Glen Cook - A matter of time

"You'd better tell me the whole thing."

Huang pushed a file folder toward him.

Michael need read but the first of the fascist editorials. Sweat beaded on his face. They knew it all. Had known for some time.

So much for Huang's backing in the Ilse matter.

He was so terrified that he just read on, delaying the inevitable confrontation. Finally, he could stall no more. He met Huang's eye.

"So, "said Huang.

Michael didn't respond. He couldn't.

"You have your choice. Rectify your error of egoism. Or don't. You remain sufficiently valuable, though compromised, that, if the plan survives, we will consider the trauma of the corrective action ample discipline."

The director's voice was hard now. He was angry and dismayed. He had been betrayed by his master work. His words came carefully measured, set alone, as though a period belonged after each.

Sung smiled wickedly. He was enjoying this. He enjoyed anything that discomfited Huang.

Michael was, as he remembered his father saying, between a rock and a hard place. This was one hell of a choice. His life or Snake's.

What could he do?

Snake would be terminated no matter what. The director would go to any length to salvage what he could.

"How do I do it?"

Huang thawed a degree. To the temperature of liquid helium.

This would be hard to survive.

But he would manage. And he would make these men pay.

Time and success had been working changes. Michael was more confident now, more daring… Snake would be mourned. And avenged.

"Tuesday you leave for Prague. Interpreter with a cultural mission. The embassy will put you into Austria with good German papers. You'll go to the man you met in Hamburg. He's already working on it. He'll have new papers for you. He'll relay last-minute instructions and provide the information you'll need to locate your target. You'll be on your own once you leave Hamburg. You'll have to arrange for anything you'll need beforehand."

On his own and alone, Michael thought. And forevermore a target himself if he didn't kill quickly and get himself home. There would be an unspoken and uncertain deadline. Once it passed, the hounds would hit his trail. And they would get him someday.

Remember Leon Trotsky.

Oh, the goddamned, Olympian stupidity that had led him to join the army.

The affair had its bright moment. He was unable to leave Czechoslovakia immediately. His keepers let him see Ilse and their son. Probably as an incentive to come back.

He told Ilse the whole thing. She, too, had trouble reconciling personal feelings and needs with the demands of the State.

With one human being behind him, that one special woman, Michael was certain he could cope. He knew he would someday reach a position where he could extract a savage retribution from the men compelling him to cannibalism.

Then it was down the toboggan run of fear: Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Hull, London. A shop in Bond Street, where a wordless man named Wilson gave him a fat attache case and a look that said he hated dealing with such sordid people.

Michael wondered what they had on the man, but only momentarily. He had but one goal now, to survive till he could see Huang and Sung roasted on spits.

He was on the Hamburg office expense ledger. Credit unlimited. He picked up a thousand pounds at the firm's London bank. He would live in style. He started with a suite at the Mayfair.

There he examined the case's contents.

One Weatherby.227 bolt action varmint rifle without markings. Monte Carlo stock in hand-rubbed walnut. The weapon had been drilled to mount a starscope, a nightsight that made use of ambient light. The scope shared cheesecloth wrappings with a long tubular silencer, five rounds of target ammo, and five explosives rounds. The latter were the kind that had had a hole tapped down the centerline, filled with a drop of mercury, and resealed. The kind that would rip a man worse than any dumdum or hollow point.

There were two sets of identification. He could be Llewelyn Jones, lorry mechanic from Cardiff. Or Thomas Hardy, insurance executive, on holiday from Ottawa, Canada.

"Too big a hurry," he muttered. How the hell could he fake a Welsh accent? And he didn't know shit about insurance, though that identity would be manageable as long as he didn't have to answer business questions.

It looked like Spuk would have to get him back to Hamburg.

There were flyers for the rock concert. Just two performances remained. Tonight and tomorrow night.

He didn't like it.

The man in Hamburg had called the mission a widow-maker. He had been right.

Haste made wasted agents.

Speed, surprise, and the complacency of the English would be his advantages. He had to make the best possible use of them.

At least someone had bothered to do a preliminary study. There were freehand drawings of the hall layout, and confirmation of earlier reports on the habits of the Danzer group.

They could not be reached outside the hall. The group traveled in dense security, which existed entirely to hype their reputation.

It wasn't working. They hadn't yet played to a sellout audience.

The moment of maximum vulnerability would come while they were on stage. Therefore, the rifle.

Michael sprawled across his bed, eyes closed, for ten minutes.

This could get rough. He wouldn't have a friend in the whole damned country.

Above all else, he concluded, he had to secure his line of retreat.

Thoughts of Ilse and the baby intruded. God, what a woman… He didn't understand her. How could she love him so much?

He had had a dozen lovers before Ilse, but not a one had he needed the way he needed her. Maybe it was a response to his total expatriation. And the little guy… He was such a quiet baby, almost spooky with those big, blue, intelligent eyes. Ilse insisted that he was going to be a great man someday.

He tried forcing them from his mind. That only created a vacuum into which Nancy and his first brood stole.

Nerve was the key, he reminded himself. He had to start getting himself up for it now. He could not be the old Michael. He couldn't let fear make him do something that would get him killed or caught.

Damn! There just wasn't time to do it right. They wanted Snake dead quick. Did Sung have an observer on his tail? Probably.

He rose, turned to the rifle. Why this weapon? With its flat trajectory it was superb for small game at extended ranges, but… For this job Michael would have preferred something heavier, something with a lower muzzle velocity. The slower projectile had more time to break up inside its target. Nor was he familiar with the weapon. He assembled it and broke it down twice, feeling for economy of motion. Speed practice would have to wait. He had things to do, alternatives to establish, before the shops closed for the day.

Cash checked the Canadian papers again. They might do.

He selected a vanity case, descended to the lobby.

"Yes, Herr Spuk?" the clerk asked as he approached.

Michael forced a slight accent as he asked, "Would it be possible for the hotel to obtain entertainment tickets?" “Of course, sir. A show, sir? They recommend-" “The Danzer concert. A box. For this evening." “Danzer, sir?"

“Erik Danzer. The rock singer." “Very well, sir." The man's nose went up. “The young lady, she is fond of Danzer."

It was a red herring that Michael hoped would produce multiple rewards. The clerk would adjust his present opinion. And in future should report that Herr Spuk had had a female companion when the police came asking their questions. They might waste valuable time trying to find the woman.

"Ah, I see." The clerk winked.

Michael smiled, then asked the doorman to hail a cab. He tipped generously.

It was Huang's money.