Dinosaurs & A Dirigible (27 page)

Warren laughed. “Well, I doubt that, old boy,” he said with a sudden twang in his voice. “But then, he’ll scarcely be the first of my clients who didn’t know his arse from a hole in the ground, will he?”

Stern grunted a warning before he opened the door marked “Coordinator” in English and Hebrew. At a desk within sat a female secretary, looking acutely uncomfortable in the midst of the dozen armed men who otherwise filled the room. A firecracker in the hall would set off World War III, Vickers thought. He caught himself before he said the same thing aloud. Uniforms alternated with clothes so plain as to be uniforms themselves. “They’re waiting in the inner office,” said Stern with a scowl that cleared a path as abruptly as his big shoulders could have. He reached for the doorknob.

“Just a minute,” Vickers muttered. To the secretary he said, “Would you have gotten any calls for me to the facility?” He was looking at the typewriter, not the girl’s dark face.

“Ah—”

“Yes, she would have done so,” said Stern impatiently. “Mr. Henry Vickers, child.”

“Ah—” the girl repeated.

“Nothing from my wife?” pressed Vickers. “Adrienne, ah, Vickers?”

“N-no, sir,” the girl said, terrified by the situation and the guide’s expression. Actually, the expression derived from embarrassment as great as the secretary’s own.

Vickers swallowed. He pushed past Stern and entered the inner office before his companions.

There were three men dressed in coveralls in the inner room. The older pair rose with the false smiles as habitual to a politician as dung-eating is to some dogs. The youngest of the three, a clean-shaven man of thirty with black hair and a face as blank as the nose of a bullet, also reacted to the surprise. His hand dropped reflexively within the attaché case open on his lap. It gripped but did not raise the Uzi submachine gun in the case. When he recognized Stern and Warren, his fingers relaxed but his expression did not. “Mr. Secretary, Mr. Prime Minister,” Stern said quickly, “this is Henry Vickers, our chief guide for the operation. That is, the hunting expedition.”

“Good to meet you, Vickers,” rumbled Luther Cardway. He gripped the hunter’s hand, firmly enough to feel the muscles beneath the calluses respond. He did not squeeze quite so firmly that even Vickers could have sworn it had been a contest. “They tell me you’re an American. That’s good. Guess it’s you, me, and Craig here against the rest.” He nodded down at the bodyguard. Craig was trying with embarrassment to aim his weapon away from the principal who had stepped into his line of fire.

“Ah,” said Vickers, looking at Cardway’s chin instead of raising his eyes to meet the other’s, “it won’t be a contest, Mr.—sir. There’s enough game in the Cretaceous for anybody. And big enough for anybody.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Thomas Warren, in a jovial voice as well-modulated as the Secretary’s. “At my suggestion, we’re making quite a High Cretaceous insertion—just before the extinctions, when the most impressive species were present. We may get you a world’s record triceratops, Mr. Secretary.”

Cardway gave a quick negative jerk of his head, the amicable mask slipping. “A tyrannosaurus,” he said. “Screw the rest. I want to go back with a tyrannosaurus rex that could’ve eaten my father’s elephant for lunch. You’d have thought the old man was the bravest son of a bitch in the world to see him act out the kill back in Brownsville with the stuffed head over the mantle and the gun he got it with. Say”—the good humor returned—“let’s see what you think of this, Vickers.”

Luther Cardway was big without being soft, as handsome in person as he was on television with his make-up on—and far more forceful. Only the relative thickness of individual hairs betrayed them as the result of a scalp transplant. It was not until Cardway turned to fumble with the walnut gun case beside his chair that Prime Minister Greenbaum came out of the shade. The Israeli was smaller than his American colleague and looked frail. Vickers remembered that Greenbaum was supposed to be a landscape painter of more than hobbyist reputation; that fitted well enough with the man’s appearance. Only Greenbaum’s eyes belied the general look of benign forgetfulness. The eyes might have suited General Patton. Catching Vickers’ glance, the Prime Minister said, “I’m glad to see you turned up, Mr. Vickers. Though Avraham assured us that you must be nearby, that there was no one in the world more dependable than you.” His accent was as British as Warren’s.

“Ah, crossed wires,” Vickers said, certain he was flushing. “I, ah, assumed we’d meet in the hangar.”

“Assume makes an ass of ‘U’ and me,” Cardway said, dominating the gathering again. He held a double-barreled rifle, an elephant gun in the classic sense, and was presenting it to Vickers. The guide took the weapon in his right hand and broke the action by habit. He was edgy at being in a room full of people carrying loaded guns. The muzzle of his own cradled M14 pointed at the ceiling, and even that made him uncomfortable.

Though not as uncomfortable as the live cartridges winking from the twin chambers of the rifle he had just been handed. Cardway had indeed been carrying the weapon loaded. Safety or no, it would not have been the first rifle to go off when it was dropped. “Ah,” Vickers said. “Might be best to carry it open till we’re ready to insert. Ah, not many tyrannosaurs in Tel Aviv.”

“Fine weapon, there, fine,” Warren put in, watching Cardway’s expression carefully out of the corners of his eyes. “A Gibbs, yes. You bloody well can whistle for this sort of quality today.”

Actually, as Vickers knew and Warren surely knew, the rifle was by no means an exceptional example of its type. The only engraving was a scroll on either lock plate, and the wood-to-metal fit of the parts was adequate rather than ideal. Whatever the elder Cardway had told his son, he had spent less on his elephant gun than others had been known to do. Still, finish and engraving never killed a game animal, and this .470 Nitro Express was quite capable of smashing through the heart or skull of a dinosaur. “Serviceability” had always been Vickers’ watchword. No one was likely to point to the guide’s own fiberglass-stocked military rifle as a triumph of the gunmaker’s art either. “Looks a very fine gun,” Vickers said, handing it back. “Ah, I hope you’ve had a chance to practice with it to, to get the feel of it?”

“I’ve shot it, sure,” the Secretary said in a hardening voice. He snapped the breech closed. Vickers winced but held back a comment. The bodyguard, Craig, was noticeably disturbed also. “I’m not afraid of the kick, if that’s what you mean,” Cardway continued. “And I’m not afraid to get close to my work, either. My father shot his elephant when it came out of the bamboo right on top of him. Mordecai told me—” the Prime Minister winced in turn, knowing what was coming and knowing now that he should not have said it—“that the dinos’ll let you get about as close as you’ve got the nerve for. Well, I’ve got the nerve to poke this right in their guts.” He brandished his rifle. “Believe me.”

Vickers believed him. So did Stern, judging from the official’s stiff expression. The guide remembered Stern’s explanation of why there would be no helicopter on this safari. That decision made increasingly good sense.

“Well then, gentlemen,” Stern said. “I think it has become time to report to the hangar. The support personnel have—”

Rising voices in the outer office focused Stern’s whole attention as well as that of the men around him. Over the deeper rumble of the males, Vickers heard Adrienne saying, “. . . and I’ll be god
damn
ed if you do any such thing!”

“Ah, my wife,” the guide explained hurriedly. “She spent yesterday on business affairs, the trust she set up when we”—Was Secretary Cardway supposed to know about the Habitat Phase?—“ah, two years ago. She’s just arrived.” As much as anything to forestall questions, Vickers opened the door.

Adrienne stood in the outer office, looking like a Doberman in the midst of wolves. A burly man wearing the eagles of an American colonel had poised his hand an inch away from the receiver of Adrienne’s Schultz and Larsen rifle. The colonel turned when the inner door opened. “Hello, darling,” Adrienne said, striding past the colonel to kiss her husband’s cheek. “Paunchy here—” the officer’s gut sucked in reflexively—“thinks I’m going to trust him with my rifle ten minutes before we insert!”

“Sir,” said the colonel stiffly to the Secretary of State, visible through the doorway, “she isn’t on my list, and I had no intention of letting somebody with a gun—”

“Colonel Platt,” said Stern, overriding the American’s voice as he stepped toward the man, “the error is mine entirely. Mrs. Vickers is indeed a part of the expedition, and she should properly have been admitted.” He cleared his throat heavily. “Now, as I was saying. I believe the support personnel have gathered at their respective stations. If we proceed to Hangar Beth, our insertion can go forward as scheduled. The pressure of time on our . . . our principals is of course very great.” He motioned toward the hall door.

Vickers’ tongue touched his lips. He followed Stern’s gesture without comment. His wife wore coveralls, faded like his own by months of sun and use. The fabric slid easily over the skin by which it had been worn smooth. Her rifle was the one she had bought after her first time safari, also worn to perfect functioning by two years of service around their Cretaceous base. But Adrienne Vickers herself wore her hair in a coif as rigid and golden as a Cellini casting, and her face was still in tiger-striped make-up, which Vickers presumed had become fashionable while he had been living in the Cretaceous. While Adrienne and he had been isolated in the Cretaceous.

“Alex took me out after we finished with the records,” Adrienne was prattling. “I swear I never thought Tel Aviv had a night life, and I suppose it really doesn’t, but my God, I’m not about to complain. But we wound up in Jaffa and I looked at the time, well—I had to
buy
a taxi to get me back to the suite in time to change. Literally buy one! I left Alex trying to decide whether the check should be charged to entertainment or as a business expense. After all, that’s the sort of thing I
pay
an accountant for, isn’t it?”

They pushed through the swinging doors. The bustle within the hangar had given way to a sullen hush. The exhaust fans were shut down, leaving the air still. Eight men wearing fatigues and holding grenade launchers came to attention along the far wall. On the intrusion vehicle, laden already with the paraphernalia of a time safari, were the technicians making their last-minute adjustments to the machinery.

“Glad you had a good time,” Vickers said. “Ah, I’ve been thinking. You . . . I’m sure you can’t have cleared up all your affairs in one day. Why don’t you stay for now?” He was examining the receiver of his rifle, his index finger digging into the pock mark left by the old boil. “I’ll be back in two weeks, I suppose. Then we’ll, we’ll . . .”

“My God, Henry, you think I’m going to leave you alone with this rat pack?” the tall blonde said in a clear voice. “Not likely. Not likely at all!”

The chime which replaced the buzzer at the old facility sounded. Aboard the intrusion vehicle was an older man with an air of authority. He waved. He was not Dr. Galil, who was probably superintending the more difficult follow-up insertion in Hangar Aleph. Stern called a command and the uniformed men began to trudge up the ramp onto the vehicle’s open veranda. Refinements in technique had permitted the new platform to stand on six-foot pillars instead of the braced twenty-foot I-beams which had supported the original vehicle. There was no longer any possibility that the vehicle would be inserted with its base platform more than a few feet above the terrain of the intrusion site. Still, though Vickers trusted Dr. Galil and his team completely, the change made his subconscious uneasy.

At least it was better than wondering if the Secretary of State was going to stumble and put a 500-grain bullet through your back.

The uniformed men had stationed themselves on the intrusion vehicle. One stood on each of the sides, while the remaining four were manning the heavy machine guns.

“Mr. Vickers,” Stern said formally, “you will please take charge.”

Like hell, the guide thought, but he glanced over the line of men following him. Craig had discarded his attaché case and carried the submachine gun openly. Prime Minister Greenbaum was armed with a half-stocked Mannlicher, heavy and glisteningly new. So far as Vickers knew, the Israeli was no hunter. He had apparently been given—and accepted—some excellent advice regarding equipment. Thomas Warren was last, cradling his Rigby comfortably. “Who’s manning the old vehicle?” Vickers asked Stern abruptly.

The official raised his eyebrows. “The photographic team,” he said, “and the cook. The follow-up insertion carries none of the truly necessary supplies and personnel, of course.”

“Wait a minute,” the guide insisted, trying to pitch his voice low. Adrienne stirred at his side. “You mean there’s nobody aboard who’s made an insertion before? Good God, man, if the timing’s only three seconds out, they’ll insert five klicks away from the initial group! They need somebody experienced along.”

Stern shrugged impatiently. “They have weapons,” he said. “They have been instructed.”

“Instructed my ass,” Vickers said. “Warren! Ah, Thomas. Get on over to the old hangar ASAP and nursemaid the back-up crew, will you?”

“Mr. Warren!” Stern snapped. In a lower voice he said, “Mr. Vickers, you are both essential to the initial intrusion. The follow-up vehicle is not to be your first concern.”

“Henry, I’ll go,” Adrienne said quietly. Vickers turned, the anger meant for others in his eyes. “No,” she said, “it’ll be all right. Somebody has to be with the vehicle, but you know Dr. Galil will bring it in on time. You needed someone you could trust along for just this sort of job. Well, that’s why I’m along.”

“Adrienne—”

“You
do
trust me, don’t you?”

Vickers sighed. He checked his watch, a mechanical chronometer because the intrusion field interfered with quartz-synchronized watches. “Right,” he said. “We—I’ll see you in thirty-seven minutes.”

His wife flashed him a smile and strode back out of the hangar. Her hips were as sleekly functional as they had been the day he first noticed them, climbing the steps of an intrusion vehicle ahead of him. Adrienne was pulling a handkerchief from her pocket. As she swung through the doors, she appeared to be rubbing the skin tone from her face.