“Close it!” a man shouted in an impossibly deep voice. “Close the hatch. We’re diving.”
Paul reached up and banged the hatch shut. He turned the valve until it clicked. Then he slid down the rest of the way.
A small corridor led to an incredibly cramped main compartment. Paul spied a massive black man in a Navy uniform. The man’s size was a shock.
“Are you the captain?” Paul asked.
The man nodded a large head. He concentrated on his screen and worked controls. A much smaller man worked other controls. Romo, the prisoner and the bloody-faced sailor crouched out of the way. The submersible aimed downward, and they headed underwater.
“Are you going to be okay with all of us in here?” Romo asked.
“If you shut up I might be,” the captain said. “There are more of them out there and I’m all out of missiles. We’re going to have to sneak away—if Allah will allow us.”
With a scowl, Romo glanced at Paul.
Paul shrugged, moving beside Romo and whispering, “Why don’t you see to the prisoner. I’ll start sorting out the equipment.”
Hans Kruger shrank back from Romo, but he didn’t offer any resistance.
Paul grabbed the first plastic-wrapped piece of stolen equipment. As he did, he heard gurgling water outside the craft and the hiss of the submersible diving. He didn’t like this one bit. Could they get away? This didn’t sound like a regular submarine. The diving was more immediate, and it felt as if the water would burst through any second and down them like rats.
Paul glanced back, staring at the huge captain. He sure hadn’t expected this. And what had the man said? “If Allah will grant them mercy.” Where had they gotten a Navy captain like him?
In an orange life preserver, Lieutenant Teddy Smith floated in Lake Ontario, with Sergeant Holloway nearby. Thirty feet away, their Galahad hover slid underwater.
They’d fooled the first Javelin missile. It had darted past and exploded harmless in the lake. They hadn’t fooled the second one coming on the first’s heel. The second missile had been enough to sink them. He might not have made it out of the compartment, but Holloway had shouted and dragged him through the emergency hatch.
“Bad luck,” Smith said.
Holloway wouldn’t look at him. The sergeant was furious. One could see it on his face. He kept looking into the distance, searching, but neither of them saw a submarine.
The other hovers neared their position.
Sighing, Smith took out a flare pistol and aimed it at the sky. He fired, and the cartridge popped into the air before bursting red.
Two of the hovers swished past at high speed, moving as furiously as wasps. The last one slowed, and Smith began to wave his arms. He would have told Holloway to wave his, too, but the sergeant was simply in too black a mood to have complied.
It looked as if the enemy had beaten them. Much worse, though, he’d had a hover shot out from under him. That was terribly bad luck. Would he get another machine? Or was his days as a hover jockey over?
“They’ll give us another, Sergeant,” Smith said, talking as much for his own benefit as for Holloway’s. “Captain Johnny will do right by us. You can be sure of him.”
Holloway never even acknowledged the words. That was poor sportsmanship. The man was from Scotland, though. It showed in times like this. Scots never did understand good sportsmanship.
General Mansfeld heard the news an hour later in the main situational room. Orderlies and officers worked quietly around him. One man whispered into another officer’s ear. The listener faced him, straightened his tie and told him.
Mansfeld took the information in silence. Finally, he nodded, and he walked away to his study. The Americans had gained a coup. He felt it in his bones, and he’d known a day like this might come. In a campaign of this magnitude, it was inevitable. Now for the big question. Would the Americans know what to do with their coup?
He would win the campaign. Of that, he had no doubt. It was simply a matter of whether he would do so decisively or with just an operational level victory.
General Mansfeld’s eyes gleamed coldly. One thing he would make sure of. One way or another, this Len Zelazny would not live to see the outcome of his ploy.
-7-
Stall
John Red Cloud yawned, surprising a nearby squirrel. The furry creature dropped its acorn and scurried up a tree, turning to stare down at him.
Easing out of his sleeping bag, John stretched and scratched himself. He was in a small forest ten kilometers outside of Paris. To his left, a stream hissed past reeds.
After killing the CID agents, John had driven their BMW to a mall. The agents’ wallets had supplied him with credit cards and money. He’d purchased a sleeping bag, clothes, foodstuffs and other items he needed. He’d carried the bags to the car and driven outside the city, parking off the road. He’d left the corpses in the car and hiked many kilometers that night.
For the next several days and nights he camped here beside the stream, waiting. Few people had true patience. As a hormagaunt, he had more than most. As one walking the path of death, he savored his last few days of life.
Deciding that today was the right moment, he donned a new shirt and tie, suit and dress shoes. He left the pistols, knives, agent IDs, everything. He slipped on sunglasses and a hat, hiked to the nearest road and started walking to Paris.
After an hour he took off his jacket and draped it over an arm. After another half hour a Bristol stopped. It was a boxlike, electric-powered British-made car. A young woman drove. She wore a kerchief and sunglasses and had a long, graceful neck.
Leaning across to the passenger side window, she asked in French, “Would you like a ride?”
John said he would.
“You have an accent,” she said.
He touched the door handle. “I’m from Quebec. Is that acceptable?”
She laughed. She seemed a happy-go-lucky girl, twenty-five perhaps. John climbed in and off they buzzed down the road. She chattered merrily and asked him all kinds of questions. He gave simple answers.
“You’re Indian,” she finally said, “a North American Indian.”
“I’m an Algonquin warrior,” he said. Those on the path of death did well to speak the truth. It amplified their inner strength.
She laughed with delight.
“You are very brave,” he told her.
“Please,” she said. “I’m a wonderful judge of people. The way you act so solemn, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re a comedian.”
That almost made John smile. Instead, he simply shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The day is nice and you needed a ride.”
