This is insane.' She gently tugged her hand away. 'I'm scared, but now more than ever I have to fight it.' 'You're scared,' Herbert whispered, 'and you're also obsessing. You're fixated on a goal which has taken on a life of its own. Believe me, Jody, going over to them isn't as big as you're making it.' Herbert's voice was drowned out as the speaker continued. Herbert wished he didn't have to hear him, his voice carrying clearly, forcefully, without a megaphone.
Herbert tugged at Jody. She refused to budge.
The German said, 'The woman beside me, my coleader Karin Doring…' Applause rolled from the mob spontaneously, and the man waited. The woman bowed her head but didn't speak.
'Karin has sent emissaries to Hanover,' the man shouted as the applause quieted. 'In just a few minutes we will all go to the city, to the Beer-Hall, to announce our new union to the world. We will invite our brothers there to join the movement and together we will show civilization its future. A future where sweat and industry will be rewarded…' There was more applause and cheering.
'…where perverse cultures and faiths and peoples will be segregated from the heart's blood of society…' The applause and cheering built. It remained strong.
'…where spotlights will play across our symbols, our accomplishments.' The applause grew to a torrent and Herbert used the cover of the din to yell at Jody.
'Come on,' he said, pulling at her hand again. 'These people will fall on you like dingoes.' Jody looked out at them. Herbert couldn't make out her expression in the dark. He had the urge to shoot her in the foot, throw her across his lap, and start wheeling back.
The speaker yelled, 'And if the authorities in Hanover turn on us, let them! Let them! For over a year I have been personally harassed by Hauptmann Rosenlocher of the Hamburg police. If I drive too quickly he is there. If I play music too loudly he is there. If I meet with my colleagues, he is there. But he will not beat me. Let them target us individually or together! They'll see that our movement is organized, that our will is strong.' Jody stared out at the rally. 'I don't want to die. But I don't want to live pathetically.' 'Jody, you won't—' She wrenched her hand from Herbert. He didn't try to get it back. He wheeled after her, cursing the stubbornness which had stopped him from getting a goddamned motor.
Then he cursed this kid who he understood and had to respect even though she didn't listen to reason. Any more than he did.
As the applause died, Jody's footsteps seemed quite loud to Herbert. Also, apparently, to the sentry nearest them, who turned. He saw them in the light of the files and shouted to the young men and women who were standing nearest to him. A moment later the sentry was moving forward and the others were forming a line behind him with the clear intention of letting Jody and Herbert nowhere near the front of the crowd or Karin Doring or Jody's goal.
Herbert stopped. Jody did not. With a snort of disgust, Herbert wheeled after her.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
'There was never any question that I would know how to fly.' Paul Hood stood behind Richard Hausen as he piloted the Learjet through the skies over France. He was speaking, loudly to be heard over the two powerful turbofan engines.
Lang's full-time pilot, Elisabeth Stroh, sat beside him. She was a handsome young brunette about twenty- seven, whose French and English were impeccable. Lang's instructions to her had been to fly in with them, wait with the jet, and fly out with them again. Her conversation had been limited to communication with the tower in Hamburg and now in Toulouse, and remarks to the passengers about their flight plan. If she was interested in what Hausen was saying, she didn't show it.
Hood had been sitting in the cabin with Stoll and Nancy. After nearly ninety minutes in the air, he needed to get away from them both: Stop because he hadn't stopped talking, and Nancy because she didn't want to start.
Seated in one of the plush sofas which lined the walls of the cabin, Stoll had been saying that he never thought of himself as a team player. He went to work for Op-Center, because he was a loner, because they needed a self-starter who liked to sit at a desk and write software and troubleshoot hardware. He pointed out that he wasn't a Striker and was not obligated to go into the field. He was doing this out of respect for Hood, not courage. The rest of the time he spent complaining about possible glitches in the T-Ray. He said he wasn't offering any guarantees. Hood told him he understood.
Nancy, on the other hand, sat looking out the window for most of the time. Hood asked what she was thinking about, but she wouldn't say. He could guess, of course. He wished that he could comfort her.
Nancy did offer some information about the layout of the Demain facility. Stoll dutifully morphed her descriptions with the floor plan. It had been sent from Op-Center via a remote-access software package designed by Stoll. Thanks to the Ultrapipeline capacity of the NRO's Hermit satellite, mainframes at Op-Center were able to communicate wirelessly with computers in the field. Stoll's patented software boosted the data transfer capacity of the Hermitlink from two- to five-kilobyte blocks using elements of Zmodem file transfer protocol and spread- spectrum. radio transmission in the 2.4- to-2.483-gigahertz range.
Not that the link helped. There wasn't much Nancy could tell them. She knew the setup of the manufacturing and programing areas, but knew nothing of the executive suites or of Dominique's private quarters.
Hood left Nancy with her thoughts and Stoll in the relative comfort of a multiuser Dungeon computer game which he used to relax. Venturing into the cockpit, Hood listened while the eager, almost buoyant Hausen told him about his youth.
Hausen's father Maximillian had been a pilot with the Luftwaffe. He'd specialized in night fighting, and had flown the first operational sortie of the Heinkel He 219 when it shot down five Lancasters. Like many Germans, Hausen did not speak apologetically of his father's wartime exploits.
Military service could not be avoided, and it didn't diminish Hausen's love or respect for Maximillian. Still, as the German spoke about his father's activities, Hood found it difficult not to think of the families of the young crew members of those downed Lancasters.
Perhaps sensing Hood's discomfort, Hausen asked, 'Did your father serve?' Hood said, 'My father was a medic. He was stationed at Fort McClellan in Alabama setting broken bones and treating cases of' — he looked at Elisabeth— 'various diseases.' 'I understand,' Hausen said.
'So do I,' Elisabeth put in.
The woman gave him a half-smile. Hood returned it. He felt as if he was back in Op-Center trying to walk the tightrope between political correctness and sexual discrimination.
'And you never wanted to be a doctor?' Hausen asked.
'No,' Hood said. 'I wanted to help people and I felt that politics was the best way. Some people of my generation thought revolution was the answer. But I decided to work with the so-called establishment.' 'You were wise,' Hausen said. 'Revolution is rarely the answer.' 'What about you?' Hood asked. 'Did you always want to be in politics?' He shook his head. 'From the time I was able to walk I wanted to fly,' he said. 'When I was seven, on our farm near the Rhine in Westphalia, my father taught me to fly the 1913 Fokker Spider monoplane he'd restored. When I was ten and attending boarding school in Bonn, I switched to a Bucker two-seat biplane at a nearby field.' Hausen smiled.
'But I always saw beauty from the air turn to squalor on the ground. And like you, when I came of age, I decided to help people.' 'Your parents must have been proud,' Hood said.
Hausen's expression darkened. 'Not exactly. It was a very complicated situation. My father had quite definite ideas about things, including what his son should do for a living.' 'And he wanted you flying,' Hood said.
'He wanted me with him, yes.' 'Why? It isn't as though you turned your back on a family business.' 'No,' Hausen said, 'it was worse. I turned my back on my father's wishes.' 'I see. And are they still furious?' 'My father passed away two years ago,' Hausen said.
'We were able to talk shortly before his death, though much too much was left unsaid. My mother and I speak regularly, though she hasn't been the same since his death.' While he listened, Hood couldn't help but think
