Peacekeepers (1988)

by Ben Bova

  "No!" Pavel grabbed her by the shoulders and made her pay attention to him. "Hassan is a traitor to us! His people are religious zealots. They plan to kill you all when we return to the camp."

  Kelly's brown eyes showed no trace of fear. Only sudden suspicion. "How do you know?" she whispered.

  "I am a Soviet agent, remember?" Pavel answered bitterly. "They assured me that I would be spared."

  "Then why are you telling me?"

  "Because I don't want you killed! I love you!"

  Kelly's head snapped back as if she had been struck in the face. "You . . . what?"

  "It's a trap," Pavel insisted. "I don't know what Hassan's game is, but he intends to kill you once we get back to the camp."

  "You love me?"

  "Yes!"

  Kelly grinned at him, half suspicious, half pleased.

  "We'll have to talk about that later."

  "What are we going to do? Hassan . . ."

  "First thing we've got to do is finish reprogramming this Japanese monster."

  "But . . ."

  "First things first," Kelly insisted. And she turned back to the keypad.

  Pavel watched her for a few moments, then went back to the console where the scenes from Tripoli were showing on the screen. But he could not sit still. He got up, paced the room. It seemed close and stuffy, despite the air-conditioning.

  He felt sweat beading his lip and brow, trickling down his ribs.

  He checked the bodies ofthe Japanese technicians. They were alive, breathing slowly, regularly. What will happen to them? he wondered. Will they be blamed for the malfunctions Kelly is programming into their computer?

  Somehow Pavel found himself at the one door leading out of the computer center. It was solid steel, like the hatch of a weapons bunker, and locked by an electronic combination lock. He could not get out that way even if he wanted to.

  Hours dragged by. More and more he watched Kelly, her intent, utterly serious face reflected in the green-glowing display screen, her fingers flicking across the keys. The computer hummed softly as she worked it, and Kelly herself kept up a low-key obligato of muttered curses and imprecations, alternating with soft crooning sounds, as if she were trying to soothe an infant to sleep.

  On the TV screen Pavel saw a huge crowd jamming the square in Tripoli. Color everywhere, from the bright hues of the throng to the long billowing draperies hung from the public buildings, displaying the red, white and black colors of the socialist republic of Libya. There were plenty of deep green banners, too, the color that the desert-dwelling Arabs love most.

  The stage where Rayyid would make his appearance was covered against the sun with brightly striped tenting. A slim podium, decorated with gold leaf, stood at its center, with a conspicuous red button atop it. The fountain in the center of the square was a modernist's nightmare of concrete and shining metal, all angles and thrusting arms, like an explosion in a steel yard.

  If Kelly understood that their lives were in greater danger with every tick of the clock, she gave no sign of it.

  She continued to work smoothly, unhurriedly, at the computer console. Pavel glanced at the digital clock set into his console: 1420. Only forty minutes to go.

  To go where? he asked himself. There was no answer.

  Each change in the red numbers of the clock was an endless agony. To keep himself from going to pieces, Pavel put the headset to his ear once again, and listened to that imperturbable BBC voice while his guts churned and his mind kept shouting for him to do something, to move, to act, somehow to get himself and Kelly to safety.

  But he sat, forcing himself to passivity, as Kelly plodded away at her task. He watched as the grandstand filled with dignitaries from thirty nations—including France and some of the others who were paying Alexander—wearing frock coats or dashikis or modem jackets, as their native customs required.

  Fourteen-forty. The crowd began to surge and even the BBC announcer's voice took on a keener edge as a military parade, led by six armored cars exactly like the one Pavel and his companions had ridden, made its way down the central area of the square and assembled, rank upon rank, before the stage where Rayyid would speak. The soldiers, each armed with an assault rifle, were more than mere decorations, Pavel knew: they were both a visible symbol of his power and a Praetorian Guard that shielded Rayyid against those who would strike at him.

  A cool voice from the back of Pavel's mind reminded him that the Praetorian Guard of Rome often dispatched emperors who displeased them and put new men in their place. Were these troops loyal to Rayyid, or Hassan? Such grasping for power was the sign of a decadent capitalist society, not a true socialist republic. These Libyan barbarians sully the name of socialism, Pavel thought.

  At last the crowd roared, the assembled troops snapped to attention, and the dignitaries rose to their feet. Rayyid was making his entrance, preceded by a phalanx of Arabs in rich robes and burnooses, then a squad of military officers in green and gold uniforms.

  Finally Rayyid himself appeared, to the tumultuous uproar of the crowd. They shouted his name, their voices blending into one gigantic swell of sound, crashing like waves on a rocky headland:

  "Ray-yid, Ray-yid, Ray-YEED!"

  He acknowledged their cheers with upraised hands. He smiled at his people. He wore the heavily braided uniform of a general, with dark glasses shielding his eyes from the sun's glare. Pavel was shocked to realize how much he looked like Hassan. The two could be brothers.

  The crowd silenced as if a regiment of guns had been leveled at them. The dignitaries resumed their seats.

  Rayyid stepped up to the podium. No microphone was visible, but his amplified voice boomed across the square.

  Another BBC voice began translating Rayyid's speech.

  Pavel looked down at the digital clock: 1454.

  Throwing down the headset, he went to Kelly. She was still tapping at the computer keys.

  "There's only six minutes!" he urged.

  Kelly smiled up at him. "Relax. Don't you want to see what happens in Tripoli?"

  "But we've got to get out of here!"

  "We will. Lots of time."

  "But you're not finished . . ."

  "I finished up the main task twenty minutes ago. Now I'm planting bugs in their system that'll take them months to find and debug. I also patched into their comm system and sent a message to my father, via satellite. Let him know what you told me about Hassan."

  "And?"

  "No return message," she said. "Too risky."

  "Too risky? For whom?"

  But Kelly looked past him and said "Hey, Rayyid's going to push the button. Come on, I wouldn't miss this for anything."

  The two of them went to the screen displaying the TV broadcast. Rayyid had worked himself into a fine oratorical frenzy; the BBC translator was having a hard time keeping up with him:

  ". . . and this will prove to the world that Libyan technology and the will of the Libyan people are the equal of any nation on Earth! For we are a powerful nation, feared by our enemies! Let the nations of the world watch with awe as we enter a new era of prosperity! Let our enemies gnash their teeth with envy as the water of life flows—at my command!"

  He punched the big red button on the dais with his closed fist and the camera pulled back to the elaborate fountain in the center of the square.

  Water spurted from it and the crowd went Ahh! The water leaped high into the air, sparkled briefly in the fierce afternoon sun, and then faltered and stopped.

  The crowd murmured apprehensively. From somewhere deep in the concrete building where he stood, Pavel could hear the dull thunderous roar of gigantic pumps laboring.

  Rayyid waved a hand at the crowd, as if to tell them not to worry, and smacked the red button again.

  A dribble of water at the fountain's openings, where streams should have shot twenty meters into the air. Then even that stopped.

  Rayyid pounded the button, his face contorted with rage.

  Nothing.

>   Pavel heard the pumps whining and screeching now.

  "What did you do?" he asked.

  "Reversed 'em," she replied sweetly. "They'll bum themselves out in another couple of minutes. It'll take weeks before they find the instructions in the programming. Drive 'em nuts!" She laughed.

  The digital clock said 1501.

  "We've got to run," Pavel said.

  "Yeah. They'll be battering down that door in another minute or two." She pulled a tiny aerosol can from her belt and quickly sprayed it over the unconscious bodies of the Japanese technicians.

  Pavel boosted her up to the ventilator screen, then stood on a chair and hauled himself up into the shaft. It took a few moments to place the screen back in its mounting.

  Pavel could see the technicians beginning to stir. The lights on the door lock's keyboard were flashing; someone was trying to get into the room.

  "Come on," Kelly said. "We've got to make tracks."

  They wormed their way through the shafts and at last came out onto the rooftop, blazing hot in the high sun.

  Mavroulis was there, sweating and wild-eyed with the jitters.

  "We've only got three minutes ..."

  Kelly grabbed his arm as they raced down the stairs toward the APV. Its engine was already rumbling, sooty diesel fumes belching from its vertical exhaust pipe.

  Soldiers were dashing everywhere. Helicopters crisscrossed the air above. Orders were being shouted. Confusion ruled while the massive building seemed to vibrate as if a mini-earthquake had seized it. Black smoke was pouring from two of the four cooling towers.

  They ducked inside the oven-hot vehicle and the driver gunned the engine, slamming them into the metal bulkhead before they could take their places on the padded bench. They lurched toward the gate in a spurt of sand and diesel exhaust. The compartment stank of human sweat and machine oil, and the fumes from the engine.

  No one said a word as they approached the gate. The officer up front with the driver waved a laminated pass at the guards and they shot through, barely slowing in the process. The same at the outer perimeter, and then they were out in the desert, heading back for their camp.

  "Do you speak Russian?" Pavel asked Mavroulis.

  "No," he said, beetling his dark brows. "Do you speak Greek?"

  Casting an eye on the two soldiers on the opposite bench, Pavel asked Mavroulis, "What languages do you speak?"

  "English, French, German . . . and Greek."

  Pavel understood some French, but he was afraid the Libyan soldiers did, too.

  Kelly pulled the pocket computer from her sweat-stained uniform. "This computer has a translator function," she said. "It's slow, but it includes most Indo-European languages."

  She tapped the keys and the tiny display screen showed:

  NO TRANSLATOR BUT WE CAN TALK.

  The soldiers watched them tapping on the computer keys, but quickly lost interest. One of them got to his feet and opened the turret hatch. The armored compartment filled with hot sandy desert wind.

  Using the computer's tiny display screen, Pavel told Mavroulis that Hassan's camp was a trap. Kelly added that she had sent the information to her father. But they had no way of knowing whether Alexander had received the transmission, or what he could do about it—if anything.

  Mavroulis's thick, blunt fingers pecked at the keys:

  MUST GET BARKER. ONLY HE CAN FLY HOVERJET.

  Kelly tapped: HOW???

  WE NEED WEAPONS, Pavel typed with one finger.

  "Fine," grumbled Mavroulis. "What are you going to do, ask them?" He glanced at the bored soldier lounging opposite them.

  NO VIOLENCE, Kelly typed, UNLESS UNAVOIDABLE.

  Pavel took a deep breath. This was not a situation that would be resolved by delicate sensibilities or strategic arguments. This situation called for action.

  "It is unavoidable," he muttered.

  Kelly began typing something more, but Pavel stood up and stretched his arms as far as possible in the confines of the oven-hot compartment. His back felt all right. It only took a single step to put him in front of the soldier, who now looked up at Pavel.

  One lightning-fast chop at the boy's neck and he sagged back against the armor plating, unconscious. The soldier up in the turret did not notice anything. Neither did the two men up front.

  Pavel quickly took the pistol from the youngster's holster.

  It was a nine-millimeter Skoda, manufactured in Czechoslovakia: simple and reliable, though not very accurate at farther than fifty meters. No matter. Pavel was familiar with the gun. He felt better as he hefted it in his right hand.

  Mavroulis got to his feet as Pavel reached toward the soldier standing in the turret and tapped him on the back.

  He ducked down and turned face-to-face with the muzzle of the pistol. Pavel smashed the gun barrel against the soldier's temple. Mavroulis caught him in his arms.

  The captain turned to see what the commotion was and Pavel leveled his pistol at him.

  "Stop the car," Pavel commanded.

  Wide-eyed with surprise, the captain did as he was told.

  Pavel had him and the driver haul the two unconscious soldiers out onto the sandy track.

  "You can't leave them out on the desert!" Kelly objected.

  Pavel threw a pair of water cans to them. "They can walk back to the camp. It's only a few kilometers now."

  Kelly looked doubtful, but Mavroulis slammed the APV's rear hatch, then hunched forward and took the driver's seat. With a grinding of gears he lurched the vehicle into motion. Pavel climbed up into the turret. Twin twenty-millimeter machine cannon and half a dozen boxes of ammunition. Now they could defend themselves.

  But Kelly was still shaking her head when he ducked back into the rear compartment.

  "We're hundreds of miles from anyplace safe," she said.

  "Hassan has at least one armored car like this one, plus who knows what else."

  "We can fight," said Pavel.

  "Hassan's also got Chris. And the plane. We need them both—unharmed—if we expect to get out of here."

  Knowing she was right, Pavel replied merely, "It is better to be armed and prepared to fight than to go like a lamb to the slaughter."

  Kelly said nothing.

  Late afternoon shadows were lengthening as their vehicle topped a low ridge and Mavroulis shouted over the engine's clattering roar:

  "There's the camp."

  Kelly jumped up from the bench and wormed into the right-hand seat up front in the cab. Pavel stood at the hatch behind her and Mavroulis, clinging to the baking-hot handgrips on either side.

  Half a dozen APVs were parked around the camouflage netting that covered the hoverjet. And several low black tents had been pitched some distance away, swaying in the hot breeze.

  "Hassan's gathered a welcoming committee," Mavroulis growled.

  "We can't fight our way out of this," said Kelly.

  Pavel felt a strange hollowness in his middle. His legs trembled. Fear! Something deep inside him was screaming at him to run away, to dig a hole and hide where none of these enemies could find him. His mouth went dry, his throat raw. He gripped the metal bars on either side of the hatch so hard that his fingernails were cutting painfully into the flesh of his palms.

  Mavroulis slowed their vehicle, but kept moving ahead toward the hoverjet. A phalanx of soldiers in sand-tan fatigues fell in on either side of them. Each man was armed with an assault rifle or an armor-piercing rocket launcher.

  Pavel climbed up into the turret and swiveled the guns around. A hundred rifles and anti-tank launchers pointed straight at him.

  "You'll get us killed!" Kelly screamed at him.

  He looked down at her terrified face. "Better to let them know that we will fight. Better to die like soldiers than as prisoners of these savages."

  Mavroulis slammed on the brakes and killed the engine.

  They were parked twenty meters from the edge of the netting that covered the hoverjet. From his perch in the turret
Pavel could see that the plane was undamaged.

  For agonizingly long moments no one moved or said a word. The only sounds were the pinging of the diesel's hot metal and the distant flapping of bedouin tents in the desert breeze.

  Colonel Hassan stepped out from behind the ranks of his arrayed soldiers. One of the berobed Arabs was at his elbow, pointing up toward the turret.

  "You are the Russian?" Hassan called.

  "Yes," said PaveL

  Hassan smiled pleasantly from behind his mirrored glasses. Once again Pavel thought that he looked enough like Rayyid to be the man's brother. It is the uniform, he told himself. But still the resemblance was uncanny.

  "You may come down and join us now," said Hassan.

  "You have done your work well. You have nothing to fear from us."

  "And the others?" Pavel demanded.

  Hassan's smile broadened. He shrugged his epauletted shoulders. "They will be dealt with. My bedouin brothers have prepared a proper ritual for them."

  Very slowly Pavel was inching the twin guns toward Hassan. He stalled for time, trying to think of something that could break the stalemate in his own favor.

  "The pilot?" he called to Hassan. "The Englishman?"

  "He tried to escape. The bedouins had to restrain him—in their own way."

  The colonel snapped his fingers and there was a stir from behind the ranks of soldiers. Two Arabs dragged a half-conscious Barker forward and threw him to the ground at Hassan's feet. The Englishman's legs were covered with blood, his face battered and swollen.

  "It is traditional to hamstring a prisoner who tried to run away," Hassan said calmly.

  Pavel heard a gasping sob from the APV's cab, below him.

  "Come now," said Hassan impatiently, "come out of the vehicle and let us treat the other two infidels to their reward."

  "No," said Pavel, training the guns a bit closer to the colonel's hateful smile.

  The smile vanished. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that my orders are to bring these prisoners to Moscow. My superiors have their own plans for them."

  Hassan's face hardened. "I was not informed of that."