The Kremlin File

His laugh was nasty. “No need for that, is there? As for Carter, the colonel would chain me in his place if I lost him.” He shrugged. “For some reason, Jerome is very impressed.”

The girl twisted her fingers together, held them toward the man, moved toward him, supplication and sensuousness in every step.

“Just me then? You and I?”

Lust fit up his face. Without taking his eyes off her, he spoke to our two men.

“One of you stay here, the other take Carter to the cell.”

I had a bad minute while I thought the lieutenant meant to stay with the girl. Then I realized he was sending me below with a single guard. I moved a few muscles as if I liked the idea and would try to jump the guard along the way. I thought Mitzy could handle the officer all right, but there might be a fight, noise, and I didn’t want a fracas to bring in more soldiers. The lieutenant caught my movements, smirked, and decided to go along with me, after all. He started out the door ahead of me and Lambie. Mitzy called after him, sugar sweet.

“Lieutenant... I’ll be waiting...”

He marched down the corridor more jaunty than military. I glanced over my shoulder as we left. The lieutenant’s mind would not be, entirely on duty while he took me to the cell.

At the end of the hall he opened a door, a stone slab, waved us ahead and pulled it closed after him. With that granite shut tight, no sound from the dungeons would be heard above ground. We went down a circular stone stairway to another passage. Down here water dripped from limestone stalactites on the arched ceiling, winking in the light of the officer’s lantern. There was no other illumination. He took the lead again, past about twenty grilled doors on either side of the stinking passage. At the far end he fished a brass key six inches long from a pocket, unlocked the grille and preceded me into the cell.

Dr. Fleming was against the back wall, one knee drawn up, the other leg stretched out badly swollen. He was sitting on the green slime that covered the stone floor, one hand held above his head by a thick iron cuff on a chain stapled into the wall.

He raised his head, blinked against the light, saw me at the edge of it and straightened. Then he saw the guard with the rifle and finally, the lieutenant.

Fleming’s shoulders dropped again and he let his head fall. The officer stood above him, smiling. He unbuttoned his holster, lifted out his gun and stepped aside where he could watch both Fleming and me, raising the gun slowly toward my middle.

“Doctor.” The voice was oily. “Did you hope you had an effective ally on the island? A man who saved you once and might again? I present him to you now. I will leave him with you. After I have assured myself that he will stay here to answer Colonel Jerome’s questions.”

Behind me Lambie’s breath stucked in, loud and wet.

I had several choices: I could step aside and let my man shoot the lieutenant. But the officer might be faster on the trigger and I was becoming very fond of Lambie. Or I could try for a distraction and go for my Luger.

While I was debating a rat as big as a house cat, flushed out of hiding by the lantern, scuffed across the cell, over the lieutenant’s boots. He saw the dark ugly shape from the corner of an eye, jumped away, and shot it. That took his gun off me long enough. Mine was in my hand. I fired through his eye. The lantern sailed into the air. I caught it with my free hand, burned my fingers on the hot globe, but set it down without breaking it. The lieutenant fell on his face, staining the green slime with red.

Lambie made a pleased sound. I was pleased too that my movement hadn’t surprised him, causing him to contract his trigger finger. I gave Lambie a fist of thanks on his shoulder, then we looked to the doctor. Fleming squinted, not yet accustomed to light. He looked up bewildered.

“I don’t understand,” he quavered. “Colonel Jerome asked me to return to lead the government. Why have I been arrested? Why were you brought here? Why are you so friendly with this soldier?”

“Later,” I told him. “We’ll talk about it.”

Both David Hawk and Tara Sawyer had been emphatic about the doctor not discovering that we were involved in his being made president. I cursed them both. After Jerome’s doublecross, I was tempted to tell the truth. But if they were right, if Fleming turned sulky and wouldn’t play any more, who was going to keep the enemy off the island? So I lied my eyeballs off. If I could get Fleming to Noah, maybe the black patriarch could explain things to him.

I pointed to his foot. “How badly are you hurt?”

He still looked puzzled but I wanted him thinking of something other than politics.

He sighed. “My leg’s broken.”

I left Fleming to search the lieutenant’s pockets for a key to the handcuff. It wasn’t on him. I took the lantern to the chain and examined it. I could shoot the chain off, but I didn’t have too much ammunition with me. I might need my bullets upstairs. A shot wasted here could make a difference in whether we made it away from the fort.