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For the other three, it was devastating a couple of days was usually necessary
for vision to return to normal. It was an easy matter to dispose of them in
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such a condition, after which he checked their pockets, in the process finding
the means of relieving his cash situation appreciably. Then he paused to
reflect on what their intentions might have been.
Why had they brought him in here? Most likely, it led to an exit that would
have enabled them to get him away without risking a public spectacle. He
followed the stairs down and found a passage leading past more rooms to, sure
enough, what looked like an outside door. One of the rooms to the side had a
window. Samurai moved over to it cautiously in the darkness and peered out.
There were two cars outside, one empty, the other with a man standing by the
open driver's door. It was a service road, deserted and dark except for a few
orange lamps. That suited Samurai just fine: if whoever was trying to stop him
had the airports covered, it wouldn't be a good idea to carry on any farther
by air.
He explored along the building until he came to another door, well beyond
where the cars were, in the shadows. It was locked, and took him a few minutes
to open. By then, the man waiting by the car was getting worried. He stood
anxiously, directing all his attention toward the building . . . and oblivious
to the shadow stealing up through the night from behind him.
The keys were in the car. Samurai hauled the unconscious form inside the door
that the others were supposed to have come out of, and was on his way less
than a minute later. He found his way to the main airport exit and stopped in
a parking area to check the glove box for maps. He found some, and the tank
was not far off full. It was not yet 5:30 in the morning; the distance to
Semipalatinsk was roughly 400 miles. Depending on driving conditions and
assuming that whoever was responsible did a reasonable job of keeping the main
road clear, he should still be able to make it by late afternoon or evening,
he estimated. That didn't give him as much time as he'd hoped to figure out
how he was going to deal with Ashling. But having gotten this far, he wasn't
about to quit now.
* * *
News of the debacle didn't reach Washington until a couple of hours later, by
which time it was midnight and Grazin was just about to go to bed. He called
Colonel Hautz at once on an emergency circuit.
"He wiped out your whole squad," Grazin fumed. "Now will you believe what I
told you about this guy? How many more people do you have out there?"
Hautz was stunned by the news. "The rest of the group at Novosibirsk are
still functional. And we've got the backup team arriving in Semipalatinsk in
the next eight hours."
"Well, amend your field orders," Grazin instructed. "Forget any notion of
trying to apprehend or immobilize. A lot of people over here would be more
than happy if he never set foot in the country again, anyhow. Kill him on
sight, then get your men out."
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forty
The car was absurdly large, even if it could hold five people. The upholstery
was plush and pretentiously ornate, with padded trim inside the doors and
seats that felt like armchairs. The controls had a section labeled "Autodrive"
that included a switch with a "Wireguide" position, and an electronic device
tagged as a "Navgrid Locator," neither of which Samurai understood. But they
were both evidently optional, for the conventional systems that he was
familiar with all responded normally. It fairly surged with power and handled
amazingly well. And although there was snow on the rooftops, highway
shoulders, central divisions, and other unused areas, the roadways and
sidewalks themselves were actually dry! Surely not even Eurasians could be
sufficiently out of their minds to heat them. But what other explanation was
there?
As he had come to expect by now, everything was built on a scale that was
big, brash, gaudily flaunting its imagined grandeur. Huge buildings flanked
the highways like mountains of luminescent crystal towering in the night.
Lurid signs proclaimed the presence of hotels, business corporations, the
Berdsk Plasma Physics Institute, the South Sub-City, whatever that was; others
advertised everything from brands of hashish and vodka to dance schools and
performances of orchestral music. There was a rainbow-lit fountain throwing
water hundreds of feet into the air. He passed some kind of enormous glass
enclosure with domes, illuminated inside and containing an artificial beach
and palm trees.
Farther on, the roadway merged alongside several rail lines, some regular,
others monotrack supported by pylons, to follow the top of a huge dam at one
end of a lake, which, from the lights stretching away along its shore, receded
as far as it was possible to see. The far shore was lined with floodlit
industrial installations: tanks and towers braced by latticeworks, domes and
spheres, concrete massifs wreathed in power lines and pipes. The lights of an
aircraft rose up from among it all and vanished into the far sky over the
lake.
There was a modest amount of other traffic about. A train and several
unattached cars on the monotracks sped past him while he was negotiating the
dam. Some distance past the end of it, the rail lines went off in their own
separate directions. He passed what looked like an all-night restaurant and
service area where several hopefuls were trying to hitch rides. Past the dam,
the artificially dry road ended; but the continuation had been effectively
plowed and the surface treated, enabling him to keep up a better speed than he
had hoped. As the route began climbing into the hills south of Novosibirsk,
his hopes for the mission rose with it.
By the time daylight arrived, he was descending again. The surroundings now
were more sparsely inhabited, but the traffic increased steadily. An hour
later he passed through another urban area, which his map showed to be the
city of Barnaut almost a quarter of the way to Semi-palatinsk already. As the
morning traffic got into its swing, he was astonished to see swarms of what
had to be tiny personal aircraft taking to the skies in orderly, well-defined
traffic corridors.
Eurasians doing something orderly? It didn't seem possible. Maybe if their
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necks were on the line, even they were capable of some measure of rationality,
he reflected. Or maybe all the ones who weren't up to it had self-selected
themselves out of the population by now.
In his own mind, Samurai had far from written off the opposition who were out
looking for him. The sight of the personal flyers made him think of them
again, and left no guessing what their next move was likely to be. From the
NSA intercept they knew where he was heading; there was only one route for
getting there; and they knew what car he was driving, since he'd stolen it
from them. There were no doubt as few restrictions on hiring private aircraft
here as on everything else. As he continued southward from Barnaut, the
surroundings became bleaker and more -deserted; the traffic thinned down to
occasional heavy commercial rigs. Perfect surroundings for an interception.
Having concluded that much, Samurai began taking a greater interest in the
hitchhikers out on the road, whom he was still passing from time to time. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]