Descent from Xanadu (27 page)

“Good,” Judd said. “And when will we be able to fire the nuclear reactor?”

“Three months or less,” Schoenbrun said. “We will have all the checks completed by then.”

“No one fires it up except me,” Judd said.

“Of course, Mr. Crane,” Schoenbrun said smoothly. “You made it possible and only you should have the honor of pressing the start-up button.”

Judd was thoughtful for a moment. “The Xanadu Project,” he said almost to himself. “It’s been three years.”

“That’s correct, Mr. Crane,” Schoenbrun replied. “At first I didn’t understand the significance of the name Xanadu. Then I read the poem and I knew. But your dream is greater than Kubla Khan’s.”

“I want weekly reports from now on.”

“Of course, Mr. Crane.” Schoenbrun smiled smugly to himself. “No one would ever believe it was here. It is the most powerful nuclear energy plant in the world, buried deep in the ground almost a thousand miles into the Amazon forest.”

“Without Ludwig’s pioneering work, our own might never have been attempted,” Judd said.

“Your genius has made it possible, Mr. Crane. Even I can hardly believe that we have a plant so completely automated that only one man is necessary to operate it.”

“Don’t underestimate your own genius and work, Dr. Schoenbrun. Perhaps the world will someday appreciate it. As I do,” Judd added.

“Thank you, Mr. Crane,” Schoenbrun said. He hesitated a moment.

Judd interrupted, for he could anticipate the scientist. “Five million dollars will be transferred to your Swiss account this morning. Another five million dollars comes to you when I press the button that activates the reactor.”

“Thank you, Mr. Crane,” Schoenbrun said, almost bowing into the screen.

“Good-bye, Dr. Schoenbrun,” Judd said.

He pressed the computer key and the connection was severed. He ran the other messages through the computer routinely and called Security Control. The director came on the line. “John?” he began. “Judd Crane.”

“Yes, Mr. Crane,” the Security director answered. The man was always cautious. “Are we on a scrambler, sir?”

“Yes,” Judd answered. “Go ahead.”

“Our lady doctor is in the shits again,” John said.

“Explain,” Judd said.

“She’s on four hit lists, sir,” John said. “Russia, Yugoslavia, China and the Mafia hired by the Cubans. That makes it four of a kind, four aces, very hard to beat.”

“I don’t get it, John. Why now? She spent almost three years in Bangladesh, where they could have nailed her anytime they wanted.”

“Apparently they feel she’s stolen some very top-secret documents and they’ve just discovered them missing. The documents had something to do with the late Dr. Zabiski’s experiments and files, best I can figure.”

“They must be the files that Zabiski gave to me,” he said.

“Not those. They already know about that bunch. I’d guess you only had part of the file. They allowed Zabiski to give that to you so you’d return Ivancich to her.”

Judd was silent. “Where are the rest of the papers?”

“With Ivancich, I should think. Otherwise why would they be so hot after your lady now?” He paused for a moment. “I think we had better beef up the security around Crane Island. It won’t take them long to discover where she is.”

“Does Sawyer know about this?”

“Not yet,” John said. “You’re the boss. You get the first message.”

“Don’t say anything to him just yet,” Judd said. “I don’t want him to get nervous. But put a heavy blanket around him. I don’t want anyone to pull him apart to bleed information from him.”

“Yes, sir,” John said. “And Crane Island?”

“Four heavy-armored helicopters in the sky over the island twenty-four hours a day. Eight armored speed launches on the water, also around the clock. And twenty of our best sharpshooters deployed on the ground day and night.”

“We’ll need six hours, sir,” John said.

“Two hours. We may not have six hours.” Judd signed off.

10

Sofia’s voice was angry on the telephone. “That old bitch! She’s fucked all of us!”

Judd’s voice was expressionless in the receiver next to her ear. “So what else is new?”

“You don’t sound excited,” she said. “Maybe you don’t understand what I said. She never planned that you would get all the answers.”

“I’m not stupid,” he said. “I knew that. Why do you think I asked you to come here? I thought you’d have some of the answers. Isn’t that what you stole from the Russians’ files?”

“How did you learn about that?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “Half the Eastern world is after your ass. You have no place to hide except with me.”

“Is that what State told you?”

“Partly,” he said. “Now what about your files?”

“I’ll get them,” she said. “But it won’t be enough. There’s still a third file. But I think I know where it is.”

“Tell me.” His voice was flat. “Whose?”

“The Indian mentioned in your files. She never mentioned him in the Russians’ files. It fits. Your file covers everything from the beginning of 1953 onward. The Russians have your files except for any mention of the Indian. Their files go back to 1944, when they captured a German experimental laboratory where she was working.”

“She was working with the Germans?” He was surprised.

“Yes,” she answered calmly. “What are you so excited about? Didn’t you people capture all the German rocket scientists and bring them with you to the States?”

“Okay, okay,” he conceded impatiently. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“The Russians got her and some of the other doctors, but somehow the files covering 1941 to 1943 were never found. She told them they had been burned, together with an Indian scientist the Nazis considered non-Aryan. But I think she got him out of there with the files before the Russians came in.”

“Then how did she manage to make mention of the Indian in my file?” he asked.

“Look at your original copy. Those notes about the Indian were written with a ball-point pen in her own peculiar kind of shorthand. The rest of the notes are either typed or written with a fountain pen. My guess is that she added them on the plane while coming to meet you. I would also guess that the Indian was not one of the staff doctors. Somehow, he assured the success of her own experiments. That’s why she wanted to save him.”

“What happened to the others?” he asked.

“The Russian file I have listed many experiments that were buried with the scientists who ran them.” She was thoughtful for a moment. “You were right when you said she was a tough lady.”

“She
was
a tough lady.”

“But she was also a genius. And you were the only one she ever trusted.”

“But not enough to go all the way, I guess,” he said.

“Maybe she couldn’t bring herself to place all the pieces in one file. If she had, the Russians might have gotten hold of it, and she couldn’t be sure what use they would make of it. You were the only man in the world she felt she could trust with that power.” She paused for a moment. “Now what?”

“Why didn’t you try to reach me before?” he asked.

“I did try once. But there wasn’t enough time and I couldn’t find you. I had to go back. I was still Brezhnev’s doctor. After he died I was sent to Bangladesh to work on nutrient experiments at a children’s clinic. When I received your message, I left in the middle of the same night. If I had waited till the next day, it would have been all over for me. They would have intercepted your message, and they would have killed me. As useful as I was to them, I still knew too much.”

He was silent.

She felt very tired. “I guess it’s over now. I might as well go back. You can have the files. You were going to get them anyway, if I died.”

“I would prefer to see them while you’re alive,” he said crisply. “I don’t propose to lose you now.”

“Do you mean that?”

“I said it, didn’t I?” he snapped. “Now lock your office door and don’t open it until you hear my voice outside.”

***

The telephone clicked in her ear. Slowly she put the receiver down and started to rise. A gentle knock came from the door.

She opened her handbag and took out a specially made snub-nosed Magnum and held it out before her in both hands. “Who is it?” she asked.

“Max, Doctor.” His voice came muffled through the door. “Mr. Crane asked me to bring you up to his office for lunch, ma’am.”

“Come in,” she called calmly. “The door’s open.”

The door opened into the room and she saw him, one hand reaching for something inside his coat pocket. A look of surprise came over his face as he saw the gun in her hands. It was the last thing he ever saw.

The heavy-caliber bullet blew him through the open door, across the corridor, blood pouring from his chest over his white coat. He spun, grasping at the wall opposite him, then slumped slowly to the floor across the elevator doors. The shot echoed down the corridors like an explosion.

She stayed in the office, the gun still held out rigidly in her hands. She heard steps running down the corridor toward her, then the elevator doors opened.

Fast Eddie, holding his big Colt, sprang out of the elevator over the body of Max; he knelt beside it in the corridor as security guards came rushing toward them. Judd, just behind all of them, ran toward the elevator doors.

He sensed rather than saw the door at the corner of the corridor open. “Behind you,” he yelled at Fast Eddie.

Fast Eddie wheeled, but Sofia was even faster. She squeezed the trigger of her Magnum the moment Mae appeared in the door, the Uzi machine pistol rising in her already dead hands. Again the shot burst like an explosion down the corridors. Mae tumbled back into the room, the Uzi crashing to the floor.

Fast Eddie looked through the doorway at Mae. He looked back at the others. “She caught it too,” he said.

Judd stepped over Max’s body and went toward Sofia. He could see the grim pallor on her face, the frozen tension of her body. He held out a hand and took the Magnum from her. “I thought we were supposed to be protecting you,” he said softly.

The tension melted from her body, the fear in her eyes disappeared. She let out a deep breath. “I figured this is the only way to go, if you’re to live forever, Judd,” she said with the faintest trace of a smile.

“They weren’t after me,” he offered.

“Bullets have a way of altering life expectancy,” she said. “One has to be extra-careful.”

He looked down at the Magnum. He thumbed the latch and pushed open the cylinder. He turned the barrel up and let the bullets fall into his palm. There were four bullets and two empty cartridges. He examined the bullets. “Cute,” he said, looking up at her. “Explosive heads. Everything is special about this gun. Where did you get it?”

“The KGB,” she answered. “They have a man who specializes in toys like this.”

He nodded. “Had it long?”

“Ten years,” she said. “This is the first time I have used it, except in trials.”

He dropped the gun and the bullets into the pocket of his jumpsuit. He turned to look at the corridor. It was filled with security men. He gestured to Fast Eddie. “Let’s go back to my office,” he said, reaching for her hand.

She followed him into the elevator. Fast Eddie entered behind them. Judd covered the button before he pressed it. “Which one of you is the section chief on this watch?”

“I am, Mr. Crane,” said a tall, solid man with gray-black hair. “Officer Carlin.”

“Clean up this mess, Officer Carlin,” he said. “Then send a team over to the cottage. Check out everything there and have Dr. Ivancich’s possessions taken to my apartment.”

“Yes, sir,” Carlin replied. “I’m sorry, Mr. Crane. We had no warning. These people had all the proper security passes.”

“That’s not your fault, Officer Carlin,” Judd said. “I’ll bring it up with Security Control.” He pressed the button and the elevator doors closed.

11

“I’m sorry, Mr. Crane,” John said quietly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get off the island. There’s no way we can defend it.”

Judd looked around his library. Merlin sat next to the Security director, John, in front of his desk, Sofia and Doc Sawyer on the couch. Fast Eddie leaned against the bar. Judd turned to the windows and gazed out at the night sky. The sea was dark and ominous; clouds covered the moon.

“I don’t know how those two breached our security screen, but they did,” John went on. “Nothing was found at the cottage that belonged to them. We have to assume they made contact with their people in Havana. The fingerprints we picked up from the FBI files identified them as among the first batch of refugees Castro shipped to the States over ten years ago.” John was apologetic. “How we blew that in our check, I don’t know. But we fucked up and there’s nothing I can say about it except I’m sorry, sir.”

Judd looked at him without expression. “I need three more months here.”

“We could have an army here and it wouldn’t help, sir. They could put more than a hundred men on the island overnight. The only way I can protect you is by keeping you on the move.”

Sofia rose from the couch and looked at Judd.

“Let me go back,” she said. “I’m the one they want. Then you’ll be able to go on with your affairs without interference.”

Judd looked at her. “You’re wrong,” he said. “If that were true, why did they place their operatives on the island long before anyone even suspected you would come here? I have the distinct feeling they want both of us, either separately or together, but both.”

“I happen to agree with Mr. Crane. It’s gone beyond just you, Doctor,” John offered.

“Even if I bring all the files back with me?” she asked.

“I don’t know what there is in those files,” John said. “But no matter what you give them, they’ll still feel that they have not got all of it.”

Sofia turned to Judd. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “Don’t forget that it was I who invited you here.” He turned to Doc Sawyer. “When do you think I can move all the equipment to Xanadu?”

“Xanadu?” he asked. “Is it ready?”

“Not completely,” Judd said. “But we could push. Maybe we won’t be able to connect everything immediately, but we can get it into place.”