The Red Horseman (44 page)

Toad must have laid the pistol on the table in
front of Yakolev, because he was standing there opening a
pocketknife-probably to cut the plastic ties
around the Russian’s wrists-when Yakolev elbowed
him hard and he fell away, off balance.

“No!” Yocke yelled, almost as the first shot
hammered his eardrums.

Mikhailov’s head went sideways-a bullet
right above the ear. Then Yakolev was shooting at
Saddam Hussein.

Boom, boom, boom-the pistol’s trip-hammer
reports were painfully magnified in the confines of the
room.

The Iraqi dictator came half out of his
chair on the first shot into Mikhailov, so he took
the next three standing up, at a distance of about ten
feet. A burst of silenced submachine gun fire
followed the pistol shots almost instantly.

Yakolev went face forward onto the
table as Saddam Hussein fell back into his
chair and the chair and the body went over backward with a
crash. The whole sequence didn’t take more than
three or four seconds.

I’SHIT, I think they’re all dead.”
Tarkington’s voice. He stood and slowly looked
around.

Jake Grafton got up from the floor and
examined the Russians. Yocke tried to recall
when Jake went down and couldn’t.

“Yakolev is dead,” Jake said.
“Mikhailov is still breathing. One right above the
left ear. I don’t think he’s gonna make it,
but … Dalworth, go get a medic.”

Yocke pushed by the horrified Iraqi
interpreter, who stood frozen with his hands
half-raised. Toad was bending over the body of the
dictator, which was lying on its side.

Toad rolled him over. Saddam had three
holes in his chest, one in the left shoulder, one dead
center, and the other a little lower down. His eyes were
fixed on the ceiling. Toad released a wrist and
announced, “No pulse.”

Saddam Hussein was as dead as Petty Officer
Murphy.

and that Iraqi Jack Yocke had knifed in
Samarra, the soidier with the rifle he had mowed
down. Dead.

Toad Tarkington stood looking down at
Saddam’s face as he folded his pocketknife and
dropped it into a pocket.

He held the pistol Yakolev had used with his
left hand wrapped around the action, so the barrel and
butt were both visible. That looks like Saddam’s
pistol, Yocke thought, but he couldn’t be sure.

Toad glanced up and met the reporter’s gaze.

Jack Yocke took a last look at the
Iraqi dictator, then walked for the door.
McElroy was replacing the magazine in his weapon.
He didn’t bother to look at Yocke as he went
by.

Out in the hangar bay the reporter ran into another
television crew, this one still shooting footage of
soldiers loading nuclear warheads onto pallets
and the pallets into helicopters.

“Were those shots we heard in there? What
happened?”

The Feporter shoved a microphone at him.

“Saddam Hussein is dead,” Jack Yocke
said slowly. “A Russian general
killed him.”

“Holy … to C’mon, Harry, grab the
lights. Ladies and gentlemen, we are
broadcasting live from the Iraqi base at and we have
just learned that Saddam Hussein is dead! Stay with
us while-was

Yocke walked on through the hangar and went
outside.

One of the Sky Cranes was lifting off with a
Russian missile slung beneath.

The rotors created a terrific wind that almost
lifted Yocke’s helmet off. He watched the
machine transition into forward flight and disappear into the
darkness, JAKE GRAFTON WAS ASLEEP
WHEN HE HEARD THE KNOCK-+ on the
door. “Just a minute.” He pulled on his
trousers and opened it.

Yocke walked in lugging his computer. “I’ve
written a story and I need to phone it into the paper.
You’ll have to read it on the computer.”

He turned on the desk lamp and set up the
machine.

Jake seated himself in front of the screen and put
on his reading glasses. “You push the buttons.”

was Okay.”

As Jake finished each page, he nodded and
Yocke brought up the next one.

The story was an eyewitness account of the air
assault on Samarra, the recovery of the nuclear
weapons, and the death of Saddam Hussein. Yocke
got down to cases on the third page.

Just before the news conference was to begin, General
Yakolev seized a pistol from an American
officer and shot Marshal Mikhailov and Saddam
Hussein before he himself was shot by a guard. Hussein
was shot three times and died instantly. Mikhailov
suffered a severe head wound and died
approximately an hour later. Ya kolev was
dead at the scene.

Jake got out of the chair and switched on more
lights.

“I thought you weren’t going to write fiction,” he
said to the reporter.

“There isn’t a word in there that isn’t true.

“Well . .

“Look, you’re doing the best you can with your
weapons, I’m using mine.”

“You know, Jack,” Jake Grafton said
softly, “that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me,
but I don’t know that it’s true. Arranging
that little shoot-out was the dirtiest thing I ever did.”

“You were going to shoot Saddam yourself, weren’t you?”

Jake Grafton ran his fingers through his hair.
“Well, not at first.

After that talk with Yakolev I thought he’d do it,
and I felt dirty. I wanted Saddam dead! But
if I killed him the political implications would
be unpredictable, and perhaps profound. Then in that
room listening to him spout bullshit, I thought what
the bell, maybe we’ll kill each other.”

“He wouldn’t play, so you let Yakolev shoot
him.”

“Something like that.”

“I’m not ever going to print this.”

“I know, Jack.”

“But did someone in Washington want Saddam
dead?”

“If they did they never said it to me.” Jake
met Yocke’s eyes. “I learned a long time
ago in the military that you can have all the authority you
are willing to use, but God help you if you screw
up.”

“Did you know Yakolev was going to shoot
Mikhailov?”

“No. I’m sorry he did. That was his
decision.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“Hell, what is there to do? I’m going to live with
it.”

“Do you feel guilty?”

Jake Grafton made a gesture of
irritation.

“You did what had to be done.”

Jake Grafton rubbed his face. “I thought so
then, and I thought so when I sent Lieutenant
Lutkin on to Moscow in a chopper that I
suspected was going to be shot down, when I stuffed
those damn poison pills into Herb Tenney’s mouth
. . . but!” He gestured helplessly. “When all
the preachers have shouted themselves out, the bottom line is
that people shouldn’t kill people who aren’t trying to kill them.”
His gaze shifted to Yocke’s face. “The easiest
lie ever told is that old nugget you tell yourself,
I’m doing what has to be done.”

“You’re not feeling sorry for Saddam Hussein
and Yakolev and Herb Tenney, are you? They were
guilty.”

Jake Grafton laid a hand on Yocke’s
arm. “I’m feeling sorry for myself, Jack. They
got what they deserved all right, but what do
I deserve? I’m not God. I don’t want his
job.”

“This is the real world, Admiral, not some class
in metaphysics. Herb Tenney murdered people with
poison and died of it himself. An absolute
despot and two wanta-beside are dead-they did it
to each other. You didn’t pull the trigger.

“That’s sophistry, Jack. You should have been a
lawyer, his

Jack Yocke exploded. “Goddamnit,
Admiral! I’ve had it with all these people who
tut-tut over the state of the world and won’t do
anything.

Mass murder, starvation, tyrannyit’s damn
near two thousand years since Christ and . . .”

He gestured helplessly. “Guilt seems to be
the in drug of the nineties.

Okay, I’ll drink my share. I’m glad
Saddam’s dead … and those two Russian
gangsters in uniform. Looking back, I wish I
had pulled the trigger.”

Yocke swallowed hard. “I killed a man
last night with a knife. Honest, there was no other
way. I had to do it. It was him or me. Then I
panicked and gunned a soldier or
militiaman who was banging at me with a bolt-action
rifle.

I wish I hadn’t shot him. I shouldn’t have shot
him.” He wived the perspiration from his face. “I
knew at the time the he was no threat, but you know …
I wanted to kill him. Do you understand?”

Jake Grafton nodded.

“I’ve been thinking about those two men all day,”
Yocke continued.

“Thinking about guilt, about what I should have done,
what . . .” He took a deep breath and exhaled
audibly. Now he looked at his hands. “dis

. what I wish I had done. But it’s over. And
I have to live with it.”

Jake Grafton cleared his throat. “I can
live with it too.”

His voice became softer. “Maybe that’s why it
worked out the way it did.”

Jack Yocke bobbed his head.

“How’s your arm?”

“Fifteen stitches, but the cut wasn’t deep.”

Grafton stood. “Call your story in. I’m
going back to bed.

“Toad says you always try to do the right thing. I
think he’s right.

“I hope he is,” Jake said. He extended
his hand. Yocke took it and squeezed.

Yocke closed the door behind him and walked down
the hallway of the makeshift BOQ. He called his
story in as it was written, not changing a word.

Then he stood looking out the window at the desert.

The sun was overhead and heat mirages distorted the
horizon.

After his return to the United States from Saudi
Arabia, Jack Yocke threw himself at the word
processor. His articles on the upheaval in the
former Soviet states were well received and widely
reprinted. He called the Graftons and invited
them out on two occasions, but the first evening he had
to cancel and the second time the admiral got tied up
at work.

Yocke understood. Jake was the new director
of the Defense Intelligence Agency and was busy
trying to stay on top of rapidly changing events in
the former Soviet states and the Middle East.

As Jake Grafton had predicted, the CIA
problem took care of itself. As September turned
into October Jack found the obituary of Harvey
Schenler buried on a back page.

Although the story didn’t say so,
by Yocke’s count Schenler was the fourth high-ranking
CIA officer to die since mid-August. According to the
press releases, all died of natural causes.
In their sleep.

Jack called Admiral Grafton at the
office, and got him.

“Congratulations on the new job.”

“Thank you, Jack. How are things going for you?”

“Oh, just sitting here reading the obituaries.
Seems that a deputy director of the CIA died
in his sleep last night.

Guy named Schenler. Heart failure.”

“Well, all things considered, it’s not a bad
way to go,” Jake Grafton told him.

“Fourth CIA bigwig in the last six weeks.
Must be something in the water over at Langley.”

“It was their choice. Protects their families
and the institution.

“How is the Toad-man?”

con”Doing fine.”

“Think I’ll ever get to write anything about
Schenler and his pals?”

“I doubt it,” Jake said promptly.
“Certainly not anytime 11 He paused, then
continued with a hint of concern soon.

in his voice: “You aren’t running out of stuff
to write about, are you?”

“We’re managing to keep the paper
full-turmoil in the Middle East, a revolution
in Iraq, Yeltsin still riding the tiger and trying not
to get eaten. Same old song, different verse.
How’s Callie and Amy?”

“Doing fine, Jack. Doing fine. I’ll tell
them you asked.”

“Well, I’ll let you go, Admiral. But the
reason I calledIjust wanted to say thanks.”

“For what?”

“For taking me along, for keeping me alive, for
making me a part of the team. Thanks.”

“Take care, Jack.”

In October Jack was notified by the Russian
embassy that his request for an in-depth interview
with Boris Yeltsin had been granted.

When he checked into the Metropolitan Hotel
in Moscow there was some difficulty about the bill from his
previous visit-they had held his room for a week
after his hurried departure to the U.s. embassy.
He had a tense conference with the manager. After a
call back to Washington, he agreed to pay the
disputed amount.

Once again the barman greeted him by name. The oil
painting of the nobleman outside the Kremlin walls
hadn’t been cleaned. Jack Yocke sat staring up
at it and thinking of Shirley Ross, or Judith
Farrell, as Toad and Jake had called her.

After his interview with Yeltsin, he took a
taxi to the entrance to Gorky Park, then walked
east. The statues of Stalin and his henchman now lay
in the early winter snow surrounded by naked trees.
The branches swayed in the bitter wind.

Jack found where a bullet had scarred the last
bronze standing upright.

He fingered the mark as he took in the scene one
last time, then buried his hands in his pocket and
walked back to the waiting taxi.

In November Yocke was invited to speak on the
problems facing Russia at a symposium at
Georgetown University. He was seated on the
stage near the podium nervously fingering his notes and
waiting for the lights to dim when he saw them come in:
Rita Moravia, Toad Tarkington, Amy and
Callie and Jake Grafton. They found seats
along the left side of the auditorium.

Rita looked pregnant, Yocke noted with
surprise.

Amy Carol waved, so he waved back. Jake
and Toad returned his grin.

Both the women smiled at him.

A warm glow settled over Jack Yocke.
It’s good to have real friends, he told himself, and he was
very fortunatehe had five. Perhaps they would like to go out for
coffee and ice cream later this evening when the
lecture was over.

He would ask.

Jake Grafton put the bottle containing the
tablets of binary poison into a desk drawer at his
office and forgot about them. Through the winter and the rains of
spring, through meetings, briefings and staff conferences,
through turmoil and upheaval in Iraq and Russia,
through coups in South America, through wars in the
Balkans and another round of mass starvation in the
horn of Africa, the pills stayed in the drawer.