the window” this was a mere mail slot of a metal frame, incapable of accommodating a three-month-old baby “you will be shot.”
“Fine,” she said wearily. “That sounds like heaven right now.”
“Good girl,” he muttered under his breath in English. “If you can joke about it, you're still alive. And I will not let you die at this man's hands, do you understand?”
Arrested, she stared at him. He stared back. She did not know what to read in his eyes.
Then he raised his handgun to shoulder height, muzzle pointed at the ceiling.
“I'll be just outside,” he said impersonally.
Sophie hobbled to the toilet. She felt suddenly stronger. Mian Krucevic had miscalculated. Or rather, he had found that circumstances were different from his expectations, and he was forced to improvise. He mistrusted improvisation. He had never known anyone including himself to improvise without error. The key to his entire method of warfare was meticulous preparation. And so of course he had a fallback plan.
He had always loathed Slovakia. In the present instance he loathed it even more.
In Olga Teciak's living room there was a laminated plywood coffee table, an olive green couch with worn upholstery, two lamps, and a carved chair that had probably belonged to Olga's grandmother. There was also a very good television.
Krucevic sat in front of the blank screen and considered his options. The Hungarian border was watched. He refused to risk a crossing by car. Therefore, he would have to find a plane. That meant a predawn trip to the Bratislava airport and a break-in at the private aircraft hangar. He hoped to God there were some private aircraft in this miserable country.
He searched his mind for the flaw, the unseen error that could destroy him. He detected nothing, and that in itself was unsettling. Perfection was against the laws of Nature; perfection's appearance was always something to mistrust.
He glanced at his watch: 10:53 a.m. And at that instant his cellular phone trilled. He stiffened. The cell phone was solely for emergencies, the last extreme of need. And then only he would make the calls. No one was ever to call him.
He could let it ring could ignore the caller entirely. But what if disaster overcame him as a consequence? He picked up the phone on the fourth trill and said, “Ja?”
“Mein Herr. I am sorry to disturb you I know it is against the rules “ Her voice was abject with terror.
Greta. He frowned at the phone.
“Is something wrong?”
“A woman, a woman came. Not who she said she was. She took the virus.”
“What virus?”
“The vaccine,” she amended. “No. 413. For mumps. The one for humanitarian relief. She said that she was from the Health Ministry, she had a paper, she was so very angry oh, Herr Krucevic, I am so terribly sorry...”
“No names!” he barked, more loudly than he had intended.
“No names,” he repeated. “Who was she?”
“She did not say.”
“And you allowed her to take the vaccine?”
“She was from the Health Ministry,” Greta bleated pathetically. “She signed her initials to the dock manifest. I cannot make them out. And then the health minister, Herr Schuler, arrived, and he said it must be a joke. A joke!”
She sounded as though she was nearly peeing with terror, on the verge of tears.
“What did this woman look like?”
“Dark. Black hair, black eyes, black clothes. She spoke with an accent like” She had been about to say, like yours. “Like someone from your country.”
“Anything else?”
“A white scarf. Around her neck.”
Anger flared like bile and flooded his mouth.
“What am I to do?” Greta begged in a whisper.
She was already stupid, but fear would make her dangerous. He must give her something to do, a purpose, before she destroyed them all. Krucevic's mind leapt forward, considered and discarded options.
“Close the office and get to Budapest,” he told her. “I have a job only you can manage.”
“I shall not fail you, mein Herr” She was sickening in her gratitude. He could do with her what he chose. He cut the connection.
His enemies were trying to destroy him. But God was on his side. He had discovered the treachery before it was too late. If only he were in Budapest now! But all movement was impossible before dark. He had roughly one hundred kilometers to travel three hours by road, twenty minutes by air and time was slipping through his fingers. He must be patient. He must not allow rage to make him careless.
A white scarf around her neck.
The error of improvisation.
Krucevic cursed the Czech border guards, cursed Slovakia, cursed Vaclav Slivik and all the women he had ever known. He cursed Olga Teciak with particular virulence. She was the most available object of his hatred.
Olga was a stranger. He distrusted her simply because she was unknown and because she was a woman. She was huddled now in her bedroom with her young daughter cradled in a blanket. Both of them were terrified. Olga had probably figured out who Sophie Payne was; it was no secret any longer that the American Vice President had been kidnapped. Word had gotten out, by newspaper and television broadcast. He had been a fool to follow Vaclav's advice. Teciak could not possibly be trusted.
He required some sort of insurance.
“Mian,” Michael said behind him. “Mrs. Payne is awake and eating.”
It was one of Krucevic's rules that they refer to the woman with courtesy. Courtesy was another form of cruelty. He dismissed his anger, the shadow of fear, and moved on to the next step.
“Good,” he said briskly. “She'll need her strength. It's time to take a picture for the President.”
Jozsef was chewing companionably with Sophie on the bathroom floor, although the meal was quite dreadful: canned orange juice, stale white bread, some sort of processed cheese. She choked on the food and the persistent taste of blood. It must be something to do with the anthrax, she decided. Not everything had an antidote.
“Do you know where we are?” she asked the boy.
“Bratislava, I think. But you should not ask me any questions. About the operation, I mean.”
Sophie smiled faintly.
“Is that what I am? An operation?”
“That is how my father calls it.”
“I see. But we were in Prague a few hours ago. Your father said so, when he was filming me.”
“Yes.” Jozsef's voice dropped apprehensively. “We were not supposed to come here, I think. We changed our route quite suddenly last night, because the guards were searching people. Michael got you through the first crossing — from Germany to the Czech Republic — with his American passport, but Papa did not think it would work this time. And so we turned back.”
Hope stirred in Sophie's heart.
“So it was the Czech guards your father was afraid of. But crossing into where?”
“If you ask me questions, lady, and I talk to you, there will be trouble.”
“My name is Sophie,” she said.
Jozsef turned this over in his mind.
“My mother's name is Mirjana.”
“Do you miss her?”
The fringe of lashes lowered over his eyes. He was rolling sonic-thing rapidly between his fingers.
