"We made a lot of noise," Ronnie said. "We should get out of here."
"Then we'd better make it quick," Nick said. "Go get the van and bring it here. Selena and I will get Lamont."
"Copy that," Ronnie said. He went out the front door of the villa.
Nick said to Selena, "Why did you go in there like that?"
"It needed to be done."
"You got carried away, didn't you?"
She thought back on the feeling that had driven her out into the open. She'd felt fearless, as though she were an unstoppable force.
"I knew I wouldn't get hit," she said. "I wasn't thinking about it, it was a feeling and I went with it."
"You were in the zone."
"Yes."
"You almost got killed."
"Nothing new about that. I guess I'm finally getting used to it."
"I've been where you are," Nick said. "It's not good when you start thinking nothing can touch you. That's when you take risks. That's when you get hurt or killed."
"But I didn't, did I? Get hurt or killed."
"Not this time. Try to hear what I'm saying. You showed a lot of courage back there and I respect that. Hell, if we were in the service you'd get a medal. But most of the heroes I know are dead. I don't want you to be one of them."
Selena heard something in his voice that made her listen. At first she'd been angry because he'd seemed to criticize her. In hindsight, she saw it wasn't like that.
He's angry because he cares for me. He was afraid for me. That's different. Besides, maybe he's right.
She really didn't know why she'd jumped up and gone after those people like that. She hadn't thought about it. She'd just done it.
"It wasn't something I planned," she said.
Nick sighed. "I know, and that's what scares me. Acting without thinking can save your life but you have to watch out for believing you're invincible."
"I hear you. I'll think about it."
"That's good enough for me. Let's go find Lamont."
Lamont had gotten himself to the door. He was propped against a table, holding his rifle like a crutch and standing on his good leg. Blood stained the bandage Ronnie had wrapped around the wound.
"Figured it was cool when the shooting stopped," Lamont said.
His voice was strained. His coffee colored skin was pale.
"Take his good side," Nick said.
Selena took Lamont's MP-5 and slung it, then draped his right arm around her shoulders. Nick took Lamont's left. They moved out of the wine building toward the front of the villa. Selena heard the van coming up the gravel drive. In a moment Ronnie drove into the front yard.
Ronnie and Nick helped Lamont into the back of the van and laid him down.
"Ahh, watch the leg."
"We have to get out of our gear and back into civvies," Nick said. "Ronnie, let's get Lamont fixed up. We can't be seen like this."
In a few minutes they were changed into street clothes.
"Lamont, you want that morphine now?" Ronnie asked.
"Yeah. Send me to cloud land."
Ronnie took a morphine syrette from the first aid pack.
"Selena, you drive," Nick said.
"Where are we going?"
"Back to the plane."
"What about Lamont? He needs a hospital."
"We can't go to a hospital. How are we going to explain that wound? We have to get him back home. The bleeding is under control. We've got plasma on the plane and antibiotics. We'll splint his leg for now. Once we're in the air, it's only five or six hours. He'll be okay for that long. I'll call Harker and tell her to have an ambulance waiting."
"He's right, Selena," Lamont said. His voice was weak. "I'll be fine. Get us out of here."
An hour later they reached the airport. Nick had called ahead for the pilot to get the plane ready. A bored customs official took a casual look at their diplomatic papers and waved them through the gate to the private terminal where the Gulfstream waited.
Ten minutes later, they were in the air.
CHAPTER 50
Elizabeth looked up as Stephanie came into the room.
"Steph, what's the matter? You look like you just found a worm at the bottom of your coffee cup."
"I did find a worm, but it wasn't in my coffee. I got into the old KGB files, looking for more information about Vysotsky."
"And?"
"And, I discovered what he was doing back in the 80s."
"Something tells me I'm not going to like what you found," Elizabeth said.
"He was an assassin. Moscow used him for wet work abroad. He was one of the few agents trusted to work in the West."
"In America?"
"Yes. He was here in nineteen eighty-seven."
The date clicked in Elizabeth's head.
"You don't mean…"
"I do. Vysotsky is the one who killed Selena's family. He planted a device that released acid onto the brake lines on her father's car. The acid ate through the line, the brake fluid drained out and the next time her father hit the brakes it was all over. The car went through a guard rail and fell more than four hundred feet."
"How did he know when and where they were going?"
"Someone told him. The report refers to him as Kolokol. It means "bell" in Russian."
"That was the KGB code name for Aldrich Ames," Elizabeth said. "He set her father up to be killed."
Elizabeth opened a drawer at her desk and took out her aspirin bottle. She shook three into her hand and swallowed them with coffee.
"They should have shot him," Stephanie said.
"Ames? Yes, they should have. But we don't do that here. At least he'll never be a free man again."
"I don't think Selena will be satisfied with that."
"I'm not sure we should tell her," Elizabeth said. "It's bad enough that she found out her father had an affair with a Russian agent."
"Not to mention that she has a half-sister who's a Russian assassin."
"What a mess," Elizabeth said. "I'm not inclined to pile anything else on her."
"What about Vysotsky?"
"I wish I'd known this before. How come it didn't turn up in the past?"
"I found this on the SVR computers in Moscow. It was misfiled. Sometimes I wonder how the Russians ever get anything done, considering the size of their bureaucracy and the mistakes they make."
"That's excellent work, Steph."
"What about Vysotsky? It changes our relationship with him."
"It does," Elizabeth said, "but I can't say it surprises me. No one gets to his position of power in SVR without getting his hands dirty."
"Sometimes I wonder about our hands," Stephanie said. "Look at what we do. I tell myself we hold the boundaries, that there are things we won't do and that makes it all right. It helps me sleep at night."
"We make mistakes, Steph. It bothers me but the boundaries aren't set in stone. It's not a game. People who think civilized rules should always apply haven't a clue what it's like out there, where Nick and the others are. There aren't any neat moral and ethical lines."
"Sometimes I think there are only two kinds of people," Stephanie said. "The sheep and the shepherds. I guess we're shepherds."
"There are three kinds," Elizabeth said.
"What's the third?"
"The wolves. You forgot the wolves."
"It's hard to think of them as people."
"Speaking of wolves, Nick found a lair in France and took it out."
"What happened?"
"It was a trap. Nick said there were a dozen men waiting for them, hiding inside the house. Lamont was hit."
"How bad?" Stephanie asked.
"Bad enough. His leg's broken, he lost some blood. He's out of action."
"There's no way Gutenberg could have known we were coming."
"Then why were his men waiting for us?"
Stephanie looked thoughtful. "They might not have been waiting for us, exactly. He must have discovered the trace on his laptop. He'd want to know who was watching. Sending that email about the meeting in France was bait. It makes sense that whoever read it might go after him, and that's just what we did. All Gutenberg had to do was have his men in place and wait and see who showed up."