Games of State

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The crack Bob Herbert heard was not the report of the gun. He knew that because the bullet would have struck his brain and shut it down before the sound of the gunshot reached him.

Also, he realized that the sound had come from above.

The branch fell heavily through the trees. Though the police officer hopped aside, out of the way, he couldn't avoid the young woman who dropped from the tree a moment later. She crashed down on him, spilling them both to the ground. But she had landed on top and got off first. Because he had managed to hold onto the gun, she rose, stepped on his wrist, and wrested it away.

"Here!" she said, pushing the weapon into Herbert's hands.

He aimed it at the police officer's head. When the man didn't stir, Herbert looked at the young woman. She was standing unsteadily to Herbert's left, obviously shaken by her plunge.

"Jody Thompson?" Herbert asked.

She nodded twice. She was nearly gasping. Her heart was probably racing from fear, poor thing.

"My name's Herbert. Bob Herbert. I work for the U.S.

government. I want to thank you for what you did." She said in breathless chunks, "It's not… the first time.

.. I've fallen for a guy." He smiled. She was pumped up by fear and maybe a little excitement. "I assume you didn't just fall from the tree—" "No," she said. "I'd been walking and got lost. I fell asleep up there. I woke when I heard you and saw what he was going to do." "I'm glad you're a light sleeper," Herbert said. "Now I think we'd better make sure our playmate is—" Jody screamed, "Look out!" Herbert hadn't turned his back on the police officer, but he'd made the mistake of looking at the girl. The German had pushed off from the ground before the American could fire. He dove for the gun. The wheelchair spilled over backward with the two men on it and four hands scrapped for the weapon.

Herbert lost the gun in the struggle, and decided not to try and find it. Lying on his back with the police officer on top of him, he reached under the right armrest and slipped the Urban Skinner from its sheath. Jody jumped toward the police officer, pulling at his coat. As she did, Herbert closed his fingers around the knife's palm-fitted hilt. The two-inch blade was sticking up from his right-hand fist, between his second and third fingers.

The police officer was fumbling around the wheelchair, around Herbert, his fingers digging and probing. As Jody screamed and tore at the German, Herbert's left hand shot up. He grabbed a handful of black hair to hold the German's head in place. Then he drove the knife up hard, into the soft flesh under his chin. He cut to the heart side, slicing both the internal and external jugular veins. The trapezius muscle, on the outside of the neck, stopped the knife from exiting.

The German stopped looking for the gun though he didn't stop moving. He tried to push the knife from his throat, but the combination of Herbert pulling down on his head and pressing up with the blade made that impossible.

Herbert didn't want him to open his mouth, to scream. He also didn't want Jody, who was still on top of him, to see his face or the wound.

Within a few seconds the police officer was finding it difficult to breathe. He tried to roll off Herbert as blood filled his mouth and dribbled from between his lips. But Herbert held him in the deathlock.

The German glared down with pain and shock as the soil beneath them turned muddy with blood. He made weak, babylike attempts to beat at Herbert, then spat blood and dropped limp on Herbert's chest.

This time, Herbert knew, he wouldn't be getting up.

When the German finally fell still, Herbert told Jody to back off and turn around.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"I'm sure," he replied.

She rose weakly, and as soon as she'd walked off several yards Herbert pushed the German off. The intelligence chief wriggled to the side, out of his chair and away from the body. Then he cleaned his knife on the police officer's coat and slipped it back in its sheath.

"Are you all right, Jody?" She nodded. "Is he dead?" "Yes," Herbert said. "I'm sorry." She nodded again briskly.

He waited a moment, then said, "If you help me back into my chair, we can get out of here." Judy did. As she struggled to help. him up, she said, "Mr. Herbert—" "Bob," he said.

"Bob," Jody said, "what do you know about the people who tried to kill me?" Herbert thought back to the satellite view of the area.

"I believe they're at a lake north of here." "How far north?" "A few miles," Herbert said. He picked up his phone.

"I'm going to let my superiors know I've found you, get you to Hamburg, and fly you home from there." "I don't want to go yet," she said.

"Why?" he asked. "Are you tired— hurt? Hungry? I don't have any food—" "No, none of that," Jody said. "While I was up in the tree, I was thinking how much I hate them." "Me too," Herbert said. "People like them took away my legs and my wife for reasons that don't even matter any more." "And I was thinking," Jody went on, "that maybe I survived for a reason." "You did," Herbert said. "To go home to your folks." "If that's true," she said, "then I'll get home to them.

Only a little later. I want to do something about what's going on here." "Good," Herbert said. "When you get back to the States, sell the movie rights to your story. I'm serious. Let people know what's happening in the real world. Just make sure Tom Selleck plays me, okay? And that you hold on to creative control. Otherwise, it'll get all crapped up." "I studied film," Jody said, "and right now we haven't got a climax." Herbert made a face. "Bull," he said, and spread his fingers headline-size. He swept them to the side. "Long Island girl helps government agent kill German neo-Nazi police officer," he said. "Seems like a helluva climax to me." "It isn't," she replied. "A better one would be: American girl makes grandfather proud by fighting his old enemies.

More substance, less sensation." "You're loco," Herbert said as he began punching in a number. "As we used to say in Beirut, 'Gutsy but nutsy.' " "Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do." Jody walked over to the police officer. She picked up his gun and brushed off the dirt by wiping it on her jeans.

"Put that down," Herbert said. "We don't need it going off by accident and bringing reinforcements." Jody examined the weapon. "We were using a P38 like this in the movie," she said. "The prop man showed me how to work it." "Hooray for him. Did you fire it?" She nodded. "I hit a log from about ten yards away." "Nice," Herbert said. "But there are two things you need to know. First, that's a P5, not a P1— which is the official name of the Walther P38 you used. They're both 9-X- 19mm, and you'll find them remarkably similar. As for the second thing, logs don't shoot real well. People do a lot better." Herbert finished inputting the telephone number and waited. Jody pressed her lips together and stalked over. She touched the disconnect button.

"Hey!" he said. "Get that finger out of here." "Thanks for your help, Mr. Herbert— Bob— but I'm going." "No you're not. There are probably hundreds of psychomilitants out there and you don't know what they're like." "I think I do." "You don't!" he yelled. "That woman who captured you was Karin Doring. Do you know why she didn't kill you?

Woman-to-woman courtesy." "I know," Jody said. "She told me." "She won't make that mistake twice," Herbert said.

"And the bottom-feeders who work for her won't make that mistake once. Shit, you probably won't even get past the sentries." "I'll find a way. I can be sneaky." "Even assuming you are, or assuming the sentries are green or they choke or both, what'll you do if you get there?

Kill Karin?" "No," Jody said. "I don't want to be like her. I just want her to see me. I want her to see that I'm alive and unafraid.

She left me without anything in the trailer. No hope, no pride, zero. I've got to get that back." "But you have!" "What you're seeing now?" Jody asked. "This isn't pride, it's shame. The fear of shame. The fear that I'm too afraid to face her. I need to bite the ear of my torturer." Herbert was totally confused. "Excuse me?" "It's something my grandfather once did. If I don't do that I'll never be able to walk into a dark room or down a lonely street without being afraid. My grandfather also said that Hitler controlled people through fear. I want these people to know that they didn't scare me. I can't do that from anywhere but the camp." Herbert wheeled a half-turn closer to her. "There's some tiuth to what you're saying, but going back there isn't the way to accomplish anything. You'll have about ten seconds of glory before they cut you down." "Not if you help me," Jody said. She leaned toward him. "I just want to show my face. That's all. If I don't run from this, I'll never run from anything. But if I do run, then that witch will have succeeded. She'll have killed an important part of me." Herbert couldn't argue the point. If he was Jody, he'd want to do just what she was suggesting and then some.

But that didn't mean he was going to go along with her.

Herbert said, "And how am I supposed to live with myself if anything happens to you? Besides, think about it.

You stayed calm. You fought back. You saved my life. You don't have anything to prove." "No," Jody said. "My demon is still out there. I am going and you can't stop me. I can outrun you." "Don't be fooled by the wheelchair, Jody Joyner- Kersee," Herbert said. "When I want to, I can fly." He removed her finger and began redialing. "Besides, I can't let you die. We're going to need you at a trial. I was with a German government official this morning, Deputy Foreign Minister Richard Hausen. He's devoted to their destruction.

Get your vengeance that way." "He's devoted to their destruction," Jody repeated.

"And they're probably devoted to his. Hundreds against one.

Who do you think is going to win?" "That depends who the 'one' is." She replied, "Exactly." Herbert looked at her. "Touch‚," he said, "but you're still not going." Jody's mouth twisted. She rose and started walking away. "Bullshit. Bullshit!" "Jody, quiet down!" Herbert hissed. "Judy— come back." She shook her head and kept walking. Swearing, Herbert hung up and started after her. As he rolled up the slight dirt incline in a small thicket of trees, twigs cracked behind him. He stopped, listened, swore again.

Someone was coming. Either they'd heard them or had come to check on the police officer. Not that it mattered.

Jody was about twenty yards off and still moving away. He couldn't call to her lest he give himself away. There was only one thing to do.

It was charcoal-gray dark beneath the leaves. Slowly, quietly, Herbert rolled behind one of the trees. He listened.

There were two sets of footsteps. They stopped moving just about where the body would be. The question was, would they continue or retreat?

After a moment the footsteps continued in their direction. Herbert slid his stick from beneath the armrest and waited. Jody's footsteps. retreated to the right. He was frustrated at not being able to call to her and tell her to stop.

He let his breathing fall to his abdomen to relax him.

"Buddah Belly" they had called it when he was in rehabilitation. When he was taught that a man wasn't measured by whether he could walk but whether he could act.

Two men walked past. He thought he recognized them from the van. Herbert waited until they had walked by. Then he quickly wheeled behind the second man, swung his stick sideways, and clubbed him hard in the thigh. The man doubled over. When his friend turned around, his submachine gun at his side, Herbert brought the stick swinging back into his left kneecap. The man dropped faceforward, toward Herbert. Herbert struck him hard on the head. As the first man groaned and struggled to get back to his feet, Herbert hit him on the back of the neck. He flopped down, unconscious. Herbert sneered as he looked down at the two men.

I ought to kill them, he thought, his hand reaching for the Urban Skinner. But that would make him as vile as they were, and he knew it. Instead, he returned his stick to the armrest. Picking up the compact submachine gun, a Czech Skorpion, he set it in his lap and wheeled after Jody.

Even though he rolled as quickly as possible through the blue-black darkness of the woods, he knew that she had probably gone too far to catch. He thought about calling Hausen for help, but who could Hausen trust? According to Paul, the politician didn't even know that his own personal assistant was a neo-Nazi. Herbert couldn't call the police.

He'd killed a man and would probably be hauled off before Jody could be extricated. And even if they were working on the side of the law, what understaffed group of peacekeepers would march into a remote camp of militant radicals at the height of Chaos Days? Especially radicals who had calmly decimated the crew of a movie set.

As he had been trained from his earliest days in intelligence work, Herbert took stock of the things he knew for certain. First, in this situation he could only rely on himself. Second, if Jody reached the camp before him she would be killed. And third, she was probably going to reach the camp before him.

Gritting his teeth against the pain of his bruises, he gripped, his wheels and hurried after her.