"Did I say this?" The same even, almost monotone voice. Control would be something living at the bottom here would teach, Kustaa thought.
"No, we will aid you, Mr. American, on our terms. Information, yes, provided it can be conveyed without serious risk. The Draka are no fools, but sometimes they forget we have ears… and sometimes they are too eager to believe a serf has knelt in his heart and accepted chains upon his soul. Although, God in His mercy knows, that is true often enough. Sometimes, rarely, very rarely, we will be prepared to take direct action on your prompting. None of us is essential; they could take everyone in this building, and what we have built will continue. Wounded, but that is the virtue of an organism so simple and diffuse as ours, it regenerates. And endures if need be, generation after generation, until… in the end, if nothing else, they will become lazy…"
"Information is what I'm mostly after," Kustaa said. And getting. Not information that will make Donovan or President Marshall particularly happy, but then, just because these people are allies doesn't mean they have identical perspectives or interests. "Specifically, here, information about the Draka weapons program at Le Puy."
A laugh startled him, full and mellow. "Well, after all my eloquent preaching of the virtues of inaction, I must confess that something along those lines has already been done. The facility at Le Puy was largely destroyed a short time ago."
"Judas Priest!" Kustaa said, grunting as if a fist had driven into his belly. Donovan will shit his pants. "You did that?"
Another laugh. "No, no, au contraire. It was done by one of the scientists themselves; we merely took advantage of the confusion." More soberly: "And thousands were nearly killed, as well… remember that we live here, Mr. American; and our families. And atomics were used on our soil. Our feelings concerning the good professor are, how shall I say, mixed. You may turn, monsieur."
Kustaa swiveled, thankful for the opportunity to take his eyes from the thing on the wall. A man was standing close behind him, a tall cadaverous-looking man in middle age, dressed in badly-fitting servant's livery. Still no sight of the Resistance people, he thought. Good.
"Ernst Oerbach, at your service, Mein Herr," the man said, offering his hand and inclining his head with a gesture that somehow suggested a heel-click. The face was too expressive for a Prussian's, though, now showing mostly exhaustion and a bone-deep melancholy. "Late of the Imperial University in Vienna, physics department." Kustaa took the Austrian's hand, a dry firm grip.
"I'm going by the name Frederick Kenston, just now," he said in reply. "You were in a position to sabotage the plant? I'm surprised the Draka let a 'serf that close to critical equipment."
"Ah, Mr. Kenston, I was not a serf, you see. I was given Citizenship after the war, in return for my services."
"What?" Kustaa managed to restrain himself from jerking back his hand, or wiping it on the side of his jacket. Ernst Oerbach smiled sadly.
"A natural reaction, Mr. Kenston. One I have felt myself, often enough… but though my son was dead by then, my daughter-in-law and grandchildren were alive, and included in the offer." His eyes went over the American's shoulder, to the figure on the wall. "You can imagine the alternatives. The Draka considered me valuable enough, for my genes as well as my self." Another of those gently self-deprecating smiles. "I was fencing champion of Lower Austria in my youth, I suppose they decided my descendants would be desirable… The children were taken away, of course. Helge and I would be Citizens by courtesy, only: a sort of second-class citizenship, always closely watched. The children were to be adopted into Draka families who could not bear, and would forget."
Kustaa's eyes narrowed; it fit with what the OSS had been able to learn from European scientists who had made it out in the chaos toward the end; the Draka had contacted some of the ones who decided to chance a try for the Alliance instead. Not many—this would be a one-in-a-million arrangement—but there weren't that many first-rate creative brains. Others could be forced to work by more immediate pressures, but for a few Citizenship made sense. Hell, it's only a generation since they stopped accepting selected immigrants, he mused.
"Why did you change your mind?" he asked.
"I could not stomach it any longer," Oerbach said simply. "Even in luxurious isolation, I saw too much of what I was giving the power to destroy the earth."
Kustaa grunted again. That bad, whatever it is, he thought. "Your grandchildren?" The man winced, but it was necessary to be quite sure.
"There the Draka made a mistake," he said. "Citizenship would mean nothing if it could be withdrawn. Citizens can be killed, yes… but I have come to believe that a clean death might be preferable, even for little Johann and Adelle. And they will not kill them, because there would be nothing to gain from it once I am out of their power, and two members of the Race to lose." A shake of his head. "I have come to… understand them, somewhat."
Kustaa turned his head sharply. The faceless voice spoke confirmation:
"A major disaster. Hundreds killed; they have been flying in decontamination teams and doctors around the clock. This is being kept very secret, you understand, Mr. American. But continue, professor, you have not told our friend what other gifts you bring beside yourself."
"Ah, ja," he said, patting at his pockets like a movie-version absent-minded professor. "Ja, the microfilm of my research results on the threshold temperatures for deuterium-lithium fusion."
A spool of translucent tape, and a masked face wheeled a green steel box beside them on a dolly, let the stand-bar come down with a thump that told of considerable weight. "Well, it was not my department, you understand, the plutonium refining. Plutonium for the triggers, you see. But it was there. You must understand I had been thinking of doing something for some time, but the opportunity was fleeting." A bleak grin, over in an instant. "You might say Satan whispered in my ear, and I fell. It probably even looks like an accident, and this unprocessed material was there; plutonium is a considerable bottleneck, so…"
Kustaa took a half-step back and leaned against a lathe, heedless of metal angles digging into his back. "Judas Priest," he whispered again, this time almost as a wheeze. "Tempted by Satan? More like divine inspiration, Professor Oerbach! Maybe you should have been in my line of work."
"No." He looked up at the tone, and saw tears glitter behind the spectacles. "A temptation to mass murder, and I fell. Hundreds… thousands could have been killed, Mr. Kenston. Thousands of innocents, women, children. The earth itself for hundreds of square miles, that was what I risked. I am a murderer, Mr. Kenston, I who never harmed a living soul before that day. That is what the Draka have done to me!" Softly: "And the alternative was to give them a power for murder beyond conception… What I did will delay it, at least. If I have no part in it, perhaps some of the guilt will wash off me, perhaps… That I must believe."
Qualms later, Kustaa thought with a hard glee, and turned to speak to the faceless shadow-voice.
"This you have to help me with, by God," he said.
"We agree. For this, we agree. What do you need?"
"A place within a hundred miles of the Atlantic, where an aircraft can land and take off. A grass field a hundred meters clear would do. Some manpower, if possible."
"You have the means to signal?"
"In that leather case your man took from my car."
"Ah. Tell me no more, I may guess, but…" The voice withdrew, and there was a murmur of conversation. Footsteps returning. "Mr. American, another will come to stand where I am. Approach closely, but do not attempt to make out a face. A name will be given you, a location, a password. But first… Do you, by any chance, know the Cartwright system?"
"Sign-language? Yes, why?" One of a number of bizarre skills Donovan insisted his field men learn.
The Austrian looked up sharply, shaken from thoughts that his expression said were less than pleasant.
"Excellent; so does the good professor here. With your so-ingenious cover story—do not be disturbed, only two know of i
t and I am one—it will account for his presence. I suggest you pass him off as your servant in the medical sense as well; we have applied an appropriate tattoo. You will grasp that this is a facility useful to us… And now another will impart the information you seek. A place within the distance you specify; about guards and helpers, I will have to think. Perhaps."
Chateau Retour, Kustaa repeated to himself. Sister Marya Sokolowska. The escargots of Dijon are very fine. That last brought a slight smile; he supposed food-codes were natural in a continent that had been hungry for some time.
"Now, you will be returned to your autosteamer," the voice said. "Please, the blindfold—" A masked man had come to stand beside the dolly with its so-ordinary looking box of green-painted steel; Kustaa sensed he was young from his stance, could smell fear and another odor, fecal. He wrinkled his nose slightly. What the hell, I hope he hasn't shit his pants, the American thought. Oh, well, they've been efficient so far.
"Shit!" The green-uniformed serf technician ripped the earphones from her head with a violence that set the van rocking slightly on its springs, clutching at her ears.
"Report!" Andrew von Shrakenberg snapped from the map table, and the tech's spine stiffened, shaven head locking in eyes-front despite the pain that crinkled her eyes almost shut in an involuntary grimace. Above on the roof the motors of the directional loop-antenna whined, searching.
"Mastah, signal irregular, compatible with movement through built-up areas an' steel-frame buildin's, stable fo' the last fiv' minutes, then ah, shit, sorry Mastah, blast a' static an' lost signal."
The Draka's lips peeled back in a snarl, but his finger stayed steady on the map, resting on the last spot where the lines from the two vans crossed.
"Cause?" he barked.
"Power line, any'tin givin' off strong radio impulse, tha' thing would've shut down to prevent surge burnin' out circuits, Mastah I doan' know."
Specialized training, Andrew thought bitterly. Necessary, but it did not give the sort of broad base of knowledge from which intuitive leaps spring. Well, the creative intelligence is supposed to be your job! he told himself as his hand stabbed down on the send button.
"All Shrike units, all Shrike units, execute Downfall on last position posted. Now! Do it people, let's go.'
His hand swept the Holbars from the table, and he dove through the open rear doors of the van, rolled, came up running.
"FREEZE! THIS IS SECURITY! DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP OR YOU DIE!"
Kustaa dropped to the ground in instant combat-reflex as the amplified voice roared in their ears, like the shout of an angry god. Hard concrete thumped at him, ignored in a surge of adrenaline that brightened the murk as it flared his pupils wide. Multiple echoes, as if it was sounding throughout a complex of buildings, broadcast from half a dozen sources. The skylights shattered, and round objects fell through, to burst hissing. Tendrils of mist snaked through the gloom, then sprang into brilliant blue-white as searchlights played on the roof and reflected electric-arc glare within.
Voices shouted; there was a rapid thudding of feet, and Kustaa felt a swift tug at his heel as he snaked forward and yanked the Austrian off his feet and behind a lathe. Hands reached out and dragged the man away, and someone called in French, in Lyonnaise dialect:
"American! We have him! This—"
A stab of tracer went by above, the light bullets pinging and whining off metal and stone. The OSS agent's hand went over his shoulder and stripped the shotgun free with a surge of cold elation at the thought of targets. A Draka voice, shouting.
"Yo" headhuntin' fools! Take 'em, boys! Bulala! Bulala!"
Shots were flickering through the half-lit immensity of the factory shed, and Kustaa could see the flash and sparkle of ricochets running across the motionless machines like sun-flicker on moving leaves. Men and women dodged, fired, screamed. Boots slammed on concrete, and a shadowy figure loomed, helmet bulking, bulbous-nosed with its gasmask. Kustaa rolled up to one knee, snaked the battle shotgun around the drillpress which sheltered him, fired.
Crung. The heavy weapon bucked against the muscles of his wrists and forearms, lost. The solid slug hammered through the fleshy part of the uniformed man's thigh, spinning him around in a circle before he pitched to earth; the last wild burst sent rounds close enough to the American to sting with spalls flicked out of the pavement, nearly killing him by chance where aimed fire was useless. The wounded man thrashed in his small square of open space.
"Ah'se hit, Ah'se hit!" he screamed, the first half of the shout muffled by the mask he ripped off before pressing both hands to his thigh, as if trying to squeeze shock-shattered bone and flesh back together. His blood flashed from red to black in the strobing light, as the searchlights played back and forth above.
Bullets flicked at the prostrate figure, and struck; his second scream was shrill, wordless. Another man followed him, but this one leaped over the lathe the soldier had blundered into; head-first, landing in a perfect forward roll just beyond the writhing casualty. He was masked, but there was no helmet on the bristle-cut red hair, and he had a machine-pistol in each hand, firing them as if they were automatics at muzzle-flashes and glimpsed movement.
"Get him out, get him out!" the man shouted through rubber and plastic. Branggg and a burst hammered the machine by Kustaa's ear, brangg and a scream as a Resistance-fighter pitched back, brangg and another dropped without sound. Behind the Draka the thrashing Janissary was being dragged away, as the submachine-guns snapped their three-round bursts with killing precision and the hands behind them moved like oiled metronomes.
Kustaa's second round took the man in the stomach. At close range the heavy buckshot did not have room to spread much; it pulped a circle of chest and stomach the size of a small dinnerplate and rammed the man backward to fetch up against a lathe four feet behind him, legs outstretched like a sitting child. Even then, the muzzles wavered up toward the target that had killed him before the second charge let the Draka's intestines spill forward into his lap. One, the American thought, with a chill satisfaction, his mind seeming to move in layers like the leaves of a book. Behind the voice was shouting in gutter-argot.
"Jean, drop that dolly, drop it, Ybarra, you two, get that box and out, American, this way!"
Kustaa had never felt less like a berserker, or himself. There seemed to be an infinity of time for thought: They are dying to buy me seconds. On hands and knees, he followed the voice into the gun-shot dark.
"Well, here's our tracer," Vashon said, nudging the brown-streaked metal casing that was wired to the underside of the overturned dolly.
Andrew grunted reply, watching as the stretcher with the shrouded bundle passed by. "Always were a little reckless, Corey," he murmured. Around him the factory lights had been reconnected, and Security techs were swarming with their cameras, measuring cords, fingerprint kits. Busy locking the door on the empty stable, he thought.
"But why wasn't it functioning?" the Strategos asked the senior technician, who had opened the feces-streaked container with gloved hands.
"Damned if I know," the man replied, frowning at the circuit-board with its black transistor beads. "Have to take it to the lab." He spoke loudly to override the wailing scream of a field-interrogation going on a few yards distant.
"Don't—don't—don't—"
"Would close contact with a, oh, X-ray machine've done it?" Andrew asked.
"Hmmm? Yes, even a fairly light dosage, nothin' that would do a human bein' any harm. These-here bitty things is sensitive to any sort a' energetic particles. Scarcely likely here, Merarch."
Andrew locked eyes with Vashon. "Well. Pull in yo' double?"
The older man ran a hand through the dense sable cap of his hair. "Nnnno, Merarch, I don't think so. No, he'll try really hard; be difficult fo' him to make contact, of course… but worth waitin' fo'. They'll go to earth, of course…"
"And we'll dig them out." Andrew smiled. "Oh, Mr. Yankee, I'm beginin' to dislike yo'." His eyes went up
to the man pinned to the wall. The Holbars was across his chest on its assault sling; his hand found the pistol grip, squeezed. Two dozen muzzles pivoted toward him, then wavered away in puzzlement or indifference.
Andrew looked up at the slumped corpse with the neat line of holes across its chest, wondering why he had killed the serf. He felt the answer roll through the undersurface of his consciousness; it was there, but his mind refused to analyze it.
"Enough," he said. 'Tomorrow, then, Strategos."
Chapter Fourteen
DATE: 03/08/47
FROM: Merarch Delia Beauchamp
Third Fleet H.Q.
Le Havre. Province of Normandy
TO: Chiliarch Argen Foddard
Commander. Task Force Beta
Atlantic Exclusion Zone
RE: Reported Contact by Procrustes. 01/08/47
Please to be informed that Third Fleet HQ authorizes resumption of normal patrol patterns. Lack of subsequent contact indicates report was either due to a technical or the Alliance vessel has left the Zone. Further diversion of resources is, therefore, unwarranted.
Service to the State!
DATE: 03/08/47
FROM: Chiliarch Argen Foddard
Commander Task Force Beta
Atlantic Exclusion Zone
TO: Merarch Delia Beauchamp
Third Fleet HQ
Le Havre, Province of Normandy
RE: Yours of this date
With respect, please to inform the Strategos that I am detaching two destroyers and a patrol aircraft squadron to continue the search for at least another two days. I know Skinner and I know the Procrustes; a good commander and a taut ship. They weren't seeing bogeymen in the closet, and a possible clandestine incursion is more important than preparing for Yankee aircraft carriers that aren't coming and catching a few fishing-boats full of refugees. We need that network of detection-buoysl
Under the Yoke Page 36
