “Ronnie and I… his pals call him Ronnie,
by the way. Anyway, yeah, you could say we’re big buddies.”

“Ronnie. Yes, is better I think than Ronald. More friendly, yes?” The young guard was flipping through the back pages of Elena’s
passport, for no particular reason, since a Russian passport didn’t require a visa. “He is really your friend?”

“I love him,” Eugene declared loudly, anxious to like anything this kid liked. Stalin?—adore him. Liver?—my favorite meal.
But it helped that it was true. He was a rich Wall Streeter and lifelong Republican without an ounce of guilt over the fortunes
he’d made. He had no kind thoughts for those traitors from his tribe of millionaires who called themselves Democrats and did
their best to get those tax-gobbling thieves back into the White House. Besides, it seemed like a great topic to keep this
young guard’s mind on other matters. Eugene told him truthfully, “I was one of his biggest contributors. Gave him lots of
moolah. He had me down to the White House a few times. Nice place.”

The guard was now measuring Alex’s passport photo against his face. It was totally unnecessary. He was obviously dawdling
to drag out the conversation. Why couldn’t Eugene keep his mouth shut? Freedom was only ten yards ahead of them—if only Eugene
would shut his yap.

The boy began thumbing through Alex’s passport again, visibly more attentive to Eugene’s ramblings about his hero than his
work. He asked, not all that casually, “So you are big friend of Reagan’s. Why then, you must tell me, you are traveling with
these Russians?”

“Russians” spat out of his lips loaded with enough contempt to make it sound like he wanted to pull his pistol and blow Alex
and Elena back to the gates of Moscow.

“They’re old friends,” Eugene replied, thinking fast.

A troubled look on the boy’s face. He scratched his unwashed hair, shuffled his feet, and stared glumly at the passport. “This
name, Konevitch, I think I have heard before.”

“No surprise there,” Eugene conceded in a quick rush of words. “Alex is… was… a dissident, a very famous one. He wrote brilliant
essays about the rot of communism, they were smuggled out and published in the West.” Eugene pushed his face closer and confided,
“Guess how we met? Come on, guess.”

Bunched shoulders. No idea.

“Ronnie introduced us. Get this—he told me personally that Alex’s essays inspired him to tell the Russians to haul their asses
out of East Europe.”

The guard bent over and studied Alex’s face more closely. His eyes narrowed and his lips scrunched with curiosity. Eugene’s
expansive lie suddenly did not appear all that clever. Alex tried to appear relaxed, humble, and proud, anything to look convincing.
Would he become curious about Alex’s injuries? Maybe he wasn’t buying Eugene’s bullshit. Or maybe he remembered exactly why
the name Konevitch sounded familiar. Alex and Elena fought an overwhelming urge to hop out of the car and make a run for it.
Just run as fast as their feet could go, flee into the nearest field, and hope the boy’s marksmanship was as awful as his
English. They squeezed each other’s hands and prayed. The examination seemed to go on forever. “If he so famous,” the guard
eventually asked, fingering the passports, “why then you are traveling in this very awful car?”

Elena wagged a finger at that backseat. “In honor of our American friend.” A knowing wink and she flashed her cutest smile.
“We thought it would be fun for him to experience the full splendor of communist quality. He hasn’t stopped complaining the
entire trip.”

The guard laughed, handed the passports to Alex, took a step back, and waved his arm. “Welcome to the
independent
Slovakian Republic. Drive carefully, if you please.”

T
he drive through Slovakia to the airport proved mercifully uneventful. Slovakia, the former half of Czechoslovakia before
the “velvet divorce” rendered it asunder, had at one time been its industrial breadbasket, a cauldron of sprawling factories
that spewed out guns and bombs and other nasty devices for the Soviet army. That business had suddenly dried up: the country
now resembled a ghost town; having survived sixty years of communism, it wasn’t clear it would survive capitalism. The huge
factories no longer belched smoke out of towering chimneys. Little traffic was on the roads.

They stopped at a roadside eatery and killed a few hours, engulfing coffee and battling to stay awake. Alex insisted on it.
But even had Elena or Eugene considered it a terrible idea, they were not about to object. One look and they could see Alex
was on his last legs. He slumped in the chair, could hardly lift his head, and rubbed his dislocated shoulder and kneaded
his sore leg constantly. They could barely imagine how horribly his fried chest ached and throbbed.

The beating and torture had sapped his incredible energy. He spoke little, only when absolutely necessary. The words came
out slurred in short sentences, almost a labored whisper.

Elena was worried about him. He should be in a hospital, for godsakes. Every bone in his body should be X-rayed, his wounds
cleansed and rebandaged, his chest embalmed in a burn packet. Then he should be pumped full of miracle drugs until the grimness
in his eyes melted, until laughing fairies were dancing inside his head. But a powerful sense of guilt was driving him, she
knew. He blamed himself for this whole mess; for being rich enough that serious people would want to steal it; for not insisting
that a hundred security men shadow him everywhere; especially, he was ravaged with regret for dragging her and Eugene into
this.

And now he was shouldering full responsibility for getting them out of it.

The first round of coffee and pastries arrived. They dug in and ran through the situation. Alex summoned energy from some
hidden reserve and summarized their situation. The easy passage across the border could be a sign that his fears were overblown,
Alex told them; or it was just a fickle stroke of luck. So play it safe. Assume people were still out there, hunting, so they
should drag it out awhile. With each passing hour, the searchers would become more tired. Tired meant sloppy. Better yet,
it might mislead them into believing their prey had traveled much farther than they had. They would be forced to extend and
widen their dragnet, increasing the chance of slipping through. When the time was right they would jump back into the car,
drive straight to the airport, and have a quick look-see. If the airport was covered, this plan would go on the scrapheap,
and they would devise another way to escape.

Elena wasn’t sure Alex had enough left in him for this plan. A whole new one seemed out of the question.

So they sat and sipped coffee, the three of them, tense and keyed up. After the first cup, Alex excused himself and limped
away from the table. By their fourth cup, Alex had returned. He collapsed into his seat and insisted they unwind and dwell
on topics other than their troubles.

Eugene tried his best with lively tales about his slew of marriages, how they all belly-flopped into messy divorces. The stories
were deliciously vulgar and quite funny. He had nicknames for each ex, wedded to a hysterical talent for mimicry. Number Two—Dallaszilla—apparently
had an aggravating Texas twang, chewed loudly with her mouth open, and couldn’t mutter a word without violently flapping her
arms—a stuttering windmill stuck on overdrive. Eugene shucked his New York accent and produced an impersonation that was almost
frightening.

This was the same ex who hired a PI to track her husband, then showed up at Eugene’s suite at the Plaza, catching him red-handed
with his newest mistress. The door burst open and Dallaszilla screamed and bellowed and howled with the unadulterated fury
only a native Texan lady can manufacture. Her arms whipped around so hard, the mistress thought she was witnessing an epileptic
fit and promptly dialed 911 for an ambulance. Eugene never spoke to the mistress again. He was furious with her. Forgiveness
would never come. In court, he adhered to his lawyer’s standard legal dictum—he denied, denied, denied—until three paramedics
showed up to corroborate the affair. The judge happened to be a she, herself an aggrieved veteran of two nasty divorces with
husbands who had philandered and then lied their way out of what she considered fair settlements.

His lawyer swore afterward that that gaffe cost him an additional five million dollars.

Elena found the stories hilarious. She laughed until it ached. For one brief, shining moment she almost forgot people were
out there chasing, trying to murder them. Alex managed an occasional stiff smile, but had either heard the tales before or
was preoccupied, or exhausted.

They were back on the road at two o’clock. An hour later, after twice getting lost, they turned off a highway and entered
the airport complex. Elena pumped the brakes and said, “You two get down. I’ll cruise the terminal. See how it looks.”

Alex reminded Elena, for the fourth time, “Be sure to check the cars in the lot,” then both men tried their best to melt into
the seats.

Crawling at fifteen kilometers per hour, Elena made a slow pass, quietly tapping the brakes and searching with quick shifts
of her head. The airport turned out to be the aeronautic equivalent of a one-horse town, small, sleepy, with only one main
building, and definitely shut down for the night. Few lights were on. A solitary janitor in loose gray coveralls was shoving
a mop around the floor. That was it. She saw nobody else inside the terminal or loitering suspiciously in front of it.

Another twenty yards and a quick glance to her left. The parking lot contained only a few cars; all appeared dark and thankfully
empty. Then, in one of them—yes!—in an otherwise dark car she could swear she saw the flicker of two burning cigarettes.

She slowed almost to a stop. She stared hard at the car, then came to her senses, sped up, and retreated back the way they
came, toward the capital. Alex and Eugene straightened up. “It’s closed,” she informed them, obviously surprised, obviously
disappointed. “But in one of the cars in the parking lot, somebody was inside, smoking. I saw at least two cigarettes.”

“You think it’s them?” Eugene asked, bending forward with the help of Alex’s seatback.

Elena replied. “I think they’re just lovers too cheap to buy a hotel room. What do you think?”

“Yeah, I think it’s them, too,” Eugene answered.

Alex asked her, “What kind of car?”

“You know I’m not good with that kind of thing.”

“All right, what color? This is important, honey.”

“White.”

“Not tan?”

“No, white. I’m positive.”

“Big car, small car, medium, what?”

“A sedan. Fairly large. Four doors. I thought I saw an ornament of some sort on the end of a long hood. But it was dark, and
by then I was scared, so I’m not sure. The car looked expensive, too, but how would I know? Are we through playing thirty
questions?”

“Almost. Could it have been a Jaguar?”

“No, it was definitely a car.”

Obviously they were through.

They drove for about five minutes in silence. A light rain began falling, and the wipers flopped wildly back and forth, never
close to touching the windshield.

Apropos of nothing, Alex observed, “If you’re interested, the doors to the terminal open at seven. A flight for New York leaves
at eight every morning.”

Eugene asked, “You knew the airport would be closed?”

“I thought it would, yes.”

“And you knew about the New York flight?”

“Would it make a difference if I’d told you?”

“I don’t guess it would, nope.”

“But New York?” Elena asked.

“Yes, well, for one thing, the only open visas that match in both our passports are for America. Second, it’s the one destination
in the world where we’ll be safe from these people. It’s only temporary, anyway, until I get this cleared up.”

Eugene remarked, “I’d offer you my place, but Maria will be there, and it’s going to be a war zone.”

Alex wasn’t really in a listening mode and added, “We’re not going together, anyway. It’s time to split up.”

“What’s that mean?” Eugene asked, afraid he knew exactly what it meant.

“They’re hunting three people, Eugene. They believe we’re amateurs and they believe we’re afraid and insecure.”

Believe? Well, they were certainly amateurs. And if insecure meant scared out of their wits, the bad people had it right on
both counts.

Alex continued, “The point is, frightened amateurs stay in packs. They’ll be looking for three of us, together, so it’s time
for us to divorce Eugene.”

“You couldn’t have picked a different word?” Eugene complained. Elena laughed, and Eugene joined her. Both were becoming giddy
with exhaustion and the unrelenting tension.

Alex turned around and faced him, his face rigid with concern. “Eugene, you’re a target because you’re with us. They blew
the chance to get your money. Nothing can bring it back, and they know that. Whoever they are, they’re professionals. They
don’t care about you anymore.”

“Hey, I’m having a ball being shot at, chased, and hunted by Mafiya goons,” Eugene felt like saying. “This is the best idea
I’ve heard all night, so fine, dump me off right here.” But his conscience bothered him. Instead he said, “Look, what the
hell, I’m in this up to my neck already. You’re my friends and I’d like to make sure you’re safe. Are you sure this is a good
idea, Alex?”