'Yes.'
Charley took about a third of the bills and pulled them out of the bundle. 'I don't take tips,' she said and handed back the excess bills. She put the rest in a chest pocket of her flight suit. Then she put her hands in the pockets of her jacket. She used her right hand to get a firm grip on Rigby's Walther.
Hedrick's eyebrows went up. Apparently he wasn't used to people refusing money.
'I expect you to let Rip go when the saucer arrives in Paris.'
'And I expect you to fly the saucer to Paris and leave it with Pieraut and company.'
'Uh-huh.'
'If you ever want to see Rip alive again.'
Charley Pine's eyes narrowed. She was sorely tempted to haul out the Walther and shoot this son of a bitch then and there. She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, then said, 'If Rip doesn't come home hale and hearty, all in one piece, I'll kill you someday, Roger. Sure as shootin'.'
Hedrick seemed to be measuring her. 'You know, I think you mean that. I think you'd try.'
She pulled the Walther from her pocket and pushed it against his stomach. 'This is how close you are to the next life, Roger. I could send you on your way right now. You hurt Rip, you'll be the richest dead man on this planet.'
Hedrick had balls, you had to give him that. He glanced down at the pistol, then smiled genially. 'We understand each other, Ms. Pine. That's rare in human affairs, but it's good. Misunderstandings can be quite messy.'
She put the pistol back in her pocket and kept her hand on it.
'By the way, where is Rigby?'
'I wouldn't know. Have you lost him?'
'Never mind.'
'When do I leave?'
Hedrick glanced again at his watch. 'The banks in Europe don't open for another hour. The transfer will be made then.'
He went back to the men sitting around his desk.
Charley removed her hands from her jacket pockets and dropped into the nearest chair.
The American nuclear-powered attack submarine rose slowly to periscope depth. For an hour the technicians had been carefully searching the sea with passive sonar. There were no ships within fifty miles of the submarine.
When the boat was stabilized at periscope depth, the skipper ordered the scope raised. All he could see was empty ocean and sky. The electronic signal detectors (ESM) on the scope remained silent. He lowered the scope back into the well.
'We have green lights on tubes one and two,' the OOD reported. 'Roger.'
The commanding officer looked at the digital clock ticking down on the fire-control computer. Forty-four seconds, forty-three… 'Commit,' he said.
'Commit to fire automatically,' replied the weapons officer.
Twenty-six hours ago the sub had raised its antenna above the waves and received a data dump from a computer in Washington, an encrypted signal that had been retransmitted by a satellite. Then the sub had run submerged at thirty knots for the next twenty-five hours, racing for this position. An hour ago, while the submarine was five hundred feet deep, it slowed to three knots and began the passive search. Ten minutes later the boat's com gear picked up a very-low-frequency radio signal that had traveled completely around the planet. This signal was the fire order. Now the time had arrived.
The skipper stared at the screen of the fire-control computer. Who would have thought the president of the United States would ever order live missiles fired into Australia? The world just kept getting weirder.
The seconds counted down. The instant the clock registered zero, the skipper felt a jolt as compressed air pushed a Tomahawk cruise missile from tube one.
The missile's wings popped out and its engine ignited as it broke the surface of the sea. It roared into the air and climbed to several hundred feet above the water before it leveled off. It was already headed west, pointed almost exactly at its target. As the missile flew it acquired the signals from eight GPS satellites and updated its position.
Sixty seconds later, a second missile came out of the water and roared away after the first.
Its work done, the submarine turned back to the east and silently descended below the thermal layer.
The staccato, irregular ripping of fully automatic weapons firing bursts echoed down the long interior corridor of the horse barn. Then came the louder booms of explosions. The ripping of assault rifles, a deeper, louder belching of machine guns, and the boom of explosions mingled into a rising roar.
The guard stared at Rip, consternation written on his face.
He looked right, then left at the main doors to the barn. Rip started to get to his feet.
'Hold it,' the guard shouted, raising his rifle to his shoulder. 'Don't move.' Rip sat back down.
The guard stood up, backed into the stall behind him so that he could not be seen from the doors on either end of the barn.
'Gonna wait until they come kill you?' Rip asked over the cacophony.
The guard didn't know what to do, that was obvious. He opened the window in the stall behind him and peered out carefully.
Rip gathered himself. This was his chance, if he could only get the hell out of this barn!
Several bullets struck the wood around the window that the guard was looking through. Little puffs of wood and dust exploded into the still air.
The guard rushed to the corridor. He looked both ways, then ran for the end of the barn nearest the house as the rifle fire grew louder. It sounded as if someone were shooting just outside.
Rip peered around the edge of the stall, watched as the guard scanned the area outside the barn, then ducked out the main door.
He trotted down the corridor and peeked around the large board door that the guard had just gone through.
The guard was lying twenty feet from the door, his rifle beside him. The man lay absolutely motionless, apparently shot dead.
Rip drew back. He could hear bullets thunking into the upper walls and beams, like the patter of rain but more irregular.
Just then the booming crack of a tank gun rolled through the barn like thunder. Then another. What in hell was going on?
The sounds of battle apparently caught Hedrick and the European delegation off guard. Pieraut loudly demanded to know who was shooting and what did it mean. Hedrick picked up the telephone and dialed it.
Within thirty seconds Krasnoyarsk and the senior Chinese bidder rushed into the room.
Pieraut went to the big window behind Hedrick's desk and looked out across the lawn. Just as he did so, something came through one of the top panes, shattering it. Pieraut ducked for cover as shards of glass rained down onto the carpet.
Hedrick shouted into the receiver. 'Find them. Bring them to the library under armed guard. He banged down the telephone receiver. 'Japanese commandos,' he said. 'At least a dozen, trying for the saucer.'
'If we don't get the saucer intact, we won't pay you a cent,' Pieraut said, loudly enough for Charley Pine to hear.
'Obviously,' Hedrick snapped.
'We should leave now, fly it out of here while we still can.'
Hedrick wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He dabbed at his palms. A bullet hit another small pane of glass in the big window, shattering it. Hedrick didn't even flinch.
Charley Pine put on her flight jacket, walked over to the small refreshment bar, and poured herself a drink of water.
