Two cars separated them from the panel truck. Powell slowed. He let a car swerve in front of him. Finally, a light brought traffic to a stop.
As at all the other intersections, the vendors left the curbs en masse, waving their goods. Blancanales saw boys and women around the car.
Metal tapped the windows, and Blancanales looked into the cylinder of a suppressor pointed at his face. He looked to the other window, saw another hand holding another suppressed pistol. The gunmen stood close against the car, their bodies screening the sight of the pistols from the other cars.
"Open the door, Mr. Powell," an accented voice said.
"They've got the pistols," Blancanales said loudly, knowing that the miniature electronics in his pockets would transmit the information to Gadgets. "There's nothing we can do..."
"Very intelligent," the voice commented.
Blancanales opened a back door. A squat gray-haired man in an overcoat slid into the back seat. His pistol touched Blancanales's gut.
"Buenos dias, my American friends. I am Senor Illovich, cultural attache of the Soviet Embassy. It is a pleasure to welcome you to Mexico City."
14
"I'm going to kill that Soviet shit," Lyons muttered as he snapped back the slide of his auto-Colt. With a hollowpoint in the chamber, he set the safety. "Have your man pull up close. First chance I get, Cultural Secretary Illovich of the KGB is dead meat."
Captain Soto shook his head. "You cannot kill a diplomat."
"Why? Political problems? He's got a pistol. Say he shot himself."
"Ease off, Ironman." Gadgets switched from channel to channel on his receiver, monitoring first the Arabic conversation in the panel truck, then the talk in the rented car.
The Soviet's voice droned on, calmly reassuring the Americans. "It is for the best that we join you. This Iranian driver seems to be an excellent operative. I see that you have a gun, American. Allow me to take it, for the sake of safety. We do not want a misunderstanding. Thank you. You do realize, that if you continued in your pursuit, that Iranian driver would have noticed your car..."
"He doesn't know about us," Lyons commented.
"Unless he knows and wants to trick us," Gadgets countered. "Listen..."
"We have several vehicles, Mr. Powell," the Russian continued. "Let the truck go ahead, my men will follow."
"I can't let that truck out of sight! My friend's in there," Powell shot back.
"I will maintain contact with my radio... and with whom do you maintain contact? Senor... I do not know your name."
"Damn, he's got the Pol's Beretta and now he's got the radio!" Lyons cursed. "He knows there's someone else out here."
In the rental car, Blancanales touched the hand radio in his coat pocket. "This radio?"
"I do not mean my radio." With his free hand, Illovich touched the earphone plugged into his left ear, then pointed at the hand radio in Blancanales's coat pocket. Blancanales did not move. The Soviet applied pressure to Blancanales's ribs with the suppressor. "I promise to return it also."
Blancanales laughed softly as he passed the radio to the Soviet. Illovich smiled, showing off a set of perfect white false teeth.
"You laugh at the promise of a Soviet diplomat? You Americans..." Illovich studied the hand radio. He pressed the transmit key again and again. "And, for your information, I will also return your pistol. Does that surprise you? You do not yet understand..."
Gadgets's faint voice answered the clicks, static pops and scratches almost drowning his words. "This is center unit. Come in unit three. Report position. Speak loudly, you are at extreme radio range." Only a few car lengths behind Illovich, Gadgets rubbed his hand radio's microphone against his beard stubble as he whispered again. "Report position. Speak distinctly..." He crumpled a piece of paper. "Extreme range..."
Illovich passed the radio back to Blancanales. "So you are not alone. I return the radio, as I promised, but I also promise to shoot you if you attempt to prematurely contact your CIA pals."
"CIA? Me?" Blancanales asked, incredulous. "Why do you accuse me of that?"
"Do not deny it, Senor American. It would not be amusing. And you, miss. Are you also an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency?"
"No!" She spat out the denial. "I am a citizen of Quebec and an independent journalist. I am researching the CIA, but I would never associate with those..."
Powell laughed. "Unless you could get a story."
"...that gang of international criminals."
"What's your opinion of the KGB?" Powell demanded.
"Of course you are CIA. All American journalists are spies."
"I am not American! I am Quebecois!"
"So you speak bad French? American, Canadian, what is the difference? All foreign journalists spy for the CIA. Have you not read the great newspaper of my country, Pravda? 'Pravda' means 'truth.' " The Soviet laughed at his own irony. "And you, Mr. Powell. You were an operative, but you are not now, correct?"
"News gets around, don't it?"
"Think of your sudden liberty as an opportunity. I know of you, I know your talents. A man of your skills and experience would not suffer if he worked for the security agencies of my country. Put the political conflicts of our countries aside, consider the benefits. You would work with other professionals, at the command of professional leaders in the government. No more impossible directives from senile movie actors attempting to win votes with television spectacles. Instead of racing from place to place, attempting to correct problems that have no solutions, you could work to preserve world order, a world without war, where the Party leads a joyous humanity into the..."
"Gulag. The Siberian concentration camps. The firing squads and the unending march of the living dead into the pits."
Illovich shrugged. "Severe measures regrettably must sometimes be taken. But those are only for criminal elements. Here, Mr. Powell. I brought an application with me. Take it, it is yours. Study it."
Without taking his eyes from the traffic ahead, Powell slapped away the paper. "Who are you? Some kind of commie comedian? Never heard such shit."
"Ah, yes. It is wrong of me to make the offer in front of others. It was my way of putting you all at ease. It was perhaps a joke. But consider it. When you go back to the United States, you return to a very uncertain future. And that is the truth, if I..."
Illovich went quiet, listening to a report through the earphone he wore.
"Mr. Powell, accelerate. The truck is stopping. They appear to be transferring him to another vehicle."
"What's going on?"
"Make a right turn at this boulevard. This may be a very perilous moment. Mr. Powell, you must be ready. If there is a difficulty, you must identify my men as friends, or there may be a very unfortunate misunderstanding with your Lebanese friend. There, you see the truck? It is stopping..."
On a quiet side street lined by evergreens and flowers, the panel truck slowed to a stop behind another truck. The driver threw open the door and ran to the second truck. He pointed back to Akbar.
Two Iranians stepped from the truck, pulling pistols from under their coats. They aimed at Akbar and fired.