A Matter of Honor

Romanov quickly turned to the driver. “Get the car, I need the glasses and the map.” The driver ran back down the hill once again, followed by the boy. A few minutes later the Mercedes drew up by Romanov’s side. The driver jumped out and handed the glasses over to Romanov, while Valchek spread a map out on the hood of the car.

Romanov focused the binoculars and began to sweep the hills in the distance. It was several minutes before the glasses stopped and settled upon a brown speck climbing up the farthest hill.

“The rifle,” were Romanov’s only words.

Valchek ran to the trunk of the car and took out a Dragunov sniper’s rifle with telescopic sights. He assembled the long, slim weapon with its distinctive wooden skeleton stock and checked that it was loaded. He then raised it, moved it around until it felt comfortable nestled in his shoulder, and swept the ground in front of him until he too focused on Scott. Romanov followed Adam’s relentless stride with the binoculars; Valchek’s arm moved with him, keeping the same pace.

“Kill him,” said Romanov. Valchek was grateful for the clear windless day as he kept the rifle sight in the middle of the Englishman’s back, waited for three more strides, then slowly squeezed the trigger. Adam had almost reached the top of the ridge when the bullet tore through him. He fell to the ground with a thud. Romanov smiled and lowered the binoculars.

Adam knew exactly what had ripped through his shoulder and where the shot must have come from. He instinctively rolled over until he reached the nearest tree. And then the pain began. Although the bullet had lost a lot of its power at such a distance, it still stung like an adder’s bite, and blood was already beginning to seep through his trench coat from the torn muscle. He turned his head and gazed back behind him. He could see no one, but he knew Romanov must be standing there waiting to take a second shot

Turning with difficulty, he looked back up toward the edge of the hill. Only thirty yards to the safety of the ridge, but he would have to run over the top, remaining exposed for several vital seconds. Even if he made it, Romanov would still be able to reach him by car within thirty minutes.

Nevertheless, that was his one chance. Slowly, very slowly, he crawled inch by inch up the ridge, thankful for the tree that he could still use as protection. One arm followed one leg, like a beached crab. Once he had covered ten yards, he knew the angle would be against him and Romanov would have a flat, slow-moving target to aim at. He moved four more lengths of his body and stopped.

You can’t hold a rifle up on your shoulder forever, Adam thought. He counted to two hundred slowly.

“He’s going to make a run for it,” Romanov told Valchek, as he raised his glasses, “which will give you about three seconds. I’ll shout the moment he moves.” Romanov kept the glasses trained on the tree. Suddenly Adam jumped up and sprinted as though it were the last twenty meters of an Olympic final. Romanov shouted, “Now,” and Valchek pulled the rifle up into his shoulder, focused on the moving man, and squeezed the trigger as Adam threw himself over the ridge. The second bullet whistled by the side of Adam’s head.

Romanov cursed, as he stared through the binoculars, knowing that Valchek had missed. He turned to the open map. The others joined him around the car as he began to consider the alternatives. “He should reach that road in about ten minutes,” he said, putting his finger in the middle of a small red line that ran between Neuchâtel and the French border. “Unless the first bullet hit him, in which case it could take him longer. So how long will it take you to get to that border?” Romanov asked the driver.

The chauffeur studied the map. “About twenty-five, at most thirty minutes, Comrade Major,” came back the reply.

Romanov turned and looked back toward the hills. “Thirty minutes, Scott, that’s how long you’ve got to live.”

When the car sped away, the little boy ran home as fast as he could. He quickly told his mother everything he had seen. She smiled understandingly. Only children had such imaginations.

When Adam looked up, he was relieved to see the road was only about a mile away. He jogged toward it at a steady pace, but found that the running caused him even more discomfort. He was anxious to stop and check the wound but waited till he reached the road. The bullet had torn through the outer flesh of his shoulder muscle, leaving him in considerable pain. An inch lower, and he would have been unable to move. He was relieved to see that the blood had only made a small stain on his trench coat. He folded a handkerchief in four and placed it between his shirt and the wound. He knew he daren’t risk a hospital. As long as he could get to a pharmacy by nightfall, he felt he could take care of the problem himself.

Adam checked the map. He was now only a few kilometers from the French border and decided, because of the wound, to cross into France as quickly as possible rather than keep to his original plan of going up through Basle and on to Bremerhaven.

Desperately he began to thumb at any car that passed, no longer bothering with the nationality of the license plates. He felt he was safe for about twenty minutes but after that he would have to disappear back into the hills. Unfortunately there were far fewer cars driving toward the French border than there had been on the Basle road, and they all ignored his plea. He feared that the time was fast approaching for him to return to the hills when a yellow Citroen drew to the side of the road a few yards ahead of him.

By the time Adam had reached the car the woman in the passenger seat had already wound down the window.

“Where—are—you—going?” asked Adam, pronouncing each word slowly and carefully.

The driver leaned across, took a lengthy look at Adam, and said in a broad Yorkshire accent, “We’re on our way to Dijon. Any use to you, lad?”

“Yes, please,” said Adam, relieved that his scruffy appearance had not put them off.

“Then jump in the back with my daughter.”

Adam obeyed. The Citroen moved off as Adam checked out of the back window; he was relieved to see an empty road stretching out behind him.

“Jim Hardcastle’s the name,” said the man, as he moved the car into third gear. Jim appeared to have a large, warm smile perpetually imprinted on his chubby red face. His dark ginger hair went straight back and was plastered down with Brylcreem. He wore a Harris tweed jacket and an open-necked shirt that revealed a little red triagle of hair. It looked to Adam as if he had given up attempts to do anything about his waistline. “And this is the wife, Betty,” he said, gesturing with his elbow toward the woman in the front seat. She turned toward Adam, revealing the same ruddy checks and warm smile. Her hair was dyed blonde, but the roots remained an obstinate black. “And sitting next to you is our Linda,” Jim Hardcastle added, almost as an afterthought. “Just left school and going to work for the local council, aren’t you, Linda?” Linda nodded sulkily. Adam stared at the young girl, whose first experiment with makeup hadn’t worked that well. The dark overlined eye shadow and the pink lipstick did not help what Adam considered was an attractive girl probably in her late teens.”And what’s your name, lad?”

“Dudley Hulme,” said Adam, recalling the name on his new passport. “And are you on holiday?” he asked, trying to keep his mind off the throbbing shoulder.

“Mixing business with pleasure,” said Jim. “But this part of the trip is rather special for Betty and myself. We flew to Genoa on Saturday and hired the car to tour Italy. First we traveled up through the Simplon Pass. It’s a bit breathtaking after our home town of Hull.”

Adam would have asked for details, but Jim didn’t reckon on any interruptions. “I’m in mustard, you see. Export director for Colman’s, and we’re on our way to the annual conference of the IMF. You may have heard of us.” Adam n

odded knowingly. “International Mustard Federation,” Jim added. Adam almost wanted to laugh, but because of the pain in his shoulder, managed to keep a straight face.

“This year they’ve elected me president of the IMF, the high point of my career in mustard, you might say. And, if I may be so bold as to suggest, an honor for Colman’s as well, the finest mustard in the world,” he added, as if he said it at least a hundred times a day.”As president I have to preside over the conference meetings and chair the annual dinner. Tonight I shall be making a speech of welcome to delegates from all over the world.”

“How fascinating,” winced Adam, as the car went over a pothole.