The Road to Gandolfo Read Online Free PDF Page A

clothof his tunic, pulled him swiftly off his feet and chopped Lin Shoo beneath the mandible.
    The vice-prefect of the Ministry of Education slumped instantly into unconsciousness.
    Hawkins grabbed the box of firecrackers out of Lin Shoo’s hand and raced around the lacquered table into the sleeping quarters. He grabbed the blanket nailed across the window, folded back a tiny section on the edge and looked outside at the rear of the house. There were the two policemen chatting calmly, their rifles at their sides. Beyond them was the sloping hill that led down to the village.
    Hawkins released the blanket and ran back into the main room, dropping immediately to his hands and knees and scrambling obstacle-style toward the front door. He stood up and silently opened it a crack. The two flanking policemen were about forty feet away and were as relaxed as the troops in the rear. What’s more, they were looking down the descending road, their attention
not
on the house.
    MacKenzie took the brightly colored box of firecrackers from under his arm, ripped off the lightweight paper and shook out the connecting strings of cylinders. He wound two separate strands together, twisted both fuses into one, and removed his World War II Zippo from his pocket.
    He stopped; he sucked his breath, angry with himself. Then, holding the strands of firecrackers at his side, he walked casually past the windows into the bedroom and removed his holster and cartridge belt from another nail in the thin wall. He strapped the apparatus around his waist, removed the Colt .45 and checked the magazine. Satisfied, he shoved the weapon into its leather casing as he walked out of the bedroom. He circled the armchair in front of the Han Shu mantel, stepped over the immobile Lin Shoo, and returned to the front door.
    He ignited the Zippo, and held the flame beneath the twisted fuse, then opened the door and threw the entwined strands onto the grass beyond the porch.
    Closing and bolting the door softly and swiftly, Hawkins dragged a small red lacquered chest from the foyer and forced it against the thick, carved panel. Then he racedinto the sleeping quarters and pulled back a small section of the window blanket and waited.
    The explosions were even louder than he remembered; made so, he guessed, from the combined strands bursting against one another.
    The guards at the rear of the house were jolted out of their lethargy; their weapons collided in midair as each whipped his off the ground. Rifles in waist-firing position, the two men raced toward the front of the house.
    The moment they were out of sight, Hawkins yanked down the blanket, crashed his foot into the thin strips of wood and thinner panes of glass, shattering the entire window. He leaped through onto the grass and started running toward the fields and the sloping hill.

CHAPTER THREE
    At the base of the hill was the main dirt road that circled the village. Like spokes from a wheel, numerous offshoots headed directly into the small marketplace, in the center of the town. A semipaved thoroughfare branched outward tangentially from the circling road and connected with a paced highway about four miles to the east. The American diplomatic mission was twelve miles down that highway within Peking proper.
    What he needed was a vehicle, preferably an automobile, but automobiles were practically nonexistent outside the highest official circles. The People’s Police had automobiles, of course; it had crossed his mind to double back around the hill to find Lin Shoo’s, but that was too risky. Even if he found it and stole it, it would be a marked vehicle.
    Hawkins circled the village, keeping to the high ground above the road. They would be coming after him. He could stay in the hills indefinitely; that didn’t bother him. He had bivouacked underground in the mountains of Cong-Sol and Lai Tai in Cambodia for months at a time; he could live in the forests better than most animals. Goddamn, he was a
pro
!
    But it