“The men who did this are still in the building.”
“Then you must give me their descriptions and I will have security watch for them.”
“Make sure your men carry bazookas,” Chris said, still wondering why his bullets had not killed the giant.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Forenzo cleared his throat. “The first thing we must do is get you settled in another room. After the doctor has attended to you, the next step will be to determine how we can get you out of here safely.”
“I’m supposed to stay and wait for Dogan.”
“To insure your safety, that is out of the question. Where might safe ground exist for you?”
Locke hadn’t considered that question yet but the answer was quick in coming. Colin Burgess! England. He would call the contact number and have the girl set everything up. Burgess would take care of him now as he had before. Together they would link up with Dogan again somehow. Maybe the man who had tracked down German spies would be able to track down the bastards who had his son. The big Brit was the answer!
“England,” Locke said finally.
“And your passport, should I have it retrieved from your old room?”
“Ye — I mean, no. The people who were waiting for me there must have known the alias I was traveling under. They’ll be watching for that name at the airport. Can’t you arrange for a new passport?”
Forenzo tried to smile. “I am only a simple hotel manager, Mr. Locke. I possess no such resources on such short notice.” Something seemed to occur to him. “But wait. England is your destination, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Chartered flights travel several times daily from Rome to London and the Customs officials are sometimes lax in checking passports for charter customers. Random collections and stampings are made to speed up the process so as not to create logjams. We Italians prefer to pass such problems onto you. Yes, I think I can come up with a way to get you out of Rome. The problem is what happens once you reach London….”
“Let me worry about that. Just get me safely to the airport with a ticket and keep me alive for tonight.”
“That much I can do. Mr. Dogan is an honored guest of the hotel. Any friend of his …” Forenzo’s shrug completed his thought.
“Speaking of Mr. Dogan, he said you would provide a warding-off signal if things weren’t safe.”
“Indeed. When is he scheduled to arrive?”
“Tomorrow evening sometime.”
“My eyes will be alert and the proper signals will be in place.” Forenzo started back for the door. “Now I better see about arranging for the doctor and getting you moved. It’s going to be a long night.”
Locke’s new room was on the tenth floor. As soon as he had chained the door behind him, he made for the telephone and read the instructions for dialing beyond Italian borders. The line in this particular room was not routed through the hotel switchboard, so no one could trace the call back to him there. He pulled the girl’s number in Falmouth from his memory and dialed it properly.
“Hello,” she said tentatively.
“I’m in trouble. I need Colin.”
There was no response.
“Didn’t you hear me? I said this is Locke. I need Colin.”
Locke could hear the girl’s erratic breathing on the other end before she spoke again.
“Uncle Colin has gone Fishing.”
The phone clicked off and Chris felt the walls closing in around him.
Chapter 22
Dogan and Marna moved up the hill together, keeping the shack always in sight.
“It looks deserted,” Dogan said as they moved within killing range for his Heckler and Koch P-9.
“It’s not,” Marna responded confidently.
Dogan made sure the P-9 was ready for a quick draw, wishing he had taken the Mac-10 machine pistol along instead. Its nine-millimeter, thirty-shot clip would be infinitely more comforting at this point.
They had cleared a ridge thirty yards before the shack when the blast rang out. Instinctively both Dogan and Marna dove to the ground.
“You all right?” he asked her.
“A little shaken, that’s all. What did you make it?”
“Shotgun, double-barrel. Whoever’s inside isn’t much of a shot.”
Another blast sounded, apparently aimed at nothing.
“Just trying to scare us away, you think?” Marna asked.
“They would have waited until we were in range if they meant to kill us. Hell, they could have waited till we were right on top of their doorstep the way we were moving.”
“Then who the hell is it?”
Dogan was already starting to rise. “There’s only one way to find out….”
“Ross!” Marna shouted as loud as she dared.
But it was too late. Dogan was already standing straight up with his hands held directly over his head and pistol plainly in view.
“I’m throwing my weapon down,” he yelled to the inhabitants of the shack. He tossed the P-9 aside. It rolled across the dirt. “I’m unarmed now,” he said calmly, still holding his hands high. “We mean you no harm. We only want to ask you a few questions.” A pause. “We can help you.” Another pause. “I’m going to walk slowly forward. Please signal me if it’s all right to keep going.”
Dogan started walking, heart in his mouth, ready to lunge to the side at the first sight of a gun barrel. His actions represented a clear violation of every rule in the book. This was the last thing a field agent was supposed to do, but his instincts overruled standard precautions.
Dogan kept walking, his pace slow and measured, until he was within ten yards of the shack and could see that it was haphazardly constructed almost totally of nearly burned wood. There was movement inside, followed by a loud creak. Dogan froze.
The door swung open. Still he could make out nothing inside. He reduced his pace slightly, ready to spring.
When he reached the doorway, he had to bend at the knees to pass inside. His vision fizzled in the darkness. He started to straighten up and something crashed into his back, pitching him down hard to the floor.
“The other one I saw, tell her to come in too!” a voice demanded in broken English.
Dogan looked up. His eyes adjusted to the darkness. Before him was a boy of barely thirteen, dressed in tattered white clothes. His dirty face was all but hidden by his long, scraggly hair. Dogan raised himself to a sitting position slowly, keeping his hands in the air so not to spook the boy who held a shotgun in trembling hands before him.
“I’m going to stand up now. Don’t worry, I mean you no harm.”
Dogan rose deliberately and moved to the doorway. He could have stripped the gun away from the boy effortlessly at any time but he needed his trust, and that was no way to gain it.
“It’s all right,” he yelled to Marna. “You can come in. And pick up my gun on the way.”
The boy paled at that.
“You can hold it if you want,” Dogan told him. Then he heard the others.
They emerged from the shadows of the makeshift shack — two girls and another boy. The oldest girl seemed eleven, twelve maybe. She held the other girl, three or so years younger, from behind at the shoulders. The second boy was the youngest, about four. The small shack stank of dirt, sweat, and above all, fear.
“Ross, are you—” Marna’s eyes bulged in shock as she entered the shack. “Ross, who are these … children?”
“That’s what I was about to find out. How’s your Spanish?”
“Better than ever.”