Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [100]
Jack had to drag Alli along with him as she started to drop back. “Come on!” he said urgently. “She’s right.”
“We can’t just leave her,” Alli cried.
“If we stop we’ll all be killed.” He nodded at the figure sprinting ahead of them. “In this instance Kirilenko has the right idea.”
Behind them, Annika knelt and, cupping one hand beneath the butt to steady the gun, aimed at the leading cop. Her left arm felt as if it were on fire. She took long, deep, slow breaths to manage the pain. The cops saw that she’d stopped and began a peppering fire in order to distract her, but she ignored the bullets whistling by her, squeezed off one shot, missed. The second shot caught the lead cop in the right side of his chest, spinning him around before he collapsed. The second cop started to zigzag, stutter-stepping in order to make himself a more difficult target. He fired as he came, forcing Annika to roll, come up on one knee, squeeze off a shot, then roll again.
Looking back, Alli broke away from Jack’s grip and ran back toward Annika. She ignored Jack’s yell, closed her ears to the pounding of his feet behind her. Neither Annika nor the cop were as yet aware of her, and she dropped her gaze to the field across which she ran. At last finding what she was searching for she slowed and scooped up a rock. Planting her feet with her left leg forward, she threw it with unerring accuracy. It struck the cop on the forehead, just a glancing blow, but it was enough to stop him in his tracks, enough time for Annika to come up on one knee, aim, and shoot him twice in the chest.
“MY GOOD Riet Medanovich,” Dyadya Gourdjiev said, “you should know there are two members of Trinadtsat downstairs even as we speak.”
“So after all this time you were playing us.” Boronyov drew a small-caliber pistol from his vest pocket. “You’ve betrayed us and everything we stand for.”
“Don’t be idiotic, I’ve done nothing of the sort,” Gourdjiev said dismissively. “Do you actually think you know what Trinadtsat is all about?”
“I know they’re after the same prize we desperately need if we’re to align ourselves with AURA and rise again as a dissident force Yukin can’t stamp out or bully.”
“Then you don’t know anything. Do us both a favor and keep your mind on what you’re meant to do. AURA needs your expertise and your contacts.” Gourdjiev put his back against the window and leaned on the broad sill. “Now please tell me what I want to know about who gave the FSB orders to assist Harry Martin and who Martin’s handler was.”
Boronyov said, “Let’s go down and talk to Batchuk’s ambassadors of pain.”
Gourdjiev was genuinely alarmed. “And announce to them that you’re still alive after all the trouble we went through to ‘kill’ you? That’s the last thing we’re going to do.” He came off the windowsill. “Where is this sudden aggression coming from?”
“Your relationship with Oriel Jovovich Batchuk. You two go way back, you grew up together, had each other’s back for years.”
A whiff of a revelation came to Gourdjiev. “This suspicion isn’t your style, Riet Medanovich.”
“No? Whose style is it?”
“Kharkishvili.”
Boronyov stared at him, silent as a sphinx.
“You understand what he’s doing.”
“He’s questioning the special relationship you have with Batchuk.”
As a gesture of frustration Gourdjiev jammed his hands into his coat pockets. “I’ve explained that.”
“No, you’ve explained nothing, or at least not to anyone’s satisfaction.”
“Be truthful, Riet Medanovich—”
“Have you been truthful with us?”
“I set you all up,” Gourdjiev said. “You, Kharkishvili, Malenko, the others. And now you think—”
“Kharkishvili says it’s all a con—a long con you cooked up with your good friend Batchuk.”
“That’s insane,” Gourdjiev said. “And furthermore don’t tell me you believe it, because I’ll laugh in your face.”
“At this delicate stage, when everything is at stake, it really doesn’t matter what I think or believe.”
“I see. All that matters is what Kharkishvili believes.”
“Think what you will.”
“Oh, I know what he’s