Thank G.o.d, thought Dog.
Bacau, Romania
2300.
GENERAL LOCUSTA STARED DOWN AT THE MAP BEING USED to track the raid"s progress. The appearance of the MiGs had dramatically changed the mood in his headquarters conference room.
"I still can"t get them on the radio," said the communications specialist.
"Prepare a rescue mission. Ground and air."
"Standing by, General. The helicopters should be refueled within ten minutes."
d.a.m.n the Russians. They would claim that they were merely honoring their treaty with Moldova, but Locusta knew this was actually aimed at him-a pointed reminder that he could not count on the Americans in the future.
As for the Americans...
"The Dreamland people. What are they doing?"
"Continuing to engage the aircraft at last report."
"Have them pinpoint the route of the helicopter toward the border."
"Yes, sir."
"Losing one helicopter does not mean the mission was a failure, General," whispered one of his aides as Locusta stalked across the room for coffee.
"Yes," he muttered. His thoughts were split between the operation, the men he"d lost-and the president.
The call should have come an hour ago.
"General, we have an urgent call for you from Third Battalion."
About time, thought Locusta, though as he turned he made his face a blank.
"The unit near the president"s house-they"re responding to an attack by the guerrillas."
"What?"
"Here, sir."
Coffee spilled from Locusta"s cup as he practically threw it back down on the table and strode to the phone.
"Locusta."
"There has been an attack," said one of the captains at the headquarters of the unit a.s.signed to help guard the president. "Guerrillas."
"When? What"s going on?"
Locusta listened impatiently as the man related what he knew. The alarm had come in only a few minutes before. Guerrillas had struck at the battalion"s radio and the local phone lines around the same time, making it difficult to communicate with the base.
"When did this occur?" demanded Locusta.
The man did not know. The attack had apparently begun sometime before.
"Where is the President?"
"Our troops are only just arriving," said the captain. "We have not yet made contact with his security team."
"Didn"t they send the alert?"
"No."
They hadn"t been able to-as part of his plan, Anton Ozera had directed his team to activate a cell phone disrupter just before the attack. Like everything else that would indicate the a.s.sault was more than the work of unsophisticated guerillas, it would have been removed by now.
"Keep me informed," said Locusta.
He handed the aide back the phone.
"We have another developing situation," he announced.
Presidential villa,
near Stulpicani, Romania
2315.
VODA WATCHED FROM THE SMALL, GLa.s.sLESS WINDOW OF the cave as two more members of his presidential security team were carried out to the s.p.a.ce in front of the barn. They were clearly already dead; their bodies bounced limply when they were dropped.
The men carrying them were soldiers-or at least were dressed in Romanian army uniforms. The fighting seemed to have died down; Voda couldn"t hear any more gunfire.
Julian was trembling, either with the cold or fear, or maybe both. Voda pulled him close.
"We"re going to be OK," he whispered. "It"s going to take us a little while, but we"ll be OK."
"What are they doing?" Julian asked.
"I"m not sure."
Lights arced through the window. Voda froze, then realized they had come from the headlamps of trucks driving up past the garage. He rose and looked out the corner of the window. Two trucks had just arrived. Soldiers ran from the back, shouting as they disappeared.
"What"s going on?" Mircea asked.
"I can"t tell."
"Is the army here?"
"Yes, but there"s something odd about it."
"What kind of odd?"
Voda couldn"t bring himself to use the word "coup." He watched as two soldiers came into view, walking from the direction of the house. He moved his head to the very side of the window as they took up their posts guarding the bodies yet not hardly looking at them, save for a few glances-guilty glances, Voda thought, though they faced the street, their backs to him.
It was possible that the soldiers had arrived toward the very end of the firefight, with all of his defenders dead, and were unable to tell who was who. Still, the way that the bodies had been handled alarmed Voda. His guards all had IDs, and were wearing regular clothes besides. It ought to be easy to differentiate between them and the guerrillas.
Was he just being paranoid? The only people in this pile were security people. Perhaps he was mistaking fear of the dead for disdain.
"If the army is here, shouldn"t we go out?" asked his wife.
"There"s something about it that"s not right, Mircea," he whispered. "I can"t explain. But I don"t think it"s safe yet."
"They"ll find the tunnel we came through."
"I know."
Voda sat down next to the door, trying to think. Mircea turned on the flashlight. He grabbed it from her and flipped it off.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I"m looking around. Maybe there"s something here we can use."
"Don"t use the flashlight. They"ll see outside."
"I can"t see in the dark."
"There"s enough light, when you get close."
This was true, but just barely. Mircea began crawling on her hands and knees, working her way deeper into the cave. They had been in this cave only once that he could remember, soon after buying the property three years before. There was nothing of use, he thought-no machine guns, no rifles. But at least looking would give his wife something to do rather than stand around and worry that they would be found.
They would be found sooner or later. Most likely very soon-it was only a matter of time before someone figured out that they"d gone into the cistern well.
Could the army have revolted? These men were under Locusta"s control. Would they defy him?
Would he launch the coup?
He was certainly ambitious enough.
If the generals, or a general, revolted, would the men in the ranks follow suit? Would they remember what the country was like under the dictator?
But maybe life for them under the dictator was better. They were privileged then, poor but privileged. Now they were still poor, and without privilege.
Voda stood back up and looked through the window. The men guarding the bodies were young; they would have been little older than Julian when Ceausescu died, too young to know how things truly were then.
"Two more," said someone he couldn"t see.
Voda slipped his head closer to the side. Two more bodies, both of his security people, were dumped.
"Have they found the president yet?" asked one of the men who"d been guarding the bodies.
Voda couldn"t hear the answer, but it was some sort of joke-the soldiers all laughed.
He had to find a place to hide his family. Then he could find out what was going on.
One of the men started to turn around. Voda twisted back against the door, getting out of the way. As he did, Oana Mitca"s cell phone pressed against his thigh. He"d completely forgotten it in his scramble to escape.
He took it from his pocket and opened it. The words on the screen said: no service.
Frustrated, he nearly threw it to the ground. But he realized he couldn"t show his despair to his wife or son, and so slipped it back into his pocket instead.
Voda listened carefully, trying to hear the soldiers outside, not daring to look back through the small window. Finally he poked his head up. All of the men had left.
Voda examined the door, using his fingers as well as his eyes. It was made of boards of oak or some other hardwood that ran from top to bottom. It had no doork.n.o.b or conventional lock. He had secured it soon after buying the property, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g a U-hook into the frame and then putting a simple steel clasp on the door. The clasp went over the hook and was held by a padlock. He"d used long screws to make sure it couldn"t be simply pulled aside, and while there was enough play in the clasp for him to feel it move slightly as he put his weight against the door, he doubted he could force it from this side.
"I found a chisel," said Mircea, coming toward him in the dark. "Can we use it?"
The chisel was a heavy woodworker"s tool, used seventy or eighty years before to shave notches into wood. It was covered with a layer of rust. The edge was thin but not sharp. Voda turned it over in his hands, trying to figure out how he might be able to make use it.
The boards were held together by two perpendicular pieces at the top and bottom. Perhaps he could use the chisel as a crowbar, dismantling it.
He slid the tool up, not really thinking the idea had any real hope of succeeding, yet unable to think of an alternative.
"Can you use it?" asked Mircea.
"Maybe."
As he began working the chisel into the board, he saw that the door was held in place by a long, triangular-shaped hinge that was screwed into the cross piece. There was one on top and on bottom and they were old, rusted even worse than the chisel.
The chisel tip didn"t quite fit as a screwdriver; the screws were inset into the holes in the metal, making them hard to reach with its wide head. Frustrated, Voda pushed the chisel against the metal arm and wood, working the tip back and forth as he tried to get between the door and the hinge arm. He managed to get the tip in about a quarter of an inch, then levered it toward him. The hinge moved perhaps a quarter inch from the wood.