The Property of a Lady (69 page)

“And what do you want, Uncle?”

“Me?” He walked over to Genie and stood in front of her, his hands behind his back, swaying up and down on his built-up heels the way he always did when he wore his jackboots. “I want to achieve my life’s ambition. To destroy you both.
At last.”
Throwing back his head, he began to laugh, insane, uncontrollable laughter. Tears squeezed from his eyes and he coughed, turning purple as he began to choke.

Genie glanced, terrified, at Valentin as he eased the Luger from the holster and slid on the silencer, and her eyes and mouth rounded in alarm. He shook his head, putting his finger to his lips.

Boris heard the familiar
click
of a safety catch and spun around. He stared contemptuously at the Luger. “You would never get away with it,” he said with another snort of defiant laughter. “On a
Russian
ship? If you kill me you’ll never get off here alive—nor will she.” He grabbed Genie and held her in front of him. “You will have to kill her first,” he added with a triumphant smile.

Valentin shrugged indifferently and took aim, “It would probably make things easier if I did just that,” he said thoughtfully. “In fact, I could probably take you both with a single shot.”

Genie slumped forward, half fainting with terror, and Boris tugged her angrily upright again. She stared at Valentin in horror. She had thought he had come to her rescue and now he was going to kill her as well. Her head swam and she trembled as Boris tightened his grip.

“There is a way out of this,” Valentin said quietly. “You can walk off this ship with me now. We take the girl with us. I guarantee I will get you to the airport and onto that private jet back to Ankara. It is waiting on the runway now. You will be out of this international mess and no one will be any the wiser. Of course, if you choose not to …” His finger tightened on the trigger and Genie suddenly began to scream.

Boris thrust her back into her chair. Perspiration was trickling down his forehead. He licked his lips nervously, his small, treacherous eyes flickering around the cabin, searching for a way out.

“You have five seconds,” Valentin said coldly. “One … two … three …”

“Very well, I agree.” Boris’s voice was pitched high with fear as he held up a hand, palm outward, to stop the deadly count. “I will do as you say. But how do I know you will keep your word?”

Valentin shrugged. “Trust me,” he said coldly. “Untie the girl’s bonds.”

As Boris’s hand went to his pocket, Valentin jammed the revolver into his ribs. “I need my knife!” Boris shouted. The jackknife blade flashed under the harsh light of the electric bulb and the gun pressed against his temple as Valentin said quietly, “Just the rope, Uncle….”

Sighing, he slit the thin rope at Genie’s wrists and ankles. She moaned as the blood pumped painfully back into her hands and feet.

“Give me the knife, then put up your hands,” Valentin commanded. Boris did as he was told, standing stiffly
while Valentin frisked him, removing the heavy Colt that was his favorite weapon.

“Rub your feet, Genie,” Valentin ordered. “You must get the circulation going quickly. You will have to walk by yourself.”

She rubbed her raw ankles, searching the floor for her sneakers and forcing them onto her swollen feet, that were still burning with pins and needles. Valentin kept the gun trained on Boris, who was staring at it with the fascination of a cobra at a mongoose.

“You will go in front of me with Genie,” Valentin told him. “You will tell the guards that we are leaving. We will walk down the gangplank together and at the bottom we will walk toward the crane a hundred fifty yards on the left. Make no mistake, I will be right behind you. I will not take my eyes off you. And at a distance of two feet, I cannot miss.”

Boris’s mouth tightened but he made no reply, smoothing his bald head in a nervous gesture. His eyes darted from side to side as they stepped into the hold, searching for a sailor or a guard, anyone who could raise the alarm, cursing as he remembered that he had confined the crew to quarters until they sailed. He climbed the spiral steel ladders, glancing behind him once and meeting Valentin’s stare. Hate burned his guts. Valentin was just like his father.
He finally had both Ivanoff children together and he would see them in hell before he would let them get away
. He would bide his time, take care, be alert for an opportunity….

The troopers at the gangplank snapped to attention as they appeared. Boris spoke to them quickly and they saluted and stepped aside. Valentin was two steps behind them as they filed down the gangplank, his hand on the Luger in his pocket. The area around the ship was shrouded in darkness, and as they walked away Boris felt the thrust of the gun in his ribs. He could hear Genie moaning as she stumbled along behind him.

After ordering Boris into the backseat, Valentin gave Genie the gun. “Sit next to him. If he makes a single move, pull the trigger. You can’t miss.”

Boris smiled confidently as he saw how her hand shook. Now he knew he had his chance. “I didn’t know you two knew each other,” he said silkily. “It just goes to show what a small world it is.”

As Valentin switched on the engine Boris said, “Don’t you think it’s odd, Valentin, that you knew her? That the answer was right there in Washington all this time?”

Their eyes met in the mirror and he gave a snort of laughter as he realized Valentin didn’t know what he was talking about. “You didn’t know,” he marveled. “You
still
don’t know, you
still
don’t understand….”

The Luger thudded against his ribs and Genie said, “Shut up, you bastard, or I’ll kill you right now.”

“Are you all right?” Valentin asked.

She turned to look at him and in that split second Boris thrust downward on her hand. There was a dull
plop
as her finger slid nervously on the trigger but the bullet passed harmlessly through the floor of the car, and then the Luger was in Boris’s hands. He held it to Valentin’s neck, the sweat trickling down his bald head into his collar, one eye on Genie shrinking back in the corner, ready to kill her if she moved. “Get out of the car,” he ordered. “Start walking back to the ship. If you try to run away, I’ll shoot.”

She hesitated. She knew it would take Boris only a second to switch the gun from Valentin to her if she tried to run. A second was all she had to save herself and Valentin.

“Hurry!”
he screamed.
“Move!”

She half turned as if to open the door and then flung herself recklessly on the hand holding the gun. The Luger dropped to the floor again. Shouting a string of curses, Boris pushed her away and bent to pick it up. His fingers
had just closed around the gun when Genie stamped on them as hard as she could.

Valentin was out of the car and hauling Boris out by his collar. He pinned him against the door, lashing a sideways chop to the carotid artery at the left of his neck. Boris’s eyes spat hatred for a moment before they glazed and then he slumped silently to the ground.

Genie limped around the car and stared down at him. She licked her lips nervously. “Is he …?” she asked in a small, frightened voice.

Valentin nodded. “It was the only way,” he said tiredly. “Me or him. That’s the way it has always been. Now it’s over.”

She looked about to faint and he put his arm protectively around her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. It’s just shock, I guess. And my foot. I thought it was going to explode when I stamped on him.”

“Sit in the car,” he said quietly. “I have to take care of him.”

She climbed into the passenger seat, watching numbly as Valentin slung Boris over his shoulder and disappeared into the darkness. A few moments later she heard a faint splash, then the sound of his hurrying footsteps as he returned to her.

The Scorpio’s engine was still running. He slid it into gear and swung around, heading in the direction of the city. As they joined the evening traffic four police cars sped past them, blue lights flashing and sirens blaring, heading toward Istinye. She turned to watch them. “Are they really going to the freighter?” she asked.

He smiled wryly. “I concocted the story for Boris’s benefit, but it turned out to be true.”

He cut across the hills, past the smart hotels, and down through Taksim Square. Genie was trembling with shock. It all looked so familiar, so normal. If it were not for Valentin she would still be on the freighter, still at the mercy of that evil man….

Valentin fought his way through the traffic jam at the Galata Bridge, heading for Eminonu; he cut through the back streets behind the Spice Market and stopped outside a sleazy hotel with a green neon sign proclaiming it the Hotel Tourist. The sign had all the
T’s
missing and it was the kind of cheap rooming place where there was no desk clerk after seven in the evening and guests were expected to let themselves in and out. It suited Valentin’s purpose better than his earlier room at Emirgan.

He put a helping arm under Genie’s shoulders as she limped across the pavement. “Two flights of stairs,” he said, picking her up. “You’ll never make it.”

She clung to him like a frightened child, burying her face in his neck. Valentin had saved her. He loved her. He would call Michael and soon she would be back home and she would never do anything as stupid as this again. She just wished Cal were there too so she could confess what a fool she had been and ask him to forgive her for causing so much trouble.

The American air force C21A, a six-seater twin-turbo fan jet, dropped from an attitude of 41, 000 feet through the clouds clustered over Turkey and landed at a small airfield north of Istanbul. It had been a long flight from Washington’s Andrews Air Base with only half an hour on the ground for refueling at Gander, Newfoundland, and again at Upper Heyford in England. The pilot turned and grinned at Cal. “Feel any better?”

“Sure. Now we’re on the ground.” He unbuckled his seat belt, sighing with relief as they taxied toward a concrete apron to the left of the runway. “I feel like I left my breakfast back in Washington just a couple of hours ago.”

“You’ll wish you did when you get a loada that Turkish food,” the pilot commented. “Tripe soup. Yuk. Watch out for the eyeballs.”

“I thought they only served that stuff in Arabia.” Cal laughed as he shook hands.

“Y’never know.” The pilot gave him the thumbs-up sign, grinning.

“Thanks for the ride,” Cal called as he turned away.

Men in greenish uniforms were running toward him waving guns and he decided he’d better stay where he was.

“Identification?” The officer in charge held out his hand while his sidekick covered Cal with a rifle.

He handed over his diplomatic passport and a copy of
his special briefing from the White House, waiting quietly while the officer inspected them.

“Very good, Mr. Warrender,” the Turk said in perfect English. “We have a helicopter waiting to take you to Istanbul.”

He could see the C21A refueling for his return trip to Washington as he walked across to the helicopter. It was a small camouflage-green bubble with open sides and Cal groaned. The aerobatic rapid-transit flight in the air force jet had been more than enough for his vertigo. Somebody should have told them he hated heights.

The baby-faced pilot saluted and he groaned again, closing his eyes as the rotors began to whine: The Turks had
kids
flying these things, for God’s sake….

He didn’t open them again until fifteen minutes later when the pilot said, “Sir, we are coming in to land.” Istanbul lay below him, lighted by a full moon and strung with a million sparkling lights, and he heaved a sigh of relief; getting to grips with the KGB would be nothing compared with this trip.

A long black Mercedes limo was waiting on the tarmac and inside it were the American consul, the Turkish foreign minister, and Ahmet Kazahn.

“It’s not looking good, Cal,” Jim Herbert said after the introductions were completed. “The chief of police searched the freighter and found only half a dozen Russian troops. Of course that is a grave offense—foreign soldiers on a cargo ship in Turkish waters—but it didn’t further our cause any.”

Cal’s heart sank; he had been
sure
she was on the ship.

“But we
know
she was on there,” he said angrily.

The foreign minister nodded. “Pretty sure. The captain claims he knew nothing, just that they were to expect an important visitor—maybe an admiral—hence the troops.” He sighed. “I ask you, a Russian admiral visiting a rusting old freighter, what excuse will they think of next? But the police did find some pieces of rope in a small cabin in the
hold. They had obviously been used to tie someone up and then cut off.”

“Then how did they get her off the ship?”

He shrugged. “We had a flotilla of powerful speedboats surrounding Istinye, so it could not have been by sea. The police were delayed by a bus that got stuck trying to turn a tight corner, blocking the only through road. They must have arrived just minutes too late.”

The telephone buzzed and he picked it up. “Guisen,” he said, nodding as he listened. “You are sure?” he asked in Turkish. “There was identification? I understand. Thank you.”