The Minotaur (51 page)

Toad went first, walking around the car while the driver in the
doorway held a pistol on him.

Then it was Jake’s turn. From the garage he entered a kitchen.
Through the sliding glass door he could see a backyard swing.

“The basement.”

Jake went down the stairs. The slanted ceiling was so low he had
to tilt his head.

The older of the two men, the man who had ridden in the back-
seat with Jake, held out his hand toward Toad. “The handcuff
key.”

Toad extracted it from his pocket and passed it across. The man
used it to unlock the briefcase from Jake’s wrist and cuff him to a
chair. The driver produced a set of cuffs from a trouser pocket and
cuffed Tarkington to a table. ”

As the driver sat on the couch with his pistol on his lap and lit a
cigarette, the older man examined the lock on the briefcase. He
glanced at Jake. “The combination?”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, Captain. Do you honestly think I couldn’t open the case
without it? I merely wished to save myself several minutes of ef-
fort.”

Jake told him the combination. The man had it open in thirty
seconds, scooped out the documents, and after glancing at his
watch, sat down on the couch to read them.

“Who are you?” Toad asked.

“Does it matter?” the reader asked without looking up.

“Not right now. But I’d like a name to give to the FBI.”

The man just chuckled dryly and continued reading.

After a while—Jake wasn’t sure how long, since he couldn’t see
his watch—the man said, “This Athena device, a superconductive
computer with multiple CPUs, do you think it can be successfully
produced in three years?”

Jake said nothing- His stomach felt like he had swallowed a
stone.

“Oh well, I don’t have the time to get the answers, and I doubt
that you would be forthright in any event. But it certainly is an
interesting technological development. You Americans! A nation of
tinkerers. What will you think of next?”

He went back through the documents slowly, taking his time,
studying them. His pistol lay on the table beside him, within easy
reach. Twice he glanced at his watch.

Jake looked around the room. The driver kept his eyes”on him or
Toad all the time. His pistol lay in his lap. Toad had both wrists
cuffed together around the leg of a rather large table. Still, given a
few seconds, he could lift the leg and be free of the table. Obviously
that possibility did not concern the two gunmen very much. If
Toad tried it. he would be shot or pistol-whipped within seconds.

Jake’s cuffs went through the arm of a chair. Beside the chair sat
a floor lamp, but to reach it with his right hand, he would need to
stick his left hand under this chair arm. It was temptingly close,
but he would need an opportunity. And if he got it, what then?

What did those instructors always say at SERE—Survival, Eva-
sion, Resistance, and Escape—school? Never give up. Stay ready.
Your chance will come.

These guys were waiting for someone. That much was obvious.
Who? ?

They had been in the basement for almost an hour when the
stocky man spoke to the driver. ‘Upstairs now, I think. Be sure to
unplug the garage-door opener.”

“Yes, sir.” The driver went.

“Are you X?” Toad asked.

The stocky man threw back his head and laughed. “That is
good. Very good. You are a real comedian.”

“He’s not X,” Jake said.

“Ah, Captain. What makes you say that?”

Jake didn’t answer.

“A captain in the U.S. Navy knows the identity of X.
Or at least knows who he is not. Interesting. Instructive. Ill bet
you are a fount of interesting information. Captain. No doubt we’ll
have time later this evening to elicit some of it”

He walked toward Jake with his back toward Toad. Jake tried to
keep his eyes on the gunman, yet still he saw Toad bend down and
grasp the table leg. It came off the floor. Even as it did the gunman
whirled with his pistol at arm’s length, leveled in both hands,
pointed straight at Toad’s face. “What makes you think,” he asked
easily, “that I need you alive?”

Toad let the table leg go back down to the floor. “Oh,” he said
lightly, trying to smile and not succeeding, “I thought you liked
my witty repartee.”

“I do like you. With a mouth like yours you should be in Holly-
wood in the movies, not pushing paper at the Pentagon.” The
gunman lowered the gun and took the seat on the couch that the
driver had vacated, a place where he could watch both men with a
minimum of effort- “Now I think we will sit silently, not saying a
word. Like mice.”

“You’re a cocksucker,” Toad said.

The gunman looked at him and pursed his lips slightly.

“A genuine cocksucker. A cheap dick-sucking spook with a gun,
a man who thinks everybody should faint dead away when he pulls
out his weapon. Is that what they do when you whip out your
dick? Is that—“

The gunman was very quick. He was moving and chopping with
the pistol all in one motion.

Toad Tarkington was just as quick. He came off the chair and
kicked mightily with his right leg. It caught the man in the knee
and he lost his balance. Toad was erect now, the table banging
from his cuffs, his leg swinging again. This kick hit the gunman in
the arm. The pistol went flying.

Jake leaped from the chair, dragging it. The lamp fell over- He
dragged the heavy chair toward the pistol on the floor. Toad was
still kicking.

He was almost to the gun when he heard the shot and saw a
chunk fly from the carpet just in front of him.

He froze. The driver came down the stairs with the gun leveled.
“Get back.” He gestured threateningly at Toad, who seemed to
shrink as his muscles relaxed. Tarkington exhaled convulsively,
then turned slightly to find the chair he had been sitting on. At that
moment the driver hit him a vicious blow in the back of the head
with the gun and he fell heavily, overturning the table.

The second man helped the stocky man to the couch. He was
still holding his stomach. He had blood on the comer of his mouth.
Apparently one of Toad’s kicks had taken him in the face.

“Upstairs. Get back upstairs. Get me my gun first.”

The second man obeyed, then went back up the stairs.

“Sit in the chair. Captain, right where you are. Sit! One move,
just one, and I’ll kill you and the lieutenant. Understand?”

Jake made the smallest of head nods. He sat.

Time passed. Minute by minute. The gunman on the couch
massaged his arm and leg. Toad had really connected. Twice the
man wiped the sweat from his face with his shirttail.

Toad stirred once. The table was on end beside him. He lay amid
the magazines and newspapers that had gone flying when he jerked
the table off the floor. Toad seemed to be breathing easily.

Jake heard the shuffling on the floor above him. and faintly the
sound of a door closing. In seconds he heard someone walking
above, then steps on the stair. He turned his head. Legs descend-
ing.

Luis Camacho walked into the room with the driver behind him,
his gun in Camacho’s back. “Hi, Harlan. Didn’t know if I was
going to see you again.”

Camacho walked over to the couch and seated himself next to
Albright “Jesus, what have you idiots done to my basement?”

Albright gestured at Tarkington, who was stirring again. “That
fucker thought he was a hero.”

“Looks like that table has a busted leg. My wife isn’t going to be
happy.”

The driver stood near the bottom of the stairs where he could
watch everyone. He kept the pistol leveled at Caroacho,

“Well, Captain,” Camacho said. “You’ve had an eventful after-
noon.”

“Yeah,” Jake replied. “Who are these guys?”

“Well, the man beside me goes by the name of Harlan Albright
His real name is Peter Aleksandrovich Chistyakov, And this gen-
tleman with the pistol at the bottom of the stairs—though I have
never before had the pleasure—is, I think. Major Arkady Yakov of
the Soviet Army.”

“Okay,” Albright said, “thanks for the introductions.” He rose
from the couch and turned Toad’s table upright, then pulled a
chair around and sat on it, facing Camacho.

“You know why I’m here. I thought since I was going to drop
by, I might as well help myself to some Athena information on the
way. It was very interesting. But it is you I want.”

“How droll. I wanted to talk to you too. You should have
called.”

“You’re going to give me some answers, Luis. Now. If you don’t,
first we’re going to kill the lieutenant. Then the captain. Then you. I want
answers.”

“What will you do with them if you get them?”

Albright’s eyes widened. He took three steps across to the tele-
phone at the end of the couch, picked it up and held it to his ear.
He jiggled the button on the cradle, then replaced the instrument.
“Upstairs, Yakov. Check the front and back.”

The major took the stairs two at a time.

In about a minute he was back. He spoke to Albright in a foreign
language, one that sounded to Jake like Russian.

“This is a setup.”

Camacho shrugged. “My people saw you drive in. I thought you
might be by to see me sooner or later. Didn’t know who you
brought with you, though. Sorry, Captain.”

Jake nodded.

Camacho stood and shook out his trousers. ‘Tell you what,
Harlan. Let’s you and I go downtown. We can talk there. No sense
keeping these fellows any longer.”

Albright took his pistol from his pocket. “Sit”

When Camacho obeyed, Albright followed suit, back at the ta-
ble. He rubbed his eyes. “So.” He spoke a sentence in Russian.

Camacho waved a hand irritably. “You know I can’t handle that
language anymore. English or nothing.”

“You’ve been stringing me right along, haven’t you, Luis?”

Camacho’s shoulders moved a quarter inch up, then subsided.

“That name you gave me. That was bullshit, wasn’t it?”

“No. That was the name.”

“Why?”

“You have something we want. At least we think you have it
You’re going to give it to me, Harlan. Hard or easy, you’re going to
give it to me.”

‘Tell me what you want and maybe I’ll give it to you now.”

Camacho threw back his head and laughed. “You want to de-
fect?”

Albright’s eyebrows went up. “Maybe.”

“Then shoot the major.”

“Just like that?”

“Then we’ll talk. That would be the easy way. The hard way will
be more strenuous, but equally productive, I think.”

Albright glanced at the major, who was looking straight at Ca-
macho. Still, Jake saw the major’s eyes flick sideways to catch
Albright’s glance.

“You can’t get out of here, Harlan,” Camacho said, and
stretched lazily. “The place is completely surrounded, with heli-
copters and light planes overhead. Why don’t you two give me the
guns and we’ll go upstairs and wave at Dreyfus. Then you and I
can go downtown to the office. I’m sure the two of us can work
something out.”

“I may not know the fact you want, Luis.”

“I think you do.”

“You’ve gone to an extraordinary lot of trouble for nothing if I
don’t know it.”

“Life’s like that.”

“Maybe I could just give it to you here and now. If I know it.”

Camacho sat silently looking at Albright. “Three names.” he
said at last.

Albright laughed, a long, loud guffaw. “All of this—for that?” .

“Yes.”

“My hat is off to you. I salute you. Never did I suspect. Not even
once.” Albright shook his head and chuckled silently as he ex-
amined his pistol.

Camacho sat motionless, watching Albright.

“You do know,” the FBI agent said finally, when all the laugh-
ing had stopped.

“You found the bomb?”

“Yes.”

“It was a warning. I needed that name.”

“I know. Hard or easy. Your choice.”

“You mean it?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll take you and Captain Grafton as hostages,” Albright
said, rising from the chair. He glanced toward Yakov and jerked
his head at Jake. As Yakov stepped in that direction Albright shot
him.

Yakov spun, firing at Albright. The bullet hit Albright square in
the chest and his pistol sagged, exploding again pointed at the
floor. At almost the same instant Toad Tarkington lashed out with
his feet, and Albright went sideways as a foot was kicked out from
under him. Yakov’s second shot hit his shoulder and he spun from
the impact as he fell.

Yakov’s third shot came as he was falling. It was aimed at Cama-
cho. who was still sitting on the couch. He hadn’t moved.

Camacho doubled over as Yakov hit the floor.

Jake toppled his chair going for Yakov’s pistol. He wrestled the
gun from the major’s weak grasp and crouched beside the chair, on
top of the Russian major as he watched Albright

The whole sequence hadn’t taken five seconds.

Toad got to his feet. He was free of the table. He bent down
shakily and retrieved the pistol that Albright had dropped. “This
‘ one’s still alive.”

“Quick,” Jake said. “Check Camacho.”

Jake held the gun on the major’s head as Toad stretched Cama-
cho on the couch. “He’s hit lower down,” Toad said. “Dead center.
Still alive, though.”

“Go upstairs. Get the agents.” Toad made for the stairs. “Put
the gun in your pocket,” Jake called after him. “Don’t let them
shoot you.”

Camacho sat up on one elbow.

“Is he dead?” be whispered hoarsely, looking at the major.

“No,” Jake said. “He’s hit in the right side, but he isn’t dead. He
may make it.”

“Kill him.”

“Why?”

“He heard too much. Kill him!” Camacho coughed, a bubbly
gurgle.

Jake moved toward Camacho, dragging the chair. Behind him
Major Yakov began to crawl.

“Give me the gun,” Camacho said.

“No.”

“This isn’t a game, Grafton! Give me the gun!”