Games of State

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

There were ten closed-circuit surveillance cameras tucked two-atop-two in a closet in Dominique's office. Before the building had begun to rumble, he was sitting in his leather chair, calmly watching the activity in the corridor and in the computer room.

The stupidity of these people, he'd been thinking as he watched them break into his system and find themselves cornered. Dominique would have been content to let them go if they hadn't gotten pushy and broken into his secret files. Ms. Bosworth didn't have that degree of skill, so it had to have been the other man who did it. Dominique hoped that man lived. He wanted to hire him.

Even when the French commandos closed in on the New Jacobins in the corridor, Dominique wasn't concerned.

He had sent word for other men to surround them. He had made certain that fully half of his hundred New Jacobins would be on the premises tonight. Nothing must go wrong with the downloading of his games.

Dominique wasn't concerned about anything until the building began to shake. Then his high forehead wrinkled and his dark eyes blinked, batting away the reflection of the TV screens. Using the control panel built into his top desk drawer, he switched to external views of the compound. On the river side the black-and-white screen was awash with white light. Dominique turned down the contrast and watched as an aircraft settled down, its navigation lights burning brightly. It was an airplane whose engines had tilted into the vertical so it could descend like a helicopter. The parking lot had cars scattered here and there so the aircraft was unable to land. As it hovered fifteen feet up the hatch opened. A pair of rope ladders were unwound and troops climbed down. NATO troops.

Dominique's mouth tensed. What is NATO doing here?

he roared inside, though he knew the answer. It was a newly defined mission designed to get him.

As twenty soldiers fell in on the asphalt of the parking lot, Dominique rang Alain Boulez. The former Paris police chief was waiting in the underground training area with the reserve force of New Jacobins.

"Alain, have you been watching your monitors?" "Yes, sir." "It appears NATO has nothing better to do than to attack member nations. See that they are turned back and notify me aboard Boldness." "Absolutely." Dominique called his Operations Director. "Etienne, what is the status of the uploading?" "Concentration Camp is finished, M. Dominique. Hangin' with the Crowd will be out there by midnight." "I need it faster," Dominique said.

"Sir, this was preset when we hid the program in—" "Faster," Dominique said. He switched off and punched up the pilot of his LongRanger helicopter. "Andre? I'm coming down. Ready Boldness." "At once, sir." Dominique clicked off. He stood and looked out at his collection of guillotines. They appeared ghostly in the glow of the TV screens. He heard one gunshot, then others.

He thought of Danton about to be beheaded, saying to his executioners, "Thou wilt show my head to the people: it is worth showing." Yet even if the plant fell, the games would be uploaded and he would be free. He would fall back to one of the many national and international facilities he'd designated as backup sites. His plastics firm in Taiwan. His bank in Paris. His CD-pressing plant in Madrid.

He shut down the TV screens, donned leather gloves, and walked briskly from his office toward the elevator. He was not retreating, he told himself. He was simply moving his headquarters. What a waste, he thought, if this first wild skirmish should claim him as a victim.

The elevator took him to an underground passage which led to the landing field behind the factory. He entered the code in the door at the end. When it popped open, he snatched a New Jacobin pistol from the gun rack, then climbed the steep steps. The LongRanger helicopter was already warming up. Dominique walked along the tail boom assembly, ducked under the spinning rotor blades, and was greeted by one of his official Demain guards, who came running over.

"Dominique, your factory guards are still not involved in this action. What do you want us to do?" Dominique replied, "Disassociate me from the New Jacobins. Make it seem as if they've come here uninvited to send the foreigners back home." The guard asked, "How can I do that, monsieur?" Dominique raised his pistol and shot the guard in the forehead. "By making it seem as if you resisted them," he said as he dropped the pistol and hopped from the boarding step into the cabin.

"Let's go!" he said to the pilot as he entered the spacious cabin. He pulled the door shut.

The flight deck was to his left. The copilot's seat was empty. In the main cabin, there were two rows of thickly cushioned seats. Dominique sat in the first one in front, beside the door. He didn't bother to buckle himself in as the helicopter rose.

The pounding drone of the chopper seemed to rattle away his facade of equanimity. Dominique scowled angrily as he looked back at the bastide. The VTOL had begun to move toward the field from which he'd just taken off. The craft took up a large section of the field as it set down. The NATO soldiers were no longer in the parking lot. Dominique could see flashes of gunfire through the windows and in the compound.

He felt violated. The soldiers were like Visigoths amok in an English church, destroying wantonly. He wanted to scream at them, "This is more than you understand! I am the manifest destiny of civilization!" The helicopter crossed the river. Then it circled back toward the bastide.

Dominique yelled to be heard over the rotor. "Andre, what are you doing?" The pilot didn't answer. The chopper began to descend.

"Andre? Andre!" The pilot said, "You told me over the phone that you followed all my moves. But you missed one. The one where I came up to your pilot and hit the poor fellow with twentyfive years of anger." Richard Hausen turned and regarded Dominique. The Frenchman felt ice shoot down his back.

"I took off to make room for the other craft," Hausen said. "Now you're going back, Gerard. Back twenty-five years, in fact." For a moment, Dominique considered an appropriate response. But only for a moment. As in Paris those many years ago, the idea of debate was pushed aside by the stench of Hausen's sanctimony. Dominique hated it. Just as he had hated it when Hansen had defended those girls.

Losing control of the delicate balance between danger and need, between reason and desire, Dominique threw himself at Hausen with an inarticulate cry. He grabbed the German's hair from behind and pulled his head back, over the seat.

Hausen screamed as Dominique yanked down hard, trying to break his neck. The German released the control stick and began clawing at the Frenchman's wrist. The chopper nosed down instantly and Dominique fell against the back of the pilot's seat. He released Hausen, who was thrown against the systems display.

Groggy, his forehead bloodied, the German struggled to get his bearings. Pushing off the windshield, he managed to find the control stick.

The chopper came out of its dive. As it did, Dominique slid around the pilot's seat. The headphones had fallen to the floor and he picked them up. With an eye on the control stick, Dominique slipped the cord around Hausen's neck and pulled tightly.