The Spy Who Came for Christmas by David Morrell Page A

Meredith trusted him enough now that she didn't object. Concealed by the deeper shadows, he opened the curtains a couple of inches.
    Through the falling snow, he was able to see the upright poles of the coyote fence. He watched for movement in the shadows beyond it.
    "Meredith, describe the layout of the house."
    * * *
    ANDREI CRAWLED hurriedly through the snow along the bottom of the fence. His breathing quickened as the heat of the renewed hunt dissipated the cold on his cheeks. When he was far enough down the lane that he felt safe to stand, he did so and peered up at a utility pole.
    Two wires led from it toward the house. In the faint reflection off the snow, he strained his eyes and saw that one of them was attached to an insulator on the pole--that was for electricity. The other wire was either for telephone service or for cable television. Then he remembered the satellite dish he'd seen on the roof and decided that the remaining wire must be for the phone.
    In adequate conditions, his marksmanship was exceptional. But now it took him four shots before a bullet connected with
    the thick wire at the pole and blew it apart. Because of the falling snow, the sound suppressor on his gun was even more muffled than usual, and the sound of hitting the wire wasn't enough to attract attention.
    Immediately, he removed the partly empty magazine, slid it into a pants pocket, and shoved a full fifteen-round magazine into the pistol. Only then did he speak to the microphone, his voice an urgent whisper.
    "I found him."
    Through the earbud under his cap, he heard an abrupt exhale.
    "Thank God," the Pakhan's taut voice said.
    Andrei thought it ironic that his leader, who had also been raised in the atheistic Soviet Union, would use that expression.
    "Our clients are here now," the Pakhan said. "I've never seen anyone so furious. How soon can you deliver the package?"
    "I don't know," Andrei answered.
    "What?"
    "Pyotyr took cover in a house. I need to figure how to get to him."
    "Don't let him escape again," the Pakhan's voice warned.
    "Not this time. He's ours."
    "I don't give a govno about him! Deal with him quickly! The package! Just get me the package!"
    It troubled Andrei that the Pakhan felt so threatened. Normally, he was content to provide barely adequate service. If clients complained, he ordered someone like Andrei to set fire to their homes. People who needed to employ the Odessa
    Mafia were desperate to begin with. The Pakhan's attitude was that they ought to be grateful for any help they received.
    But these clients were another matter.
    The three million dollars they'd paid for a week's work-- at a resort city, no less--had been too tempting for the Pakhan to resist. At the time, he'd called it easy pickings.
    "They made all the arrangements. They bribed the necessary people. They learned the target's schedule, exactly when and where the job can be done. It should have been easy for them. But they can't carry out the actual mission. They need us because we can blend with the Santa Fe crowd, while they'd be spotted right away. So I charged those damned Arabs as much as possible."
    Accustomed to causing fear rather than being the subject of it, the Pakhan now understood the penalty for going into business with clients who were even more ruthless than he was.
    Andrei stepped off the lane toward a fir tree that provided a hidden vantage point from which he could watch the house.
    "Did the rest of you hear?" he murmured to his microphone.
    "Yes." Yakov's voice came through the earbud. "Where are you?"
    "Follow the lane I took."
    A few minutes later, when he saw two heavyset men hurrying through the falling snow, Andrei said to the microphone, "I'm to your right. By a fir tree."
    The men paused, looking in his direction.
    "There you are," Mikhail murmured. "Good. We wouldn't want to shoot you by mistake." Grinning at the joke, he and Yakov took cover behind the tree and assessed the house.
    "How many people are inside?" Yakov's