She looked up at the muzzles of half a dozen rifles and Ponomarenko’s unsmiling face.
”That is obviously an explosive of some sort,” he said, “and you unquestionably intended to use it against that ship.” He snorted. “I suspected your incompetence in Moscow, and now you’ve demonstrated it conclusively. You don’t destroy this kind of power! Drop that device!”
Reluctantly Ligacheva obeyed, dropping the bomb to the ledge. She half hoped the ledge would crumble beneath her as the permafrost continued to melt, and that she and the bomb would tumble back onto the ship, where she could fling it into the opening before anyone could stop her.
The ledge remained solid.
Ponomarenko announced, “We hereby claim this trespassing alien vessel in the name of the Russian people!”
Ligacheva glanced at Schaefer. He was slumped on the rocks a dozen meters away, supported by his amazing friend Rasche, but he was watching her.
She thought he might say something to her, might offer her a few words of inspiration or encouragement, but all he did was smile.
The ground was shaking as the ship powered up.
”General, I don’t think the pilot heard your claim,” she said.
”The air force is on the way,” Ponomarenko replied. “They will attempt to force it back down, should it launch. And if they fail-well, we will undoubtedly have other chances in the future.”
”You think so?” Ligacheva said. She looked down at the ship, at the pack-she couldn’t stoop down and throw it fast enough, not before those guns fired.
But she didn’t have to throw it. She was no American, raised on their silly baseball and basketball. She was a Russian, and had spent every free hour of her childhood playing soccer.
”General,” she said, “screw that!”
She turned, swung, tapped the START button with her toe as if setting a ball, then kicked hard in the most perfect, most important shot on goal she had ever made in all her years on the soccer field.
Despite the pack’s utter failure to adhere to regulations regarding the weight or shape of the ball, it sailed neatly down into the opening, exactly where she wanted it, down through the starship’s open door.
And then the whine turned into a roar and the world filled with blue-white fire as the starship finally launched itself up out of the mud and rock, out of the ravine, up into the arctic night.
Chapter 32
Ligacheva blinked dust from her eyes and sat up, unsure how she had come to be lying on her back in the first place, unsure where she was.
She looked and saw that she was still on the rocky ledge in a Siberian ravine. Below her a hundred small fires lit the alien ship’s launch trail; behind her, a dozen meters away, Schaefer and Rasche crouched amid the rocks, sheltering their heads from showering debris.
And far above, in the east, a speck of light was the departing starship.
Somehow she didn’t think that the Russian Air Force was going to be able to catch it. Scarcely thirty seconds had passed since the launch, she was certain, and yet it was almost out of sight.
Thirty seconds…
Had the pack fallen out when the ship launched? Had it penetrated far enough into the ship’s interior to do any real damage?
And then the distant speck blossomed into a tiny fireball. The bomb had detonated…
And then the fireball exploded and lit the entire sky white in a tremendous blinding flash.
That was no C-4 explosion, she knew. The ship’s power source, whatever it was, must have gone up-the C-4 must have done enough to set it off, or maybe the makeshift repairs had given way.
Whatever the cause, she was sure there would be no wreckage to analyze, no pieces to pick through and puzzle over, after such a blast.
She closed her eyes and waited for the afterimage of the explosion to fade. When she opened them again, General Ponomarenko was looking down at her.
”Do you have any idea what you’ve done, you fool?” he bellowed at her. “Your military career is finished, Ligacheva! There will be a hearing, official inquiries, questions in parliament…”
”I’m looking forward to it,” she retorted. “I welcome a chance to tell the world the way the new democratic Russia treats its soldiers and workers, and how we lied to the Americans about our visitors!”
”I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” a new voice said. An aristocratic civilian stepped up beside the general. He switched from Russian to English. “I’m Grigori Komarinets, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations. I think we can count on General Philips to cooperate in clearing up this little incident without involving parliament or the press. There’s no need to worry the public with details-is there, General?”
Ligacheva didn’t need to hear Philips’s reply or any further conversation. She turned and spat, clearing dust from her face and bile from her heart.
Neither side would want to admit how far they had been willing to go to steal alien technology-or prevent the other side from doing so. Neither side would want to discuss the farcical, homicidal behavior displayed by Yashin, Wilcox, and the rest. And neither side wanted to admit that the aliens even existed.
So they would keep everything quiet. Philips and Kornarinets would concoct a cover story, Iranian terrorists staging an incident, perhaps-and everyone would abide by it.
She, too, would stay silent about the truth, because if she did not her military career would be over, and she might well die suddenly in an “accident,” or perhaps a “suicide” while despondent over the loss of her comrades.
And besides, no one would believe her. Alien monsters crash-landed in Siberia? Who could accept such a thing?
She smiled bitterly at Schaefer and his friend. They understood the truth; Schaefer had tried to tell her. They understood-but they carried on anyway.
A dozen yards away Rasche smiled back, then asked Schaefer, “What the hell was that all about? I heard the ambassador planning to hush it all up, but what were the girl and the general talking about?”
”He was threatening her, and she told him to go to hell,” Schaefer translated. “Kid learns fast. If the Russians don’t want her anymore, maybe we can find a place for her on the NYPD.”
Rasche snorted. “You’d do that to her? And here I thought you liked her!”
Schaefer smiled. “Funny thing, Rasche,” he said. “I think I do.”