“Are you able to go outside now?” asked one of the soldiers, also a major.
The taut expression on Odal’s face relaxed a little. “Of course.”
The three men walked from the building to a waiting ground car. The other soldier, a colonel, said to, Odal, “You have taken your death rather well.”
“Thank you.” Odal managed a thin smile. “But after all, it’s not as though I was killed by the enemy. I engaged in a suicide mission, and my mission has been accomplished.”
12
“I…well… you saw what happened,” Hector said to Geri. “How could anybody do anything in that mob?”
They were sitting together in a restaurant near the tri-di studio where Leoh was being lionized by a panel of Acquatainia’s leading citizens.
She poked at her food with a fork and said, “You might never get the chance to kill him again. He’s probably on his way back to Kerak right now.”
“Well, maybe that’s… I mean… murder just isn’t right.…”
“It wouldn’t be murder,” Geri said coldly, staring at her plate. “It would be an execution. Odal deserves to die! And if you won’t do it, I’ll find someone who can!”
“Geri… I…”
“If you really loved me, you’d have done it already.” She looked as though she was going to cry.
“But it’s…”
“You promised me!”
Hector sagged, defeated. “All right, don’t cry. I’ll… I’ll think of something.”
Odal sat now in the office of the Kerak ambassador. The ambassador had left discreetly when Kor’s call came through.
The Kerak major sat at a huge desk, leaning back comfortably in the soft padding of the luxurious leather swivel chair. The wall-sized view screen across the room seemed to dissolve into another room: Kor’s dimly lit office. The Intelligence Minister eyed Odal for a long moment before speaking.
“You seem relieved.”
“I have performed an unpleasant duty, and done it successfully,” Odal said.
“Yes, I know. Leoh is now serving us to his full capacity. The Acquatainians will look up to him now as their savior. The fear they felt of Major Par Odal is now dissolved, and with it, their fear of Kerak is also purged.
They associate Leoh with safety and victory. And while they are toasting him and listening to his pompous speeches, we will strike!”
Even though his presence in the room was only an image, Odal saw clearly what was in Kor’s mind: bigger prisons, more prisoners, more interrogation rooms filled with terrified, helpless people who would cringe at the mention of Kor’s name.
“Now then,” Kor said, “new duties await you, Major. Not quite so unpleasant as committing suicide. And these duties will be performed here in Kerak.”
Odal said evenly, “I would not wish to interrogate other army officers again.”
“I realize that,” Kor replied, frowning. “That phase of our investigation is finished. But there are other groups that must be examined. You would have no objection, I trust, to interrogating diplomats… members of the Foreign Ministry?”
Romis’ people? Odal thought. Kor must be insane. Romis won’t stand for having his people arrested.
“Yes, Romis,” Kor answered the major’s unspoken question. “Who else would have the pigheaded pride to lead the plotting against the Leader?”
Or the intelligence, Odal found himself thinking. Aloud he asked, “When do I return to Kerak?”
“Tomorrow morning a ship will be ready for you.”
Odal nodded. Then I have only tonight to find the Watchman and crush him.
Hector paced nervously along the narrow control booth of the tri-di studio. Technicians and managers bent over the monitors and electronic gear. Behind them, shadowed in the dimly lit booth, were a host of visitors whom Hector elbowed and jostled as he fidgeted up and down.
Beyond the booth’s window wall was the well-lit studio where Leoh sat flanked by a full dozen of Acquatainia’s leading newsmen and political philosophers.
The old man looked very tired but very pleased. The show had started by running the tape of the duel against Odal. Then the panel members began questioning Leoh about the duel, the machine itself, his career in science, his whole life.
Hector turned from the studio to peer into the crowd of onlookers in the dimly lit control booth. Geri was still there, off by the far corner, squeezed between an old politician and a slickly dressed female advertising executive. Geri was still pouting. Hector turned away before she saw him watching her.
“It seems clear,” one of the political pundits was saying out in the studio, “that Kanus can’t use the dueling machine to frighten us any more. And without fear, Kanus isn’t half the threat we thought he was.”
“I disagree,” Leoh said, shifting his bulk in the frail-looking web chair. “Kerak has made great strides in isolating Acquatainia diplomatically…”
“But we never depended on our neighbors for our own defense,” a newsman said. “Those so-called allies of ours were more of a drain on our treasury than a help to us.”
“But Kerak now has the industrial base of Szarno and outposts that flank Prime Minister Martine’s new defense line.”
“Kerak would never dare attack us, and if they did, we’d beat them just as we did the last time.”
“But an alliance with the Commonwealth…”
“We don’t need it. Kanus is a paper tiger, believe me. All bluff, all dueling machine trickery, but no real strength. He’ll probably be deposed by his own people in another year or two.”
Something made Hector shift his gaze from the semicircle of sonorous solons to the technical crews working the cameras and laser lights. Something made him squint into the pooled shadows far in the back of the studio, where a single tall, slim man stood. Hector couldn’t see his face, or what he was wearing, or the color of his hair. Only the knife-like outline of a figure that radiated danger: Odal.
Without thinking twice about it, Hector pushed past the crowd in the control booth toward the door. He stepped on toes and elbowed technicians in the backs of their heads in his haste to get out into the studio, leaving a wake of muttering, sore-rubbing people behind him. He went right past Geri, who stepped back out of his way but refused to say anything to him or even look directly into his eyes.
The door from the control booth led into a small entryway that had two more doors in it: one to the outside hallway and one to the studio. A uniformed guard stood before the studio door.
“I’m sorry, sir, you can’t go in while the show’s in progress.”
“But… I saw someone come in the back way… into the studio…”
Shrugging, the guard said, “Must be a member of the camera crew. No one else allowed in.”
Hector blinked once, then went to the hall door. The corridor outside circled the studio. At least, he thought it did. He followed it around. Sure enough, there was another door with a blinking red light atop it, labeled STUDIO C. Hector pushed the door open. Inside, in the focus of a circle of lights and cameras, a man and woman were locked in a wild embrace.
“Hey, who opened the door?”
“Cut! CUT! Get that clown out of here! Can’t even tape a simple scene without tourists wandering into the studio! Of all the…”
Hector quickly shut the door, closing off a string of invective that would have made his old drillmaster back at the Star Watch Academy grin with appreciation.
Which studio are they in?
As if in answer, farther down the hall a door opened and Odal stepped out. He was not in uniform; instead he wore a simple dark tunic and slacks. But it was unmistakably Odal. He glanced directly at Hector, a sardonic smile on his lips, then started walking the other way. Hector chased after him, but Odal disappeared around a bend in the almost featureless corridor.