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The Nebraska cruised on the surface into Australia’s Garden Island submarine base under heavy escort, an attack submarine shadowing them with open torpedo tubes and destroyers with guns and missiles locked onto them on either flank. A naval special operations team came aboard and disarmed Nguyen and his crew, marching them away for questioning after piloting the Nebraska into its dock in a covered pen.
They were interrogated separately for five days. Eventually an Argentine Air Force long-range transport plane picked up Repeth, Muzik and Bonnagh, along with three coffins. A British Union Jack, a Congolese flag, and an old-style Stars and Stripes draped the boxes as they were loaded with full military honors.
When the big cargo plane had taken off and they could converse with only moderately raised voices, the three Free Community troops put their heads together for the first time since they had been detained.
“What the hell is going on?” asked Muzik. “Anyone know? Where’s Colonel Nguyen?”
“I heard one of the Aussies say he had asked to stay,” answered Repeth.
“What the bloody hell does that mean, asked to stay? Why?” Bonnagh’s face was confused and angry. “And does anyone know what has happened? They wouldn’t tell me much. They just grilled me about the op. I told them everything I knew. They’re supposed to be our allies.”
Major Muzik said, “I heard that our missiles nuked the Big Three – surface targets – Washington DC, Moscow, Beijing, a bunch of other places, most of the important military bases. Almost two hundred warheads. Then the Big Three fired a couple dozen more at each other before they called it off. They’re crippled. The Big Three are crippled.”
“We killed millions.” Repeth’s face fell in stunned horror. “I killed millions. I turned the key. Eighteen times I turned the key.”
“No, no, you don’t understand. Alkina plugged that module in. She changed the targeting. You and the colonel were just doing what you thought was right.” Muzik shook her shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault.”
She slapped his hands away, eyes blazing. “Don’t touch me, you stupid prick. If you hadn’t screwed her they might still be alive, and maybe none of this would have happened. Leave me alone. Just leave me the hell alone.”
Bonnagh touched Muzik’s arm, motioning with his eyes. The major backed off and the two men withdrew to their chosen seats, each alone with his thoughts as they winged their way over Antarctica toward Buenos Aires.
***
The man in the rumpled suit stared at Colonel Nguyen from across the deeply inlaid, polished wooden conference table. “Cigarette?” He slid a silver case across the table with a matching lighter resting on top.
Nguyen reached out with his hands to pick up the items, his eyes never leaving the other man’s. Taking out one of the tobacco-filled tubes, he snapped the flame into existence. Smoke curled from his mouth and up his nose in a French inhale before blowing forth from his thin lips. “Thank you. I have been waiting for you.”
“Yes, I suspect you have.” The man’s accent made the last word sound like “hayv.” Nguyen supposed he would have to get used to it.
“You’re one of the hidden masters. You have me at a disadvantage.”
“In more ways than one. You can call me Fenster. I’m here to negotiate terms.”
“Of course. Let’s not play games. Your interrogators got nothing from me, and they never will, unless I wish to talk. The three others of my team gave you a fairly coherent version of what happened, but it’s not the whole story. Miss Alkina gave you another version, but it’s not the whole story either. If you want the missing pieces – and my services – I want in. All the way.”
“You want to join Miss Alkina in serving us?”
Spooky laughed, his deadly amused eyes exemplifying his nickname. “So you can stick a deadman charge in my chest? Not likely. I want to be one of you.”
“You just went rogue. You just killed a hundred million people.”
“No, and yes. I’m not rogue; rogue implies a loss of control. I’m defecting to the only country on Earth that will appreciate my talents and let me be who I am. The only country that can do what is necessary to push us toward the future.”
Fenster took a drag from his own cigarette, blowing the smoke upward as he pursed his lips, staring at the burning tip contemplatively. “How do we know we can trust you?”
“Oh, please, spare me. You can’t know. We’ve resurrected the status quo ante; things are the way they were before, when we had to trust each other because we decided to, not because the Eden Plague told us to. Human nature has not changed, not fundamentally. Plenty of narcissists have been successful, even honorable men. At least we’re consistent. The difference between you and me, and other, pardon the epithet, ‘Psychos,’ is that we’re wise enough to look past our own immediate gratification and think long term. With the Eden Plague carriers to front the government and us to wield the real power, we have the perfect setup – as long as we remain sub rosa. Like the mythical vampires of popular fiction, we retain power only as long as we wield it carefully. Deftly.”
Fenster’s eyes narrowed. “Cheeky Pommy bastard, aren’t you?”
“I’m not British. I just like the accent. I lived for so long with a damaged brain that when the Plague repaired mine I decided to learn how to speak the Queen’s English properly.” His vowels suddenly flattened, became clipped. “If you prefer Midwest American, I can do that too. But why are we wasting time talking about accents? I know you can’t make this decision alone. Go talk to your superiors.”
Nguyen turned to the one-way glass covering one wall of the room. “You people back there, I need to speak to the masters. The ones who can actually decide. Come back with your terms, and let’s have a civilized conversation. I’m done talking to someone without the power to say yes.” He took a last pull from the cigarette and stubbed the butt out in the flimsy plastic ashtray, then turned around. He stayed that way as Fenster walked out.
***
Alkina didn’t look up as Nguyen entered her cell. “So they let you live. And you’re a general.” Her tone made it rhetorical, if it wasn’t already self-evident by Nguyen’s very presence. Her posture showed defeat.
“Of course. They need my knowledge and they can use my skills. And soon I will be an indispensable and permanent part of the power structure.”
“What about me? Do you kill me now? Or just cast me aside like a used condom?”
“That’s quite a metaphor for a woman who chose Muzik over me.”
Alkina looked up, distressed. “That was different. That was the job.” She felt confused by her own emotions, for she’d never before cared what someone thought of her, except as a simple assessment of her own advantage. Now she found herself desperate to please this man.
“I know. I know, Ann, forgive me for saying such a cruel thing. And I didn’t come here to kill you, or to gloat.” He paused, searching her eyes. “All I need to know is: do you want to join me?”
“Join you?” Hope flared in her, a lifting of the despair and the belief that she was expendable. “But they all think I nuked...everything.”
“Yes. But they don’t care. What’s done is done. All your records will be wiped. You will be given to me. Be my right hand. I will train you better than they have. I will keep you by my side, and take you places you never could have gone on your own. I will teach you how to be human...of a sort. Of our sort. But you must surrender to me completely. Body and mind and soul.”
She drew a deep breath. Happiness suffused her body, a dark joy that wanted to give herself up to him, to let him make the decisions, to pass over the horrible weight of responsibility along with the reflected shame, guilt and contempt she saw in the eyes of the normals and the Edens. Only he would accept her for what she was: remorseless, but not unfeeling; ruthless, but not passionless.
“I will. I shall. I do. I’m yours.”
“You are now mine. And because of that, I am yours. I alone love you. I alone will be true to you. I alone am worthy of your loyalty.” He took his finger off the button of the deadman device in his pocket, carefully snapping the cover closed. The code to her implant had been one of his conditions, a little bit of insurance for the future. It could take ten years, or a hundred, but there might come a time when Ann Alkina decided she no longer needed Nguyen Pham Tran. He would be prepared. But for now, for a while, with her he could let his guard down, and just be...human.
He leaned over to drink from her lips.
