A female guard reached for Ilse's ID, and studied it skeptically.
'How did you get in here?'
'I just arrived,' Ilse said. 'I'm new,' She tried to smile.
'I said, how did you get in here? There's no trace in the computer of you ever coming from the other section.'
Ilse blanched. The employee entrance to the facility, she realized, was in the other half, and she'd never been checked in.
She thought of running. She glanced through the nearer set of blast doors. The far set, inevitably, was closed — the interlocking made sure they'd never be ajar together.
'I, er, I, I can't understand the problem. It's certainly not my fault.' Ilse knew instantly that was the wrong thing to say, under the present circumstances. It was like pissing off a traffic cop at a roadblock — one who'd just lost a friend killed in the line of duty.
A male guard came over and fingered his pistol in its holster. Two other men quickly checked the rest of the crowd, then let them through. The blast door on this side swung closed, and stayed that way. Ilse was left alone with the guards.
'Your accent,' the female said.
'I'm South African.'
'Open your briefcase.'
Ilse lifted it to the table, needing both hands. She unlocked the top, revealing the files and textbooks. She knew the guards might just be giving her a hard time out of nervousness or boredom. But.. The female guard hefted the case. 'It's very heavy. What else do you have in this?'
'Urn, my laptop.'
'Put it through the scanner,' the woman said to the man.
'No,' Ilse said, thinking fast. 'You can't. It's, um, it's a special machine. They told me the scanner fields would ruin it.'
'Show it to me,' the female said.
Ilse's heart beat so hard she was sure they could see her chest pulsating, or maybe the arteries in her neck. She tilted the case, at an angle away from the guards. She took out the dummy files and made as confused a pile of papers as she could. She showed the keyboard and screen underneath to the guards.
The woman guard's eyes narrowed. 'Turn it on.'
SIMULTANEOUSLY
The auditorium held three hundred people. As far as Jeffrey could tell, every seat was taken. He and Montgomery stood at the back, trying to blend with the other standees. A coarse fat man strutted onto the stage. He wore an expensive dark gray doublebreasted suit. He stood at a lectern with a microphone. The man began to speak. Jeffrey didn't understand a word.
Ilse always imagined she'd sweat at a time like this, or feel cold and have the shakes. Instead, she felt nothing, like a robot.
I haven't heard from Jeffrey, but with that test chamber demonstration I've seen enough. I can't let them take me, or let them take the bomb.
'It needs a special password. For security.' She began to enter the arming code. The device accepted it. Instead of starting the delay timer, she reached for the plastic shield that protected the instantfiring button. She lifted the shield; this also made the fissionable core preassemble. Something beeped. 'Increased radiation reading,' the male guard said. He looked at Ilse and drew his gun.
Can I push the detonator button thrice before he shoots me dead? Ilse fixed her eyes on the guard. She was surprised how calm she felt. She pushed the button once. Then again. Once more and…
She had an idea.
'The magnetic storm.' She kept her finger on the firing button.
'What?' the female guard said.
'It must be the magnetic storm. It's powerful now.' 'You mean to tell me it broke your fancy laptop?' 'No, er, I mean, the security computer. Maybe that's why it doesn't show me coming in, and the radiation reading.' The male and female looked at each other.
Ilse took a breath. 'Does your detector distinguish between alpha and gamma radiation?
Does it show beta and neutrons separate or together? What's the integration interval?
The alarm threshold? When was the last time you had it calibrated?' The male guard shrugged.
'You're a technician?' the woman said. 'Then who's your boss?'
'I was just at the wind tunnel test,' Ilse stated. 'With Commander Gaubatz. You can call him if you like.' Ilse tried to act blase.
The guards, all junior enlisted, hesitated. The point was, Ilse realized, they weren't traffic cops. They were naval infantry, and she knew a commander.
'You go ahead and call him,' Ilse said. 'I have work to do.'
'Better hurry,' the male guard said. 'You'll miss the meeting.' Ilse left the weapon armed, just in case.
Ilse squeezed through a side door into the auditorium. It was crowded — she had to stand against the wall. She glanced across the crowd, and spotted Jeffrey and Montgomery. She looked away at once, in case they saw her and reacted and gave themselves away. She noticed someone else looking at her.
Oh, God, it's that Boer submariner. He knows he knows me.
Ilse waved — what else could she do? He nodded, but seemed puzzled, like he was trying to remember how they'd met. Now she started to sweat — the room seemed unbearably hot, and not from the body heat of the audience.
A fat man stood at the lectern. There was a vicious set to his mouth, and he had hard, pitiless eyes.
'I think that we can rest easier now, with closure on this most unfortunate incident. Erika Rainer has paid the price for her treason, unrepentant till the end, hanged by the neck until dead, convicted by a tribunal which I chaired. I can assure you, the circumstantial evidence of her guilt was overwhelming…. The entire execution was recorded.' He gave the URL on the lab's infranet, so people could download and watch. Ilse saw many in the crowd write the website name down.
'I need not remind you, this entire matter is top secret and is not to leave this installation.' He paused.
'And now I want to reassure you. Continue your work, with pride and confidence. Leave worries about internal security to me, and to my staff. They've proven their effectiveness. The last thing we need now is a self- destructive mole hunt.' He asked for questions from the audience, but there were none. Then someone brought him a note from backstage.
The fat man — the head of Internal Security, Ilse realized — turned to the audience and cleared his throat.
'Some of you may have heard that a guard was found brutally murdered this evening.' The audience stirred, alarmed.
The man raised his hands. 'No, no. It's all right. A terrible tragedy for his wife and two young children, but the culprits have been found.' The audience sat raptly. Ilse dreaded what she'd hear.
'You're aware of the stepped-up security because of the latest partisan attack, near the bay.'
People nodded.
'It seems some of the Gastarbeiter became aware of the attack also. Two of them, in the most senseless copycat crime, decided to get in the act. They knifed a guard, repeatedly in the neck, using sharpened pipe-hanger brackets as makeshift daggers. Death was instantaneous. When we rounded up the Gastarbeiter, these two confessed at What the hell is going on?
'They have already been punished,' the fat man said. 'Hanged while the others were made to watch. A search is being conducted for additional concealed weapons…. Now you see why we use them as forced labor….
'I apologize for having to share with you these gory details. You deserve to know what's going on. Again, let me emphasize, things have been taken care of. Leave worries of security to Internal Security, and to the local Naval
