“Shall I go ask him if he’ll join us?” the assistant said.
The Hawaiian ambassador considered it.
“Hmmm. As much as I would be delighted to speak with him, there’s something about his mien. I don’t think he’s here on a social or diplomatic matter. We owe him much. We don’t want to ruin his wave. Play it cool. And stick with the ‘Me like ’em fire’ act for these backwater white asses.”
Rucker’s eyes passed the Hawaiian delegation and he gave a quick wink to Anolani. Anolani touched his nose, and Rucker nodded slightly.
Rucker turned back to his visual sweep, this time toward the West Wing.
That’s when he saw her.
No doubt about it. It didn’t matter what name she was using at the moment or that she’d colored her hair that ridiculous . . . fetching . . . shade. It was her.
Terah Jane Spencer.
The love of his life.
And there she was, sneaking off with a man for what looked like a morning tryst.
It was just typical, Rucker thought.
He grabbed Deitel’s arm and jerked him away from the serving table.
“Come on.”
Deitel almost choked on the shrimp he was chewing.
“It’s Terah.”
Discreetly as he could with a full-size German doctor in tow, Rucker followed Terah and Horichi through one of the servant entrances to Hamilton House and up a lesser used stairway to the third floor of the immense mansion. He peeked through the stairwell door and saw the imminent ambassador leading Terah into one of the side rooms as he nuzzled her neck.
Peeking around Rucker, Deitel saw the same thing. He pulled his head back and put his back against the doorjamb.
“So, how will we handle this? Discreetly, I presume?”
Only when he heard the door in the hall crash open did he realize Rucker wasn’t standing beside him anymore.
In the Lincoln Room, Horichi had his coat off and some lipstick on his face. And a tent in his pants.
And a gun pointed at his head.
Terah’s gun.
Rucker was standing in the doorway amid the ruins of the door.
“Oh thank God. This crazy broad just pulled a gat on me,” Horichi said when he saw Rucker.
“Shut up,” Rucker said to him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Terah demanded. There was a murderous glint in her big green eyes.
“Lysander sent me. I have to get you out of here now. Something more important has come up.”
“Nothing is more important than squashing this bug,” she said, her eyes flashing in anger.
God, she was beautiful.
“You know,” he said, “you’re supposed to keep things low-key. It would have been easy to take care of this trash once he was in Hawaii. But no, you want to go doing it right here in the presidential palace.”
Terah and Rucker eyed each other angrily, both holding pistols at their sides now.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” she smirked.
“And you’re still crazy as an outhouse rat,” he said.
Horichi, hands out and palms up, spoke very softly.
“I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m sure we can work it out. If she’s your woman, I had no idea. There’s no need for violence or gunplay. Hell, I’m not even carrying a gun—”
The report of the two pistols was almost simultaneous. A .45 caliber hole opened in Horichi’s forehead. A .32 caliber hole opened in his nethers.
Terah and Rucker hadn’t taken their eyes off each other. Rucker shook his head.
“And now we’re running.”
Hearing the gunshots and the ensuing alarm, Deitel scrambled down to the Lincoln Bedroom. Rucker was pulling the window open. A woman—Terah, the doctor assumed—was trying to drag a stocky corpse behind a couch.
Deitel paused in the doorway and Terah wheeled around, aiming her pistol right at his heart.
“Don’t shoot him!” Rucker shouted. “He’s with me.”
“Peachy,” Terah said, and turned back to her work. “In fact, give me a hand.”
Deitel noticed Rucker had lipstick on his mouth. And the beginning of what was sure to be a beauty of a black eye.
“Can you explain . . . never mind. What do we do now, Herr Rucker?”
They could hear the sound of boots coming up the stairwell as the FSB guards started their sweep, looking for the source of the gunfire.
“You’re going out on this ledge and up the trellis to the West Wing rooftop,” Rucker said. “When you get there”—he pulled a cylindrical object from his top hat and slapped it in Deitel’s hand—“point this straight up and yank the cord.”
So the plan was to corner themselves on the roof of Hamilton House. Of course.
“Sure, why not?” Deitel said, the resignation in his voice almost nonchalant now.
Doors down the hallway were being methodically kicked in and they heard the shuffle of heavy boots as rooms were cleared.
Terah had cut an initial into Horichi’s forehead.
Deitel blanched, but then he was out the window. Rucker had to pull Terah off the corpse of the child molester.
“I hate to interrupt you when you’re marking yet another man’s body parts, but we have to go. Quick, pocket that pistol.”
“What?” she said, and then got the idea.
When the guards charged into the room, they found Rucker holding one pistol to Terah’s head and his second Webley at them. Terah looked like an innocent hostage.
“Back off or this broad gets it,” Rucker said, affecting a New York accent.
“Easy, mister,” the lead guard said. “Let’s all stay calm here.”
The guards had their guns on Rucker but were careful because of the presumed hostage.
From outside the window, Rucker heard the pop that meant Deitel fired off the flare.
The hasty plan seemed to be working. That’s when one of the guards spotted the fat dead body sticking out from behind a couch.
“He killed the ambassador!” one of the guards shouted.
The captain of the guard said, “Sorry, lady.”
There was half a moment’s pause as three sets of eyes exchanged looks. Hostage or no, they were going to fire.
“Oh, shit,” Rucker said.
He yanked Terah out the window and out of the line of fire just in time.
“Go! Up the trellis. Move!” he said. Then they were both climbing, with Rucker keeping his gun on the window below. Every time a head poked out of the window frame, Rucker fired.
Three stories below the partygoers were transfixed by the gun battle. An FSB man with a rifle was taking aim at Rucker. At that range there was no way the security guard could miss. The FSB sniper never saw the large Hawaiian ambassador, or the ambassador’s meaty forearm that crashed into his neck as Anolani “tripped.” The sniper’s shot went wide.
“My apologies,” Anolani said. The Hawaiian’s meaty foot crashed down on the rifle stock with all his weight, snapping it in two.
“Oops.”
Up on the roof, Rucker waved over his shoulder. Anolani gave him the thumb and pinkie hand sign for “Stay loose.”
Then the Hawaiian laughed.
“We’re even now,” the hefty Hawaiian said. “Haole madman.”
Once atop Hamilton House, Rucker once again put a pistol to Terah’s head to deter the gunmen on the ground.
Deitel hadn’t fathomed the ruse, but somehow the sight didn’t even phase him.
“Now that we’ve successfully escaped to the perfect dead end atop the most heavily guarded residence in North America—what’s your next move?” he asked flatly.
Rucker shouted to the crowd below in his best Yank accent.
“The People’s Front demands the release of the Boston Seven! Stay back! We’ve placed a bomb in the Oval Office, and if any of youse creeps come up here, I’ll splatter this whore’s brains all over the lawn!”
Unseen by the crowd, Terah grabbed
Rucker’s manhood sack and squeezed.
Hard.
“ ‘Whore’?” she hissed between gritted teeth.
His voice squeaked and he saw double.
“Maintaining your cover,” he hissed in pain. “Stop it. Stop it!”
“Also, your Yank accent is just awful,” Terah said. “ ‘Youse’? Really?”
Away from the edge, where the crowd below couldn’t see them, Rucker and Terah divided up their weapons, handing a pistol to Deitel. They got busy loading once they found cover across from the roof access door that would crash open in moments.
“This is hopeless. We’re trapped, outnumbered and outgunned,” Deitel said.
Rucker and Terah kept loading and snorted in unison.
“We’re Texans,” Rucker said. “We’re known for that sort of thing.”
The rising whup-whup-whup coming from somewhere over the tree line of Central Park caused everyone to stop a moment and search for the source.
Then it appeared, the oddest machine anyone had ever seen.
It was a fixed wing monoplane, but with a propeller at the front and another, larger one overhead. The overhead propeller had a diameter of more than thirty feet.
A squad of particularly brave and not easily distracted FSB men had maneuvered around behind them. Terah was the first to spot the squad. Deitel was the second. Rucker was still reloading and knew he wouldn’t be ready. He pushed Deitel’s head down hard. As Deitel yelped and ducked, Terah rose and spun, firing off six rounds that found six targets. Despite the ringing in his ears, Deitel heard each of the six bodies hit the rooftop. He looked up at her, astonished.
Rucker finally finished reloading. “That’s my girl.” Holstering his pistol, he fired off another flare, and the strange machine buzzed straight toward the Hamilton House roof, coming to a halt—to everyone’s astonishment—by hovering overhead. A rope ladder unrolled from beneath.
A familiar face in a leather cap and goggles poked his head over the side of the open cockpit of the autogyro.
Howard Hughes.
“You must be joking,” Deitel said.
Rucker covered Deitel and Terah, laying down grazing fire until the last second. Rucker was grabbing at the last rung when the roof access door swung open, a dozen guards pouring out. They paused, slack-jawed, for one crucial moment. Hughes increased the throttle and flew up and away from Hamilton House with his human cargo dangling below.
The gunfire from behind was futile.
Rucker turned and gave Hamilton House the finger.
Five hundred feet above the ground, dangling from the ladder, Deitel clung for dear life repeating his comfort words.
“I hate Texas. I hate Texas. I hate Texas.”
Barely fifteen minutes later they were at a dirt airstrip on the New Jersey side of the East River, taxiing down the runway in Hughes’s H-3 racer. Rucker was in the copilot’s seat, scanning all around.
“Yep, we’ve got company.”
Four Union States Navy monoplanes, two-seater swept-wing fighters with wing-mounted guns and fixed landing gear, were closing on the strip. The autogyro, while an amazing piece of engineering allowing vertical takeoff, landing, and hovering, was a slow bird and easy to track from the ground, so they’d ditched it.
The lead navy fighter strafed the runway, kicking up dirt but missing on the initial run. Deitel tried not to squeal. Terah was stone-faced. Rucker and Hughes didn’t blink.
“Lousy control these boys have,” Rucker said, as casually as if he were appraising different coffees.
“Not enough hours of stick time,” Hughes said. “No confidence, worried they’ll get target fixation and plow into the ground. Shame, really.”
“Those are High Dynamics P-27s. Max speed is something like 197 mph.”
Another two Union fighters made strafing runs at the H-3, but it was airborne now and gaining speed and altitude fast.
“Watch this,” Hughes said. He hit the supercharger and the plane rocketed forward. In seconds the U.S. Navy fighters were distant specks.
Hughes grabbed the wireless mike. “Tin man to Mama Bear. Tin to Mama Bear . . . We’re five by five. En route now to waypoint Echo Three.”
The radio crackled. “Tin man, we read you. Good work. Tell Goldilocks his rocking chair is en route to the tree house.”
“Roger that, Mama Bear.”
Hughes turned to the rear of the cockpit.
“Lady,” he nodded, “and gentlemen . . . after a quick layover in Richmond, our next stop is Airstrip One, where Captain Rucker’s Raposa awaits. You are now free to move about your lives as the Union States authority can go stuff itself.”
Deitel checked his watch.
It said 12:26 P.M.
One day.
Just over one day and three hours he’d known Rucker.
He turned to remark on this to Rucker, and realized Rucker and Terah had slipped away to the rear of the plane, beyond the closed bulkhead.
“What are they up to, Herr Hughes?”
Hughes smiled and ran a hand through his curly mop of hair.
“Either they’re tearing at each other’s throats or tearing at each other’s clothes. One or the other, I highly advise not getting in the middle of it. It’s a long flight to the Caribbean airstrip, and there’s only one first aid kit.”
Deitel reflected on this. He sat.
“So, how did we enjoy our first trip to the Big Apple?” Hughes asked.
“I was only there for two hours.”
“And?” Hughes asked. Did these Texans ever stop smiling?
“It was more than enough. Is there a . . . what is the word . . . galley?”
“I brought sack lunches,” Hughes said. “I was worried that one or the other of those two might have their teeth knocked out, so I brought soup.”
Deitel sulked.
“And soft tacos,” Hughes added with a smile.
Deitel perked up.
Then Hughes’s expression turned stern.
“Do not spill anything. Seriously.”
“What are you doing here?” Terah demanded when Rucker followed her through the hatch to the back passenger area.
“It’s here or the cockpit. Not a big plane, you know,” Rucker said.
“No, here. Dealing with this. Bothering me.”
“Look, Terah, I told you. Lysander sent me to get you out before you blew your cover with that bone-headed killing and because there’s something brewing that’s a lot more dangerous than whatever the Union States’ latest scheme is.
“Besides,” he volleyed back, “what are you doing there? Kind of a waste of all that historical knowledge you have rattling around in that big head of yours.”
Terah calmed a little. But not much. Her defenses were still up even if she hid it with a devil-may-care laugh.
“You know me, and you know how it is. There’s only so long I can publish papers and manage a museum before I go stir crazy. I need the thrill. And more importantly, someone has to keep an eye on our enemies while others of us”—there was no mistaking her gesture right at him—“spend all their time working for no one’s good but their own. Or on their backhand. Truth now—how did you get involved with this?”
“I told you. I was already on this job when your name came up. Lysander put me on the fast bird up here to save you from your own crazy.”
She scoffed.
“Right. Of all the people Lysander could call on, it just happens to be you, huh? He couldn’t have hired Lucky or one of Chennault’s other Fireflies?” Terah asked, slipping off her heels and removing her stockings. “Funny, I remember you taller.”
“Hey, I was on this job long before I knew you were involved,” he said.
“Right,” Terah said. She struck a match on the No Smoking sign and lighted a clove cigarette. “Just like Calais.”
Rucker groaned. “Oh good lord. You’re not gonna start with that again.”
Terah batted her eyelashes in mock innocence. “Darling, I didn’t s
tart it there.”
“That was Chuy’s doing. And don’t call me darling.”
Terah took a drag, exhaled, and then stubbed out her cigarette. She put her arms around Rucker’s neck. “It’s not like we’re not good together, Fox. We’re very good when it comes to this. It’s just that over the long haul, I’m not interested in what you’re interested in.”
Rucker stammered. She was doing it again.
“Stop it,” he said. “I’m not interested in that, either. I wasn’t. Then you got me all twisted around. I never wanted to settle down until you.” He leaned in to kiss her, and found his lips planted on her open palm.
“Sorry, Fox. I’ll take a good tumble and a stiff drink, but I’m not interested in opening a whole bottle of wine. There’s a whole world out there, and this modern girl isn’t going to be tied down to anyone. Like the song says, ‘Anything Goes.’ And like this girl says, my work is important. Someone has to take the defense of Freehold seriously. We can’t all retire on the beach and play tennis.”
“Hey, tennis is an art form. The highest. That’s neither here nor there. So now you define ‘defense’ as active sabotage and preemptive strikes against sovereign countries?” he asked. “That kind of defense isn’t what we’re supposed to be about.”
Terah rolled her eyes.
“We can do what’s free or we can do what’s good,” she said. And then she started removing her dress. “You’re being a naïve dilettante. You can’t wait until someone’s got a gun to your head to stand up for yourself. You can’t turn your back on the world and not expect to find a knife in it.”
Rucker tried not to let what she was doing distract him. He might as well have tried panning for gold in a bathtub for all the good it would do him.
“Spare me the right-wing rationalizations,” he said. “I’m surprised your hands don’t whistle in the wind from the nail holes. It’s not my job to carry the world on my shoulders. Hell, why not just shoot people who you think are thinking about doing you wrong? I hear it’s all the rage in some circles. Or have Austin keep an eye on everyone at home and abroad. Those on the good side could wear armbands to show they’re loyal to the state. And while you’re . . . What are you doing?” he finally asked. “Are you . . . ?”
Black Sun Reich: The Spear of Destiny: Part One of Three Page 12
