Those eyes studied Randi’s face for a long moment; then the laughter wrinkles clenched around them and he chuckled, deep in his chest. Randi was not comforted. This man’s anger would likely be more merciful than his humor.
“This is a sassy little bit,” the big man rumbled. “What do you know about her, Stefan?”
“That she is some kind of American government agent, Uncle,” Kropodkin replied, spite heavy in his reply, “and that the bitch owes me.”
Uncle, Randi mused grimly-so it was all a family affair. Some incredible roll of random chance’s dice had placed Kropodkin’s fox inside the science expedition’s henhouse. The security services of the world were totally at the mercy of such flukes.
They were in the laboratory hut: Randi, Professor Trowbridge, Kropodkin, the redheaded giant, and two more of his gang-watchful, stone-featured Slavic types. Randi had been disarmed, searched, and stripped of her parka and heavy outer snow pants, and her wrists cuffed with the good old-fashioned steel variety of handcuffs.
One of the guards stood immediately behind her, and intermittently she felt the brush of a submachine gun muzzle between her shoulder blades.
“And what of him?” the giant asked, nodding toward Dr. Trowbridge.
Kropodkin’s flat, dark eyes flicked briefly toward the academic, the man he had beseeched for aid and who had defended him in the face of Randi’s accusations. “A schoolteacher. He is nothing.”
Trowbridge, his hands cuffed behind him as well, was reaching the apex of his waking nightmare. He had gone so pale, his skin had a greenish tinge, and Randi feared cardiac arrest might be imminent for the man. He stayed on his feet only because of the blows and kicks that had followed when his legs buckled. The crotch of his corduroy trousers was soaked.
Randi wanted to speak to him, to say some word of encouragement or comfort, but she dared not. For Trowbridge’s sake, she had to maintain a posture of complete indifference to him. If she exhibited even a hint of compassion toward the academic, their captors might view his systematic torment as a lever to get at her.
“Come, now, Stefan,” the big man said jovially. “No one is nothing. Everyone is something.” He turned to Trowbridge. “Come, now, my friend, you are something, aren’t you?”
“Yes! Yes, I’m…I am Dr. Rosen Trowbridge, the administrative director of the Wednesday Island Science Program. I’m a Canadian citizen. I’m…a…a noncombatant! A civilian! I have nothing to do with…with these other people!”
“See, Stefan?” The big man stepped across the laboratory to where Trowbridge cowered against the wall near the stove. He gave the doctor a light slap on the shoulder. “He is a doctor. A man of learning. An intelligent man.”
He glanced back at Randi. “And you, my pretty pretty? Are you intelligent, too?”
Randi didn’t reply. She stared past him out of the laboratory hut windows, her unfocused gaze automatically taking in the movements of the other men brought in aboard the giant helicopter, noting the supplies they were unloading, trying to spot where they might be establishing their sentry goes and guard posts around the camp perimeter.
“Hmmm, maybe the lady is not so intelligent as you are, Doctor. Who is she? What agency does she work for?”
Trowbridge’s tongue dabbed at his lips as he tried not to look at Randi, as he tried to not look at anything. “Like Stefan said, she is some kind of American government agent. I don’t know any more about her than that.”
“My friend”-the redheaded giant’s voice grew ominously soft-“don’t stop being an intelligent man.”
A big, hairy-backed hand shot out and engulfed the front of Trowbridge’s sweater. Swinging the handcuffed man around, the terrorist leader bent him backward over the lab hut’s coal stove until the bare flesh of Trowbridge’s hands and wrists sizzled on the hot stovetop.
Randi’s jaws clenched so tightly, her back teeth almost shattered.
After Trowbridge had stopped screaming, he started talking, the words gushing from him in a whimpering babble. There was no need for the redheaded giant to conduct an interrogation. He merely guided the flow of words with an occasional quiet, nudging question, occasionally cross-checking a given answer with Kropodkin.
Trowbridge gave it all up: Jon, Valentina, Smyslov, the Haley, the mission. The doctor was no trained agent. Randi could expect the hapless, terrified man to do nothing more or less.
As Trowbridge talked, Randi thought. Her mind raced, using every precious second gained to develop some kind of con or angle that might save the doctor and herself. She had been in similar situations before where she had bought herself survival time with a skillfully crafted lie or cover story. But, damn it, this scenario gave her no maneuvering room!
Between Trowbridge and Kropodkin and overt, common knowledge, these people simply knew too much. She had nothing to sell, bargain, or bluff with. In the hands and eyes of the enemy, she and Trowbridge were irrelevant and disposable.
Across the room, Trowbridge’s flow of words was going dry. Randi frantically tried to telepath him a message. Keep talking! For God’s sake, make something up! Anything! Just keep talking!
He didn’t hear her unspoken entreaty. His words trailed off with a final, near-whispered, “That’s all I know…I’m cooperating…I’m a Canadian citizen.”
The big man turned toward her, those ghost-pale blue eyes speculative. “Well, pretty-pretty? Do you have anything to add?”
Randi read those eyes and knew that he had her pegged. He understood her, and he understood that anything she might say would be merely a stratagem, offered to stave off the inevitable. She stared back as impassively as the statue of Venus, her pride and instinctive discipline blocking her despair and rage.
“You’re absolutely correct, my pretty-pretty. No sense in wasting everyone’s time.”
The big red-haired man turned back to Trowbridge, drawing a big Czech-made CZ-75 automatic out of the side pocket of his parka. “Thank you, friend Doctor. You have been most helpful.” He lifted the pistol. With a flick of his head, he indicated to the guard covering Trowbridge that he should stand clear.
Trowbridge caught the meaning of the act, and a dawning, ultimate horror filled his features. “No! Wait! I’ve told you everything I know! I’m cooperating! You have no reason to kill me!”
“He’s right! He’s not part of this!” Randi blurted. She had to speak, to protest just once, even though she knew with a sick certainty that it was useless and worse than useless. “You have no reason to kill him.”
The aimed muzzle of the pistol wavered. “This is very true.” The big man looked back at her and smiled. “I have no reason to kill him…but then, I have no reason to keep him alive, either.”
The CZ-75 roared. The single 9mm slug embedded in the radio room partition, surrounded by a splatter pattern of blood, bone splinters, and homogenized brain tissue. Death limp, Trowbridge’s body collapsed into the corner of the lab.
Randi closed her eyes, and no one heard her sob of regret and despair but herself and the universe. Trowbridge, I’m sorry! Jon, I’m sorry! I wasn’t good enough!
She opened her eyes again to find the redheaded giant circling the worktable to confront her. So this was it. The ending place she had known she would stand in someday. It wasn’t a particularly good one, but few of her kind found good endings. It was an aspect of the profession.
The CZ-75 leveled at her stomach. “Well, pretty-pretty? Do I have a reason not to kill you?”