Shock Warning

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

If there really was such a thing as a controlled purple rage, thought Mlle. Derrida as their plane taxied along the runway, Emanuel Skorzeny was managing it. The news of Amanda Harrington’s defection had not surprised her in the least. She had warned him, but he would not listen. Men were such fools around women, which is why she could never love a man.

She sat near him, in case he wanted company. The 707 was always ready to leave at a moment’s notice, and everything went smoothly. All they had to do was file a flight plan and get landing permission from the Iranian authorities and they were on their way. It cost one of Skorzeny’s shell companies a fortune to keep his personal plane in a constant state of readiness, but what did it matter? He could just manipulate another currency or indulge in some other arcane aspect of international high finance and the expense would be covered.

“Don’t say anything,” he said to her.

“I didn’t.”

They flew in silence for a while. Maryam’s computer lay closed on the table in front of him. Mlle. Derrida wished she had a book.

“Confound your damnable silence,” he said.

She took that as a cue. “Would you care for some music, sir?”

“When I want music, I shall ask for it.’

“Then what do you want?”

“I want your opinion.” That almost never happened.

“May I ask in regard to what, M. Skorzeny?”

“Regarding what? Regarding what just happened? How did she do it? Why? I am both troubled and puzzled at the perfidy of women, Mlle. Derrida.”

“You know what they say, sir — the only thing that men and women can agree on is that neither sex trusts women.”

“In that case, I cannot understand your, how do they say these days, your ‘sexual orientation.’ ”

Emanuelle Derrida laughed. “I make love with them,” she said. “I didn’t say I trusted them…. Do you have a plan, sir?”

“ ‘We,’ Mlle. Derrida. Do ‘we’ have a plan is the question. And the answer is, yes, we do.”

She wasn’t sure if she liked hearing that. M. Pilier had met his untimely end the last time Skorzeny had had a plan. From what she’d heard of that event, she was quite sure she didn’t want to come up against either the man or the woman when someone’s life was on the line — in this case, hers.

“My arrangement with Col. Zarin was simple — Miss Harrington was to deliver the lady in Tehran. What happened to the lady after that was none of our concern. In exchange, we were to be given access to the Iranian nuclear program’s first live-fire test.”

“What?” asked Mlle. Derrida. This was the first she had heard of that.

“You do understand that what we have been doing with the laser projections, through our contacts in CERN in Switzerland, was simply prologue. The Iranian government needs a bit of theater, a pretext, in order to proclaim the Coming of their Mahdi, and that is what we have provided them. Conflict on a global scale, all for the nugatory price of a little technology and a piggyback ride on the comatose clods at NASA. If America wishes to abdicate its role in space, there is certainly no reason for others not to take advantage of it.”

He drummed his fingers lightly on top of Maryam’s computer. “Consider this. I know he gave it to her. I know it represents the very latest in NSA communications and analytic software. I know it is a poisoned gift, and he knows that I know it. He knows that the word for “poison” in German is Gift. He suspects, but cannot be sure, that I won’t care, that I will somehow find a way to use his own weapon against him — that I am, in short, smarter than he. Which is, in fact, true.”

“If you’re so smart, sir,” observed Mlle. Derrida, “then why is Maryam presumably free and Miss Harrington fled?”

He glared at her with those basilisk eyes. “That is not a question I wish to entertain at the moment, Mlle. Derrida,” he said. “Now, if I may continue with my ruminations… what if I activate this computer?”

“It might blow us out of the sky,” she said.

“Correct. But the Iranians don’t know that. Should I come to Iran, filled with apologies over Miss Harrington’s unconscionable treachery, and bring with me this splendid piece of NSA intellectual architecture, do you not think they would be appreciative?”

“Will you warn them, or just let them blow themselves up?”

“Appropriate, if somewhat vague, caveats will be given, of course.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir. So what is the plan? If I am to be there with you, I feel I have the right to—”

“You have the right not to ask questions, and to absorb any information I choose to give you. But since I require your assistance beyond your usual capacity, this is what we are going to do.” He explained in as little detail as he could. Then he said:

“From there we journey to the Holy City of Qom, where we will witness a very great miracle — provided by me of course. But that miracle will come only after we herald it with another miracle, this one in New York. They are related, you see, all the signs and portents. The Last Trump shall sound, and the world will be the better for it, if less populated when all is said and done. And I shall be infinitely richer and, may I say, happier. My life’s work will be fulfilled, and although I have absolutely no intention of dying anytime soon, I shall be able to die happy when the appointed hour and place comes.”

“Your own appointment in Samarra.”

“I will have her back. Do you understand me? I will have her back. Her place is with me. She knows that. I know that.”

Mlle. Derrida decided to ignore that. “Where will we go? After… whatever it is that is going to happen.”

“It is enough for me to know. Now, leave me, for I need to ponder all these things in my heart, as the Bible says.”

“The Bible was talking about Mary, sir.”

“Precisely,” said Skorzeny, signaling for some music and closing his eyes.

She knew just the thing. After all, they were going to the ancient land of Zoroaster.

A minute later, the plane filled with the sounds of Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra.