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The pri the thin, bluish plu Finally: "I’ll need to consult with my advisers, of course, but I believe the earliest we could prepare and launch the bombardment would be two days hence, on the twenty-second, but perhaps as late as the twenty-third"

"I think that’ll be soon enough," Stefan said with great relief "But no later For God’s sake, sir, no later"

As the woman crouched by the driver’s-side fender of the Buick and surveyed the desert to the north of her position, Klietle of mesquite and tumbleweed She did not see him When she moved to the other fender and turned her back to Klietot up at once and ran in a crouch toward the next bit of cover, a wind-scalloped knob of rock narrower than he was

The lieutenant silently cursed the Bally loafers he earing, because the soles were too slippery for this kind of action It now seemed foolish to have co executives-or Baptist lared off every stone and slope of drifted sand; without the sunglasses, he would not have been able to see the ground ahead of him as clearly as he could now, and he certainly would have put a foot wrong and fallen ain when he heard the woman open fire in the other direction With this proof that she was distracted, he kept going Then he heard screa so shrill and ululant that it hardly sounded like the screautted by another creature’s claws but still alive

Shaken, he took cover in a long, narrow basin of rock that was below the woht He crawled on his belly to the end of that trough and lay there, breathing hard When he raised his head to bring his eyes up to the level of the surrounding ground, he saw that he was fifteen yards directly north of the Buick’s rear door If he could move just a few more yards east, he would be behind the wo faded

Figuring that the other man to the south of her would lie low for a while because he would be spooked by the death of his partner, Laura shifted again to the other front fender As she passed Chris, she said, "Two ainst the corner of the car, she surveyed their north flank The desert out there still seemed untenanted The breeze had died, and not even the tumbleweed moved

If there were only three of them, they surely would not leave one man at the Toyota while the other two tried to circle her from the same direction If there were only three, then the two on her south side would have split, one of the north Which meant there had to be a fourth man, perhaps even a fifth, out there in the shale and sand and desert scrub to the northwest of the Buick

But where?

As Stefan expressed his gratitude to the priot up to leave, Churchill pointed to the books on the table and said, "I wouldn’t want you to forget those If you left theiarize myself!"

"It’s a mark of your character," Stefan said, "that you haven’t importuned me to leave them with you for that very purpose"

"Nonsense" Churchill put his cigar in an ashtray and rose from his chair "If I possessed those books now, all written, I’d not be content to have thes needing improvement, and I’d spend the years i endlessly with them-only to find, upon completion and publication, that I had destroyed the very elements of thehed

"I’m quite serious," Churchill said "You’ve told me that h foreknowledge to suit me I’ll write the reed

As Stefan packed the six books in the rucksack, Churchill stood with his hands behind his back, rocking slightly on his feet "There are so s I’d like to ask you about the future that I’s that are of more interest to me than whether I rite successful books or not"

"I really , sir, but-"

"I know, yes," the prime minister said "I won’t detain you But tellme Let’s seewell, for instance, what of the Soviets after the war?"

Stefan hesitated, closed the rucksack, and said, "Prime Minister, I’m sorry to tell you that the Soviets will become far more powerful than Britain, rivaled only by the United States"

Churchill looked surprised for the first time "That abominable system of theirs will actually produce economic success, abundance?"

"No, no Their system will produce economic ruin-but tremendous military power The Soviets will relentlessly militarize their entire society and eliminate all dissidents Some say their concentration camps rival those of the Reich"

The expression on the prime minister’s face remained inscrutable, but he could not conceal the troubled look in his eyes "Yet they are allies of ours now"

"Yes, sir And without theainst the Reich wouldn’t have been won"

"Oh, it would be won," Churchill said confidently, "just not as quickly" He sighed "They say politics e bedfellows, but the alliances necessitated by war er ones yet"

Stefan was ready to depart

They shook hands

"Your institute shall be reduced to pebbles, splinters, dust, and ashes," the prime minister said "You’ve my word on that"

"That’s all the assurance I need," Stefan said

He reached beneath his shirt and pushed three ti belt’s link with the gate

In what seemed like the same instant, he was in the institute in Berlin He stepped out of the barrel-like gate and returned to the progra board Exactly eleven minutes had elapsed on the clock since he had departed for those bombproof rooms below London