And her steady voice was as cold as the Siberian Arctic.
Chapter 28
All through the night, he waited. When day finally broke, he watched the light from the rising sun crawl down the hollow interior of the Huitzilopochtli statue.
When the fools from Barkley had first approached him a year ago, Boris Feyodov had given them the structural requirements that would be necessary for the device he had sold them. They had been as excited as all bomb-wielding anarchists on the day they presented him with the plans to the complex they intended to build.
A network of tunnels beneath the city hall and under the main town square would be built for the guts of the weapon. If anyone became curious, the construction would be explained away as structural maintenance on the old town hall building.
Looking at the blueprints, Feyodov saw no designs for the silo that would house the hardware and mirrors that focused the particle stream.
"These plans are incomplete," the general had said to Zen Bower, the de facto head of the Barkley city council.
"You didn't look at the page underneath," Zen replied with a wicked grin.
When Feyodov lifted the thick top paper, he found another blueprint. Schematics for the proposed Huitzilopochtli statue were drawn out in full. There was even a cross section of the statue in which tiny men had been sketched hard at work on the four levels of catwalks.
"You are joking," Feyodov said. But when he pulled his gaze away from the architect's rendition of the South American god, he found a look of sincere determination on the ice cream man's face.
And so the statue had been built. Four stories tall and smack-dab in the middle of town. And to Boris Feyodov's amazement, no one had batted an eye. The city of Barkley was truly an enigma, even by American standards. The former Russian general who had learned to play the capitalist system as well as he had ever played the Communist one had months ago given up any hope of understanding the collective mind of this hamlet of demented radicals.
Not that any of that mattered anymore. His thoughts this morning were less on the past than they were on the future. What was left of it.
Feyodov sat at the end of the main tunnel. The rough interior of Huitzilopochtli stretched high above, capped by a halo of perfect blue. All around was the constant, hair-tickling hum of energy stored in special capacitors.
If his life ended this day, it would end with the sweet perfection of exquisite irony.
It had become known through the night that there were men still alive on Mir. The three surviving cosmonauts were huddled in the cramped Kvant science module.
In the old days they would have been abandoned. The station was the only thing important, and that was in ruins. Half of Mir had been propelled on the particle stream that had ripped it in two. Out of control, it was spiraling through empty space. The other half was still in Earth orbit but was completely unsalvageable.
The old Soviet Union would have taken the loss and moved on to the more important matter of retaliation against whoever was responsible for the destruction of state property. But so far Moscow was silent. Even though they knew full well who the culprit was, there had been no response to the e-mail Feyodov had sent to the president.
The former general was not a fool. He realized now the president was more patient than he'd thought. He was waiting Feyodov out. To see what he would do next.
But though the president had shown restraint thus far, it would not last forever. When the time came, it would be a simple enough matter to goad the little man in the Kremlin into a response. All would happen in its time. For the time being Boris Feyodov had opted for patience, as well. And his temperance had been rewarded in a way he had never imagined.
A plan to rescue the stranded cosmonauts was already under way. Of course the Russian government could never hope to launch such an operation without months of endless debate and planning. With their remaining systems failing, the men in space would be lucky to survive a few more days.
No, it was not the Russians, but the Americans who would be going into space to save Mir's crew. A space shuttle launch had already been planned for the next week. Given the circumstances, the timetable had been moved up.
When the image of the patiently waiting shuttle sitting on its launch pad in Florida was first shown on the news, Boris Feyodov could scarcely believe his eyes.
The old Communist general usually didn't believe in such things, but in this instance Boris Feyodov knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the hand of Fate at work.
The particle gun would be fired one more time. And this sorry chapter in Boris Feyodov's life would come full circle.
Sitting in his chair inside Huitzilopochtli, Feyodov was wistfully studying the California sky when he heard the clatter of a lone pair of boots on the planking that led from the city hall. The footfalls stopped beside him.
"Still no sign of them, General."
Feyodov rolled his head lazily to the speaker. Oleg Shevtrinko's shoulder had been bandaged, and his arm was in a sling.
Feyodov had given his black market subordinates permission to leave hours ago. Loyal soldiers since the old Soviet days, they had to a man opted to stay.
Their courage gave him strength. From the start he was not certain if he would have the nerve to see this through to the end. Until the last he had planned for an alternative future. One in which he'd live the life of a fat, rich whore. The lure of comfortable retirement and his vast Swiss bank accounts had remained a temptation even as far as the previous day. But no more.
"They will come, Oleg," Feyodov promised. "It is the way the game is played."
"Game?" a mocking voice snorted from the silo floor.
Zen Bower had been despondent since Feyodov seized control of the weapon the previous afternoon. His depression had worsened after he had gotten off the phone a few moments before. Apparently, his benefactor in this scheme had been arrested.
"This was never a game," Zen lamented. "It was about power and money and making people do what's right because I told them it was right."
Feyodov had largely ignored such outbursts from the ice cream man. This time, he rolled an eye toward Zen.
The head of the Barkley council sat on the bottom metal stair that led up to the first catwalk. Hunching forward, his face was pressed firmly in his hands.
"It has never been that," the former general said with calm certainty. "Whether you knew it or not-from that very first meeting we had in Moscow-this has always been about revenge. And I have had my fill of you."
It was the coldness with which he said those last words that got to Zen. The council leader cautiously lifted his face from his palms.
Feyodov had borrowed Oleg's gun. He held it lightly in his outstretched hand. The barrel was aimed at Zen Bower.
The ice cream man's mouth dropped open in shock.
Defenseless at the hands of Barkley's supreme military commander, Zen suddenly had a deep and powerful appreciation of the true meaning of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. For the first time in his life he was ready to march in lockstep with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and every other one of those powderedwig-wearing, slave-owning, land-baron, dead white European males. Unfortunately, he had not the means to act on his newfound star-spangled patriotism. Before Zen could utter a single, flag-waving jingoistic word, Boris Feyodov pulled the trigger.
The ice cream man felt a sharp pain on the right side of his chest.
The bullet knocked him sprawling back on the metal stairs. Grabbing at the wound, Zen's fingers came back red. When he looked up, his face was horrified.
"Damn," Feyodov complained. "I am no good without my glasses. Finish him off."
He handed the gun back to Oleg. The Russian marched dutifully over to the staircase and finished the cringing ice cream man with a single shot to the forehead. His order executed, Oleg reholstered his gun.