"When the guards were helping him down the staircase, be had a convulsion," said Antonia. "It was terrible; they were pulled down with him and were furious. They kept hitting him-and he's in such pain." "They were pulled down... T' asked Bray, wondering, looking at Taleniekov.
The Russian nodded, reaching under his shirt to the belt beneath. He pulled out a gun and shoved it across his legs toward Scofield.
"He fell all right," whispered Bray, smiling, kneeling down and taking the weapon. "You caWt trust these Commie bastards." Then he shifted the Russian, putting his lips close to Taleniekov's right ear. "Everything!s clean. We've got men outside. I've set explosive charges all around the hill. They want the proof I've got; we'll get out." The KGB man once more shook his head. Then he stopped, his eyes wide, gesturing for Scofield to watch his lips.
The words were formed; Pazhar... sigda pazhar.
Bray translated. "Fire, always fireT' Taleniekov nodded, then formed other words, a barely audible whisper now emerging. "Zazhiganiye... pazhar." "Explosions? After the explosions, fire? Is that what you' re saying?" Again Taleniekov nodded, his eyes beseeching.
"You don't understand," said Bray. "We're covered." The Russian once more shook his head, now violently. Then he raised his hand, two fingers across his lips.
"A cigarette?" asked Scofield. Vasili nodded. Bray took the pack out of his pocket along with a book of matches. Taleniekov waved away the cigarettes and grabbed the matches.
The door opened; the guard spoke sharply. "That's it, Mr. Guiderone's waiting for you. They'll be here when you're finished." "They'd better be." Scofield rose to his feet, hiding the gun in his belt beneath his raincoat. He gripped Antonia's hand and walked with her to the door. "I'll be back in a while. No one's going to stop us."
I Nicholas Guiderone sat behind the desk in his library, his large head with the fringe of white hair supporting an old man's face, the pale skin taut, receding into the temples and stretched,. sinking into the hollows that held his dark, shining eyes. There was a gnomelike quality about him; it was not hard to think of him as the Shepherd Boy.
"Would you care to reconsider your schedule, Mr. Scofield?" asked Guiderone in his high, somewhat breathless voice, not looking at Bray, but instead studying papers. "Forty minutes is really very little time, and I've got a great deal to tell you." "You can tell me some other time, perhaps. Tonight the schedule stands." "I see." The old man looked up, now staring at Scofield. "You think we've done terrible things, don't you?" "I don't know what you've done." "Certainly you do. We've had nearly four full days with the Russian. His monologues were not voluntary, but with chemical assistance, the words were there. You've uncovered the pattern of huge companies linked across the world; you've perceived that through these companies we have funneled sums of money to terrorist groups everywhere. Incidentally, you're quite right.
I doubt there's an effective group of fanatics anywhere that has not benefited from us. You perceive all this but you can't understand why. It's at your fingertips, but it eludes you." "At my fingertips?" "The words are yours. The Russian used them, but they were yours. Under chemical inducement, multilingual subjects speak the language of their sources.... Paralysis, Mr. Scofield. Governments must be paralyzed.
Nothing achieves this more rapidly or more completely than the rampant global chaos of what we call terrorism." "Chaos...." Bray whispered; that was the word he kept coming back to, never sure why. Chaos. Clashing bodies in space.
"Yes. Chaos!" repeated Guiderone, his startling eyes two shining black stones reflecting the light of the desk lamp. "When the chaos is complete, when civilian and military authorities are impotent, admitting they cannot destroy a thousand vanishing wolfpacks with tanks and warheads and tactical weapons, then men of reason will move in. The period of violence will at last be over and this world can go about the business of living productively." "In a nuclear ashheap?" "There'll be no such consequences. We've tested the controls; we have men at them." "What the hell are you talking about?" "Governments, Mr. Scofield!" shouted Guiderone, his eyes on fire.
"Governments are obsolete! They can no longer be permitted to function as they have functioned throughout history. If they do, this planet will not see the next century. Governments as we have known them are no longer viable entities. They must be replaced." "By whom? With what?" The old man softened his