The Spy Who Came for Christmas by David Morrell Page B

question could barely be heard.
    "No way to tell," Andrei replied softly. "Someone walked off and made footprints earlier, but those are Pyotyr's footprints that go through the gate toward the house."
    "How do you know?"
    "Blood on the gate."
    'Ah."
    "There's light--probably from a television--in the room on the far right." Andrei pointed. "Maybe there's someone in the house, someone who isn't aware that Pyotyr snuck in. Or maybe the house is empty, and Pyotyr turned on the television to make it seem the place is occupied."
    "A lot of maybes," Mikhail said. "He lost his cell phone. But if he's in there, he'll use the land line to call the police."
    "I shot the telephone wire," Andrei told him.
    "He could have phoned before you did that. Or maybe there's a cell phone in the house."
    "Then why haven't the police arrived? Why don't we hear sirens?"
    Yakov shrugged. "It's Christmas Eve on Canyon Road. The crowd would make it difficult for police cars to reach here."
    "But we can't just leave or rush the house because we think the police might be coming," Andrei insisted. "If we screw up, we'd better run and keep running. We'd never be able to stop--because we know our clients and the Pakhan will never stop hunting us."
    And my family, Andrei thought. If the Pakhan can't find me, he'll go after my wife and daughters.
    "Then what do you suggest?" Mikhail wanted to know.
    "We'll approach the house from three sides," Andrei decided. "Pyotyr can't defend it from every angle. At least two of us are bound to get in."
    "Those are pretty good odds, as long as I'm not the one who gets shot," Yakov said.
    "Pyotyr's wounded and weak from blood loss," Andrei countered. "His aim will be affected. There's a high probability that all of us will get out of this alive."
    "'High probability' doesn't fill me with confidence. Whoever goes in from the front takes the greatest risk. How do we decide who--"
    "The two of you sound like old women. I'll take the front," Andrei said irritably.
    They stared at him.
    "Pyotyr knows I'm the one he has the most reason to fear. I'll show myself in front of the house. He'll be distracted. That gives the two of you a better chance to get inside from different directions. If we synchronize the attack precisely--"
    "We have company," Yakov warned.
    Andrei pivoted toward the lane. At first, he worried that police were arriving. But the figure he saw was alone, plodding through the snow: a man wearing a buttoned pale-gray coat and a hat with built-in earflaps. He walked with his head so low that he looked weary.
    The holiday blues? Andrei wondered. Or maybe he's just protecting his face from the snow.
    A further thought occurred to him.
    Maybe this is a policeman putting on some kind of act. If so, he won't be alone. He'll be setting up a trap.
    Andrei thought of the Pakhan, of the clients, of Pyotyr.
    Of his wife and daughters.
    The man trudged closer, angling toward the opposite side of the lane, toward the gate.
    I'll take the risk, Andrei decided.
    * * *
    "WE'RE GOING to Santa Fe for a baby?"
    "Yes, Pyotyr For the child of peace."
    "I don't understand."
    "Don't you read the newspapers? Don't you watch the news on television?"
    "The news? Bah. Everything they tell us here is propaganda, the same as it was back in Russia."
    "Then you've never heard of Ahmed Hassan?"
    "Is that the child's name?"
    "The father's. He's an obstetrician."
    Andrei, my English isn't. . . "
    "Hassan delivers babies. He's a surgeon who once specialized in treating Palestinians who were shot in gunfights with Israelis.
    Over the years, he operated on two thousand combat patients. 'But nothing got better,' he said. So he changed his specialty and became a baby doctor. Thousands of children are in the world because of him,, far more than all the gunshot patients he treated. As he tells his followers, he chose life instead of death, hope instead of hate."
    "His followers? You make Hassan sound like some kind of religious leader."
    "In a way, he is.