Privateers (27 page)

Malik was standing at the far end of the room, Dan saw, with Lucita and her father at his side. The admirers crowding around them melted back as the security man guided Dan to Malik’s presence.

“Ah, Mr. Randolph. We meet again,” said Malik, loud enough for the cluster of people around them to hear him easily over the noise of the party.

Dan nodded, his eyes on Lucita. Her gown was soft pink, cut low enough to display a glittering necklace of rubies . and diamonds.

“Seńorita,” Dan said, making a little bow to her, “you look more beautiful each time 1 see you.”

Her smile seemed mechanical; her eyes searched his. “You are very gallant, senor.”

“And you, Senor Hernandez,” Dan said to her father. ‘ ‘This must be a very proud moment for you.”

Hernandez, looking as patrician as a grandee of old, replied haughtily, “It is my daughter’s happiness that brings pleasure to her father’s heart.”

And rain makes applesauce, Dan answered silently.

“Mr. Randolph, they tell me you are carrying a gun,” Malik said, his voice as bright as his smile. “Is it a six-shooter? Do you think you’re still in Texas?”

Dan grinned back at him. “I was safe in Texas.”

“You’re perfectly safe here, I promise you.” The Russian looked splendid in his dinner clothes, as if he had been born to them. He wore three small medals on his jacket. Dan recognized the Order of Lenin and the Cosmonaut’s Star; the third one was unfamiliar to him.

“I don’t feel very safe,” Dan said. “Especially when a Soviet agent recently killed a friend of mine while trying to assassinate me.”

No one actually gasped, but the crowd seemed to draw in its breath. Lucita stared at Dan, then looked back at the Russian.

Malik’s smile never wavered. “Now why would a Soviet agent attempt to assassinate you? That’s as silly as my believing you would lead a raid on Lunagrad and threaten the lives of all the Soviet citizens there.”

Dan laughed. “Now why would I lead a raid on Lunagrad?

Just because your thugs kidnapped a team of Astro Manufacturing employees and illegally held them prisoner on the Moon?”

Hemandez looked shocked, but Malik merely took Lucita’s hand in his as he replied, “Yes, that would be a ridiculous thing for you to do.”

“There are courts of law,” Dan said. “Everyone knows that capitalists use lawyers and bribery to get their way.”

“Of course,” said Malik. “Besides, you’re too old to go adventuring. All your women and luxury have made you soft.”

Grinning, Dan replied, “You can’t have all those women if you’re soft.”

Some of the older women in the crowd did gasp; most of the others snickered.

“But,” Dan continued, “I do feel that my life is being threatened. An assassination attempt was made on me.”

Malik kept the smile on his face, but his voice became hard. “The Soviet Union does not engage in hoodlum behavior, Mr. Randolph. Only in old Hollywood movies do Soviet agents try to assassinate rich American capitalists.”

“Are you sure of that?” asked Dan.

“Quite certain. I promise you, Mr. Randolph: if a Soviet agent had been instructed to assassinate you, he would not have bungled the job.”

The whole room fell absolutely silent. The band had stopped, all the other conversations seemed to cease and all eyes turned to the two jousting men. Even the smoke seemed to hang motionless in the air.

Dan tried to see what was going on behind the Russian’s ice-blue eyes. But they were an impenetrable screen. Then he saw that Lucita’s eyes were filled with anxiety.

“You have nothing to fear from assassins, Mr. Randolph,” Malik said. Then his tone lightened. “A hangman, perhaps, but not an assassin.”

Laughing, Dan replied, “I’m very relieved.”

“Then you won’t need your six-shooter, will you?” Malik said.

Still grinning, Dan said, “Oh, it has a lot more than six shots in it.”

“But you can bear to part with it while you’re here, I trust.”

“No, I’d rather keep it. I’m becoming rather fond of it.”

“I thought,” Malik teased, “that in the Wild West men settled their differences with their fists.”

With a slight nod, Dan answered, “Not when one of them is a martial arts champion. I’ll keep the gun. In the Wild West it was called ‘the equalizer.’ “

“You really don’t need it,” Malik insisted.

Dan asked, “What’s the matter? Are you afraid I’m going to shoot you?”

“That would be …”

“As ridiculous as leading a raid on Lunagrad.”

Malik’s smile evaporated.

“Don’t worry,” Dan said. “You don’t have to be afraid of assassins any more than 1 do. But I’ll hold on to my pistol, just the same. For my own protection.”

Malik glanced at the looming young man still standing beside Dan. Something passed between them, silently. Then Malik shrugged and put on his smile again.

“As you wish. Mr. Randolph. I wouldn’t want you to feel frightened. But if you don’t mind, I’ll have Georgi here stay close to you for the duration of the party. I wouldn’t want your gun to go off accidentally; you might hurt yourself.”

“I’m flattered that you care,” Dan said.

Turning to Lucita, Malik said, “Would you care to dance, my darling?”

As if on cue, the band struck up a waltz. Lucita gave Dan a fleeting, frightened glance, then allowed Malik to lead her through the crowd to the dance floor.

Hernandez stepped up to Dan’s side as the crowd that had clustered around Malik began to dissipate, like a cloud of smoke wafting into nothingness.

“You play a dangerous game,” Hernandez muttered.

Dan looked into the Venezuelan’s haughty face and dull, mud-brown eyes. “We all do what we must, my friend.”

“Do you have any idea of the pressures that Comrade Malik is exerting on the government of Venezuela-on me? He wants proof that you led the raid on Lunagrad, and he means to get it.”

“How can he get something that doesn’t exist?” Dan asked mildly. “I was working night and day in Nueva Venezuela to try to get my men released by the Russians. I have tapes of all my calls to the World Court, to the Soviet Council of Ministers, to the United Nations-I even made several calls to you.”

Hernandez snorted. “Between three and five in the morning, when you knew I would be asleep and could not answer them.”

“I left messages. You could examine them with voice analyzers. It was me.”

“Those messages could have been taped before you left for Lunagrad, or even while you were on the way there.”

Dan shrugged. “Look, I was just as pleased as you were when my men returned to Nueva Venezuela. But they don’t know who their rescuers were any more than I know.” He could not keep from grinning. “Some altruistic strangers with a love of justice and adventure. Like the Lone Ranger.”

“Who?” Hernandez frowned.

“Never mind.”

“And you expect the government of Venezuela to sue the Soviet Union over the minerals your spacecraft was carrying when the Russians seized it?”

“I certainly do,” Dan said. “They had no right to seize either the ship or its cargo.”

Hernandez shook his head. “Madness. If you think that I will recommend we go to the World Court …”

“I have an alternative for you,” Dan offered.

“Yes?”

“Talk to Malik directly. After all, he ought to do a favor for his prospective father-in-law.”

Hernandez threw up his hands and stamped away. Dan stood there, laughing.

The waltz ended and the band took up a Latin rhythm. Dan saw Malik still dancing with Lucita, and decided that the only chance he would have to talk to her would be on the dance floor. He threaded through the dancers, with the bulky Georgi following two steps behind him.

Dan approached Malik from behind. Lucita saw him and quickly turned her eyes away from him. Tapping Malik’s shoulder, Dan asked cheerfully, “May I?”

For an instant the Russian looked as if he would rather punch Dan, but he released Lucita and stepped back without a word. Dan put his arm around her tiny waist and they whirled away from Malik and the burly security guard.

“You are insane!” Lucita whispered, barely audible over the music.

Dan said, “Your father has the same opinion of me. It must run in your family.”

“Are you really carrying a gun?”

“Let me hold you closer and you’ll feel it for yourself.”

But she stayed a decorous distance from him as they danced.

“That’s a beautiful necklace,” Dan said. “And the earrings match it. A family heirloom?”

“Vasily’s engagement present to me,” she said, her voice empty of joy or pride.

“I should have guessed,” said Dan. “Some other family’s heirloom-a family that died in Siberia, most likely.”

Lucita’s eyes flashed anger for a second, but it quickly passed. “Did you really lead the raid on Lunagrad? That’s all that Vasily talks about. He’s furious about it.”

“If I did, beautiful one, this wouldn’t be the best place in the world to admit it, now would it? The Russian embassy, no less. There must be microphones in every drinking glass. And you’re the fiancee of the man who wants to have me hanged!”

Lucita lowered her eyes for a moment. Then, “I’m not his fiancée yet. Not until midnight, when the announcement is made.”

Dan grinned at her. “Shall I steal you away, then? Shoot our way out of here and jump on the fastest steed in all the wide Border. …”

“Lochinvar,” Lucita recognized. “I read that poem in school.”

“Well? Are you game? Shall I rescue you from this engagement?”

She smiled, but there was sadness in it. “And where would we go, my gallant knight? Where could we hide that they would not find us?”

With a shrug, Dan said, “There must be a cave somewhere, an enchanted forest … maybe a domed city at the bottom of the sea.”

“He wants to kill you,” Lucita said, intensely earnest. “He will not rest until you are dead.”

“I know.”

“You mustn’t let him kill you. You must stop baiting him, stop fighting against him.”

“Instead of having him kill me, I should lie down and die without putting him to any trouble? No, Lucita. I can’t do that.”

“I am going to marry him,” she said.

He looked down at her lovely face: so serious, so grave. What would Malik do if he just tilted her chin up and kissed her?

“Lucita,” he whispered.

“Yes?” She looked up at him, her eyes gleaming with the beginnings of tears. Dan saw sadness in those eyes, a resignation to the inevitability of a life shaped by the ambitions of her father and Vasily Malik. Yet there was something else in her luminous dark eyes, a conflicting emotion: was it hope? A desperate plea for rescue? A silent scream for help?

The music ended, the dance came to an end. Out of the corner of his eye Dan saw Malik pushing his way through the crowd toward them, with giant Georgi right behind him.

“Lucita,” he said. “We’re all doing what we’ve got to do. All of us.”

She blinked the tears away and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Yes, I see. I understand.”

She turned away from Dan, held out her hand to Malik and let him lead her away.

Dan stayed at the party only long enough to invite Kolwezi and the other Third World space industrialists to his office for lunch the next day. They all agreed immediately: they had all expected the invitation.

That accomplished, Dan left the party long before midnight and the public announcement of Lucita’s engagement to Malik. Georgi accompanied him to his limousine.

“Sorry to have troubled you,” Dan said to the young Russian.

“Not to worry,” he replied. “If not for you, I would be standing guard outside and miss the party. Now I can go to the kitchen and inspect the caviar.”

Dan laughed. The beefy young man waved good night as the limo pulled away.

The lights were on in Dan’s bedroom when he got back there. Kristin must have come back for another session of marriage counseling, he thought sourly. He pulled his tie loose and unfastened his collar as he made his way across the living room. You can’t let some women into your bedroom once without them thinking they have squatter’s rights. Never let them take a toothbrush out of their handbag, he told himself.

Kristin was lying naked on the waterbed. Her face was a rictus of shock and pain. Her blood soaked the sheets, still bright red and warm enough to drip onto the carpet. Her throat had been slashed very thoroughly, very brutally, very expertly.

Dan leaned back in his leather desk chair and examined the earnest, determined face of Nobuhiko Yamagata. Bright morning sunlight streamed through the big windows behind his desk. There were dark rings under Dan’s eyes. He had not slept; the night had been spent with his own security people and the police detectives of Caracas and the Venezuelan national government.

Now, wearing an open-necked tan sport shirt and rumpled chinos, Dan regarded his old friend’s son carefully.

“Nobo,” he said, “I want you to return to Japan. Immediately. Today.”

If the young Japanese was surprised, he masked it successfully. “Has my work failed to-”

“It’s got nothing to do with your work,” Dan said. “It’s for your own safety. Two people who were somewhat close to me have been murdered. I’m not going to take the chance that you might be next.”

Nobo shook his head the barest fraction of an inch. “I will not go. Not voluntarily. You can fire me, of course. But I will not quit.”

With a sigh, Dan replied, “Okay, you’re fired.”

The faintest hint of a smile crossed Nobo’s face. “Very well, then, I shall stay in Caracas to organize a labor union among your engineers and astronauts.”

Dan blinked, uncertain he had heard the younger man correctly.

“If you are going to fire valued employees so arbitrarily,” Nobo said, his grin widening, “then a labor union is necessary to protect our rights.”