Disclaimer and other information: See Part 1.
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THE WOODSHED -- PART 2 OF 3
The Woodshed was a rather small club with a capacity of only about 75 people. It had opened only recently, and live music performances on Friday and Saturday nights were devoted exclusively to jazz. Amanda had remembered to ask Billy about the significance of the club's name, and he had told her that the term 'woodshed', to jazz musicians, meant to practice, and to practice hard. He explained that many years ago, players had literally gone into their woodsheds to practice, just like he went into his basement. Today, when a jazz musician needed to work on something, he would say he was going to 'woodshed' his music, or that he was going to 'the woodshed'.
The club was in a converted storefront in a quiet part of town. It was a long narrow venue, with a fully-stocked bar running along the wall to the right of the front door. A low stage, complete with a 7-foot grand piano, stood in the back left corner of the room. A hallway ran from the corner of the stage to the back of the building, where a delivery entrance opened into the alley. The kitchen was along the right side of the hallway, past the bar, and a storage room filled the opposite space past the stage. It had formerly been a hardware store, and a local developer had bought that property along with two other now-defunct businesses in the same block. He had converted each of the businesses into small clubs and had sold them to individual owners. The clubs hadn't really been open long enough for anyone to know if they would be successful, but as long as The Woodshed stayed open through Friday night, Yuri Kotranovich would have a good chance of eventually becoming an American citizen.
********
By Friday afternoon, a completely workable plan had been formulated, and by 8:00 p.m., Project Woodshed, as they had begun calling it, was in place. The club owner was more than willing to cooperate with a federal agency, especially after Billy had dropped the name of a good friend at the IRS. The owner had readily agreed to vacate the premises for the evening, and to give his entire staff the night off, as well.
The performance was to start at 9:00 p.m. and end at midnight, with Kotranovich's defection scheduled to occur shortly thereafter. Amanda would escort Kotranovich to the venue, again representing the DC Jazz Society. She would then sit with the two embassy watchdogs they knew would be accompanying the pianist, and encouraging them to have plenty to drink. Francine would be working as a bartender, and Cagney and Reade would work the door. They would be taking the cover charge, checking ID's, and if the situation arose, working as bouncers. They already knew the situation would arise. Lee would arrive at the venue near the end of the show. His job was to get into an argument with the two Russians, and get them both kicked out of the club. Cagney and Reade would then drive the Soviets around rural Virginia for a couple of hours, before dropping them off at their embassy gate. Cagney had asked jokingly if they could leave them there in their underwear, and Reade had wanted to know if they could drop Stetson off there, too. Billy hadn't thought any of that was funny.
Billy, of course, was deeply entrenched as a member of the band. The drummer and bassist, Marine Corps band members who were looking forward to an unprecedented undercover assignment, had accepted him readily, as had Kotranovich. They were all excellent players, and Billy was pleased that he was able to hold his own with them. His many months of hard practicing had paid off. Thursday's rehearsals had gone pretty well, but Billy honestly didn't expect to enjoy the gig. Too much was at stake, and with Petrov in town, too much could go wrong.
Frank Duffy was assigned to wait in the alley, outside the club's loading entrance, in the band's equipment truck. Amanda would temporarily join him after her companions from the embassy had been ejected from the club. The actual defection was to take place at the end of the concert. After the band members packed their equipment, Kotranovich and the two Marines were to carry two loads each to the truck, leaving half of the band's equipment on the stage. The Marines would be able to come back the next day to get the rest of their gear. After the second load, Kotranovich and one of the Marines would jump into the back of the truck. The other Marine would join Frank in the cab. Amanda was to pull down the sliding door and lock it, and then Frank would deliver his three passengers to the State Department, while Amanda rejoined the others still inside the club. A medical van, along with a surveillance van containing two back-up teams, were positioned around the corner from The Woodshed, in case their assistance was needed. At the point Frank drove away from the club, the back-up and medical vehicles were to follow his truck to State.
********
If Kotranovich was the least bit nervous about his defection, it didn't show in his playing. The show was going very well, and the audience seemed to appreciate the Russian artist. The band played a fifty-minute set, which included two of Kotranovich's original compositions, as well as a half-dozen jazz standards. Billy, assured that his team was in place, was finally able to relax and play. Amanda was impressed. It had been about a year since she had heard Billy, and although he hadn't played badly then, he had obviously improved considerably.
Billy had brought his small P.A. from his basement studio, and over the microphone, he announced that the band would be taking a fifteen-minute break. From behind the bar, Francine started a cassette machine, providing filler music over the house sound system. The two Marines went to the bar to request a couple of beers, and Billy and Kotranovich joined Amanda and the two Russians at their table.
"It's going very well, Professor," Amanda smiled at Kotranovich.
"Yes, I am pleased," he replied. "My new friend, Billy Shakespeare, is a wonderful saxophonist, is he not? Very poetic." Kotranovich laughed at his own joke.
Billy laughed, too. He liked his new stage name. Billy Shakespeare . . . He wouldn't have admitted it to Lee or Francine, but he had actually gotten the idea from Lee's joke about Rose-by-any-other-name. Billy excused himself from the table. He walked to the bar and asked Francine for a club soda, as his eyes wandered the room. So far, so good, he told himself. There was no sign of Anton Petrov. Maybe he would be able to enjoy the evening after all.
********
Shortly after the third and final set had begun, Lee made his entrance. He was dressed casually, and he was wearing his heavy leather jacket, as the weather was still unseasonably cool and wet. Wiping raindrops from his coat, he made his way to the bar and ordered a beer. As Francine opened the bottle and handed it to him, she nodded toward a table about halfway between the bar and the stage. Lee followed her glance with a look of dismay. Amanda had told him the two guards from the Russian embassy were big men, but he hadn't counted on them being quite that big. He wasn't looking forward to making them mad, and he sincerely hoped that Cagney and Reade would intercept the two before they decided to get physical. He wondered where Amanda was; he knew she was supposed to be seated with the Soviets. He spotted her near the restroom and took advantage of the fact that she was temporarily out of the way.
Lee started toward a vacant table near the edge of the stage. On his way, he bumped into one of the big Russians hard enough to make him slosh his glass of vodka all over the table. In a convoluted effort to apologize, Lee managed to pour his beer all over both of the burly men.
Both Russians stood up and began moving toward Lee, who muttered something about the Kiev Ballet as he backed toward the bar. Just as the larger of the two men reached out with a thick finger and began to poke Lee in the chest, Cagney and Reade appeared and took each of them by the collar. Lee set his empty bottle down and smoothed his clothing as his colleagues escorted the Soviets to the door. The minute they were out the door, the American agents slapped handcuffs onto the surprised and slightly drunk Russians and pushed them toward a nondescript brown Dodge. The whole thing was over before anyone else in the audience had even realized what had happened.
********
A minute or two later, Amanda returned from the restroom. She looked at the watery mess on the table at which she had been seated, and she knew Lee had already been successful in getting the embassy guards out of the way. Now, she would be able to leave the venue unobserved and meet Frank Duffy at the loading entrance. She nodded at Lee and Francine, and exited through the front door of the club.
Amanda had brought a change of clothes for later, knowing she might need to move quickly, once Kotranovich was in the alley. She loved being in the field, but not in a dress and high heels, especially when she was carrying a gun. She didn't see how Francine did it.
Amanda retrieved a duffel bag and her red goose-down jacket from the Jeep, and she grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment. She looked around to see if she was being watched, but no one was on the street. She honestly would have been surprised to see anyone. The weather had kept most people indoors that evening, and the audience in The Woodshed had been disappointingly small. She knew, though, that the size of the crowd would work to their advantage. The club would be vacated quickly at the end of the show, allowing Kotranovich an even cleaner opportunity to slip away.
She made her way around the corner of the building and tapped on the window of the equipment truck to let Frank Duffy know she was there. She let herself into the back of the truck, and using her flashlight, changed into the things she had brought. She stashed her purse and her dress clothes in the duffel bag, which she planned to lock in the truck and pick up later at the Agency. She carefully checked her gun, then checked it again. Satisfied that she was ready, Amanda put on her warm down jacket, and joined Frank in the cab of the truck.
The two agents sat listening to the gentle rain drumming on the roof, and watching the oily drops roll lazily down the windshield. They chatted a little about the Kotranovich case and about the cool, wet weather, as they kept watch in the alley and waited for the performance to end. After several minutes, though, the rain began to come down harder, reducing visibility considerably. Neither of them noticed a stocky figure enter the alley from the other direction and slide silently past them into the back of the building.
********
Fifteen minutes after midnight, the back door of the nightclub opened. The small audience had completely cleared the venue, and Kotranovich and the Marines came out with their first load of gear. According to plan, after they brought out their second load, the three climbed into their assigned places in the truck. Amanda hastily wished Kotranovich well, and he thanked her for her help, as she pulled down the sliding door. She locked the door and stepped quickly to the driver's side window to hand Frank Duffy the key to the padlock. "They're in. Good luck. See you back at the Agency," she said, as Frank put the truck into gear and rolled away. Despite the rain, Amanda followed the truck to the end of the alley and watched with satisfaction as the back-up vehicles left their posts to escort it.
As she returned to the loading entrance, however, Amanda noticed with a start that the lights inside the club had gone off. At first she thought the storm must have caused a power failure, but she realized there hadn't been any lightning for several hours. She knew the agents inside the club wouldn't have turned off the lights; there was still at least an hour of cleanup to be done, before they all returned to the Agency for debriefing. Her skin prickled as another possibility occurred to her . . . Ursa.
She tried to tell herself that it could be nothing. Maybe they had turned out the lights in the back rooms and the hallway. Maybe they had closed an inside door, shutting out the light from the stage and the bar. She knew it was wishful thinking. Every instinct inside of her screamed that there was trouble, and she knew without a doubt that the source of the trouble was Anton Petrov. Amanda drew her gun and backed up against the door frame, trying to decide what to do.
If she had access to a radio, she could call for back-up, but Amanda knew the nearest transmitter was inside the club. Francine would probably have it in her pocket or her purse. Looking up and down the alley, Amanda noticed the electric company's meter box on the outside of the building. She knew from the position of the box that it was outside the kitchen, and she thought there was probably some sort of utility closet housing the interior fuse box on the other side of the wall. Petrov must have hidden in the kitchen and thrown the master switch. She wondered when and how he had done it. He must have been in the audience, in some sort of disguise, or perhaps he had slipped past them in the rain. She knew he couldn't have come in early. They had swept the place thoroughly.
She wondered, then, if Petrov had been there all along, why he hadn't tried to stop the defection. She caught her breath as it occurred to her suddenly that he hadn't been interested in Kotranovich at all, but in the Agency operatives he knew would be brought aboard to assist with the defection. In all likelihood, she realized, Anton Petrov was inside that nightclub right now, with two American agents and their administrator. With Lee, she thought fearfully. And with Francine and Billy. Ursa was there to assassinate them, and the three of them had remained in the club like sitting ducks.
Amanda tilted her head back against the door frame and closed her eyes for a moment. She unconsciously transferred her gun to her left hand as she reached across her chest and rubbed at her scar. She could hardly remember the last time she had been this scared, but after a moment, she was able to push her fear away and let her training and experience take over. By the time she opened her eyes, she had formulated a plan. Releasing the safety on her gun, she returned it to her right hand, and reached into her left pocket for her flashlight. Keeping the beam low, and covering it as well as she could with the sleeve of her coat, she crept inside the open door. She followed the wall around to the kitchen, being careful not to kick anything or make any noise that would alert Petrov to her presence. She knew he wouldn't be in the kitchen. She knew he'd be back out in the club, possibly already holding her husband and their friends. She refused to let herself wonder whether or not they were already dead.
Still muting the glow from her flashlight, Amanda shone it along the back wall of the kitchen, and quickly discovered the utility closet she knew would contain the fuse box. Tiptoeing inside, she closed the door behind her and let her light shine full on the labels identifying the various circuits. Her guess had been correct. The main breaker had been thrown. As quietly as possible, she threw all of the smaller switches, and sincerely hoping her plan would work, turned the main breaker back on. She looked at the crack under the door of the closet and was relieved to see no light from the kitchen.
Studying the list of switches, Amanda tried to determine which one would be the best choice to turn back on. She assumed that, in the darkness, none of the agents inside the club could see each other. The situation would be at an indefinite standoff. Turning on all the lights would be a mistake, but maybe one or two low lights would give Lee and the others the brief advantage they needed to get away from Petrov. Making a decision, she selected a switch called 'stage blues', and flipped it on. Three seconds later, she heard gunfire. Taking a deep breath and steeling herself against the thought of whatever might have already happened in the other room, Amanda left the protection of the utility closet and made her way through the kitchen. Silently she turned the corner and headed down the hallway toward the stage.
********
A few minutes earlier, Lee had been helping Billy pack his P.A. equipment, when suddenly they were cast into total darkness. Even the exit lights went out. The blinds had been drawn all evening, and very little light was coming in from the street. "Billy?" Lee said softly, reaching for his gun. "You still there?"
"Here."
"Francine?" he called a little louder, knowing she had been across the room at the bar.
"Here."
"Find some cover, children," Billy told them. "We may have company."
"It may just be a power failure," Francine noted.
"I didn't see any lightning," Lee observed, feeling his way toward the bar.
"You two hold it down," Billy ordered. "Until we find out what's going on."
They waited quietly for a couple of minutes, and their eyes began to adjust to the darkness. "Billy, nothing's happening," Francine said finally. "There must have been a power surge or something. Does anybody know where the breaker box is?"
"I do," a deep voice replied.
Billy cursed under his breath. It was Ursa. Anton Petrov.
"You're too late, Petrov," Billy announced to the voice, even though he couldn't see its source. "Kotranovich is gone."
"It's not Kotranovich I want, William Melrose. It's you. And any of your subordinates who might wish to die with you. I don't need a tired old Russian to take back to Moscow with me. I need . . . How do you say it in your television Westerns? A few more notches in the barrel of my gun. I need American agents. Dead ones."
"Well, you're going to have to work pretty hard to find us, Petrov," Lee put in. "If I can't see you, I'm pretty sure you can't see me. Seems to me we're at a stalemate. Only, there are three of us, and one of you. That would mean we have the advantage. So why don't you just give it up?"
"Perhaps you have the advantage. Perhaps you do not." Petrov stepped stealthily toward Lee's voice.
At that moment, a track of dim blue lights came on over the stage. Lee saw Petrov slipping around the end of the bar and fired at him. Petrov ducked, and Lee's shot struck the mirrored wall behind the bar, causing glass shelves and bottles to fall to the floor. Lee flipped a table onto its side and dove behind it as Petrov returned his fire. He jumped as Petrov's bullet struck the overturned table with a thud.
Remaining in a crouched position, Lee slowly lifted his head over the edge of the table and swept the bar area with his eyes. The stage lights weren't providing much illumination, but the visibility was better than it had been just seconds before. There was no sign of Petrov, but Lee knew the Russian hadn't been hit. He assumed Francine was still on the other side of the bar, and he hoped she hadn't been caught in the crossfire. He realized with dismay that Petrov was probably back there with her. In the faint glow of the lights, Lee could see Billy peering at him from behind an overturned table near the edge of the stage. Billy nodded at him and moved cautiously across the room.
Suddenly, Lee heard a scuffling sound from behind the bar, and he knew instinctively that Petrov had taken Francine. He turned in the direction of the noise and stood up to his full height. He held his gun in both hands, arms extended and elbows locked, hoping he would be ready for Petrov's next move. Billy joined him, matching his stance.
Behind the bar, the KGB agent had his fist clenched around a handful of Francine's blond hair. He jerked it violently, pulling her head back and to the side, sharply and painfully. "Try nothing," he hissed at her. "Stand up slowly." She rose to her feet, and Petrov stood with her. "Drop your weapon and kick it away," he ordered Francine, pointing his gun at her temple. She hesitated, as she made eye contact with Lee. "Don't be stupid," Petrov told her. "Drop it. Now." Reluctantly, she complied. Working her hair in his hand like reins, he steered her out from behind the bar, and they joined Lee and Billy in the center of the room.
"Now the two of you," he addressed the men. "Same thing. Put them down and kick them away."
Looking at the weapon in Petrov's hand, Lee and Billy knew they had no choice but to obey him. Petrov's powerful Bulgarian-made handgun was the switchable kind, capable of firing either automatic single rounds, or multiple three-round bursts. They knew it had been set in single mode when Petrov had fired at Lee moments before, but either way, Francine wouldn't have a chance. They lowered their weapons to the floor and pushed them away.
"Now," Petrov said. "Tell me who else is here. Who turned on those lights?"
Francine thought quickly. She knew it had probably been Amanda, and she was sure Billy and Lee were thinking the same thing. But if Petrov didn't know that . . . "I did," Francine told him. "I found a fuse box behind the bar."
Petrov jerked Francine's head around to face him. He tried to determine from her expression whether or not she was lying. She met his gaze coolly and evenly, and it was hard to be sure. He glared at the three Americans. Although he didn't want to hesitate too long, he took a few moments to consider his options. He knew he had the upper hand in the situation, and he intended to keep it. Should he execute all three of them? Probably. Should he take them to his safe-house first, and torture them for information that might benefit his country? Yes, perhaps that was an even better idea. He would become an even greater hero in Moscow. He wondered what had become of his comrades from the embassy. The Americans must have taken them shortly before he had arrived, or perhaps while he was hiding in the kitchen. Petrov was accustomed to working alone, but he knew these three Americans could be dangerous, particularly the one code-named Scarecrow. If he was to take even one of them prisoner, he was going to need some help.
Lee clenched his jaw as he read Petrov's face. There was no doubt in his mind that the KGB agent intended to kill them all; it was only a matter of time. How had things gotten so bad so quickly? The whole thing had begun as a routine defection. It appeared now that it was going to end in a series of executions, his own, and those of his friends. Although he tried to stay alert to the situation, Lee couldn't help turning his thoughts toward Amanda. He had assumed she had been the one who switched on the stage lights, but then Francine had admitted turning them on. Unless Francine had been lying to Petrov . . . So where was Amanda? She should have been back in the club by now. Maybe she had left with Duffy or one of the back-up teams. Or . . . maybe Petrov had found her in the alley. Maybe he had found all of them in the alley. No, he told himself firmly. He couldn't think that way. Besides, he would have heard gunfire. Amanda was okay. She had to be . . .
Lee realized the hopelessness of the situation, but he wasn't ready to quit. He wasn't ready to leave Amanda, or to give up his life with her, if he didn't have to. He looked around, searching the room for . . . something. Anything. He didn't know what he was looking for . . . anything that would serve as a distraction, anything that would allow one of them to disarm or disable Petrov. As his eyes roamed the dimly lighted room, a slight motion near the back of the stage caught his eye. Someone was behind the grand piano. Lee held his breath and quickly shifted his gaze back to Petrov. Maybe Francine had been lying about the stage lights, after all. Maybe Amanda had been there the whole time. If it had been Amanda that he had seen, Lee hoped not to give her position away.
********
It was too late. Petrov narrowed his eyes at Lee. The Russian looked around, alerted to the presence of someone else in the room. He saw no one, but he instinctively knew someone was there. He quickly made his decision. There would be no interrogation tonight. No prisoners. Just bodies. He would still be a hero in Moscow. He already was. He jerked hard on Francine's hair, forcing her to her knees. He stepped away from her and pointed his gun at the back of her head. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, Amanda made her move.
"Francine!" she shouted. "Down!" Francine obeyed without hesitation, diving and flattening herself against the floor. Leaping from behind the piano, Amanda leveled her gun at Petrov and squeezed the trigger. Her shot struck him in the left shoulder, but he was able to regain his balance quickly. He remained standing, and switching his handgun to multi-mode, returned her fire.
The three-shot burst from Petrov's weapon struck Amanda diagonally across the chest and sent her reeling backwards. Tiny feathers flew everywhere, as her down jacket seemed to explode with the force of the bullets. Another burst caught her full in the mid-section and lifted her into the air. She spun ninety degrees and met the wall with her right shoulder. Bouncing off the wall, her body completed its rotation, and she landed sprawled on her back near the edge of the stage.
"Noooo!" In horror and rage, Lee flew at Petrov, delivering a vicious roundhouse kick to the KGB agent's throat. In almost the same motion, and before Petrov's body had even hit the floor, he was at Amanda's side. He knelt and used his left hand to gently lift her head and shoulders from the hard wooden surface of the stage. With his right hand, he tilted her chin up and looked into her face. Her features were still, her eyes closed. Her hair and skin were damp from the rain, and Lee carefully brushed a wet curl from her forehead. He ran his hand down the front of her coat and lightly fingered the deep holes he found in the fluffy down. He swallowed hard, choking on the lump in his throat. He couldn't bring himself to check for the pulse that he knew he wouldn't find. "No," he said again, softly this time. He pulled her limp body up into his lap, then crushed her into his chest. Holding her tightly, he buried his face in her hair. He began to rock back and forth on his knees, cradling her against him.
Francine was on the radio immediately. "We need back up and medics in here now! We have an agent down! Repeat! Agent down!" She knew that both the surveillance van and the medical team had been assigned to follow the truck containing Kotranovich, and that they were probably already several minutes away. There was no way they could have known there was still a threat inside the nightclub. She kept broadcasting, hoping feverishly that the vehicles weren't already out of radio range.
Billy ran to Petrov, ready to subdue him, but he quickly realized that it wouldn't be necessary. He watched as the KGB agent's body twitched convulsively a couple of times, in a reflexive attempt to draw air through his crushed windpipe. Petrov's body stiffened, then relaxed, as his unseeing eyes began to glaze over. Billy carefully removed the dead man's weapon from his hand.
Having finally received a reply from the Agency van, Francine returned the small transmitter to her pocket and walked slowly toward the edge of the stage, surveying the surreal scene before her. In the hazy blue pyramids cast by the stage lights, tiny pieces of goose-down floated and lingered, occasionally landing on Lee's coat or in his hair. The blue domes of light and the fluffy bits of down gave Francine the strange sensation that she was watching a scene in a snow globe. She remembered, as a child, shaking a plastic bubble and watching pieces of painted white glitter drift down upon a wintry scene. She realized with a sense of irony that someone had shaken the plastic bubble that was her world, and had shaken it violently. It occurred to Francine, as she took in Amanda's still form, that some of the glitter in all of their lives, as if from a shattered snow globe, had silently slipped away. Normally stoic, Francine allowed a small tear to trickle down her cheek.
Francine checked her watch as she waited impatiently for help to arrive. She realized in surprise that only a few seconds had passed, and she reflected on how much could change in such a short amount of time. Shaking herself from her thoughts, she climbed the two low steps to the stage. She didn't expect to be able to help, but she had to try. "Lee . . ." she began, as she came up behind him and hesitantly placed a hand on his shoulder.
He didn't respond. He continued to rock back and forth, holding Amanda tightly against his chest, his arms enveloping her slender frame almost completely. Lee had every intention of shutting out the rest of the world and letting his senses experience Amanda for as long as he could. He wanted to remember her scent. He wanted to remember the texture of her hair and skin. He wanted to feel her warmth for as long as it would last.
"Lee, let me see," Francine urged quietly. Again, he refused to acknowledge her. Francine wondered if he was in shock. She looked at Billy, who was still kneeling near Petrov's body, and tilted her head uncertainly.
He shook his head. "You saw the same thing I did, Francine. You know there's nothing we can do." Billy spoke softly, in answer to Francine's unspoken question. He looked sadly at Lee, his heart breaking for his friend. "Let him have a minute with her, before the others get here."
"But, Billy . . ."
He looked up at her and saw the desperation and the helplessness in her eyes. He knew her expression was a mirror of his own.
"She saved my life."
"I know, Francine. She saved us all."
********
TO BE CONTINUED