Of course, he was probably thinking the same thing.
"Then, because you're not me." Remlikov shrugged. "How is that?"
I wanted to get this done with. Andie was probably dying with anxiety, wondering what was going on here. "Clock's on," I said.
"What you are looking for is in South America," he said. "Argentina, I believe. Or Chile. At the very bottom, near the tip. Cavello has a ranch there. Sheep, I think."
"Keep going," I prodded. I knew he was holding back.
"How do I know you will not turn my name over to the authorities the minute you have Cavello?"
"How do I know you won't alert him as soon as you have your boy?"
We stood there facing each other, looking into each other's eyes. Remlikov smiled. "My son is a chess player. He has a natural gift for avoiding stalemates. But of course, you already know that."
"I don't play chess." I shrugged "But I was thinking, since we both know something about the other that would be best not to get out, it would probably be a good thing if we never set eyes on each other again."
"I was thinking that, too." Remlikov nodded. "I believe it's near a town called Ushuaia. Close to the tip. The weather is not so good, I am told, but the isolation is worth every penny. Even the name is telling."
He told me the name of Cavello's ranch. Hearing it, I smiled. I knew his information was true.
"Now, I think you have something for me." Remlikov put his sunglasses back on, our business complete.
Chapter 102
I TOOK OUT MY PHONE and pressed the Send button. Andie answered quickly.
"You can bring him now."
I tried not to glance in any direction. I didn't want to alert anyone, Remlikov or a possible accomplice, as to how this was going to take place. My hands were moist, and sweat trickled down my collar. There was nothing to do but wait, and stare at each other.
"So, who was it, if I can ask?"
"Who was who?" I shrugged. I figured he was talking about Andie.
"Who was on that bus? The reason you want Cavello so bad?"
"Consider yourself lucky I don't kill you right here for what you've done."
"Interesting," he said, snorting. "I was thinking the very same thing about you."
I saw him rub the tips of his fingers. I knew this killer wouldn't just let me get away. I looked around. I needed cover. A group of young people were passing by. I spotted two policemen, meandering our way.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw our white Ford pull up on Ben Gurion Street
at one of the entrances to the park. Andie held there, just as I told her, waiting for my signal. I shot another glance at the policemen, my insurance.
"My son?" Remlikov pressed. "The minute is up, no?"
Chapter 103
"I WANT YOU TO KNOW, Remlikov, if Cavello's not where you say he is, every law enforcement agency in the world is going to have your name and fingerprints. It's a hard way to raise a family."
"And you should know, if there's as much as a scratch on my son, I'll be looking through employment rosters of the FBI for as long as it takes."
I raised my left arm. The signal.
The rear door of the car opened. I saw the boy emerge. Andie would've been pointing him toward us. He shielded his eyes through the waning sun.
Remlikov waved at him. "Pavel, over here!"
The boy started to run to him. The killer looked at me. Andie's car started up, then disappeared into traffic.
"I meant what I said, Remlikov. I wish I could shoot you dead," I said.
Then I cut around the statue-- in front of the unsuspecting policemen. Without drawing any attention to myself, I started to jog, fast enough to put as much distance as I could between me and Remlikov.
I hunched into a stream of people heading for the upper terraces. The path was hilly and crowded. I didn't notice anyone following me.
I left the path and started up a small hill, using trees and low branches as cover. I spotted another exit down below. Allenby Street
.
That's where I decided to head. Catch a cab. In minutes I'd meet Andie back at the hotel. We had what we needed. Within the hour, we'd be gone.
I never looked back until I'd zigzagged to the top of the knoll. When I did, Remlikov was kneeling with his arms held out. His son ran into his embrace. He peppered the boy's face with grateful kisses.
Then he looked up the hill in my direction. I didn't know if he could see me. Trees obstructed the view. But it felt like it.
For the first time in minutes, my heart rate finally started to calm. I had what I needed. Andie had gotten away safely. I knew where Cavello was.
I almost felt like cheering. We had pulled it off! We were winning this time.
Only then did I feel my neck roughly wrenched backward, and the knife blade digging deeply into my ribs.
"Sorry, mate, it doesn't quite work like that."
My blood froze.
"Now, I'm going to ask you this once," the voice said in a heavy South African accent, "and if you have any hope of living more than the next few seconds, you'll be telling me the answer. Who dropped off that kid?"
He dug the blade in deeper; the air gushed out of my lungs. I managed to get one look at him, and I knew I was in terrible trouble.
The hair that fell across his face was blond.
Chapter 104
THE TRUTH WAS, I'd been in the FBI thirteen years and had been in a real dogfight only a couple of times. Those were more like takedowns, and not with some professionally trained killer twice my size who had me gagging in a choke hold, with a knife jammed into my ribs.
The guy's grip had me helpless. I couldn't scream. What good would that do? I could barely think. The blade edged into my rib cage so sharply, I wasn't sure if it wasn't already in my chest.
"I can break your neck cleanly, friend, and all you'll do is drift off into la-la land, which I recommend as the way to go. Or, I can play with you a bit."
Oh, Christ!
"Do yourself a favor, mate. Who was the woman in that car?"
A thought came to me. It was from some self-defense course I'd taken at the Bureau years ago. The natural urge in this situation is to struggle harder, to pull away, but to someone who is adept at crushing your windpipe in a second, it only tightens the choke.
Step into him, I was told. Go with his momentum. So I figured, what the hell? I wasn't giving up Andie.
So I leaned my weight into Blondie. It threw him off, maybe a step. He didn't release me, just shuffled backward.
It freed my hand enough to reach inside my jacket. I groped for the grip of my Glock. I didn't know if I had it pointed toward him or me. Only that if I didn't fire quickly, it didn't much matter.
The blond killer sighed. "Your choice, asshole."
I jerked the trigger. Once, twice! The recoil spun us both back, the closeness muffling the sound. I didn't know if I'd hit something. Or whether it was him or me. But I didn't feel the knife. Or pain shooting through my abdomen. I pulled the trigger two more times.
"Fuck!" The blond guy yelped and staggered backward.
I spun away just as he lashed out savagely with the knife. I rolled on my torso and saw a bloody hole in his thigh, red oozing through his ripped jeans.
"Oh, you are fucking dead!" He looked down, glaring at me with an animal fury.
I still held the gun pointed at him. But I wasn't sure what to do. Now there was nothing to muffle the sound. A group of people was headed toward us. I was an FBI agent, not a cold-blooded killer. But even as FBI, I was toast. I'd be explaining what I was doing here for the rest of my life. From an Israeli jail cell!
"Turn around," I yelled at him. "Open your jacket."
The blond guy eyed the people coming toward us. He slowly opened his jacket. "What are you going to do, mate? Shoot me?"
He had to be armed, but I didn't see a gun. Even worse, these people were coming closer and I was brandishing one. He didn't know who I was. He didn't kn
ow where Andie and I were staying. What he did know was that if I hadn't already put a bullet through his head, with all these people coming close, I probably wasn't about to now.
"Start walking." I pointed the gun. "Back down the hill. Walk!"
Chapter 105
BLONDIE OBLIGED ME, but slowly, angrily. He cast a cold eye at the approaching crowd, blood oozing from his thigh. I hadn't killed him, and he saw things were working to his advantage now. The asshole had me gauged perfectly.
"Tell Remlikov all bets are off if I don't find what I'm looking for." I started to back away.
There was an entrance to Ben Gurion Street
maybe a hundred yards below. People were streaming through the gates by the dozens. I figured that in a crowd, even he wouldn't shoot. I could outrun him. All I had to do was make it that far.
I took off, darting through hedges and trees as cover. I glanced around to see him scamper up the knoll, remove a gun from the back of his jeans, then straighten into a shooter's crouch.
I didn't hear a sound, but a bullet whizzed past my ear, thudding into the trunk of a nearby tree.
He started after me. It was freaky. The guy had a .40-caliber bullet lodged in his thigh, and it wasn't stopping him a bit.
I was no longer backpedaling. I ran down to the entrance that led onto Ben Gurion, a busy thoroughfare, where I figured maybe I could lose him. All I had to do was find a cab and make it back to the hotel. That's all!
A boy and his girlfriend were just turning into the park. He was wearing sandals and a Linkin Park T-shirt, and had a guitar slung around his back. I heard something zing past my shoulder. Right in front of my face the kid wheeled around and hit the pavement, his shoulder exploding in red. His girlfriend put her hands up to her face and screamed.
"Get down! Get down!" people were shouting.
I stared in disbelief.
An innocent person was down. This was way, way out of control now. I knew I should've stopped and ended it there. Taken him down, waited for the cops, something logical and sane. There were screams and bedlam everywhere. I took a look back for the blond-haired killer. I had lost him! Policemen were running up to the scene from Ben Gurion. I didn't know what to do. I made a quick judgment that the kid would be all right.
I took off toward the square.
Concealing myself in the crowd, I tried to put as much distance as I could between me and my assailant. I was praying the police would corral him, but then I spotted him-- his blond hair and darting eyes-- racing along the perimeter wall, following my path. I pushed deeper into the crowd.
I hurried without a clear destination through the crowded streets, searching frantically for a cab. I could still get out of this. All I had to do was get back to the hotel. They had no idea who we were.
I found myself racing down a narrow street of bazaar merchants, angling away from the park. Hundreds of tiny stalls --leather jackets, embroidered shirts, baskets, spices-- crowded with hawkers and tourists.
I zigzagged through the side-by-side stalls, switching sides of the street as I strained to see if he was still behind me. And he was-- knocking over racks, pushing people out of his way, gaining. Sirens were coming from the entrance to the park.
This madman wouldn't stop. I was on a crowded street with no cabs. You don't know where you're going, Nick! At some point I was going to have to stop and confront him. I should have shot him when I had the chance.
Two more rounds zinged by my head, slamming into a stall in front of me that was filled with colorful fabrics, toppling it over.
I ducked, picking up my pace. The end of the street was fast approaching. The problem was, I was going to get there quicker than I had a plan for where to go next. It opened to a terraced cul-de-sac, maybe twenty feet above a busy street below. I was trapped. Cold reality set in-- Nick, you're going to have to fight this bastard.
I turned at the corner and just stood there, staring at my options: leaping into the crowded street below or facing him. I gripped my gun. I thought of Andie, the image she had lived with for the past year, the blond man hurrying away from the juror bus.
This was the man who had killed her son.
I stopped behind a stall at the end of the street. Maybe it wasn't Cavello, but this was the man who blew up the jury. I had no real plan. I wasn't a cop or a fugitive. Just someone whose adrenaline was racing. Someone who was about to make a stand.
The blond-haired killer finally staggered into the cul-de-sac.
"Put it down," I said, pointing my gun at him.
"Put it down?" He smirked, coming to a stop. He stared at me. "I don't know who you were, but you're a dead man now, friend."
Chapter 106
HE STARTED TO RAISE his arm, and I jerked off two shots. Both hit home, tearing into his chest. He grabbed the top of a nearby stall, fabric falling all over him as it crashed down. He tried to get up. I saw him elevate his gun hand, frantically tearing garments off himself.
"You blew up that bus!" I screamed.
The blond killer hesitated. It took him by surprise. Then a smile creased his lips, as if he found all of this amusing. "I did." He winked, trying to free his gun hand. "Boom!"
I hurled myself at him, smashing my fist into his face. He staggered backward into the railing. I held him by the shirt collar, out of control. I hit him again with everything I had in me. Teeth cracked, and blood spurted from his mouth. But he didn't go down.
"Well, here's a message." I flung him with all my might toward the railing. "Boom your fucking self!"
The killer smashed against the edge, still trying to right his gun toward me, and toppled over, jerking a shot wildly into the air.
Like a dead weight, he landed on top of a parked car below.
I went over to the railing. People were screaming, running out of the way. I was exhausted, out of breath, gasping for air. For a second, I didn't care who saw me. I didn't care if I heard a police siren or if the cops found me.
Then I came to my senses. I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing.
The crazy bastard opened his eyes. He looked up at me. He wouldn't die. Blood was matted in his hair and on his shirt. He rolled off the car and, with legs like jelly, staggered backward toward the street, somehow still in possession of his gun, arcing his arm upward.
Toward me!
I didn't move. I just stood there staring at him. "Die, you sonovabitch," I said. "Die!"
He crouched between two cars. I could see he was having trouble breathing. Then he quickly stepped out and aimed to shoot at me. There was a smirk on his face.
I heard the beep. And the chilling screech of brakes. It was sharp and penetrating, bone-rattling loud.
The killer spun. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. The look on his face was one of disbelief.
The bus careered into him, throwing him fifty feet into the street. His gun flew out of his hand and hit the pavement with a crack that sounded like a shot.
I heard screaming. I took a last look. He was just a crumpled, bloody mound.
This time I wasn't waiting around for another encore. When the crowd looked up, the balcony was empty.
Chapter 107
MINUTES LATER, I was knocking on the door of our hotel room. "Andie, let me in!"
The door opened, and I almost fell through, collapsing into Andie's arms. "God, Nick, I didn't know what to think," she said, throwing her arms around me. She stared at my bloodstained shirt, the black-and-blue marks on my neck.
"Nick!"
"I'm all right," I said. "But we have to get out of here now!"
I changed quickly. We dragged our bags downstairs and paid. In minutes we were weaving back through the streets, Andie driving, to the coastal highway, headed back toward Tel Aviv. We had a ten-o'clock flight out of there. I closed my eyes, leaned my head back on the headrest, and blew out an exhausted breath.
"You weren't supposed to stay." I turned my head and opened my eyes.
"What?"
"I said an
hour. I was thirty minutes late. I told you to get out of there. You weren't supposed to stay."
Andie stared at me as if she'd misheard. Then a smile creased her lips. "Braveheart was on the movie channel . . . I got caught up."
Andie took one hand off the wheel and briefly patted my arm. "I told you I wasn't leaving you, Nick."
We drove a little longer, the lights of Haifa fading into the darkness. I felt as empty and exhausted as ever before in my life.
"Did we get it?" she finally asked.
I hesitated a little. "Yeah, we got it." I smiled.
"So are we headed to Paris?"
"Stopover." I nodded.
"Then where?"
"Still love me?" I asked.
"You scared the hell out of me, Nick. I don't know what I'm feeling."
"You should have been in my shoes." I paused. "No. Not really."
A smile edged across my lips. A wide one-- triumphant. I couldn't believe we had pulled it off.
Then Andie was smiling, too. "Yeah, I still love you," she said. "So where?"
The end of the earth. Cavello had taunted me. Come and get me, Nicky Smiles.
That's what had made me laugh. Why I knew Remlikov had told me the truth-- the name of Cavello's ranch: El Fin del Mundo. The End of the World.
"Patagonia," I told her.
"Patagonia?" Andie looked at me. "I'm not even sure I know where that is."
"Don't worry. I do."
Part Five
EL FIN DEL MUNDO
Chapter 108
THE YOUNG GIRL'S pathetic wails echoed through the large stone house. Her name was Mariella, and she was still curled up on the bed, blood on the pillow from the cut he'd opened on her face.
"Shut the hell up," Dominic Cavello finally barked at her, wrapping his robe around himself and stepping over to the window. He threw open the shutters, letting in the afternoon light. "Better me than some ignorant farm boy, don't you think? Or maybe your father, drunk on beer. Or is your father your lover?"