Page 190 of Cry Havoc

“A recruitment? I’m flattered.”

“Become an asset and we can get you out when the time is right. The Agency would set you up in Paris.”

“Unfortunately for your Agency, I am not a traitor like Penkovsky.”

“You can come back with me.”

“To the West? Tonight? Cross into West Berlin? I am tempted, just to see how you got here with that pistol, but no Thomas, I can’t do that. As much as I love Paris, I still love my country more. I also gave someone my word that I would not betray the motherland. I could never defect. So, with recruitment and defection out, what is the third option?”

Tom looked at the pistol in his hand.

“I see,” the Russian said, taking another long draw on his cigarette. “If you kill me, you will never know the fate of your men in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Soviet Union, even China.”

“You already told the CIA interrogators all about it.”

“True. I doubt your country will ever get their POWs back, not the ones in Siberia anyway.”

“Don’t be too sure.”

“I think I know your country better than you do. Don’t you find it odd that the CIA sent you here to kill me? I’m the connection to American POWs and the Soviet Union. Why do you think they want me dead?”

“As I said, it is only one of your options.”

“The one you prefer I take? Maybe that is why they sent you.”

Tom did not answer.

“Don’t take offense but you seem an odd choice for this assignment,” Dvornikov said.

“We have history, and I speak German. Someone thought I would have the best chance of recruiting or extracting you. I neglected to tell them that I did not plan on selling you very hard on either of those options.” Tom paused. He thought of the U.S. servicemen languishing in North Vietnamese prison camps. He thought of American POWs in the Soviet Union. He thought of Ella and Quinn.

Dvornikov closed his eyes, took a draw of his cigarette, and inhaled deeply. He held it for what seemed an eternity before exhaling, the pungent smoke rising toward the yellow light above.

He opened his eyes.

“Want to tell me why you are really here?”

“I told you.”

“Could it be Ella? Such a pity. She was beautiful, that one. And quite a mystery.”

“Yes, she was.”

“You might not believe this, but I do miss her. I loved her, you know, in my own fashion,” Dvornikov said.

“Interesting way of showing it.”

“Says the man who was fucking her at the behest of the CIA. Did you love her? Is that really why you are here? Is this about your dead friend or the dead woman?”

Tom considered the man across from him, remembering the last timehe saw Ella—on the floor of a Bangkok hotel with two bullets in her chest—and Quinn, tied to a tree, disemboweled and decapitated.

While the ASP was still pointed at the Russian, his left hand reached into his coat and wrapped around the grip of a small derringer, a Soviet-designed MSP—Malogabaritnyj Spetsialnyy Pistolet. He pulled a two-piece lever at the base of the trigger guard down and back, cocking the internal hammers of the integrally suppressed double-barreled pistol that had been used to kill Ella. He felt for the safety, ensured it was ready, and slipped it from his pocket.

“You’ll never know.”

Tom raised the MSP and shot Dvornikov between the eyes.

The Russian’s head snapped back, brain matter and skull fragments exploding behind him. His chin dropped forward as his body became an empty vessel. His left hand remained in his lap and his right fell over the arm of the chair, the lit cigarette dropping to the precast reinforced concrete floor.