“Yes, sir.” The squadron commander saluted smartly, then turned and started for his plane, already warmed up and in place on the carrier’s forward catapult.
As al-Bashir poured champagne into the two fluted glasses, April heard a timid knock on the bedroom door.
Looking annoyed, al-Bashir slammed the champagne bottle back into its bucket and strode to the door. He opened it only a crack. April glimpsed a round-faced, bald man out in the corridor. He looked upset. The two men spoke rapidly—in Arabic, April guessed.
Al-Bashir’s face was dark as he closed the door and turned back to April.
“It appears that your president escaped with his life,” he said, scowling. “But more than a thousand Americans have been killed. And the power satellite has been shut down completely.”
“You did this?” April asked, still sitting on the bed. She felt breathless, weak.
“Yes,” said al-Bashir. Then he smiled again. “With a little help from my friends, as your Beatles sang.”
“And Dan?”
“Randolph? He’ll be blamed for the disaster, of course. His power satellite will be cursed by everyone. No one will know that we engineered it.”
“You engineered all this?”
His smile widened. “Yes, I did. And you’re not returning to the United States. You’re going to Tunis, with me.”
“But I don’t want—”
“What you want is of no consequence. I promised myself a little reward when this operation with the satellite was finished, and you are my reward.”
He held out one of the glasses of champagne to her.
April stared at him for a long, wordless moment. He’s smiling, she thought. He’s just killed a thousand or so people and he’s smiling about it. He’s ruined Dan, destroyed the very idea of the powersat, and it makes him smile.
She got to her feet, surprised that she had the strength to stand without trembling. Without a word, she stepped toward al-Bashir and accepted the champagne.
“You’ll enjoy my home in Tunis. You’ll have every luxury, so long as you behave yourself properly.”
“Every luxury except freedom,” April murmured.
He made a disappointed cluck of his tongue. “You Americans always talk about freedom.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Enjoy life, lovely one. With me you will live far better than you ever could in miserable Texas.”
April sipped at the champagne, her mind whirling. I’m his prize for destroying Dan. I’m his reward. He’s captured me and I’ll have to do whatever he wants.
Al-Bashir put his glass down on the damask-covered cart and began uncovering the dishes. “Ah, you see? A steak dinner, just as you would have in Texas. All the comforts of home.”
The spaceplane was starting to rattle as Adair jinked it through the first of several high-altitude turns aimed at killing speed before it. could come in for a landing. At least the worst part of reentry is over, Dan thought. Everybody sat tight in their seats as the craft blazed back into the atmosphere, leaving a brilliant flaming meteor trail behind it.
Dan had to put his bubble helmet on again to use the radio link to Matagorda. Williamson still sat beside him, looking less surly than he had before Dan began promising him the best medical care in America and a whopping insurance policy for his family—in exchange for his telling the FBI what he knew.
Van Buren’s voice sounded close to tears. “Hundreds have been killed, Dan. Roasted alive. The TV’s full of it.”
“What about Senator Thornton?” he asked.
“I don’t know. They haven’t mentioned her name. The president’s okay, though.”
“Can you contact her by phone?”
“I talked with her when this all started, but then all the phone links went down,” Van Buren answered.
Double damn it to hell and back, Dan grumbled to himself. Jane must be okay. If they didn’t get the president they didn’t get the VIPs around him. She’s all right. They didn’t kill her. She’s okay.
He wished he were certain of that.
Marseille
“The French call it entrecôte,” al-Bashir was saying as he pulled up a chair for April. “Much better than the grilled steak you get in Texas.”
April sat at the wheeled cart and stared at the dinner laid out before her. Steak with some sort of sauce on it. Vegetables. A salad in a separate little plate. The silverware looked like solid silver. She picked up a fork. Yes, it was heavy.
“You must be famished,” al-Bashir said as he sat on the opposite side of the table. “Dig in, as you Americans say.”
April nibbled at the salad, sliced a piece of steak and tried to eat it. She had no appetite whatever.
Al-Bashir put down his knife and fork and looked across the table at her. “I understand,” he said softly. “This is all very strange to you, even a little frightening.”
April said nothing. She couldn’t look at him. She stared down at the table setting in front of her.
Getting to his feet, al-Bashir came around the cart and grasped her by the arm. “You’ve got to face the facts, April. There’s no life for you in America anymore. Your life is here, with me.”
“I want to go home.”
“Forget about America. Forget about Dan Randolph. His corporation will be destroyed and him along with it.”
She turned her face away from him.
His grip on her arm tightened and he pulled her to her feet. “Come to bed with me, April. You’ll enjoy it, I promise you.”
With one swift move she grabbed the steak knife from beside her plate and rammed it into al-Bashir’s soft belly. He grunted, his eyes went wide.
“How did you enjoy that, wiseass?” April snarled at him.
Al-Bashir tried to speak, but his knees gave way and he sank to the carpet, the silver knife sunk into his gut all the way up to the hilt. Blood was seeping. He tried to say something but all that came out of his mouth was a strangled little squeak.
They’ll kill me, April told herself. They’ll beat the hell out of me and gang-rape me and kill me. But at least I got him. She looked down at al-Bashir. His hands were twitching, trying to grasp the hilt of the knife.
“You’ve destroyed Dan? Well, I’ve destroyed you. How’s it feel?”
Bending over the prostrate, staring al-Bashir, April yanked the knife out of him. He screamed and blood spurted from the wound.
Holding the bloody knife, April waited for the Asian woman to return. I’ll slit the bitch’s throat, she told herself. I’ll kill as many of them as I can.
But nothing happened. No one rapped at the door. No one tried to enter. Al-Bashir was groaning, still breathing shallowly, but his eyes were closed. A growing pool of blood stained the carpet around his body.
She heard a car door slam. Going to the open French windows, she saw several men loading electronic equipment into a van. One of them looked up and pointed. For an instant April thought he was pointing at her but then she heard a roar like a rocket engine and the world exploded in a flash of fire.
Back on the Truman, the skipper stared at the satellite imagery. The hilltop villa was obliterated: nothing left standing except a few blackened stones. Even the cars and vans were only twisted wreckage now.
The steel hatch opened and the flight operations officer stepped in and saluted. The skipper dumped the satellite image and returned his salute.
“Scotty’s back. Picture-perfect trap.”
The skipper nodded. “Tell him ‘well done’ for me. And then neither of you is to say a word about this again. Ever. To anyone.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Matagora Island, Texas