“French —the word is ‘touche’. No army?”
“Reconnaissance only for an impending military action, suffice it to say. And you?”
“No army. You were going to be extracted —a couple of gunships?”
“Yes. But they could have scared off General Wing’s army satisfactorily.”
“That the old guy’s name— Wing?”
“Yes—she told me that, also that General Wing would be there to watch us executed for our merciless ambush of his column.”
Michael had both boots laced and, slowly, tried to stand up. It didn’t work instantly. “Any electronic
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surveillance in the room? What’s the status on guards?”
“Nothing electronic that I can detect. And there are two guards at the doorway just outside. The windows are barred and overlook a precipice of considerable height. Even if we were able to get through the bars, somehow, we would never be able to climb down without the most sophisticated climbing equipment, and certainly not I.”
“Rappel?”
“Beneath us is the interior of the Second City. If we were not shot and did make it down, we would be recaptured or shot as soon as we did.”
“Then, it’s the door” Michael said brightly.
“I won’t be much good to you in a fight, Michael.”
“That’s okay. You’ll agree, since we’re going to be executed and they’ve chosen a particularly nasty way to die, we have nothing to lose. Right?”
“Agreed.”
“Right —give me a couple of minutes to get my head going.” He slowly turned his head toward the doorway. It was an ordinary doorway, if slightly large and rather ornate. His father had always taught him that there was nothing to lose, in the face of certain death, by being as daring as circumstances would allow. He intended to test the theory.
He stood up, feeling slightly dizzy, his eyes scanning over the room for something that might be used as a weapon. There were pillows, there was a second bed, there was a long, slender tapestry that he imagined was some sort of bell rope —to summon the last hearty meal for the condemned. “Does she execute people often? I mean, is this death row we’re in, you
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think?”
“Death row?”
“A place to wait until it is time for a death sentence to be carried out.”
“I do not know.”
“Don’t have a knife or anything they didn’t find, do you?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Did she say we could call for a meal?”
“Yes. I’m not hungry —the medication, I think.”
“I’m hungry. Probably throw it up, but I am hungry. It’d be too much to hope for that we could throttle a guard when the food was brought in, but maybe something with the food. I don’t know. Anyway, if we’re to be the entertainment at dawn, may as well make them work for it a little.” He decided, as he walked slowly, slightly unsteadily across the room to pull the bell rope, that the next time he was under sentence of death, it would be decidedly better to have it occur in a country which traditionally used steak knives rather than chopsticks.
He tugged on the bell rope: After a second, the door opened and one Chinese regular shouted something unintelligible —unless one spoke Chinese —into the room. “Hungry —right?” And Michael Rourke rubbed his belly and made chewing motions with his mouth. The soldier grunted something that presumably meant he understood and closed the door. “Any line on the missiles?”
Prokopiev didn’t answer for a moment, then, “Look out the window. Go take a look.”
Michael Rourke walked toward the window, looked out and down, the bars well-set, the drop as steep as
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Prokopiev had indicated, the city commons below. And far across the center of the Second City, he saw what first seemed like a smokestack surrounded by a church altar.
But it was an intercontinental ballistic missile and, although from the distance it was hard to tell for sure and he had seen such missiles in photographs, he thought there were people praying before it.
Michael Rourke closed his eyes.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Akiro Kurinami stood as Commander Christopher Dodd entered the room, Dodd’s eyes meeting his, Wolfgang Mann’s voice breaking the ensuing silence. “Sit down, Commander.”
“Colonel Mann,” Dodd began, not sitting down, not shifting his eyes from Kurinami’s, “how dare you hold this man and his female accomplice in total defiance of my request!” His vituperation apparently spent, at least for the moment, Commander Dodd took a seat opposite Colonel Mann’s borrowed desk in his borrowed office. His fingers drummed nervously on the chair arms. Kurinami retook his seat, at the far corner of the room, near the door. “I demand an explanation, Colonel,” Dodd said, more evenly, more calmly.
“Lieutenant Kurinami? Would you care to provide an explanation?”
“Yes, sir,” Kurinami said, standing again, his hand behind him as though at parade rest. “Doctor Halversen and I are the objects of a murder plot because I wisely duplicated the now blanked files in the Eden Project main computer. Without those duplicate records, only the persons responsible for blanking the files would know the locations of the strategic supply caches located throughout the United States, strategic fuel reserves and the like. I discovered the theft of a quantity of M-16 rifles, amrnuni-
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tion, food stores and medical supplies and other equipment. Because of all of this, I was kidnapped, forcibly detained and the attempt was made to have me divulge the location of the duplicate computer records. When this failed, Doctor Elaine Halversen, my fiance, was kidnapped, apparently to force my cooperation. I was able to free her, took her here for refuge. Then, before all the facts were known, I was to be turned over to Commander Dodd, along with Doctor Halversen. We fled, fearing for our lives, reached the Retreat of Doctor John Rourke. There, eight men, German nationals — ”
“This is-”
“Preposterous? Let me finish, Commander, I implore you.”
Dodd shook his head, but remained silent.
Kurinami continued. “Eight men, German nationals, fugitives from the legitimate government of New Germany, followed us, attempted to use explosives to gain entrance to the Retreat and were only foiled by the singular heroism of Doctor John Rourke, Doctor Rourke’s daughter, Annie, and her husband Paul Ru-berstein who caused the deaths of these eight men. They were utilizing M-16 rifles, most probably from among those missing from Eden Base inventory, German pistols and stolen German rocket launchers. These fugitive men included at least one man, Hans Weil, who is a known Nazi sympathizer and working for the violent overthrow of the government of New Germany.
“At Doctor Rourke’s request,” Kurinami went on, “Doctor Halversen and myself have been offered temporary political asylum by Colonel Mann acting on
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behalf of Deiter Bern, president of New Germany.” Kurinami said nothing more.
“Is this true?”
“I was about to ask you much the same question, Herr Commander Dodd,” Mann smiled, lighting a cigarette.
“The political asylum question!”
“Our base, because we are allies, is considered by ourselves, at least, as a diplomatic legation, hence a piece of New Germany here in your own land. We feel well within our legal rights to offer endangered persons political asylum, Commander.” Mann offered his cigarette case. “Forgive my rudeness, but I am quite tired. Would you care for a cigarette?”
Dodd didn’t answer. “What law do you refer to, Colonel? There is no international law. Kurinami is subject to the military discipline of Eden Base Command. He is mine. And so is his accomplice, Doctor Halversen.”
“Your use of the word, ‘accomplice’ fascinates me, Herr Commander Dodd. It would appear that none of the Eden personnel are unaccounted for, yet you insist that the lieutenant has murdered someone. Who might these dead be? German nationals who are enemies of the state, wanted criminals, whom you have chosen to give political asylum? Or, perhaps, with whom you sympathize?”
“I don’t have to take your insults, Colonel.”
“Indeed, you do not. Nor do I have to return Lieutenant Kurinami and his fiance, the Fraulein Doctor. Would you care for coffee? I can have it sent around.”
Commander Dodd stood, running his hands back
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through his close cropped gray hair. “This tears it, Colonel. I want your base out of here, off American territory. Immediately.”
Kurinami watched Colonel Mann’s eyes. They remained impassive, the smile on his face unchanged.
“I will speak candidly also, if I may, Commander. If, for one moment, I thought you represented the just wishes of the Eden Base personnel, I would never have encouraged my government to set up this support facility in the first place. My opinion has not changed. If the people of Eden Base are polled — fairly —and my government is requested to evacuate this base, I can say without reservation that such will be done. If the good Herr Doctor Rourke were to tell us that we should leave, we assuredly would. I have no interest in your opinion, and less interest in your concerns. But I am very much interested in your affiliations with men such as the late Hans Weil. And, it is only out of respect for the survivors at Eden Base, and out of the greatest respect for Doctor Rourke, that I do not now have you arrested. Are you certain about the coffee, Commander?”