The cabbie wound down his window and leaned out to yell in the direction of the front end of the truck. "Hey, asshole! Who taught ya ta drive dat thing? How the hell am I supposed to get outa here?" Two repairmen had jumped out of the passenger-side door of the truck, and another was emerging from the rear. The truck's engine came to life again in a series of laboring electric whines, then shuddered and died.
"I've got problems," a voice shouted through the open driver's window of the truck. "The same thing happened just now when we left the office."
"Well, do something with the goddam thing, willya. I've got a living ta make."
Vickers had released Lyn's arm and was growling profanities beneath his breath. With what was going on in the driveway, neither he nor the maid noticed her backing quietly away across the hall.
"Back up for Chrissakes. What's the matter? Don't you know how to reverse a cab?"
"How can I back up? Don't those look like flowers behind me to you? You need lenses or sump'n?"
Another technician was coming out of the back of the truck. There were already more of them than would have been sent on a simple domestic repair job, but Vickers and the maid were too preoccupied with the argument to register the fact for a few vital seconds. Also they failed to notice the sound of air engines growing steadily louder from beyond the treetops flanking the driveway.
When Lyn reappeared in the corner room Sverenssen was on the far side at one of the windows, peering out and upward as sound deluged the house suddenly, seemingly from all directions. All in the same moment, two Army assault landers dropped into sight from above and came down on the terrace by the pool with khaki-clad figures already bursting from their doors, explosions and the sounds of shattering glass came from the upper part of the house, and there was a brief glimpse of Vickers and the maid being bowled over by more figures pouring into the front hall before additional concussions followed by clouds of smoke blotted out the view along the corridor.
Lyn snatched the respirator from her bag, clamped it over her face and eyes, and snapped its retaining band into position behind her head just as the barrage of stun grenades and gas bombs crashed in through the ground-floor windows of the house. Detonations and smoke were everywhere, punctuated by shouting, splintering glass, the thuds of doors being smashed down, and a few scattered shots. One of the domestics appeared in the archway that led through to the main stairs, gesticulating frantically upward and behind him. "They're on the roof! There's soldiers coming in off the roof! They're—" The rest was drowned by more explosions, and he was engulfed by a cloud of smoke and gas erupting behind him.
Sverenssen had recoiled from the window, and Lyn could see him clawing at his eyes in the middle of the room as he tried to get his bearings. Whatever happened, he couldn't be allowed to get to the communications room now. She began picking her way cautiously around the wall to get between him and the passageway leading to the office wing. He saw the movement through the smoke and came nearer. "You!" His face twisted into a mask of fury as he recognized her, made even more grotesque by the watery streaks cutting through the smoke grime on his cheeks. Lyn's heart did a backflip in her chest. She backed away, but kept moving toward the passageway. Sverenssen's shape came looming through the smoke, straight at her.
Then barked military commands sounded inside the house, seemingly from not far away in the direction of the guest annex. Sverenssen threw a glance back over his shoulder and hesitated. Shadowy figures were struggling in the corridor outside the kitchen, and there was more movement on the side of the house facing the pool. He changed direction and made a bolt toward the office wing. Without realizing what she was doing, Lyn scooped up a wicker chair and hurled it across the floor at his legs. Sverenssen went down heavily and struck his head on the wall as he sprawled full-length on the floor.
But through the smoke Lyn could see he was still moving. She looked around desperately, picked up a large vase from a side table. Swallowing hard and trying to stop her hands from shaking, she forced herself to move nearer. Sverenssen was half sitting up, one hand clutching at his head, a small trickle of blood oozing through his fingers. He braced a foot beneath himself, stretched out an arm to steady himself against the wall, and started to haul himself up. Lyn raised the vase high with both hands. But Sverenssen's legs had turned to jelly. He swayed for a second, groaned aloud, and then collapsed back against the baseboard. Lyn was still standing paralyzed in the same position when the first figures wearing respirators and Army combat uniforms and carrying assault rifles materialized out of the fumes around her. One of them took the vase lightly from her hands. "We'll take care of him," a gruff voice told her. "Are you okay?" She nodded mutely while in front of her two Special Forces troopers lifted Sverenssen roughly to his feet.
"Bloody good show that," an English voice commented from somewhere behind her. "You know, if you worked at it, you might even get a job with the SAS." She turned and found Hunt looking at her approvingly. Shearer stood next to him. Hunt moved beside her, slipped an arm around her waist, and squeezed reassuringly. She pressed the side of her head against his shoulder and clung tightly as the tension released itself in a spasm of trembling. Talking could wait until later.
Around them the noise had subsided, and the smoke was clearing to reveal Sverenssen's domestic staff being brought into the corner room to be searched and relieved of their weapons before they were herded away into the guest annex. As the assault troops and the others already inside the house removed their respirators, a knot of American and Soviet officers came in through the wreckage. They were accompanied by men wearing civilian clothes beneath combat jackets. Sverenssen's eyes bulged in disbelief as they refocused. "Hi," Norman Pacey said, with a trace of deep satisfaction. "Remember us?"
"For you the war is over, my friend," Sobroskin informed him. "In fact, everything is over. It's a shame that you did not find Bruno up to your standards. It's quite luxurious compared to where you will be going." Sverenssen's face withered with anger, but he still seemed too dazed to make any reply.
A sergeant crossed the room, saluted, and reported to Shearer. "No casualties, sir. Just some cuts and bruises, mainly on the other side. None of them got away. The whole house is secured."
Shearer nodded. "Start getting them out right away. Let's get those landers away before they're spotted by the surveillance. Where are Verikoff and the CIA people?" Even as he spoke, another group of figures pushed into the room. Sverenssen's head jerked around, and his jaw dropped as he heard the name. Verikoff halted a few feet away from him and stood eying him defiantly.
"So, it's you . . ." Sverenssen hissed. "You . . . traitor!" He lunged forward instinctively and was promptly doubled over by a sharp blow delivered to the solar plexus by a rifle butt. As he sagged two of the troopers caught him and held him.
"He carries the key to the facility on him at all times," Verikoff said. "It should be on a chain around his neck." Shearer ripped open the front of Sverenssen's shirt, found the key, removed it, and passed it to Verikoff.
"You'll pay for these atrocities, Colonel," Sverenssen wheezed weakly. "Mark my words. I've ruined bigger men than you."
"Atrocities?" Shearer turned his head aside quizzically. "Do you know what he's talking about, Sergeant?"
"I've no idea, sir."
"Did you see anything?"
"Didn't see a thing, sir."
"Why do you think this man is holding his stomach?"
"Probably indigestion, sir."
As Sverenssen was hustled away to join his staff, Shearer turned to Clifford Benson. "I'm pulling my men out right away, apart from ten that I'll leave as guards for the house. I guess it's ready for you to take over."
"You did a fine job, Colonel," Benson acknowledged. He turned to the others. "Well, time's precious. Let's get on with it."
They stood aside while Verikoff led the way into the passage toward the office wing, and followed a few paces behind. At the end of the passage he came to a large, solid-lookin
g, wooden door. "I am not sure how far jevex's visual field extends," he called to them. "It would be better if you kept well back." The others fell back into a small dense huddle with Hunt, Sobroskin, Lyn, Benson, and Pacey together at the front. "I need a minute to compose myself," Verikoff told them. They waited while he brushed a few specks of soot from his clothes, smoothed his hair, and wiped his face with a handkerchief. "Do I look as if all is normal?" he asked them.
"Fine," Hunt called back.
Verikoff nodded, turned to face the door, and unlocked it. Then he drew a deep breath, grasped the handle, and pushed the door open. The others caught a glimpse of elaborate instrumentation panels and banks of gleaming equipment, and then Verikoff stepped inside.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The strain on the Command Deck of the Shapieron had been hovering around breaking point for days. Eesyan was standing in the center of the floor gazing up at the main display screen, where an enormous web of interconnected shapes and boxes annotated with symbols showed the road map into jevex that zorac had laboriously pieced together from statistical analyses and pattern correlations of the responses it had obtained to its probe signals. But zorac was not getting through to the nucleus of the system, which it would have to penetrate if it was going to disrupt jevex's h-jamming capability. Its attempts had been repeatedly detected by jevex's constantly running self-checking routines and thwarted by automatically initiated correction procedures. The big problem now was trying to decide how much longer they could allow zorac to try before the tables of fault-diagnostic data accumulating inside jevex alerted its supervisory functions that something very abnormal was happening. Opinions were more or less evenly divided between Eesyan's scientists from Thurien, who already wanted to call the whole thing off, and Garuth and his crew, who seemed willing to risk almost anything to pursue what was beginning to look, the more Eesyan saw of it, like some kind of death wish.
"Probe Three's function directive has been queried for the third time," one of the scientists announced from a nearby station. "Header response analysis indicates we've triggered a veto override again." He looked across at Eesyan and shook his head. "It's too dangerous. We'll have to suspend probing on this channel and resume regular traffic only."
"Activity pattern correlates with a new set of executive diagnostic indexes," another scientist called. "We've initiated a high-level malfunction check."
"We have to shut down on Three," another, standing by Eesyan, pleaded. "We're too exposed as it is."
Eesyan stared grimly up at the main screen as a set of mnemonics unrolled down one side to confirm the warning.
"What's your verdict, zorac?" he asked.
"I've reduced interrogation priority, but the fault flags are still set. It's tight, but it's the nearest we've come so far. I can try it one more time and risk it, or back off and let the chance go. It's up to you."
Eesyan glanced across to where Garuth was watching tensely with Monchar and Shilohin. Garuth clamped his mouth tight and gave an almost imperceptible nod. Eesyan drew a long breath. "Give it a try, zorac," he instructed. A hush fell across the Command Deck, and all eyes turned upward toward the large screen.
In the next second or two a billion bits of information flew back and forth between zorac and a Jevlenese communications relay hanging distantly in space. Then, suddenly, a new set of boxes appeared in the array. The symbols inside them were etched against bright red backgrounds that flashed rapidly. One of the scientists groaned in dismay.
"Alarm condition," zorac reported. "General supervisor alert triggered. I think we just blew it." It meant that jevex knew they were there.
Eesyan looked down at the floor. There was nothing to say. Garuth was shaking his head dazedly in mute protest as if refusing to accept that this could be happening. Shilohin moved a step nearer and rested a hand on his shoulder. "You tried," she said quietly. "You had to try. It was the only chance."
Garuth was staring around him as if he had just awakened from a dream. "What was I thinking?" he whispered. "I had no right to do this;"
"It had to be done," Shilohin told him firmly.
"Two objects a hundred thousand miles out, coming this way fast," zorac reported. "Probably defensive weapons coming to check out this area." It was serious. The screen hiding the Shapieron would never stand up to probing at close range.
"How long before we register on their instruments?" Eesyan asked hoarsely.
"A couple of minutes at most," zorac replied.
In the Jevlenese War Room, Imares Broghuilio stood gazing at a display showing the deployment of his task force in the vicinity of Thurien. Although the ships were in visar-controlled space, visar had not jammed their communications beams to Jevlen. No doubt the Thuriens had guessed that the force had standing orders to commence offensive action automatically if it was interfered with in any way. At least, they hadn't risked it, which was precisely the kind of reaction he had expected from a timid and overcautious race like the Ganymeans. Again his instincts had proved infallible. Exposed at last for what they were, the Thuriens had shown again that they had nothing with which to oppose the combination of nerve, strength, and willpower that he had forged. A deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment swept through him with the realization that the issue was already as good as decided.
If a response had not been received by a certain time, the plan called for some selected uninhabited areas of Thurien's surface to be devastated as a demonstration that the ultimatum was serious. That time had now arrived, and Broghuilio's aides were waiting with a tense expectancy. "Report the current status of the fleet," he instructed curtly.
"No change," jevex replied. "Bombardment squadron standing by and awaiting orders. Secondary beams unlocked and primed for area saturation. Coordinates programmed for targets as selected."
Broghuilio gazed around his circle of generals to savor the moment for a while longer, then opened his mouth to issue the command. At that instant jevex spoke again. "I have to interrupt, Excellency. A channel has just opened from Earth, top priority. Your response is requested at once."
The smirk vanished from Broghuilio's face. "I have nothing to talk to Sverenssen about. He has his instructions. What does he want?"
"It isn't Sverenssen, Excellency. It's Verikoff."
Broghuilio's expression changed to an angry frown. "Verikoff? What business does he have there at this time? He should be handling the situation in Russia. What does he mean by ignoring protocols in this fashion?"
jevex seemed to hesitate for a moment. "He . . . says he has an ultimatum to deliver to you personally, Excellency."
Broghuilio looked as if he had suddenly been punched in the face. He stood absolutely motionless for a few seconds while an ominous tide of deep purple crept slowly upward behind his beard, starting at his collar and eventually finding its way to his scalp. The generals around him were exchanging shocked, uncomprehending looks. Broghuilio licked his lips, and his fist opened and closed by his sides. "Get him here," he growled. "And jevex, do not disconnect him until I say so."
"I regret that is impossible, Excellency," jevex replied. "Verikoff is not coupled neurally into the system. I have audio and visual contact only." A screen on one wall of the room came to life to show Verikoff standing in the center of Sverenssen's communications room, evidently having thought better of committing himself to the recliner that was partly visible behind him. Something had happened to him since he had entered the room. He was staring out from the screen with his arms folded solidly across his chest, and he looked calm and assured.
"Behold, the textbook warlord," Verikoff allowed his lip to curl contemptuously. "You should not have sent us to Earth, Broghuilio. It has been an honor and an education to meet real warriors. Believe my words—you would be even more of a fool than the fool you are to pit your rabble of amateurs against the Terrans. If you do, they will destroy you. That is my message."
Broghuilio's eyes widened. The veins at the sides of his neck began pulsating.
"You are the traitor!" he spat. "Now we see the vermin exposing himself at last. What is this talk of an ultimatum?"
"Traitor? No." Verikoff remained unperturbed. "Merely a question of calculating the winning odds, which after all is your own dictum. You have set us up well to assume control of Earth very soon, and we thank you for it, but unfortunately for you that puts us on the winning side. Which do you think we'd rather be—caretakers of an outpost of your empire, or rulers of our own? The answer should not be difficult."
"What do you mean by we?" Broghuilio demanded. "How many of you are behind this?"
"All of us, of course. We manipulate all of Earth's major national governments and therefore have control over its strategic forces. And we have enjoyed the cooperation of the Thuriens for a long time now. How else do you think they've been able to talk to the Terrans without your knowing anything about it? They know that you, not the Terrans, are the real threat to the Galaxy, and we have persuaded them to allow us a free hand to deal with it. So we command a fully armed planet, backed by Thurien technology. It's all over, Broghuilio. All you have left to save now is your skin."
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