“Why does that little red light move like that?” asked Paul.
“Northern Lights do not visibly move.”
“That one sure does.”
Red Cloud looked up again. He stopped. Paul stopped beside him. They both watched the blinking, moving red light.
Suddenly, the Algonquin hissed, “Get down and remain still.” He threw himself flat on the ice.
Paul did likewise as he slipped the assault rifle from his shoulder. He watched the blinking dot move along the Aurora Borealis.
“Look,” Paul said. “There’s another light farther behind the first.”
The two men glanced at each other. Then both craned their necks, studying the phenomenon. The second blinking light came toward them, following the light ahead of them.
“I see a third one even farther behind,” Red Cloud said.
“Yeah,” Paul said.
“They must be airplanes.”
“Or helicopters.”
“Listen,” Red Cloud said.
Paul listened, and he heard it—a faraway drone.
“These aircraft do not fly at the same height as the intercontinental planes,” whispered Red Cloud. “Maybe they fly low to escape high-flight detection.”
“They’re passing us—who knows how many miles to our left.” Paul studied the three locations. “They’re headed south, which means they’re coming in from the north. Do you think this has anything to do with the destruction of Platform P-53?”
“Yes,” Red Cloud said.
“Yeah,” Paul said, nodding. “Why blow an oil rig? There has to be a good reason, a purpose.” He recalled Murphy watching him from the cat’s window. The mind-image brought a painful knot to his sternum. “Where are those aircraft going, do you think?”
“We will never know.”
“That’s where you’re wrong!” Paul said with heat.
“Why are you angry?”
“You’re the one who wants to know how things work. You read science fiction. You’re supposed to be curious, right?”
“We must save our thoughts for survival,” Red Cloud said. “The Aurora Borealis and those points of light, they are good because they’ve brought you out of the gloom that filled your mind. Now we must conserve our strength —”
“Why did you tell me to hit the ice just now?” asked Paul.
“The unknown instills fear. I was afraid.”
“Wrong answer, Chief.”
Red Cloud grew still. “I do not care for you calling me that.”
Paul’s nostrils flared. Then he nodded as he thought about it. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry. You and me are in this together. With Chinese Commandos blowing up our jobs we don’t need to bring up bad blood between ourselves.” Paul watched the blinking lights. “Do you think those are more Chinese?”
“The Chinese blew up the rig and tried to kill us. Now something odd occurs on the ice again, meaning the likeliest explanation is the Chinese are doing something strange.”
“Are there anymore oil rigs or science posts around here?” Paul asked.
“Not along this route, no.”
Paul’s eyes narrowed. He felt alive again. With the feeling came a desire to strike back, not to just take it all the time. The desire hardened, and he said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to follow those blinking lights.”
“You are using your emotions, not your mind. To do as you suggest will decrease our chances of survival.”
Paul jumped to his feet, using the assault rifle to point at the blinking lights. “My gut says those are choppers. First, what are choppers doing out here? Second, how far can choppers fly? They don’t fly as far on one tank of gas as a cargo plane.” Paul shook his head. “We’re never going to make it to Dead Horse. But if there’s a camp on the ice somewhere close by—”
“If there is a camp,” Red Cloud said, “it could be thirty, fifty, or even seventy miles away from here.”
“Seventy miles is still closer than over two hundred miles away,” Paul said. He hesitated. “This is it, Red Cloud.” It was the first time he’d used the Algonquin’s last name. “Are we splitting up, or do we stick together and find out what’s going on?”
Red Cloud watched the blinking lights. “You are an American. I am an outcast without a country, maybe even the last of the free Algonquins. Let us die on the warpath as warriors, the two of us, former enemies facing impossible odds.” A hard smile stretched the woolen fabric of his ski mask. “This one time, you shall know what it feels like being an Indian.”
“Sure,” Paul said. “Let’s go.”
Jian Hong felt fear as he rode an elevator deep underground beneath Mao Square. The Chairman had summoned him to his personal bunker. Few entered it and fewer still left alive. According to Police Minister Xiao, who compiled such statistics, not even Deng Fong had ever been summoned down here.
Beside Jian in the elevator were two silent guards in black uniforms. They wore red armbands with the Chairman’s personal symbol in the center, the head of a lion with an imposing yellow mane. The guards towered over Jian. The occasional glances in his direction weren’t overtly hostile, but these two seemed contemptuous of him.
The two guards made Jian feel small and weak. His strength would prove futile against these two. If he were to oust the Chairman from power, he needed to figure out a way past the Lion Guard, as the security teams were named.
The elevator stopped, the door opened and one of the guards pushed Jian into a utilitarian steel corridor. He stumbled ahead of the two specimens of Chinese perfection.
The corridor was long, with iron-grilled lights glaring down on them. Knowing they were underground, under tons of earth, magnified Jian’s fear. He felt claustrophobic and soon he was short of breath.
“We’re almost there,” the nearer guard said.
Jian wanted to tell the man he wasn’t tired, but claustrophobic.
“Halt!” said a guard.
Jian stopped before a steel-reinforced door. It slid up, revealing a large room.
“In,” said the guard, shoving Jian into the room.
Behind Jian, before he could protest, the steel door slammed shut. It made Jian jump. A moment later, he heard a chuckle. He whirled around, taking in the room and the situation.
It was oval, with hundreds of posters on the walls. Each was a propaganda picture of the Chairman during various stages of his life. Some related to the Siberian War, others to the reunification of Taiwan. There were posters concerning hard work, more on worker safety, and more on exercise and dietary habits. Each showed the Chairman exhorting or lauding others for some good behavior.
Jian saw that he’d reached the final antechamber where the badly ailing Chairman lay in the flesh. The Chairman was propped up in a large mobile medical unit. It was like a huge American recliner, with a joystick- control. The old man looked small in it, with several medical tubes sticking into his side. He seemed mortally diseased and weak, the opposite of the security guards. Only the eyes were powerful, two pinpoints of energy.
“Welcome, Jian Hong,” the Chairman said. Somewhere on the chair, a microphone must have picked up the words. It amplified them, making the Chairman’s withered voice painfully loud as it bounced off the steel walls.
Jian silently congratulated himself on keeping his features neutral. It was said the Chairman took odd or fearful facial expressions in the worst light possible, usually as a sign of guilt.
“I’ve brought you down to my quarters so we can speak freely,” the Chairman said.
“It is an honor,” Jian said.
