Authors: Joe Poyer

The Balkan Assignment (33 page)

BOOK: The Balkan Assignment

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Klaus put his hand to his forehead to shelter his eyes. "They are looking for us," he said in a flat voice. "I have nearly a quarter of a million dollars in German marks in this knapsack, Chris. That's a lot of money. And I know where the rest of it is . . ."

"Quite a comedown from one million dollars," I smiled down at him. "I saw you kill Mikhail . . . so that leaves only the two of us, doesn't it?" Klaus spread his hands wide and began to climb the slope toward me. He was all reasonableness now. "It was very confused in the camp . . . I didn't know where you were. I had to get out. And then Mikhail was following me. I knew that he was going to kill me . . . I didn't know that you were following."

I kept my eyes on him, watching every move he made. He was dangerous now, a cornered animal.

The rain swirled down harder for an instant, and as I

saw Klaus's hand flick toward the carbine I threw myself flat and the air snapped as the bullet whistled past. I scuttled on my hands and knees to a gully eroded in the rock and swung down into it, ignoring the agonizing pain in my shoulder. The line of the crest was uneven; successive years of winter rains had eroded the soil and rock into a mass of gullies and drains. It was into one of these that I dropped to wait for Klaus to crawl over the top.

The rain quickly died away to a thin drizzle again. Still, Klaus hadn't moved. I slid deeper into the gully and worked my way down slope with the intention of coming up on his flank where the last bit of the climb to the summit was almost vertical. The helicopter; I had almost forgotten. It was closer now, judging by the beat of its rotors, but still invisible in the rain. It was not likely that they had heard Klaus's rifle. The last trace of blue sky winked out as the storm raced north into China, and still Klaus was nowhere in sight. Then, a moment later, I caught sight of him scurrying over the crest far to the right.

Cursing nonstop, I raced back up the gully for the ridge line. The sonofabitch had anticipated me and gained the lead again. Unless I could catch him in the next few minutes, he would be over the edge of the slope and on the long downward run to the border. If he reached the slope, I could never hope to catch him again. I was on the thin edge of consciousness now, pain throbbing in my shoulder and sending waves of reddish mist across the rain-soaked landscape. A pink froth of blood where the rain was washing the crude bandage streamed down my arm. The ground tended to rise and fall in gentle waves as I ran, and the rainy mist was thickened by the red haze. I scrambled over the top of the crest, clawing through the mud and wet grass and lay gasping for a moment. The dark shape of the helicopter roared directly over me, rushing past as its rotor wash set the grass and stunted trees to waving like madmen. The rain pounded down and rumbles of thunder rocked the valley. I saw Klaus jump to his feet and race across the slope. He was running head down, half crouched, bending low beneath the wash of air from the helicopter.

I forced myself to my knees, the pain wringing shallow

grunts of agony from my throat. Klaus saw me and turned, his rifle swinging around to bear.

He shouted, "You were a fool, Chris . . ." and fired once. I felt the bullet yank at my jacket but if it touched me I did not feel it. The revolver seemed to rise of its own accord until the sight on the end of the barrel lined up in the Vcut in the rear bench, directly on Klaus's chest. It was as if someone else were holding the gun, as if someone else took a deep breath and gently squeezed the trigger . . . lovingly like they had taught me. Klaus stopped, clutched at his chest . . . the rifle slid from his hands . . . he took a step toward me . . . then another and dropped to his knees. His face held a look of intense astonishment as if he could not believe that this had happened to him. He glanced down at his chest where the blood was beginning to flow and pitched forward.

I got to my feet and walked to him, knelt down beside him and turned him over gently, carefully in much the same way I had killed him. Klaus was still alive but the bullet had struck him in the middle of the chest, severing an artery because the blood pumped out in steady spurts. I put an arm around his head and eased his position. He opened his eyes and tried to say something. I bent down to hear . . . "We had a . . . bargain . . . Chris . ?" His eyes, filming quickly glared at me in anger. Yes, Klaus, I thought, we did have a bargain, but I also had two other bargains . . . with Pete and with Mikhail. You broke both of those. I knew he could not hear me and contented myself with nodding agreement.

Klaus stared at me and opened his mouth . . . and died, anger still on his face. I laid his head down and got up. The knapsack full of German marks was beneath him and I slipped his arms out of the straps and pulled it from under his body. It was full of currency all right . . . and a lot of good it would ever do either of us. There was some food as well, a package of cheese, almost gone, and a single strip of meat. I chewed on the meat as I walked slowly to the crest of the ridge. I found that blood was dripping from a wound in my side . . . where I must have been struck when Klaus fired at me, but it no longer mattered; I could not feel the pain and distantly realized that I was in shock. The heavy beat of the helicopter was back again

and this time I could see it through the rain. It was hovering over the ridge to land, but even that did not matter anymore. Klaus was dead and I had shot him, and the victory was pyrrhic at best, tasting of the proverbial ashes.

It was nearly eight hundred feet down the face of the slope, and in the wake of the rain there had come a stiff breeze which caught the bank notes as I emptied the pack. This money had come from the same source as the gold. Now it was going back to all those dead who had earned it with their lives. The wind caught at the dark green pieces of paper and whirled them away to the forest below. Maybe some day a wandering border patrol would find one or two rain-soaked and rotting bills .. . The helicopter had landed and Ley was running across the hump of the ridge toward me. I tossed the knapsack after the money and turned. Behind came a Burmese trooper with a Red Cross arm band. I went forward to meet them.

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