“That’s right,” Tyreen said. “You know the rest of it.”
Colonel Trung smoothed his sleeve down. “The price of the antidote is my cooperation. If I raise the alarm, I will not find the antidote, and I will die within the hour.” A slight smile touched the feminine lips. “Very clever. But you take two risks, I believe. First, I might be prepared to take the chance that you are bluffing. The liquid in that syringe looked very much like a harmless saline solution. And second, I might be prepared to sacrifice my life in order to prevent your escape — especially since you will most likely kill me once you’ve got away.”
“I gave you enough poison to wipe out a squad, Colonel. Your only chance to stay alive is to come with us and see to it that we reach the place where I left the antidote. If you cooperate, you’ll get the antidote. We’ll knock you out with a sedative, and be on our way. That’s all the talk I’ve got time for. What’s your answer?”
“Oh, I’ll cooperate,” Colonel Trung said easily. “I’ve already sent out my report on the information I extracted from your Captain.” He smiled gently. “Shall we be on our way, gentlemen?”
Saville had wrapped Eddie Kreizler in the Vietnamese Colonel’s raincoat. “He’s out cold,” Saville said. He picked up Kreizler as if the stocky man were a small stack of firewood. Tyreen nodded to Nguyen Khang; Khang drew his pistol and got behind them. Tyreen put his hands on top of his head. With a sardonic flourish, Colonel Trung held the door open. Nguyen Khang said, “Skipper, it’s nineteen minutes after.”
“Move fast,” Tyreen said out of the side of his mouth.
They marched into the corridor two abreast. Saville walked at Tyreen’s shoulder, carrying Eddie Kreizler like an infant. Bemusedly, Colonel Trung took out his empty pistol and held it against Tyreen’s back. The murmur of his voice reached Tyreen’s ears: “If this were loaded, I wonder if I would pull the trigger. What do you think?”
Trung nodded politely to officers they passed in the hall. Nguyen Khang was speaking in Vietnamese: “It is good of you, Colonel, to accompany us. The Lao Dong will be most pleased when we deliver these prisoners to Hanoi. Comrade Ho himself has expressed his interest.”
“That is most kind of the honorable Comrade Ho,” Trung said. “One only hopes that Comrade Ho’s confidence is justified.”
Grinding tensions set Tyreen’s nerves afire. He licked the false, poison-filled tooth; he almost tripped on a crack in the floor. When they passed the sour-faced major in his doorway, the major gave a reluctant salute, and Colonel Trung transferred his automatic to his left hand to answer it. Tyreen’s arms began to ache. He laced his fingers together on top of his head. Their boots raised a pounding racket in the long hallway.
The sergeant of the guard saluted quickly and yanked the main door open. Tyreen braced himself for an explosion. It was time for the gasoline storage tanks to go up. As he passed through the door onto the porch, he could see the squat cylinders of steel half a mile up the mountain, above the motor pool. He heard the drone of an airplane, hidden somewhere in the clouds.
The Moskvitch stood empty, parked by the building. A big staff car, an East German Wartburg, was drawn up by the porch. Nguyen Khang spoke to the driver:
“My compliments to the transportation officer. You are very prompt. We shall not need your services.”
The driver saluted and trotted away down the row. Colonel Trung hesitated on the steps. Tyreen turned and saw a brash light in Trung’s eyes; Trung was smiling. He said in English, “I’m afraid my cowardice fails me,” and wheeled, shouting in Vietnamese:
“Sergeant! Sergeant!”
Tyreen’s hand whipped out. Nguyen Khang stood half turned, startled and uncertain. Tyreen took the pistol out of Khang’s loose grip, reversed it, and deliberately shot Colonel Trung point-blank in the face.
The sound of the shot was lost in the tremendous shock-wave and blasting noise of the exploding gasoline depot on the mountain.
The blast almost knocked Tyreen down. Colonel Trung fell off the porch at Tyreen’s feet. Before the man struck the pavement, Tyreen shoved Nguyen Khang toward the car and sprinted around the hood toward the driver’s seat. Saville tossed Eddie Kreizler like a loose sack into the back seat and dived in, slamming the door. Echoes of the gasoline explosion pounded around the parade ground. Voices began to shout within the building and across the compound. Khang slewed into the right-hand seat, and Tyreen gunned the idling engine; with a squeal of tires the staff car careened around in a wild turn. The guard sergeant appeared on the porch, baffled. “Get your heads down,” Tyreen said. In the side of his vision he saw the enormous pyre of the burning storage tanks on the mountain. A flood of liquid flame ran down the slope. Somewhere on the garrison, sirens and bells started up. Tyreen took the staff car around the end of the building on two wheels and roared toward the wooden barrier at the main gate. He crashed the barrier at one hundred kilometers an hour and almost spun out of control; he leveled the car into a city boulevard and roared up the hill.
Chapter Thirty-four
1225 Hours
Corporal Luther Smith crawled to his feet and touched his head. He had cut his temple. The explosion had thrown him halfway across the tower landing. Shards of glass littered the wooden platform but, strangely, the stained rear window by Smith’s post was unscratched. A shattered porcelain figurine lay scattered across the platform. J. D. Hooker was resetting his machine gun in the tower opening. Smith heard the great roaring of flames; from his post he could not see the fire, but the platform was awash with red brilliance, and he felt the heat of it against his cheeks. Hooker was talking, complimenting himself on the expert job of demolition. Smith heard a shout, and when he saw Hooker’s swift glance, touching him and moving on, he knew it had been his own voice. His white hand would not relax its grip on the submachine gun. For a moment he fought a grim, quiet contest with his hand, but it was useless — his hand would not obey. And so when Hooker said a second time, “Open that damned window, kid,” he held the gun up in both hands and smashed the butt through the window.
Flame glanced off glass shreds, tumbling and dancing through a three-story drop to the overgrown garden beneath. And Smith saw two men down there in khaki with brown-black rifles, staring up at him from under the brims of their helmets: two men in the crimson garden with one side of their bodies made bloody by the rage of the great blaze.
Smith stared back at them. No one made a hostile move; everything was frozen. He started and moved like a slow machine, raking blades and bits of glass from the edges of the casement with the butt of the gun. He backed away from the window, and just before he lost sight of them, he saw one of the soldiers raise his rifle and aim.
Smith spoke incoherently across the high platform. He did not follow what his lips said. Hooker’s back was to him; Hooker did not turn. The upcoming bullet smashed a harmless course through the empty window, cut a splinter from the ornate ceiling, and left a hole through which Smith saw a spot of red light. Smoke crept into the place, thin but lung-tickling. Hooker was hunched over the machine gun, training it on the road.
Smith shrank back. The eye in the ceiling, put there by the bullet, stared at him. A voice came up from the garden, demanding surrender. Hooker’s gun began to bang, driving soldiers back down the road.
A long brown rat came out of a corner and blinked at Smith and scuttled back into the shadows. A small sound came out of Smith’s throat.
“Shut up,” Hooker said, in a mild abstracted tone. He fired a burst into the road.
The rat’s red eyes glowed. Smith turned his gun on the rat. The concentrated fire smashed the rat to pulp against the corner.