The Colonel nodded and turned away, pacing a few thoughtful steps, then stopping with his back to Grofield to gaze at the window — outside, night had fallen in mid-afternoon — and then to take a sip of his drink. Finally he looked back at Grofield and said, “You understand, of course, it is a human failing, when one is pushed one tends to push back.”
“I don’t mean to push anybody,” Grofield said.
“You refuse to be imprisoned, that is a form of push.” The Colonel abruptly smiled and said, “That’s interesting, isn’t it? You can refuse to be imprisoned, but you can’t refuse to be killed. An odd situation, don’t you think?”
Grofield’s answering smile was rueful. “Very odd,” he said.
“So you’re a good American after all,” The Colonel said. “Following in the footsteps of Patrick Henry. Give me liberty or give me death, am I right?”
“I guess you are.”
“Yet when Mussolini said the same thing in different words,” the Colonel said, “the American people thought him despicable.”
“That sounds like politics again,” Grofield said.
The Colonel studied him. “Are you truly apolitical, or is it a tactic?”
“Both.”
The Colonel nodded slowly, thinking things over, and finally said, “Even if I were to give you your life, you wouldn’t keep it. Sooner or later you would antagonize someone else here, and that would be the end of you. And then the question would be raised, who let this man wander around free like this? It would cause me embarrassment.”
“I’ll be very quiet,” Grofield promised. “I won’t cause any trouble at all.”
The Colonel shook his head. “No. It’s your nature to cause trouble. I was given two descriptions of you before you came here, so dissimilar I couldn’t believe they were both describing the same man. That’s partly why I wanted to see you for myself, and now I see that both descriptions were right, and you are potentially more trouble than either description alone could suggest. You have given me no compelling reason to want to keep you alive... ”
“There’s no compelling reason to kill me,” Grofield said. “I’m not a danger to anybody.”
“You could be. It’s simpler to end the possibility before anything happens.”
“That’s an awfully small reason to end a human life.”
“A human life is a very small thing.”
Grofield said, “Is yours?”
The Colonel’s smile was cold. “Mine is not at issue. Yours is. I see no reason to exert myself on your behalf.”
Grofield looked at Marba, but Marba’s face was closed and expressionless. He wasn’t about to argue with his president on Grofield’s behalf, and Grofield couldn’t really blame him. He looked at Vivian, and her look flicked away, she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Was that uncertainty in her face? It could be, but not enough to mean anything. Could he get her to change her mind at this point? Impossible.
Still, there was no point leaving any shot unfired. “Vivian,” he said.
She got to her feet and turned her back, stood gazing into the fire.
The Colonel said, “It is not her decision, Mr. Grofield, it is mine. Neither she nor Mr. Marba could alter it.”
Grofield looked at him. “And it’s no?”
“I will send word,” the Colonel said. “Marba will now take you back... ”
It was no. A yes would be given to him right here and now, there wouldn’t be any reason not to. But a no was more safely and neatly delivered by messenger.
Grofield looked at Marba again, and saw faintly that Marba was sorry it had worked out this way. Sorry, but passive.
The Colonel was saying, “It was an interesting experience, meeting you, Mr. Grofield. My personal contact with Americans has been more or less limited to diplomatic personnel, an entirely different breed from your... ”
Grofield threw his drink in the Colonel’s face, hit Marba on the side of the jaw, threw the glass at Vivian Kamdela’s head, hit the Colonel in the pit of the stomach, grabbed up his overcoat from the back of a chair, and jumped through the window.
Nineteen
The overcoat was draped over his head to protect his face from flying window glass, his body was rolled up in a ball to protect himself from unknown dangers, and he was falling through the air, on his way from the second-story window toward who knew what.
He landed in snow, thunking into it like a fist in bread dough, and kneed himself in the chest, knocking the wind out of himself. He lay all wrapped up in the overcoat for a few seconds, the material against his forehead, the whiskey warmth of his breath soft on his cheek, and gradually got himself together again. Then he kicked his way out of the overcoat, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, stood up in powdery snow into which he was sinking nearly to the knees, and looked up at the broken window from which he’d emerged.
Vivian Kamdela was up there, silhouetted by the light in the empty frame. Savagely he wished he had a gun right now, but then he saw that she was making shooing motions. She glanced over her shoulder, into the room, then leant frantically out the window, shooing him away.
“Women,” he grumbled. Changeable was one thing, but this was goddamn ridiculous. He picked up his overcoat, shook the snow off it, shrugged into it, and went plowing away through the deep snow, lifting his knees high, looking like a football player on slow-motion replay.
He didn’t know where he was going to, but he knew where he was going from; anything with lights. He headed into the darkness straight ahead, grateful there was no moon in the clear sky. Starlight reflecting from the snow made shapes visible from fairly close, but the darkness should be complete enough to hide him from any pursuit.
The only problem was running. Having to climb from step to step like this was exhausting, and within a dozen steps he was bushed. He kept going though, having no choice in the matter, but finally it was impossible to yank his legs through the snow any farther, and he turned around, tottering, to see no pursuit.
No pursuit? Why not?
Obviously pursuit had started, Vivian Kamdela had had no other reason for such frantic signaling to him. So what had happened to it?
Then he saw the deep furrow of his tracks in the snow, and understood. Wiser heads had prevailed in there. He could hear it now: “Why run around in the dark after him? He isn’t going anywhere. All we’ll have to do is follow his trail in the morning.”
Right.
If he was still alive in the morning. It was colder than hell out here. While he’d been running his exertion had kept him warm, combined with the whiskey he’d drunk, but now that he was standing still he could feel just how cold it was out here. His cheeks and the backs of his hands already had that cracked-glaze feeling of intense cold, and his earlobes had started to ache.
There were gloves in his overcoat pockets and he put them on, knowing they really weren’t thick enough, but they would help a little. For his head and ears he had nothing.
Nor for his feet. He was wearing ordinary socks and shoes, and they were soaking wet already, snow down inside both shoes, melting against his arches. It wouldn’t take long to develop frostbite that way.
All right. The name of the exercise was Survive, and the first thing to do was get himself organized and figure out exactly where he was in relation to the lodge and its outbuildings.
Ahead of him, succulent with yellow-lit windows, was the main building, out of which he’d just jumped. This was the rear of the building, opposite the side where he’d first gone in, meaning the lake was around on the other side of the cluster of buildings.
To the left of the main lodge, lower and with fewer fit windows, was the motel-like structure he’d been in briefly, in his salad days. Another similar structure was to the right. Farther to the right was a bulky shape without the definition of lights in its windows, a dark squared-off building, two stories high but not as broad as the lodge.