The Paris Option - Страница 25

The faux cleric had hoped to observe a meeting that would give him what he had come to Toledo to learn. But what he saw now was no meeting. The Basque militant he had recognized in Paris, Elizondo Ibarguengoitia, had led him first to San Sebastian and then here to Toledo, but there was no sign of the kidnapped woman. Nor of any corroboration of the suspicions of the cleric's bosses.

He was growing irritated by so much nonsense. Dangerous nonsense, at that. Which was why he held an even more unclerical item a silenced 9mm Glock.

This time his wait was brief. A rangy, athletic man appeared from the plaza.

"Bloody damn!" the faux cleric grumbled, surprised.

Shortly afterward, the five Basques also emerged onto the street, one by one. Each carried a pistol, held discreetly down at their sides, convenient for use but only barely visible to anyone else. The cleric left the shelter of the corner.

Halfway down the alley, Smith flattened back against the building, Sig Sauer steady in both hands. He focused on the mouth of the alley where he had just entered. A trio of tourists a well-dressed man and two young women danced past on the street, in rhythm with the throbbing music. They were having a good time, oblivious to the tense drama around them.

As they disappeared from sight, Smith continued to wait, And wait. It was only a few seconds, but it seemed like an hour. As a new tune began, the thickset Basque peered around the corner, weapon and face at the same time. Smith squeezed off a silenced round, aimed carefully-high; he wanted to hit no innocent bystander. The noise was lost in the loud music, and the bullet bit just where he wanted — into the wall above the Basque's head.

With an explosion of smoke, sharp-edged pieces of brick hailed down on the killer. He made a guttural sound and fell back, as if yanked by a leash. Which made Smith smile grimly. Then he ran.

No gunshots followed him, and he swerved into an intersecting alley. Threw himself back against the wall again, flat. No head or gun followed around the corner. Relieved, he ran again, now steeply uphill, surveying everywhere as he dodged through a jungle of deserted passageways, and his path leveled. As the music faded in the background, the last few notes sounded foreboding, somehow menacing.

Sweating, he sprinted on, encountered a man who was walking along, kicking a stone ahead of him, weaving as if he'd had too much vino. The man looked up and stared at Smith's harried appearance as if he were looking at an apparition. He turned abruptly and scrambled away.

When Smith saw no more of the terrorists, he began to hope he had lost them. He would have to wait, then he would double back to their house. He looked behind once more, expecting the passageway to be empty. Then he heard the distinctive pop-pop of a silenced pistol, and simultaneously a bullet burned past his cheek. Chips burst out from the wall where the bullet struck. Another silenced gunshot followed, and a piercing whine echoed as the bullet ricocheted off walls, hit the cobblestones, and clattered into a corner, trapped.

By that time, Smith was flat on his belly, raised up on his elbows. He squeezed off two rounds at two indistinct shapes in the night.

There was a loud, bloodcurdling scream. And he was alone again. The street dark, claustrophobic. He must have hit one.

But he was not quite alone. A shadow as dark as the night, the walls, and the cobblestones lay on the empty street not a hundred feet away. He rose to his haunches and, staying low, approached cautiously. The thick figure of a man took shape arms flung wide, blood spreading, making the cobblestones gleam liquidly with moonlight. Blank eyes stared up, sightless. Smith recognized him the squat, pockmarked man he had seen first in Paris. Now he was dead.

He heard a faint crunch on the cobblestones and looked up from where he crouched. There were the remaining men. Moving toward him.

Smith leaped up and ran through another confusion of streets and alleys, up and down among the densely packed buildings, where even the narrowest streets seemed to have to fight their way through architecture for room. He crossed a broader street where tourists craned to look upward, admiring a row of unadorned houses built for ordinary townspeople in the Middle Ages. Near them were two of the terrorists, their gazes sweeping the area. Because they were not looking at the houses, too, they stood out like wolves against the snow.

Smith turned and ran again. Their shouts followed as he accelerated away along another street just as a car turned into it from the other end. A family group hopped into recessed doorways to let the sporty Fiat pass. The Basques were too close. Desperate, he raised his free hand over his eyes and dashed straight toward the car, its headlights almost blinding him.

Smith bellowed a warning. He heard brakes screech. The Fiat laid rubber in its effort to halt, the stink nasty in the air. The vehicle slammed to a stop less than ten feet before it would have hit him, and Smith never broke stride. He leaped up onto the hood. His athletic shoes struggled for traction, caught on the shiny paint, and he raced across the roof and over the trunk. He was drenched in sweat when he landed. He kept running.

Gunshots whined past as the terrorists tried to get a bead on him. He wove back and forth, panting, his whole body straining. Window glass shattered above him from a stray bullet. A woman shouted, and a baby cried. Smith heard the Basques yelling as they stormed up over the Fiat, too, slipping and scrambling. The last sound he heard from the alley was their thundering feet. And he was neither safe, nor had he found out a damn thing about Thérèse Chambord or the molecular computer.

Angry, he changed direction again, this time weaving through new slumbering streets. He watched frantically all around. Finally he saw an open area of bright light ahead and heard the sounds of people laughing and talking.

He slowed, trying to catch his breath. He approached the area cautiously and realized it was the Plaza del Conde. On the other side was the Casa y Museo del Greco. This was the old Jewish quarter, the Juderia, in the southwest part of the city, just above the river. Although he saw no one immediately suspicious, he knew the terrorists could not be far away. Elizondo would not give up easily, and in the end, although Toledo was not small, it was compact. No place was all that far from another.

He needed to slip past the plaza. Hurrying would draw attention. In the end, exhaustion made him decide. He worked his way slowly, trying to be casual as he hugged shadows wherever he could. At last he reached a line of tourists who were staring appreciatively at the closed museum that housed some of El Greco's famous paintings. It was a reconstruction of a typical Toledan home of the period, and they murmured and pointed out interesting features while he moved past behind them.

He had caught his breath by the time he reached the Calle San Juan de Dios, where there were fewer tourists, but at the same time he knew he could not continue at this furious pace much longer. Running up and down the hills was brutal even for someone like himself, who kept in shape. He decided he had to risk staying on this larger street. He studied each intersection before he crossed it and then he had an idea.

Ahead, a man with a camera slung around his neck and a flash in his hand seemed to be in search of local color. He ambled into one of the alleys, head craning from right to left, up and down, searching for just the right shot. They were about the same height and build.

It was an opportunity. The fellow headed down another street, this one not much wider than the alley. It was quiet, no one else in sight. At the last second, he seemed to hear Smith come up behind.

He half-turned. "Hey!" he protested in English. "Who are you? What the?"

Smith pressed the silencer into the man's spine. "Quiet. You're American?"

"You're damned"

Smith jammed the pistol again. "Quiet."

The man's voice dropped to a whisper. But his anger did not decrease. "right I am! You better remember that. You'll regret"

Smith interrupted, "I need your clothes. Take them off."

"My clothes? You've got to be crazy. Who do. " He turned to face Smith. He stared at the Sig Sauer, and fear flashed across his face. "Jesus, what are you?"

Smith lifted the silencer to the man's head. "The clothes. Now."

Without another word, his eyes never leaving Smith, the tourist stripped to his underwear. Smith stepped back and took off his own shoes, shirt, and trousers, keeping the man covered with the Sig Sauer the whole time.

Smith advised him, "Put on only my pants. Your T-shirt will do for a shirt. That way, you won't look too much like me."

The man paled as he zipped up Smith's trousers. "You're scaring the hell out of me, mister."

Dressed in the man's running shoes, gray slacks, blue Hawaiian sport shirt, and Chicago Cubs baseball cap, Smith said, "When you walk back to your hotel, use routes where you can see other people. Take pictures. Act normal. You'll be fine." He loped off. When he looked back, the man was still standing in the shadows of the buildings, staring after him.

It was time for the hunted to become the hunter. Smith continued at a slow, even gait that covered territory but did not exhaust him, until again he heard noise. This time he found himself at the Monasteno de San Juan de los Reyes, built as a sacred burial spot for the kings and queens of Castile and Aragon. Visitors who had paid for a nighttime tour of the city stood outside the church, fascinated by the exterior, which was bizarrely decorated with chains worn by Christian prisoners held by the Moors until the Reconquista.