No one thought it the least bit strange that these men were intently following the movements of Dodge and the others through binoculars and cameras equipped with long telephoto lenses.
As Dodge and Anya moved off, the men exchanged a few quick words in their shared language, after which two of them got back in the car. The driver executed a quick U-turn and drove off back the way they had come. The others kept watching.
No one seemed to be following Dodge and Anya from the scene of the crash, but just to be on the safe side, he avoided the streets and kept to back alleys whenever possible. Behind them, the sound of approaching sirens peaked as the police and fire responders arrived on scene, and then were silenced. Dodge knew the clock was now ticking; soon, the police would learn from witnesses that two people had fled the scene of the accident and would begin combing the area to find them.
Anya made no effort to resist or escape him. When she was finally able to walk unaided, albeit with some difficultly, she stayed close to him, almost brushing against him. Dodge wasn’t fooled. “So who are you really?”
“I told you. I am Anya.”
“I don’t mean your name. Why did you kidnap Doc Newcombe? And dynamite? For Pete’s sake, why blow everything up?”
“That was not my idea. Sergei…” She closed her eyes and gave an involuntary shudder. Her accent seemed even thicker now, choked with emotion. “Sergei, God rest his soul, liked to make a spectacle. He said the dynamite would confuse everyone, and give us a better chance to escape.”
“You could have killed a lot of innocent people.”
“Sergei did not think so. He said he would be careful. Ivan wanted to use guns, but Sergei said no; guns were much more likely to cause deaths, and that was never our intention.”
Dodge withheld comment on the irony of Sergei’s fate. “I take it you are part of some kind of…revolutionary movement?”
“Revolutionary? We are dedicated enemies of fascism and imperialism, goals that I would think all sane people would share. Does that make us revolutionaries? Only in the fashion of your George Washington or Benjamin Franklin.”
“So why are you here in America? As you pointed out, we already had our revolution against imperialism. Shouldn’t you be blowing people up in your own country? Which would be…where exactly?”
“The ambitions of imperialists are universal. They will not be content until they have enslaved the world. Our struggle is, of necessity, a worldwide one. Here in the United States, agents of imperialism seek to exert their influence in the halls of power, using their illegally-gotten wealth to shape international policy so that it harmonizes with their agenda.”
Dodge got the impression she could have gone on like that for hours so he steered her back to his original question. “Why did you try to kidnap my friend?”
“In the past, the imperial powers of the world sought the natural wealth of other nations — their gold, precious stones, copper, trees or the soil on which they grew — and their human wealth — laborers, slaves really, whether in the literal sense or in a more insidious way, by exploiting wage-workers.”
Dodge had seen examples of this personally during his journey to the Congo, and that made him think about Father Hobbs and Molly.
Anya did not see the pained expression that crossed his face, but continued speaking. “This power has ever been maintained by military might, but in the last fifty years, the definition of military power has changed, as have the ambitions of empires. The lords of wealth know that the size of one’s army or navy alone is not sufficient, not when an entire company of infantryman can be killed by a single man with a machine gun, or when a great battleship can be sunk by a single torpedo dropped from an airplane or shot from a U-boat. The wars to control the world’s resources will not be won by the kings with the largest armies, but by those with the most advanced weapons. And do not mistake my meaning when I say ‘kings.’ There is power available to anyone with the resources, with the wealth, to build such weapons. The new empires will be built by captains of industry. The man who now has your friend is one such. His name is Walter Barron, and his business is war.”
Dodge finally understood. “So you think this Barron wants Doc Newcombe to help him build a better bomb?”
“We know it to be true. Not a bomb though. A weapon he calls the ‘death ray.’”
“You’re kidding. The Doc and I just wrote a column on that topic—”
“Yes. Barron’s interest in the scientist is not a coincidence.”
Dodge shook his head in disbelief. “There’s no such thing as a death ray. That was the whole point of the column.”
“Evidently, Barron believes otherwise.”
Dodge mulled over this revelation. The presence of the two autogyros lent a certain credibility to her story; as Nora had suggested, aircraft like that weren’t really the norm for anarchists. Still, her story was predicated on the notion that Walter Barron, whomever he was, had planned to abduct Newcombe, and that the only response of Anya’s revolutionary group was a pre-emptive kidnapping, and that was a lot to swallow in one gulp. “So, Barron has the Doc now? Where will he take him?”
“I said I would take you to him. The knowledge of his location is the key to my freedom.”
“Can you at least narrow it down a little?”
She glanced down the length of the alley at the cross street ahead. “We must go to Pennsylvania Station. We can reach our destination by train.”
“I told Hurricane we’d meet him at—”
Anya turned and looked him in the eye. She was an imposing figure, as tall as Dodge, with an athletic physique that was in no way diminished by her injuries. She reminded Dodge of the Amazon women of Greek mythology, beautiful but unmatched in combat. “Time is of the essence. Now that Barron has your friend, he will not stay in one place for long. You must trust me.”
Dodge nodded and gestured for her to continue onward. I’ll follow you for now, he thought. But I sure as hell am not going to trust you.
Chapter 4—Steel Highway
At no time did Dodge allow Anya to move out of reach, but despite the fact that she was for all intents and purposes his prisoner, he felt like he was the one chained to her. She revealed nothing about their ultimate destination. Even when he booked two tickets for a Pullman berth on the Broadway Limited, a passenger train operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad that offered service between New York and Chicago, with stops in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Baltimore… even with his tickets in hand, he was no closer to learning where they were really going.
While they waited for the train, he stopped at a Western Union kiosk and dashed off a telegram to Hurley.
Going to find N [STOP] Will call as able [STOP]
The message was short not because of the need for brevity, but because he really didn’t know what else to say. As an afterthought he added:
Who is Walter Barron [STOP] D
He pondered this question in silence while he and Anya waited at the station, and then as they boarded the train for its 2:55 p.m. departure. He had never heard of the man, but based solely on Anya’s description of him, he sounded, at worst, like any other industrial capitalist. Had it originally been Barron’s plan to snatch Newcombe at gunpoint? Would he now threaten the scientist with violent consequences if he didn’t deliver the desired results? Or would the man instead have stepped forward with a polite job offer? Dodge imagined his core values—vis a vis the influence of modern day robber barons and war profiteers — were probably closer to those espoused by the revolutionary, but when it came to putting those beliefs into practice, they were miles apart.