Stoner dug his fingers into his face as the pain wracked his body. His heart pumped fiercely; his head felt as if it would explode. His whole body writhed in agony. He swam in it, awash in pain.
"Are you still with me?" she asked.
"Oh yeah." The words were a relief. He pushed up.
"I have to wrap it."
"Yeah, yeah."
She stood up and took off the heavy coat she was wearing, removed a thick shirt and then stripped off a T-shirt. She had another beneath it, but he could see the outline of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, loose against her body.
"This is just to keep dirt away from it," she said as she wrapped it around his torso. "There shouldn"t be further problems. But you"ll have to have it seen to."
"Yeah."
Stoner took a long, deep breath, trying to pull his thoughts back to the present, trying to push his mind past the pain.
"We should go," he told her. "This isn"t safe."
Sorina looked up suddenly, as if she"d heard something outside. "Yes," she told him.
"I brought two men with me, as guides over the border. They"re with the man who showed me here."
"Let"s go, then."
Stoner got up slowly and followed her out of the cottage. He was in a kind of shock, his mind pushed back behind a wall of thick foam. It had separated itself from the rest of his body, from some, though not all, of the pain. He felt like he had a hole in his side; though the grenade fragment was gone, it felt as if it was still there, and on fire. He told himself he was lucky-absurdly lucky-to be hit by only a splinter and not the full force of the grenade, to be nabbed lightly in a part of his body where he could still walk, still use his arms, his head, his eyes. He told himself he was lucky and that he had to use that luck-that if he didn"t move, he was a dead man.
Stoner went out into the night like an animal, his only instinct survival. He followed Sorina Viorica down the opposite side of the hill, holding his gun in his left hand, breathing hard. His midsection seemed to be twisting away from the rest of his body, a tourniquet that squeezed itself. The pain lessened ever so slightly and began to feel...not good, but familiar in a way that told him he could survive it.
When they reached a small stream, they turned left, back toward the road. After a hundred yards or so, Sorina stopped.
"I"m sorry I"m moving so fast. Catch your breath."
"I"m OK," said Stoner, though he was thankful for the rest.
"They were after me, not you," she said as he leaned back against the tree. "They have been trying to kill me for several days."
"Who are they?"
"Russians. Are you ready?"
"Sure."
Stoner pushed off from the tree. Russians. He wanted to know more, suspected that they were to blame for the deaths, thought for sure they were pulling the strings. But he couldn"t ask the questions he needed to ask. He had to walk first, had to get back over the border, away.
"Those were Russians that shot at us?" he managed.
Sorina was too far ahead even to hear. The pain flared. Stoner hooked his thumb into his T-shirt and stuffed the end into his mouth, biting hard. He tried thinking of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, tried thinking of anything but the pain. He knew he was going to make it, but he had to push through, keep his legs moving and his lungs breathing.
Sorina Viorica stopped about fifty feet from the road. Stoner remembered his night goggles, but they were gone, along with his backpack. He rubbed his eyes, staring at the darkness across the road.
"You left them there?" Sorina said, pointing.
"Yeah."
"What was your code?"
"There was none."
Stoner gathered his strength, then whistled. There was no answer. He tried again.
"Maybe I"m not loud enough," he said.
Sorina didn"t answer. She started to the right, trotting toward a small copse of trees that bordered the road. Stoner fell steadily behind.
"Wait here," she said when he reached her.
"You can"t go alone."
"I"ll be fine. You just wait."
He slumped against one of the trees, too weak to protest. Sorina ran to the right, starting to slide around the spot where he"d left his escorts, flanking them carefully.
Was it possible this was all an elaborate setup? But if so, to what end?
Blame the Russians, not the guerrillas.
That made no sense.
So the Russians were involved.
Stoner had a satellite phone with him, a "clean" device that couldn"t be traced to the CIA. He took it out and waited as it powered up. A single number was programmed in: a voice mail box that the Agency could check for emergency messages. Otherwise there were no presets to give him away if captured.
He pressed the combination. The phone dialed itself. A voice in Spanish told him no one was home but that he was free to leave a message.
"This is Stoner. I"m over the border. There was an ambush. I"m OK. I"m coming back. The Russians are involved somehow. My contact is a woman. Her name is Sorina Viorica."
The words came out as a series of croaks, like a hoa.r.s.e frog. He needed water. He pressed the End Transmit b.u.t.ton and put the phone away.
A few minutes later a shadow appeared before him. He started to raise his rifle, then realized it was Sorina Viorica.
"They"re dead," she said.
"Who?"
"Your men. And Claude. Come."
Stoner followed her across the road. Claude, the guide who had met him at the barn, lay near the water. A bullet had shattered his temple. The two Romanian soldiers had fallen together a few yards away. Their bodies were riddled with bullets. Both of their guns were still loaded; they"d never had a chance to fire.
Or maybe they"d tried to surrender and the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds killed them anyway.
Sorina was looking through the woods, examining the ground.
"There may be more than the three we killed. It"s hard to tell," she said. "They usually work in three-man teams, but two together, so there would be six together."
"Spetsnaz?" said Stoner.
"I don"t know the name, just that they"re Russian."
"OK."
"If there is another team tracking us, they will be vicious. Where"s your car?"
"On the other side of the border."
"That far? You walked?"
"I didn"t want to get stopped."
"You couldn"t bribe the guards?"
"It didn"t seem like a good idea at the time. Especially if I was coming back with you."
She frowned at him.
"You wanted to talk. It"s not safe to do it here."
"You think I"m going to let you turn me into the military?"
"I"m not going to turn you into the military."
She was holding her rifle on him.
Stoner kept talking. "If I was going to do something stupid like that, I wouldn"t have come back to the house for you," he said. "Your message said that you had mutually beneficial information, and that we could work out a deal. That"s why I came."
"With two soldiers."
"I needed guides over the border. I don"t speak the language. I left them here-if I was going to ambush you, I would have."
"I don"t know."
"Your people killed two Americans," added Stoner. "Maybe you killed them yourself."
"We haven"t killed any Americans. Not even spies. It is the Russians. They have taken over the movement."
Stoner stared at the barrel of the AK-47. The moonlight turned the rifle"s black metal silver, as if it were a ghost"s gun, as if he were imagining everything happening.
"You didn"t patch me up to shoot me now," he said.
"How do you know?"
"You"ve already made your decision to help," Stoner told her. "They"re after you. It"s all you can do."
"I can do many things."
"You have to trust me."
"I trust no one."
Stoner nodded. "But you take chances."
"Like you?"
"Like me."
She lowered her weapon. "I will go," she told him. "But I will talk only to you, not the army, or to the government. They are all corrupt."
Stoner rose slowly. "What about them?"
She shook her head.
"You want to just leave them on the ground?"
"Of course."
"Even your man?"
"Very possibly he was the one who betrayed me."
Dreamland
22 January 1998
1700.
ALL THAT REMAINED WAS TO TEST THE MESSKIT THE WAY it was meant to be used-from an airplane.