Privateers (40 page)

With an impatient snorting sigh, Nobo turned away and began pacing again. He was stopped by another Japanese, a wiry, short man with a thick mane of iron-gray hair. He wore an ordinary business suit of dark blue. His tie was decorated with the flying heron symbol of the Yamagatas.

“Yamagata-san,” he said, bowing slightly to the son of the family’s head.

Nobo returned a curt nod.

“Forgive my clumsy lack of manners for greeting you so informally,” said the man in low, swift Japanese, “but I thought it best not to be obvious to the barbarian soldiers.”

“You are … ?”

“Isoru! At your service, Yamagata-san.”

Pacing the lounge in a more leisurely manner now, with Isoru at his side, Nobo asked, “Are you a member of my family, or an employee of Astro Manufacturing?”

“I am both,” the older man replied. “Your father arranged for my team to become employees of the American, so that we could be close to you and protect you from assassination.”

“Ahh!” Comprehension began to dawn on Nobuhiko.

“My team and I have been at your side for many weeks. My orders were to remain invisible, so that you would not know who we were, or why we were here.”

“My father feared for my life.”

“Most truly.”

“Now I understand. You have done well, Isoru.”

The man hissed with pleasure.

“How many men do you have?”

“Ten, including myself. Eight men and two women.”

“Women?” Nobuhiko felt startled.

Isoru shrugged. “The times have changed. But they obey orders, and they have a certain surprise value.”

“Are they all here?”

“They are all in this room, Yamagata-san, awaiting your orders.”

“Can they disarm the soldiers swiftly and silently, without allowing them to fire a shot?”

“Easily.”

“I don’t want the soldiers killed,” Nobo said. “They must be taken prisoner.”

Isoru nodded. “It can be done.”

Nobo hesitated only a fraction of a moment. He had no clear idea of what to do after disarming the soldiers, but he knew that nothing else could be done until they had been disarmed.

“Very well,” he said. “Do so.”

Isoru bowed again; only the smallest and least noticeable of bows. His face was as impassive as a rock wall. He walked away from Nobo as casually as a man would after a harmless friendly conversation. Nobuhiko resumed his pacing, but now he watched to see what his father’s appointed guardians were going to do.

Though he watched intently, he could see nothing. Isoru gave no obvious signal to anyone else. The man merely strolled off to one of the long observation windows and seemed to stare out at the Earth. The minutes ticked off slowly. Nobo grew tired of pacing and went to the window where Isoru stood, his hands clasped behind his back. But. as if he had eyes in the back of his head, Isoru turned away as Nobo approached and moved off toward one end of the lounge.

Briefly, Nobo debated following him. But it was clear that the man did not want Nobo near him. Then he noticed that a good-looking young Japanese woman was chatting and smiling with the pair of Russian soldiers guarding the door at that end of the lounge. Turning toward the other end, Nobo could see no Japanese within twenty paces of the two soldiers there.

Isoru was still walking slowly down the room. He unclasped his hands and flexed his fingers slightly.

The slim young woman smiling up at the two burly Russian soldiers suddenly struck one of them on the point of his chin with her cupped hand, and drove her other hand blurringly fast into the solar plexus of the other. If Nobo had blinked, he would have missed it. A thud, a choked grunt, and the two soldiers were collapsing to the carpeted floor, their guns slipping from their numbed hands.

Swinging toward the other end of the lounge, Nobo saw the two soldiers there slumping to the floor, a pair of wiry Japanese young men crouching over them.

As calmly as a man strolling through a garden, Isoru came to Nobo, made a bow that almost put his forehead on the carpeting and said, “Yamagata-san, the task you ordered has been done.”

Nobo looked around the lounge. It was easy now to pick out his bodyguards; ten Japanese men and women, lithe and lean, standing at rigid attention. The others, Japanese and Westerners, were open-mouthed with surprise.

“You have done well,” Nobo said, loudly enough for all his people to hear. Ten hisses of pleasure scintillated through the lounge.

Lucita was walking beside Malik through the long narrow corridor of a storage area. Wire mesh screens rose from curving floor to ceiling, where bare fluorescent tubes lit the passageway. Strange crates and boxes were stacked behind the screens, neatly and carefully, their flanks bearing stenciled legends in Spanish and English. It felt chilly here, the kind of cold that Lucita imagined she would feel in a mortuary.

Malik had a pistol buckled to his hip, Lucita realized. The flap of the holster was unfastened. She could see the dead black butt of the gun, ugly and menacing.

Behind her, the two officers matched them stride for stride. They both were armed, too. A sudden fear rose in Lucita’s chest; she could feel its electrical currents burning inside her.

“Vasily,” she said in English, hoping that the other two could not understand, “you’re going to murder him, aren’t you?”

Malik did not alter his stride, did not turn his head to meet her gaze. “My orders are to bring him to Moscow for trial. They want the whole world to see that pirates will be brought to justice-and then hanged.”

“But you’re not going to let that happen, are you?” Lucita had to hurry to keep pace with Malik. He seemed to be walking faster as he got closer to Dan’s cell, eager to reach the American. “You intend to kill him yourself.”

Still staring straight ahead, Malik replied, “It would not be such a tragedy if he were shot while trying to escape.”

“But you can’t do that!”

Now he slowed slightly and turned his head toward her. “Why can’t I?”

Lucita stammered, “Your orders … your superiors … they would be angry with you.”

Malik’s lips curled into a humorless smile. “What difference would that make to you? Tell me why you don’t want me to shoot him. The real reason.”

“It would be wrong. …”

“The real reason,” Malik repeated.

Lucita knew that the time for evasion and pretense was over. “I don’t want him to be killed,” she said. “I love him.”

Malik’s smile turned cold. “All the more reason.”

“If you kill him,” Lucita said, “you might as well kill me too.”

“Now you’re speaking like a romantic child.”

She reached out and grabbed at his sleeve, forcing him to stop. The two officers behind them stopped also, and even drifted back away from them a few paces.

“I mean it,” Lucita said firmly. “If you kill him, you kill me also. You remember what Teresa did to herself. I can do that, too.”

He stared at her, and Lucita could see in his ice-blue eyes the same cold, probing calculations that she had seen in her father.

“You wouldn’t… .”

“I would rather damn my soul to hell forever than live with a man who had murdered my love.”

For an instant Lucita thought she saw a flicker of warmth in Malik’s eyes, a hint of honest emotion, a slight momentary dropping of his guard. But it was only for an instant. His eyes glittered hard as diamonds as he asked:

“If I don’t kill him … if I allow him to face trial in Moscow …”

“You must let him escape,” she said.

He almost laughed. “To where? He is a doomed man, Lucita. Even if I could allow him to escape, where could he hide? There is no place on Earth or in space that could harbor him.”

Lucita knew he was speaking the truth. She herself could not evade this single Russian male. Dan Randolph could never escape the power of the entire Soviet government. He is a doomed man. Vasily is speaking truly now. Dan Randolph will die.

She drew in a shuddering breath, then said slowly, “If he must die, then let it be done legally, and not by your hand.”

“And you? …”

“If you do not kill him yourself,” Lucita heard herself saying, “then I will go through with our wedding. I will become your wife.”

“And you will stop this talk of suicide?”

“Yes,” Lucita murmured. “I will live my life with you.” But her mind was racing wildly as she said the words. Perhaps Dan can escape somewhere, somehow. Perhaps my father can intervene and they won’t kill him. Perhaps they’ll exile him, send him to the mines on the Moon. That would be better than killing him.

“You will be my willing and loving wife?” Malik demanded.

“Yes,” Lucita replied, so low that she could barely hear her own surrender. “Your loving wife.”

Dan heard footsteps. The bare plastic-sheeted floor of the corridor outside his makeshift cell clicked with the sound of several pairs of boots. He scrambled to his feet.

Malik’s coming! He knew that the Russian was among the men approaching. With a grim smile, he waited.

A shock jolted his guts when he saw Lucita walking beside the Russian. What’s she doing here? Dressed in jeans, like a woman who was prepared to spend some time in zero gravity. With Malik. She’s come up here with him!

Malik looked pleased with himself. Smiling handsomely in his tan uniform, the Russian had every reason to be pleased. He had won, Dan knew. He had beaten Dan and now was enjoying the fruits of his victory. Enjoy it all you can, you murdering sonofabitch, Dan growled silently. In a couple of minutes you’re going to be dead.

Malik saw the expression on Dan Randolph’s face and knew instantly that the American was going to force them to shoot him. Like a wolf caught in a trap, he will snarl and fight until we have no choice but to kill him. Good! thought the Russian. Let the Yankee attack me. Ostrovsky and the lieutenant will riddle his body while I save Lucita from harm. Then she can’t blame me for his death.

Malik brought their little procession to a halt in front of Randolph’s cage. He already had the look of a trapped beast about him: unshaved, wild-eyed, as tense as a coiled steel spring.

“Well, Mr. Randolph,” he said in English. “We meet again.”

Dan looked them over carefully. Damned clever of the bastard to bring Lucita along. If I do anything to start them shooting, she might get hurt.

“My men,” Dan said to Malik. “The men who were out at the freighter …”

“The pirate crew you sent to steal our ore shipment?” Malik’s grin bared his teeth. “I’m afraid they were all killed in the battle.”

“Battle? They didn’t have any weapons! How could there be a battle?”

Malik shrugged. “They were all killed. Every last one of them.”

Dan was not surprised at the news. But the molten surge of fury that erupted inside him was a surprise. He fought to control it. Wait until they unlock the door, he told himself. Knock Lucita out of the way and then break that smiling sonofabitch’s neck.

“You have done us a very great favor, you know,” Malik went on, making no move to take Dan out of the cell. “Within a week the Soviet Union will control every one of the Third World space facilities. We intend to root out all of your pirates, every last one of them.”

“And shoot them down in cold blood,” Dan said.

“Oh, no. We will do everything strictly according to international law. There will be trials in Moscow, with television coverage. The whole world will see Soviet justice in action.” Malik motioned for the young lieutenant to unlock the cage door. “I have even arranged for your trial to be delayed until after my wedding, so that Lucita and I can sit in the front row and watch.”

The lieutenant fished a plastic card from his tunic pocket and came up to the door. Dan tensed, waiting to spring at Malik the instant the lock clicked.

“We will be married the first Sunday in December,” Malik said, sliding his arm around Lucita’s slim shoulders. “Isn’t that right, my darling?”

The lieutenant slid the card into the electronic lock’s slot. Nothing happened. He withdrew it, squinted at it, then turned it around and tried again.

Lucita looked from Malik’s gloating face to Dan’s. Her lovely face looked as lost and forlorn as a waif’s. Dan heard the lock click open, but something in Lucita’s eyes held him riveted where he stood. She was trying to tell him something, trying to warn him.

“We will be married,” she replied to Malik in Spanish, while still fixing her gaze on Dan, “only if my beloved Yanqui has not been murdered by you or your soldiers.”

Dan reached out and pushed the wire mesh door open. It swung easily. The lieutenant backed out of its way. The major was standing several paces to the left. Both were armed with pistols, holstered at their hips. As was Malik.

Dan took a step out of the cage, every nerve hyperalert, every muscle tensed for action, like a jaguar released after hours in captivity. Lucita moved slightly, barely a step, but she placed herself between the smiling, tormenting, baiting Russian and Dan himself.

He finally understood. Malik wants me to attack him. He’s trying his damnedest to make me go for his throat. Then his aides can shoot me down and make an end of it. Lucita’s trying to keep me out of the trap.

“Why are you here?” he asked her in Spanish.

She knew that Malik understood the language, but the other two officers probably did not. “I came to save your life.”

Dan shook his head. “It’s too late for that.”

“Far too late,” Malik broke in. Looking disappointed, he gestured down the passageway from which they had come.

“A shuttle is waiting to take you to Moscow. We have no time to lose.”

Dan shrugged, let his muscles relax, even allowed his head to droop slightly. He walked between Lucita and Malik, with the two other Russians behind.

“I’ll be a worldwide television star, eh?” He tried to make himself laugh. “Will I get a chance to tell my side of the story, or will I be so buzzed out on drugs that I’ll say whatever the prosecutors want me to say?”