NightScape

A crate lay on the cobblestoned courtyard. It was wooden, eight feet long, four feet wide. The Great Man squinted at it. His gaunt cheeks rippling, he clenched his teeth and nodded in command. Six soldiers stepped forward, three on each side, and hastily lifted the crate. It tilted. Something inside thumped.

"Gently!" His Excellency ordered.

Straining with its bulk, glancing fearfully toward the shots that approached the heart of the city, the soldiers slid the crate inside the truck. One yanked down a section of the tarpaulin. Another raised the creaky back hatch. The Great Man himself snapped the lockpins into place.

"Your Excellency, please! We have to go!" the bodyguard implored.

An explosion shook windows.

The Great Man seemed not to have heard. He continued to stare at the truck.

"Your Excellency!"

The Great Man blinked and turned toward the bodyguard. "Of course." He sca

"But Your Excellency, aren't you coming with me?" Carlos asked.

Racing, the Great Man shouted back. "No! Separately, we have a greater chance of confusing the rebels! We have to mislead them! Remember, Carlos! On your life!"

With a final look at the truck, the Great Man surged into his limousine, guards charging after him. As the car roared out of the palace courtyard, speeding southward from the direction of the attack, Carlos felt suddenly empty. But at once he remembered his vow. "You heard His Excellency! We must go!"

Men snapped to attention. Carlos scrambled into the truck. A sergeant slid behind the steering wheel. The truck raced eastward, a jeep before and behind it, each filled with soldiers clutching automatic weapons.

They'd gone five blocks when a rebel patrol attacked. The front jeep blew apart, fragments of metal and flaming bodies twisting through the air. The truck's driver jerked the steering wheel, skidding around the wreckage. Gunfire shattered the windshield. Glass showered. The driver gasped, his brains erupting from the back of his skull. While the truck kept moving, Carlos lunged past the shuddering corpse, shoved open the driver's door, and thrust the dead sergeant onto the street. The body bounced and hit a wall. Stomping the accelerator, Carlos rammed through a wooden barricade, gripping the steering wheel with his right hand while using his left hand to fire his pistol through the shattered windshield.

He and the remaining jeep swerved around a gloomy warehouse, raced along the murky waterfront, and screeched to a stop beside the only ship still in port. Its frightened crew flinched from nearby gunfire and scurried down the gangplank toward the truck. They yanked the crate from the back. Again something thumped.

"Gently!" Carlos ordered.

Heeding the nearby gunshots more than his command, they dropped the crate on a sling and shouted orders to someone on deck. A motor whined. A derrick raised the crate. A rope broke. Carlos felt his heart lurch as the crate dangled halfway out of the sling. But it kept rising. He held his breath while it swung toward the freighter and slammed onto the deck.

An explosion followed a moment afterward as, a block from the freighter, a building erupted in a thunderous blaze. The freighter's crew raced up the gangplank, Carlos and his men rushing after them, the gangplank begi

Already the freighter was moving. Scraping from the dock, it mustered speed. Ghostly reflections from the fires in the city guided it toward the harbor's exit.

Carlos barked orders to his men-to remove the tarpaulins from the fifty-caliber machine guns at the bow and stern. As they armed the weapons, he tensely watched the freighter's crew repair the sling and lower the crate through an open hatch. Sweating, he waited for the shout from below that would signal the crate's safe arrival in the hold.

Only then did he feel the ache of tension drain from his shoulders. He wiped sweat from his brow. The first stage of his mission had been completed. For now, he had nothing to do except wait until he reached his next destination and then wait again for further orders from his Excellency.

Behind him, a woman whispered his name.

"Maria?" He turned.

Beaming, she hurried toward him: short, with ebony hair and copper skin, handsome more than beautiful. Her pregnancy emphasized her stocky build. Her strong-boned features suggested faithfulness and endurance.

They embraced. During the previous hectic week, Carlos hadn't seen his wife at all. Despite his devotion to the Great Man, he'd felt the strain of being separated from her – a strain that must have shown, for the Great Man had finally told him to send Maria a message asking her to meet him on this freighter. Carlos had been overwhelmed by the Great Man's consideration.

"Is it over? Are we safe?" Maria asked.

"For now." Carlos kissed her.

"But His Excellency didn't come with you?"

"No. He plans to meet us later."

"And the crate?"

"What about it?"

"Why is it so important that you had to bring it here under guard?"

"His Excellency never said. I would never have been so bold as to ask. But it must have tremendous value."

"For him to entrust it to you, to ask you to risk your life to protect it? By all the saints, yes, it must have tremendous value!"

Maria gazed worshipfully into his eyes.

At three a.m., in a cabin that the Great Man had arranged for them, Carlos made love to his wife. Hearing her moan beneath him, he felt a pang of concern for his benefactor. He prayed that the Great Man had escaped from the city and would contact him soon. His wife thrust a final time against him and went to sleep with a patient sigh as if proud that her marital duty had been accomplished.

Obedience, Carlos thought. Of all the virtues, obedience is the greatest.

At dawn, he was startled awake by a soldier pounding on the cabin's door. "Rebel boats!"

"Maria, stay here!"

The two-hour battle was fierce, so much so that Carlos didn't realize he'd been wounded in his left arm as he ma

The freighter, too, sustained damage. But the rebel boats were repelled. The crate was protected. The mission continued.

As one of his men bandaged his bleeding arm, Carlos ignored the throbbing pain, concentrating on a message that the radio operator had given him. His Excellency had escaped from the city and was fleeing through the mountains.

"May God be with him," Carlos said.

But the radio operator looked troubled.

"What is it? What haven't you told me?" Carlos asked.

"The boats that attacked us. I monitored their radio transmissions. They knew His Excellency was in the mountains. They knew before they attacked us."

Carlos frowned.

The radio operator continued. "If they knew His Excellency wasn't on board, why were they so determined to attack us?"

"I have no idea," Carlos said.

But he lied. He did have an idea.

The crate, he thought.

In the hold's fish-stinking darkness, Carlos aimed his flashlight toward the wooden planks that formed the crate. Pensive, he walked around it, examining every detail. A bottom corner had been splintered – not surprising, given the rough way the crew had brought it aboard. But fortunately no bullets had pierced the wooden planks. He leaned against a damp bulkhead and stared in puzzlement at the crate.

What's in it? he wondered.

Twenty minutes later, while he continued to stare at the crate, a crew member brought a radio message.