Incredibly, the general nodded and said, “Perfectly understandable. I would insist upon the same terms if our roles were reversed.”
Amazed, Canning said, “That's quite reasonable of you.” His opinion of the general rose considerably.
“I do not wish to waste time in pointless arguments,” Lin said. “I will only warn you that if this Dragonfly should be used, the People's Republic would have no recourse but to declare war against your country.”
Canning nodded.
“We are not frightened of your nuclear weapons,” the general continued. “You have surely heard of the network of tunnels that honeycomb all of Peking. Because of much practice and regular drills, the entire populace can be underground in seven minutes.”
Canning had, indeed, read of this fabulous creation. It was an entire underground city: fuel depots, power plants, kitchens, stores of food and clothing, medical stations, living quarters… Every thirty or forty feet, along every major street and most of the minor ones as well, there were steps leading down into this vast undercity. Every apartment house, store, theater, restaurant, and office building had one, two, or even three entrances to the system of nuclear-proof tunnels. The concrete warrens reached out more than twenty miles beyond the city limits, into the green countryside, a perfect escape route constructed by the People's Liberation Army back in the 1960s. Although they both knew that the tunnels would not be much good when the city was attacked by chemical-biological weapons, Canning said, “I believe we understand each other, General Lin.”
Her name was Heather Nichols, and she was in bad shape. Her long hair was pinned back from her face, damp with perspiration. Her left ear was swollen and bruised. She had a long cut on her left jaw. Her lips were split, swollen into thick purple ridges. Tubes disappeared into her nostrils, which were thoroughly braced with wooden splints and bloody gauze. Her right eye was swollen completely shut. Her left eye was open, although barely; and she watched him with suspicion and perhaps hatred.
The intern said, “She can't talk at all. She lost several teeth. Her gums are badly lacerated, and her tongue's cut. Her mouth is swollen inside as well as out. I really don't think—”
“Can she write?” Kirkwood asked.
“What?”
“Can she write?”
“Well, of course she can write,” the intern said.
“Good.”
“Though not at the moment, of course.” His voice gained a note of sarcasm. “As you can see, the fingers of the poor girl's left hand have been well broken. Her right arm is taped to that board, and she's got an I.V. needle stuck in there.”
“But the fingers of her right hand are free,” Kirk-wood said.
“Yes, but we don't want to pull the needle loose,” the intern said obstinately.
“Give me your clipboard.”
Heather's one good eye darted quickly from one to the other, hating both of them.
“I think you're exciting her too much,” the intern said. “This is all highly irregular to begin with and—”
Kirkwood snatched the clipboard out of his hand, ignoring his protests. There was a pen attached to the clipboard. He put the board at Heather's side and closed her fingers around the pen.
She dropped it.
“She's been feeding intravenously for two hours now,” the intern said. “She hasn't been able to move that arm, and of course her fingers are numb.”
Kirkwood leaned close to the girl and said, “Miss Nichols, you must listen to me. I've got a photograph in this envelope. It might be of the man who did this to you. I need to find out for sure. If it is him, we'll be able to get other evidence, and we'll put him behind bars.”
She continued to glare at him.
“Do you understand me?”
She said nothing.
He put the pen in her hand.
This time she held on to it.
He fumbled with the manila envelope for a moment, extracted the eight-by-ten glossy of Andrew Rice. He held it up in front of her; his hand was shaking.
She stared at it.
“Is this the man?”
She just kept staring.
“Miss Nichols?”
The intern said, “I must object. This is all too much for her. She's isn't up to—”
“Heather,” Kirkwood said forcefully, “is this the man who beat up on you?”
Her hand moved. The pen skipped uselessly across the sheet of paper. Then she got control of it, scribbled for a moment, and at last wrote one word:
yes
McAlister and the President were sitting at opposite ends of a crushed-velvet couch in a small office off the chief executive's bedroom. The only light came from the desk lamp and one small table lamp; the room was heavy with shadows.
The President was wearing pajamas and a dressing gown. He was cracking his knuckles, one at a time, being very methodical about it. He smiled every time one of them popped with especially good volume. “Bob, if what you tell me is even half true—”
The telephone which stood in the middle of the glass-and-chrome coffee table rang twice.
“It'll be your man,” the President said.
McAlister picked up the receiver.
The White House operator said, “Mr. President?”
“Bob McAlister.”
“I have a call for you, Mr. McAlister. It's a Mr. Bernard Kirkwood.”
“Put him through, please.”
Bernie said, “Are you there?”
“Did you see her?” McAlister asked.
“Yes. She says it was Rice.”
“She's positive?”
“Absolutely. Now what?”
“You want to go home to bed — or do you want to be in on the end of it?” McAlister asked.
“Who could sleep tonight?”
“Then get over here to the White House. I'll leave word at the gate that you're to be let through.”
“I'll be there in ten minutes.”
McAlister hung up and turned to the President, who had thrust his left hand under his pajama shirt and was scratching his right armpit. “That was Kirk-wood, sir. The girl has positively identified Rice as the man who assaulted her.”
The President took his left hand out of his pajamas. Then he thrust his right hand into them and furiously scratched his left armpit. His handsome face was bloodless. “Well. Well, well!” He stopped scratching his armpit and stood up. “Then I guess we have no choice but to proceed according to the plan you outlined a few minutes ago.”
“I see no alternative, sir.”
“What a sewer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They've brought us down to their level.”
McAlister said nothing.
The President scratched his nose, then the back of his neck. “Where do you want Rice? Here?”
“The Pentagon would be better,” McAlister said. “It's nice and quiet at this hour. There's a security-cleared doctor already on duty there, so we won't have to rout some other poor bastard out of bed.”
“The Pentagon it is,” the President said, one hand poised before him as if he were trying to think of one more place to scratch.
McAlister glanced at the wall clock: 11:15. “As soon as I leave, would you call Pentagon Security and tell them that I'm to have their full cooperation?”
“Certainly, Bob.”
“Then wait half an hour before you call Rice. That'll give me time to reach the Pentagon and get ready for him. Tell him to come to the Mall Entrance and that he'll be met there.”
“No problem.”
Bending over, McAlister began to gather up the copies of Prescott Hennings' magazines, which were strewn over the coffee table.