nothing else." "From you I expect nothing else." "In a few minutes you can make your determination. I give you that." "What do you mean?" "We'll reach the end of the duct; there is a transom ten or twelve feet from the floor. In a rooftop storage area. Once down I can get us out on the street, but every second counts. If there are people in the vicinity of the transom, they must be frightened away. Gunshots will do it; fire above their heads." "What?" "Yes. I'll give you your gun back." "You killed my wife." "You killed my brother. Before that your Army of Oocupation returned the corpse of a young girl-a child -1 loved very much." "I don't know anything about that." "Now you do. Make your determination." The metal-webbed transom was perhaps four feet wide. Below was a huge, dimly Et room that served as a miniature warehouse filled with crates and boxes of supplies. There was no one in sight. Taleniekov handed Scofield the automatic, and began forcing the metal screen from its brackets with his shoulder. It sprang loose and fell crashing to the cement floor. The Russian waited several moments for a response to the noise; there was none.
He turned his body around and, legs first, began sliding out of the duct.
His shoulders and head passed over the rim, his fingers gripping the edge; he was finding his balance, prepared for the drop to the floor.
The strange sound came faintly at first, then louder. Step... scrape.
Step... scrape. Step... scrape. Step. Taleniekov froze, his body suspended between transom and floor.
"Good morning, comrade," said the voice softly in Russian. "My walk has improved since Riga, no? They gave me a new foot." Bray pulled back into the shadows of the duct. Below, beside a large crate was a man with a cane. A cripple whose right leg was no leg at all, but instead a limb of stiff, straight wood beneath the trousers. The man continued as he took a gun from his pocket.
"I knew you too well, old friend. You were a great teacher. You gave me an hour to study your depot. There were several means of escape, but this is the one you would choose. I'm sorry, my teacher. We cannot afford you any longer." He raised his gun.
Scofield fired.
They raced into the alley across the street from the hotel on Nebraska Avenue. Both leaned against the brick wall, breathing heavily, their eyes on the activity beyond. Three patrol cars, their lights revolving on their roofs, blocked the entrance of the hotel, hemming in an ambulance. Two stretchers were carried out, the bodies covered with canvas; another emerged, Taleniekov could see the bloodied head of Prague. Uniformed police held back curious pedestrians, as their superiors rushed back and forth, barking into handheld radios, issuing orders.
A net was being formed around the hotel, all exits covered, all windows observed, weapons drawn against the unexpected.
"When you feel strong enough," said Taleniekov, speaking between swallows of air, "we'll slip into the crowds and walk several blocks away where it will be safer to find a taxi. However, I'll be honest with you. I don't know where to go." "I do," said Scofield, pushing himself away from the wall. "We'd better get going while there's confusion out there. Pretty soon they'll start an area search. They'll look for anyone wounded; there was a lot of gunfire." "One moment." The Russian faced Bray. "Three days ago I was on a truck in the hills outside of Sevastopol. I knew then what I would say to you if we met. I say it now. We will either kill each other, Beowulf Agate, or we will talk." Scofield stared at Taleniekov. "We may do both," he said. "Let's go." 11
The cabin was in the backwoods of Maryland, on the banks of the Patuxent River, fields on three sides, water below. It was isolated, no other houses within a mile in any direction, accessible only by a primitive dirt road over which no taxi would venture. None was asked to do SO.
Instead, Bray telephoned a man at the Iranian Embassy, an unregistered SAVAK agent into hard drugs and exchange students whose exposure would be embarrassing to a benevolent Shah. A rented car was left for them in a metered parking lot on K Street, the keys under the floor mat.
The cabin belonged to a professor of Political Science at Georgetown, a closet homosexual Scofield had befriended years ago when he