As twenty soldiers fell in on the asphalt of the parking lot, Dominique rang Alain Boulez. The former Paris police chief was waiting in the underground training area with the reserve force of New Jacobins.
"Alain, have you been watching your monitors?" "Yes, sir." "It appears NATO has nothing better to do than to attack member nations. See that they are turned back and notify me aboard Boldness." "Absolutely." Dominique called his Operations Director. "Etienne, what is the status of the uploading?" "Concentration Camp is finished, M. Dominique. Hangin' with the Crowd will be out there by midnight." "I need it faster," Dominique said.
"Sir, this was preset when we hid the program in—" "Faster," Dominique said. He switched off and punched up the pilot of his LongRanger helicopter. "Andre? I'm coming down. Ready Boldness." "At once, sir." Dominique clicked off. He stood and looked out at his collection of guillotines. They appeared ghostly in the glow of the TV screens. He heard one gunshot, then others.
He thought of Danton about to be beheaded, saying to his executioners, "Thou wilt show my head to the people: it is worth showing." Yet even if the plant fell, the games would be uploaded and he would be free. He would fall back to one of the many national and international facilities he'd designated as backup sites. His plastics firm in Taiwan. His bank in Paris. His CD-pressing plant in Madrid.
He shut down the TV screens, donned leather gloves, and walked briskly from his office toward the elevator. He was not retreating, he told himself. He was simply moving his headquarters. What a waste, he thought, if this first wild skirmish should claim him as a victim.
The elevator took him to an underground passage which led to the landing field behind the factory. He entered the code in the door at the end. When it popped open, he snatched a New Jacobin pistol from the gun rack, then climbed the steep steps. The LongRanger helicopter was already warming up. Dominique walked along the tail boom assembly, ducked under the spinning rotor blades, and was greeted by one of his official Demain guards, who came running over.
"Dominique, your factory guards are still not involved in this action. What do you want us to do?" Dominique replied, "Disassociate me from the New Jacobins. Make it seem as if they've come here uninvited to send the foreigners back home." The guard asked, "How can I do that, monsieur?" Dominique raised his pistol and shot the guard in the forehead. "By making it seem as if you resisted them," he said as he dropped the pistol and hopped from the boarding step into the cabin.
"Let's go!" he said to the pilot as he entered the spacious cabin. He pulled the door shut.
The flight deck was to his left. The copilot's seat was empty. In the main cabin, there were two rows of thickly cushioned seats. Dominique sat in the first one in front, beside the door. He didn't bother to buckle himself in as the helicopter rose.
The pounding drone of the chopper seemed to rattle away his facade of equanimity. Dominique scowled angrily as he looked back at the bastide. The VTOL had begun to move toward the field from which he'd just taken off. The craft took up a large section of the field as it set down. The NATO soldiers were no longer in the parking lot. Dominique could see flashes of gunfire through the windows and in the compound.
He felt violated. The soldiers were like Visigoths amok in an English church, destroying wantonly. He wanted to scream at them, "This is more than you understand! I am the manifest destiny of civilization!" The helicopter crossed the river. Then it circled back toward the bastide.
Dominique yelled to be heard over the rotor. "Andre, what are you doing?" The pilot didn't answer. The chopper began to descend.
"Andre? Andre!" The pilot said, "You told me over the phone that you followed all my moves. But you missed one. The one where I came up to your pilot and hit the poor fellow with twentyfive years of anger." Richard Hausen turned and regarded Dominique. The Frenchman felt ice shoot down his back.
"I took off to make room for the other craft," Hausen said. "Now you're going back, Gerard. Back twenty-five years, in fact." For a moment, Dominique considered an appropriate response. But only for a moment. As in Paris those many years ago, the idea of debate was pushed aside by the stench of Hausen's sanctimony. Dominique hated it. Just as he had hated it when Hansen had defended those girls.
Losing control of the delicate balance between danger and need, between reason and desire, Dominique threw himself at Hausen with an inarticulate cry. He grabbed the German's hair from behind and pulled his head back, over the seat.
Hausen screamed as Dominique yanked down hard, trying to break his neck. The German released the control stick and began clawing at the Frenchman's wrist. The chopper nosed down instantly and Dominique fell against the back of the pilot's seat. He released Hausen, who was thrown against the systems display.
Groggy, his forehead bloodied, the German struggled to get his bearings. Pushing off the windshield, he managed to find the control stick.
The chopper came out of its dive. As it did, Dominique slid around the pilot's seat. The headphones had fallen to the floor and he picked them up. With an eye on the control stick, Dominique slipped the cord around Hausen's neck and pulled tightly.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Mike Rodgers was studying a map of Germany on the computer when Darrell McCaskey looked over with a thumbs-up.
"Got him!" said McCaskey. "Hauptmann Rosenlocher's on the line!" Rodgers picked up his phone. "Hauptmann Rosenlocher," Rodgers said, "do you speak English?" "Yes. Who is this?" "General Mike Rodgers in Washington, D.C. Sir, I'm sorry to be calling so late. It's about the attack on the movie set, the kidnapping." "Ja?" he said impatiently. "We've been following clues all day. I've only just arrived—" "We have the girl," Rodgers said.
"Was?" "One of my men found her," Rodgers said. "They're in the woods near Wunstorf." "There's a rally in those woods," said Rosenlocher.
"Karin Doring and her group. We believe Felix Richter may have gone there as well. My investigators were looking into it." "Your investigation was compromised," Rodgers said.
"How do you know that?" "They tried to kill my man and the girl," Rodgers relied.
"Hauptmann, they've been running for hours and there isn't time to get help to them. A large group of neo-Nazis is closing in on my man. If we're going to save them, I need you to do something for me." "What?" Rodgers told him. The Hauptanann agreed. A minute later, Op-Center's communications expert Rosalind Green was making the arrangements.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
The phone beeped in the dark.
The man nearest it, young Rolf Murnau, stopped and listened. When he heard the muffled beep a second time, he turned his flashlight to the left. Then he walked several paces, through closely knit branches. His flashlight beam formed a cone of light on top of a body. From the broad shoulders, he could tell the body was that of Manfred Piper.
Beyond it lay Karin Doring's body.
"Come here!" Rolf shouted. "My God, come quickly!" Several men and women ran over at once, their flashlight beams crisscrossing as they approached. Several gathered around Manfred's body and looked down as the phone rang a third time, then a fourth. Several others ran over to Karin Doring.
Rolf had already bent beside the body. The blood had formed a large, dark blot on the back of Manfred's jacket, with tendrils reaching down the sides. Rolf turned the body over slowly. Manfred's eyes were shut, his mouth open and lopsided.
"She's dead," a man said from Karin's side. "Damn them, dead!" The phone rang again and then again. Rolf looked up into the beams. "What should I do?" he asked.