“Finway’s too late,” the cameraman said, his voice thick with disgust, exasperation, and fear. “Salva just walked in. They must have brought him in through the back.”
Shue shook himself as a fever-chill swept through his body. At the same time he felt beads of sweat break out on his forehead. Mouth slightly open, he spun around and fixed his gaze on the monitors above his head. The action in the ring had again been halted between rounds. The tall, unmistakable figure of Manuel Salva, dressed in combat fatigues and surrounded by his entourage of security men and friends, was on his feet, waving his freshly starched cap and acknowledging the frenzied cheers of the crowd. Alexandra Finway could be seen to the far right of the screen. The woman was on her feet, cheering with the others.
“Mr. White?”
“What?” For a moment, Harley Shue had forgotten his cover name. He looked around to find Jack Barnes staring at him intently. The captain’s hand was on the radio transmission switch.
“I assume it’s time we talked to Sierran security,” Barnes said tightly.
“No.”
Barnes frowned. “I don’t understand, White. You said—”
“We’ll give Finway fifteen minutes. His wife’s life is on the line. At this point he has just as much chance of stopping this thing as the Sierrans have. Maybe better.”
Saint George’s entrance was going to mean his own permanent exit, Harley Shue thought. He was now going to have to kill Jack Barnes and Terry Factor, and the only convincing way of doing that was to arrange for the midair destruction of the blimp—after the craft had served its purpose.
Unless Finway could prevent the assassination, which to Harley Shue seemed highly unlikely; he expected to witness the deadly explosion at any second.
Barnes continued to stare hard at Shue, and his hand remained on the transmission switch. “I don’t know, White. The woman’s no more than twenty feet away from Salva. It seems to me that we’re assuming one hell of a big responsibility.”
“The responsibility is mine, Captain,” Shue said in a clipped, forceful voice as he turned his back on the two men and strode quickly to the rear of the gondola. “I speak for the President. You agreed to follow my orders. Please do so. You’ve found the trouble with the blimp and fixed it. Now let’s get this ship back into the air.”
9:37 P.M.
Alexandra
Alexandra had the persistent feeling that she was slowly smothering in some thick-aired world where light and sound were subtly distorted. Her stomach burned; it had burned all through this strange afternoon and evening.
Yet she could not identify the cause of her discomfort. Thus far she had experienced no difficulty in keeping track of the others in the tour group who had come with them. Not counting Rick Peters and herself, all but two members of the group were sitting together on the opposite side of the oval arena. The other two had chosen—like herself, but for different reasons—to sit with Sierrans, and it was to these Americans that Alexandra had paid the closest attention. However, neither of the men had moved from his seat since the matches had begun, and they were a comfortable distance away from the rows of empty bleacher seats across the aisle from her.
Of course, she thought, anyone in the group could make a move at any time in an attempt to improve his position and firing angle. She knew that it was very possible some kind of weapon had been secreted somewhere in the arena, perhaps taped beneath one of the bleacher seats.
However, there had been no movement among members of the tour group, and none of them was acting the least bit suspicious. This fact, combined with Salva’s conspicuous absence, should make her feel more at ease, Alexandra thought. Instead she felt high-strung and skittish, as if the acid in her stomach had eaten through to her nerves. Things were somehow different in this slow-motion, prismatic world. She could not shake the conviction that important events were happening around her in the dark periphery of the brilliantly lit arena inside the castle.
Yet, as in a nightmare, she seemed to be the only one who sensed anything unusual.
She had been constantly sweeping her gaze around the arena, trying to fix every detail in her mind, searching for the tiny circumstance that seemed out of place—a quick movement, an anxious expression on someone’s face. While she had been looking toward the seaward side of the arena she had seen the Goodyear blimp suddenly and inexplicably begin a rapid, steep descent and then disappear from sight below the castle’s ramparts. A minute or two later she’d thought she had heard a muffled explosion, although it was difficult to be certain with the deafening crowd noise inside the relatively small arena.
No one else had seemed to take any notice; everyone’s attention had remained riveted on the action inside the boxing ring below.
Alexandra tried to put the incident from her mind, reminding herself that her sole responsibility was to watch the crowd in the arena, and, specifically, members of her own tour group. However, she found herself constantly glancing in the direction of the seaward wall. Then, a few minutes later, the blimp reappeared, floating in the air like an oblong, luminous bubble escaped from the depths of the night sea. It stayed aloft for a few minutes and then, to Alexandra’s consternation, once again began to descend almost straight down, a direction she judged would place it directly in front of the castle.
Now a murmur rose from the crowd; arms were extended, fingers pointed. People across the way turned in their seats and craned their necks as the huge blimp floated down, filling the sky. For a moment the blimp created the illusion that it would touch the castle walls, but then it passed from sight below the ramparts.
At the height of the confusion the referee had stepped between the boxers, suspending the fight. Now an official appeared at the apron of the ring and spoke with the referee, who nodded and in turn spoke to the fighters, who then went to their corners. An announcement in Spanish was made over the loudspeakers. The people sat down, and the fight was resumed.
From the woman next to her, Alexandra learned, through a combination of sign language and a few English words, that the blimp had been forced to descend for repairs. Alexandra wondered. The blimp’s strange movements made her nervous. She wanted to discuss the situation with Rick Peters, but she knew that she could lose her seat if she left; that was a risk she dared not take.
A few seconds later, her concern about the movements of the blimp were abruptly pushed from her mind. The bell at ringside signaled the end of the round, and suddenly the people in the seats directly across from her began to wildly clap and cheer, rising from their seats in brightly colored waves. The undulating swell of rising people swept in opposite directions from its epicenter around the arena toward her.
Alexandra stood up and turned in time to see Manuel Salva stride down the aisle, leading a group of thirty or forty men and women.
Suddenly Alexandra experienced an unreasoning terror, and she found she was panting. She swallowed hard and licked her lips, forcing herself to remain standing on trembling legs, applauding. She clapped with steadily increasing intensity until the palms of her hands burned almost as much as her stomach. Still she felt terror, all the more horrible because she could not understand it.
She forced herself to toss back her head and grin as she watched the tall, heavy-set man doff his fatigue cap and acknowledge the cheers of the crowd.
Salva was magnetic, Alexandra thought, and for the first time she began to understand how he could keep massive crowds spellbound for five or six hours with no more than his voice and presence. She felt that presence now as an almost palpable force filling the arena.
Many famous men Alexandra had seen in person had disappointed her with their physical presence, or lack of it. Manuel Salva had quite the opposite effect on her, and Alexandra recognized the appeal as sexual; it was certainly not political. Perhaps, she thought, it was his courage. Alexandra knew of no other world leader, dictator or democrat, who traveled about his country and among his people so freely, contemptuous of the danger to which he w
as exposing himself, as he was doing that evening.
Alexandra was startled when the Sierran leader suddenly looked directly at her. His gaze remained on her face for a few moments, swept past, then returned to her. Alexandra smiled, and nodded her head slightly.
She saw Salva lean to his left and whisper something to the uniformed man standing beside him. He finished, then gestured broadly around the arena to indicate that the crowd should sit down. The people continued to cheer until Salva and his entourage sat, then the cheering subsided as the crowd belatedly followed its leader’s example. The bell at ringside sounded, and the match that had been in progress was resumed.
The amorphous, shimmering terror in Alexandra had eased somewhat, but she continued to sit stiffly erect at the edge of the hard, wooden bleacher seat with her legs coiled under her. She made another quick visual survey of the arena; everything appeared to be the same. No one from the tour group was missing or had changed position.
She should try to relax, Alexandra thought. The danger was focused now: Salva was in the arena, and she was in the neck of the funnel designed to protect him. It was counterproductive to be hypertense; the nervous state would exhaust her quickly, and she knew she still had a long night ahead of her. She could not afford to lose her concentration for a single second.
Her thoughts returned to the blimp; it had suddenly reappeared in the night sky, and that concerned her more than if the ship had simply remained out of sight and grounded. She wished her partner would come around so that she could discuss it with him, but she knew that he would not; he should not. And she could not leave her position.
“Señora? Por favor, Señora.”
Alexandra started and almost cried out when she felt a hand touch her shoulder. She turned to her right and was surprised to find that the man whom Salva had spoken to was kneeling in the aisle and addressing her. She glanced over the man’s shoulder and could see Salva, an unlit cigar held up to his chest and a faint smile on his lips, staring directly at her.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Señora,” the man said in passable English delivered with a heavy accent. “I did not mean to startle you. Por favor. Manuel has asked me to tell you, with all respect, that he would like you to sit with him. You would go? I will take your seat.”
Alexandra smiled and pretended to be searching for her purse while she tried to think. She knew that actually sitting next to Salva was definitely not the best position for her to be in; he would want to talk, and she could not carry on a conversation with Salva and still watch the arena and her partner, as she must.
On the other hand, she thought, Rick Peters was constantly moving around the arena; her partner was an all-important extra set of eyes and, regardless of the circumstances, she should be able to maintain visual contact with him. Sitting next to Salva would immeasurably improve her coverage of attack angles. The critical balcony area directly behind her would simply remain Rick Peters’ responsibility.
“Señora?”
“Yes,” Alexandra said, glancing across the aisle toward Salva and smiling again. “I’d like that very much.”
Alexandra rose, and Salva’s entire entourage rose with her. She stepped across the aisle and walked to where Salva was waiting. There was a murmur of excitement from the watching crowd, but it was diverted to the ring when the boxers, skilled middleweights, launched a final-round toe-to-toe battle.
She reached Salva, shook the hand he extended toward her. His grip was gentle enough to acknowledge the fact that she was a woman, firm enough to be sensual.
“Welcome to San Sierra,” Manuel Salva said, leaning close to Alexandra in order to be heard over the crowd noise. “Miss—?”
Alexandra introduced herself, then sat when he did. The rest of the entourage sat.
“Thank you for joining me, Alexandra.”
“Thank you, sir,” Alexandra replied. “I—”
“Sir?” Salva’s eyes glinted with amusement. “I call you Alexandra, but you call me ‘sir’?”
Alexandra’s smile felt forced, stiff. She was very conscious of the fact that, for the first time since she had entered the castle, she was unaware of what was going on around her. She had the eerie sensation that at any moment the familiar face in front of her would register shock, then crack in pain; she would see the eyes roll back in his head just before Manuel Salva crumpled to the floor. Yet she knew she had to keep looking at him; to suddenly glance around her would seem a suspicious act, and she knew that dozens of security men had to be watching her closely; she could easily end up an unwilling but fatally effective decoy.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m afraid I don’t know what to call you. Mr. President?”
“My people call me Manuel,” Salva said. His eyes glowed with good-natured, teasing laughter. “If you think you might like me, you should call me Manuel.”
Alexandra smiled coyly even as a new, fierce wave of acid heat washed the lining of her stomach. “I think I like you, but I can’t feel comfortable calling you Manuel.”
Salva laughed. It was a hearty, booming sound, and a few heads turned in their direction. The dictator frowned, and the heads quickly turned away. “Then perhaps you should call me Mr. Manuel.”
It was Alexandra’s turn to laugh. “All right, Manuel. I give up. Besides, all of a sudden I feel comfortable calling you that. Thank you very much for inviting me to sit with you. I’m honored.”
The Sierran President clenched his unlit cigar between his teeth, spoke around it. “Do you think I asked you to join me because you are a beautiful woman?”
“Yes, Manuel,” Alexandra said evenly. “As a matter of fact, I do. Your reputation precedes you.”
The booming laugh came again, but this time Salva quickly turned serious. “It is true, Alexandra. But there is another reason I asked you to come over. You are an American, of course. You came with the tour group?”
“Yes.”
Salva nodded almost imperceptibly in the direction of the Americans sitting directly across the arena from them. “They are Ameicans, too, but they prefer to stay to themselves. Americans are almost as bad as the Russians; most Russians and Americans are contemptuous of everyone but their countrymen. You chose to sit with my people. Why?”
Alexandra shrugged. “I came to San Sierra to see the country and meet Sierrans. In the past week I’ve found that I like Sierrans very much.”
Salva narrowed his eyes. “And no one follows you around, right? No KGB here. You can go where you want, talk to anyone you want?”
“As far as I could tell in a week, yes.”
Salva nodded approvingly. “I know you are a sincere person; I could tell that by looking at you. That is one reason I asked you to sit with me. Politics is one thing; politics is very important. But human beings should not always think and talk of politics. I want my people and your people to see that Sierrans and Americans can be friends.”
Salva gestured with his cigar toward the arena floor where a television camera, its red signal light glowing like a live coal, was pointed up at them. “The television cameras will be on us all evening,” he continued. “You will be a celebrity when you return home. This evening you and I will talk. The Americans will see that not all Sierrans want to leave here, and you will be able to tell the Americans that I am not a monster. It is good public relations. You see? I am willing to gamble that you will like me.”
“You’re very candid, Manuel. You’ve just told me that you’re using me.”
Salva glanced sideways at Alexandra and smiled around his cigar. Lights danced in his eyes. “Ah, but I can afford to be candid with you because we both know that the most important reason you are here is because you are a beautiful woman. Beautiful women are even more important than public relations or politics.” He chuckled in appreciation of his words, then turned his attention back to the ring below them. “We will watch the fights now, talk later.”
Alexandra felt her muscles relax slightly as she was finally able to take her eyes from Manue
l Salva’s face and surreptitiously glance around her. The first person who caught her attention was Rick Peters.
The man was leaning on the wide stone railing of the balcony, directly across from and slightly above her. Despite the considerable distance separating them, his pale eyes seemed unnaturally large and bright, boring into her. Alexandra was startled to see that his features were twisted into a grotesque, hate-filled mask.
Alexandra recoiled in astonishment and revulsion from the frightening expression and averted her gaze. But perhaps it had only been her imagination, she thought, for when she looked at Rick Peters again a half second later his expression was benign. He smiled slightly, nodded and winked in what seemed a gesture of approval. Alexandra saw him lift his large portable radio with his left hand and rest it on the balcony railing. Then his right hand came up and rested on the back of the radio.
Alexandra nodded and winked back, then tensed and almost rose out of her seat when she recognized the familiar, red-faced figure of Raul pushing his way toward Rick Peters through the crush of people crowded onto the balcony.
9:59 P.M.
Peters
Peters’ heart pounded and his stiff penis throbbed as he leaned on the balcony railing and savored the sight of Alexandra and Manuel Salva sitting together across from him. It was all so perfect and final, he thought, transcending even his fantasies. Alexandra was practically sitting in Salva’s lap, and the explosion alone would be enough to kill them both.
It was a just and fitting end to it, Peters thought, a suitable reward of propitious circumstance for his courage, intelligence, and skill.
He felt a twinge of sadness and self-pity when he realized that, in all probability, there would never again be a time in his life as satisfying as the moment when he pressed the panel on the back of the radio and watched the woman who had maimed his soul and humiliated him disappear, along with the man whose death would make him rich, in a misty cloud of smoke, blood, and tissue.
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