Dictator

4

Hunter looked where Jane pointed. He saw the empty blanket neatly arranged on the floor. Then he scanned the room quickly for Judy and saw her by the door.

Two men in long, black wool overcoats were escorting Jane and an elderly woman out the front door of the warehouse. In the front, where others could see them, the crowd in the warehouse had fallen silent. Yet they also looked away, at each other or at their belongings, pretending not to notice as they kept their hands busy with little tasks.

“Who are they?” Jane whispered.

“Perhaps they are NKVD agents,” Hunter whispered back. “I would guess that they must be.”

“Oh, no.” Jane clutched his arm. “I’m sure they are. Ivana’s husband-that’s the old woman’s name-was taken by them a couple of years ago.”

“I have to get Judy back,” said Hunter, feeling a surge of tension from the First Law. “You will be much safer here than chasing the NKVD with me. Do you agree?”

“Yes. I’m sure I’ll be fine right here. I’ll stay here in the crowd and lie low. And I have my lapel pin to call you if I need to.”

“Good.” Hunter had no doubt that he could trust Jane’s judgment; unlike Steve, she had never caused trouble by improvising her moves. “In this crowd, of course, you will be in danger of being overheard if I call you, so I cannot.”

Jane nodded. “Get going.”

Hunter did not want to be seen leaving the warehouse. While Judy and Jane had returned the dishes and had spoken to Ivana, he had studied the layout of the building itself. Moving casually with his overcoat bundled under one arm, he worked his way to the rest room and went inside.

As he had surmised, its outside wall had one long, vertical window in a wooden casement. He turned on the water in the sink to create noise and pulled the window open with a creak and a low rumble. Then he turned off the water, slipped outside, and slowly pulled the window down again. It made more noise, but now he knew it would not be too loud. Once it was closed, he shook out his overcoat and put it on.

In the cold, clear winter night, Hunter turned and jogged toward the front of the warehouse.

Judy was scared as the men took her and Ivana out the front door. They were not rough, but held their prisoners’ arms firmly. Outside, they pushed Judy forward against a large, black car without a word and frisked her.

She and Ivana were put into the back of the car. The men had not spoken at all. They got in, slammed the doors, started the engine, and pulled away from the warehouse.

Ivana was quivering in terror, speechless and beyond tears. Judy reached over and held her hand. Ivana did not seem to notice.

Judy’s studies had taught her that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of more people than any other individual in history. She knew about the labor camps in the Gulag where people were tortured, starved, and worked to death, and about the mass murders committed by his agents here at the front. These people were beyond rational argument.

Truth and accuracy were not valued by this government. Just a few months before this time, the NKVD had threatened to arrest Red Air Force pilots as “panic mongers” when they had honestly reported the German advance toward Moscow. The values of the NKVD were so unpredictable that dealing with them was extremely dangerous.

Judy did not dare speak. Remembering her lapel communicator, however, she reached up and switched it on. The agents had not bothered with a thorough search yet; they might take it from her later. Now, however, Hunter might pick up some sounds through it, such as the engine noise from the car. She knew that the agents had ignored the modest pin as a danger because, in this time, no radio transmitter could be made that small.

The agents had come for Ivana without explanation. Apparently they had taken Judy because she had been with Ivana. That was all Judy knew about them.

She looked out the car window into the darkened city. Searchlights swept the cold, clear sky for enemy planes, but no attack was occurring. Even artillery shells were not falling. She knew that at this time, the German army was virtually immobile with the cold and was running out of both supplies and human energy as winter deepened.

Even with her knowledge of this period, she could not recall exactly when the aerial attacks took place, and when they had been discontinued. Tonight, apparently, Moscow was spared. Hoping that the ride would last a long time, she wondered if the lapel pin was actually transmitting.

When Hunter came around the comer of the warehouse, he found the streets deserted. He saw a single car driving away from the front of the warehouse. He stopped and shifted to his infrared vision, which made visible the silhouettes of Judy and Ivana in the backseat.

Hunter watched for a moment, unsure of what to do. Though he had more physical stamina than a human, even he could not keep up with a car for long, so when it was out of sight and hearing he would lose it.

Suddenly Hunter began to receive the static and engine noise from Judy’s transmitter. He understood that she had switched on her lapel pin. Now he had a chance to follow the car even after it left the range of his aural and visual sensors.

Before following the car, however, he decided to make himself less conspicuous by altering his appearance. His height was his most obvious feature, so he reduced it to six feet. Naturally, he could not change his total mass, so he remained just as heavy, but he now possessed a very solid, stocky build. He made his face broader to remain consistent with his new body. However, because he wanted Judy to be able to recognize him, he did not change his face very much. On their second mission he had done this, and when Jane had thought he was a buccaneer, she had clubbed him over the head with a belaying pin.

His clothes were now a problem. The bulky overcoat and shirt were still adequate, but his thicker waist threatened to pop the buttons on the waistband of his pants. He slimmed his waist again slightly, putting more mass into his legs. Then he paused to fold under his sleeves and cuffs, since they were now too long for his shorter limbs.

The red taillights of the car were nearly out of sight by now. Hunter could still hear the engine noise through Judy’s transmitter, however. He took off at a run.

The car turned a corner to the right and vanished. Hunter maintained his pace at first. Then, when he heard another vehicle coming up the street behind him, he ducked into the shadow of a doorway.

He lost more time as he waited, but he could not afford to be stopped by military police, or more NKVD agents, or anyone else in authority. At least the streets had very few people out who would notice him or report him. When the way was clear again, he ran as fast as he could, and soon made the same turn himself.

Ahead of him, the red taillights were already vanishing over a slight rise in the street. The black car had now joined a couple of other vehicles going in the same direction. However, with the radio signal to follow, Hunter could still identify the one he followed.

No pedestrians were on this street, either. Though the city was very dark, the clear sky gave Hunter enough moonlight to maneuver. He could hear the radio signal from Judy slowly and inexorably fading as the car drove away from him. Now he hoped that they would stop or at least be delayed before he lost the signal entirely.

Jane sat huddled in her corner of the warehouse, feeling very much alone. No one bothered her and, from what she could see, no one even seemed to have noticed her. She reassured herself with the reminder that, of course, Hunter would come hurrying back if she called him. On the other hand, she would not interfere with his hunt for Judy without an absolutely critical emergency right here. She was uncomfortable simply because she felt so isolated here in this cold, gloomy place.

If Steve had come on this mission, he would be here with her, right now.

Judy stiffened when the car pulled into the rear lot of a large building. The two men opened the back doors and pulled Judy and Ivana out by their arms. As before, the men did not speak.

The inside of the building was dimly lighted, cold, and silent. In the shadows, Judy saw old, decorative wooden molding that had been ignored for years, judging by the filth collected around it. From the regular distance separating the doors, she guessed it might have been a hotel in the Czarist years.

The footsteps of all four of them tapped loudly as they walked down a large hall. Judy and Ivana were taken to a small room lighted by a hanging lamp with a single bulb. Their escorts then left, loudly snapping the door lock into place. The room had no other doors and no windows.

Ivana quivered with fear. Judy looked around. The room was set up as an interrogation or meeting room, not as a prison cell. A long table ran down the center, with chairs on both sides of it. She eased Ivana into a chair, then pulled out another for herself, wondering how long they would have to wait for something else to happen.

“Ivana? Why would they want you?” Judy asked quietly. “Do you know?”

The old woman just stared at her.

“Why did they take your husband? What exactly happened? Maybe I can help somehow.”

Ivana just shook her head. Then she looked up at the light fixture and around the nearly empty room. She gestured vaguely at the walls.

Finally Judy understood what Ivana was trying to express. Ivana was afraid that the room was bugged with secret listening devices. In this era, such devices would be very unsophisticated by the standards of Judy’s time, but they would work. Judy simply nodded and stopped asking questions.

Suddenly Judy realized that if Hunter had been able to track her radio signal, it might also influence the NKVD reception. She decided, however, not to turn off her lapel pin. It was her only hope of telling Hunter where she was, so she would have to take the chance.

Now that the engine noise from the car was gone, she realized she should send a sound of some kind. She reached up and idly began tapping her lapel pin with her fingernails. Ivana paid no particular attention.

Judy decided that the fact that Ivana’s husband had been taken was enough reason for Ivana to be arrested, too. If he was still alive somewhere, he might have done or said something that had brought this about. Her sons, wherever they were with the Red Army, might also have attracted the attention of the political commissars assigned to the military.

Judy remembered one case from the Stalin era in which a man was sent to prison for thirty-five years because he asked an NKVD agent why his neighbor had been arrested. For that matter, Judy’s presence with Ivana in the crowded warehouse was the only reason that she had been taken.

Judy wondered why no one had questioned them yet.

As Hunter continued to run at a steady pace, except when he ducked out of sight from other vehicles, he realized that the signal from Judy was growing stronger. First the engine noise stopped, then he heard car doors opening and closing. Those sounds were followed by the creak of a building door and the sound of four sets of footsteps on an interior floor.

He knew that Judy and Ivana were unharmed so far from the questions Judy had asked Ivana. From those he had also surmised that they were alone. Though conversation had stopped, the clear tapping and scratching sounds became louder with each stride he took.

Finally the radio signal was so strong that Hunter knew Judy was within a hundred meters of him. Some quick zigzags in his route helped him focus on the source of the transmission. She was inside a very large building right in front of him. Almost an hour had passed since he had left the warehouse.

The building was constructed of stone and brick. Most of its windows were completely dark, but the light shone around the shades on the first floor. Since the city was blacked out for the night, the external lights were off.

Hunter assessed his internal energy level. The prolonged run in cold weather had lowered his reserves significantly, but he would be able to function normally for a while yet. He could not estimate how long, because the length of time would depend on his energy expenditure in rescuing Judy and the duration he spent in the cold. Certainly the First Law gave him no choice about attempting to help Judy immediately.

Before planning his actions, he considered the complex of First Law imperatives weighing on him. Most importantly, he could not interfere with the NKVD’s historical actions. He could not knowingly create any changes in the course of history. Of almost equal importance, he had to protect Judy from harm. As he had discussed with his team in the briefing before this mission, however, he now understood that the historical process would clearly accept some small level of involvement from him.

Three approaches seemed open to him. The first, direct confrontation, risked violence against Judy and precipitating a change of actions by the NKVD toward Ivana, so he discarded that. The second was stealth, but he worried that sneaking into the building would take too long, since the NKVD might act quickly against its two new prisoners. That left a simple bluff as the most direct and least violent course of action.

As Steve had sometimes reminded him, improvising could be very useful. Hunter prepared himself to try it as he walked up to the front entrance, assuming a casual, confident walk. The front door was locked, but he heard the metal pins rattle inside the knob. They sounded simple and primitive. In all likelihood, they would break easily.

He grasped the knob and forced it to turn. The insides of the lock snapped and ground as he broke them. However, a second lock held a metal bolt in place and he had no way to grab hold of it.

Hunter fingered the doorjamb. The wood was old and fairly solid, but it could be broken. Doing so would make noise and attract attention inside the building. He decided that he would have to take that risk.

Bracing himself with his legs, he crouched and positioned himself to spring forward. Then he slammed his entire weight against the door at the point where it would apply the most force against the bolt. The bolt tore through the wooden doorjamb with a splintering sound as the door opened.

Then he walked inside and calmly closed the door behind him.