Audra St. Clair just looked at him.
“Why do you still resist? It is over for you. Now that Shang has eliminated Grendel, there is no one left to stop me.”
“Locke will stop you,” she charged defiantly.
“An amateur?” Mandala laughed.
“But you haven’t caught him yet, have you? He keeps slipping away. You don’t understand. You couldn’t.”
“Old woman, my patience is wearing thin.”
“So is mine.”
At that instant there was a crash in the back of the room. One of the closet doors slammed against the side wall and a white-haired bear of a man lunged forward. Clive Thurmond, British representative on the Committee’s executive board and the man Christopher Locke had known as Colin Burgess, turned his Browning pistol first on Shang, who was rushing him. He fired five times into the giant’s midsection.
Shang kept coming, his expression unchanged, the slugs slowing him a bit but not stopping his approach.
Audra St. Clair hit a second button beneath the table. This one worked, activating a secret door on the wall behind her.
Mandala was rushing toward Thurmond when he heard the noise and swung back toward the table’s head, gun ready.
Thurmond had fired one more shot at Shang when the giant clamped a monstrous hand around his throat and lifted him effortlessly from the floor. Thurmond gagged for air, eyes widened with shock and agony.
Audra St. Clair stumbled on her way toward the secret door. She felt a jolt to her back and then a hot stab of pain. She started to pitch forward but righted herself as a second bullet burned into her side and a third into her leg. She felt the blood running from her, the sensation curiously like rainwater soaking through clothes. She knew she was dying but lurched ahead for the opening in the wall, crawling the final few yards as more bullets singed the air above her.
Finally she was inside the passageway. She hit a button just within her reach and the door closed, sealing her from her killers.
Shang lifted Thurmond higher. He squeezed harder and a crackling sound filled the room as the cartilage lining the big Brit’s throat gave way. When it was over and his feet dangled limply, Shang tossed him away like a rag doll.
Mandala was already moving from the room. He had no time to waste in finding the old bitch.
“Come, Shang, it’s over,” he called to the giant. “Nothing she can do can stop us now.”
Vaslov had been up most of the night pursuing some vital information from his suite in the Hotel Du Rhone in Geneva. Still, he looked none the worse for wear and was enjoying a light breakfast when a knock came to the door.
Right on time, the Russian thought, as he moved to answer it.
“Come in, comrade,” he said to the figure standing in the doorway. “It’s good to see you alive.”
“I’m full of surprises,” returned Ross Dogan, closing the door behind him.
Chapter 29
“You must tell me how you managed the trick,” Vaslov said.
Dogan sat down and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Fortune’s the residue of design, as they say. I had nothing to do with it. A man named Keyes was sent to dispatch me. He got into the room I was supposed to meet Locke in. Someone was waiting. The killer thought it was me and that was that.”
“Keyes … the man you saved me from in Paris?”
“The very same.”
“How unfortunate,” noted Vaslov with no regret in his voice.
Dogan had called the Russian from Rome as soon as he learned what had happened at the hotel. They had set up this meeting. From the hotel, Dogan had gone straight back to the airport, where he boarded the next plane from Rome to Geneva. He had gotten in just thirty minutes before.
“You’re certain our friends on the Committee are not pursuing you, comrade?” Vaslov asked.
“They probably still think I’m dead. Keyes was killed in the dark. We’re almost the same size and shape. It’s unlikely the killer had ever met me before, and there aren’t many pictures of me floating around either.”
“I have one,” boasted Vaslov. “Showed it to my daughter last Christmas. She’s quite taken with you, comrade.” His face grew somber. “What of Locke?”
Dogan’s eyes lowered. “I can’t be sure but I think they got him this time. Their intelligence was too tight for him to slip through again. The body of my contact at the hotel turned up last night.”
“Unfortunate. I would have liked to hear what the Dwarf passed on to our college professor.”
“It couldn’t be more than I learned in San Sebastian.”
“Especially concerning this SAS-Ultra group. Last night I discovered that three agents from another KGB Directorate had infiltrated the group in an attempt to influence them toward our politics. It was from these I was able to learn the present location of this man Masvidal.”
“Where is he?” Dogan asked eagerly, marveling at Vaslov’s professional prowess. The man was a true master of his craft.
“You’re not going to believe it, comrade, but he’s here! In Geneva! Staying at …” Vaslov consulted a piece of paper he had scribbled notes on. “… the De la Paix across town. He must be here for the hunger conference, which will begin Monday. Perhaps he has an agenda of his own to present.”
“But he can’t go public with what he knows. He’s a terrorist.”
“What other choice does he have now, comrade? Perhaps he will have South American diplomats do his talking for him. Better yet,” Vaslov theorized, “maybe he is planning to use his people to disrupt the conference. How ironic that he might be doing exactly what the Committee wants him to….”
“No,” said Dogan, “we were wrong about that. The Committee never did have a strike planned against the hunger conference. They want it to go on. They want the world’s attention drawn to the issue of food, an issue so desperate that the United States and Soviet Union are about to join forces in dealing with it. Unless I miss my guess, the Committee’s operation will go into effect early next week to coincide with the beginning of the conference. Suddenly in a world concerned about a means to better feed itself, reports will surface of massive crop destruction in the fields of the world’s largest crop producer. A climate of panic will be created.”
“The perfect atmosphere for the Committee to strike….”
“And the crop destruction will continue unchecked even as the second phase of their operation — planting their rapid-growing crops in South America — gets underway. Within three months, they will be ready to start shipping, effectively taking the place of North America in the marketplace.”
“At the time when the world has no alternative but to turn to them,” Vaslov completed. “Brilliant. But what of the words of that woman you killed in San Sebastian? If there is validity to them, matters might be complicated considerably.”
“There’s validity, all right. The woman thought I was part of the Committee, which meant she must have represented a different part. And it’s not her words that bother me as much as the presence of her and the other killers in the first place. They weren’t dispatched to eliminate us, they were already in the area.”
“Expecting your arrival perhaps?”
“More likely standing guard over San Sebastian.”
“Dead towns do not require guards, comrade.”
“There’s something very much alive down there, something I got too close to. And whatever it is, it’s tied into the part of the Committee those killers represented.”
“So the Committee has become factionalized. What is it they say, divide and conquer?”
“Except this time we had nothing to do with the dividing and I’m not sure it’ll make conquering the Committee any easier. That’s why I have to speak with Masvidal. This is a war now and he has access to the troops we need. The problem is we’re running out of time.”