Revolution

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Instead of answering, Brasov went forward to the cockpit. Stoner glanced around the cabin. The troops were quiet now, aware they were pursued. “You are full of good ideas, Mr. Stoner,” said the colonel, returning. Then he added, “The Russian aircraft are almost on us.”

“How far is the border?”

Brasov just shook his head.

“I would not ask my men to make a sacrifice I was unwilling to make myself,” said the colonel.

“Neither would I,” said Stoner.

Presidential villa,

near Stulpicani, Romania

2247

ALIN VODA CLUTCHED THE REVOLVER CLOSE TO HIS BELLY

as he went up the open stairs into the back of the root cellar beneath his house. In his years since joining Romania’s government, and certainly in his time as president, he never thought it possible that he would come under this kind of attack. It seemed a fantasy—an evil fantasy, one where the world had turned upside down.

He knew that the guerrillas—the criminals—were evil, but hadn’t allowed himself to think they were this evil.

Hubris. And foolishness.

Someone had killed the lights to the basement area. Voda couldn’t see into the rest of the basement, and in fact could barely see a few feet in front of him.

The gunfire was louder, closer, right above them—that must be a good sign, he thought; the army had finally arrived.

Should he even bother getting the wood he’d come for?

He wanted a piece of the shelves that formed a wall between this corner and the rest of the storeroom. Pulling off a piece, though, would be not be easy.

320

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

He put his left hand out, feeling his way, when light flashed through the basement.

“Oana,” he started to say, calling for the bodyguard he’d left behind, when there was another flash and a loud bang.

The word died on his tongue, his voice stolen by the shock of the sound.

“What?” yelled Oana Mitca.

Before he could answer, Oana began cursing and screaming. Gunfire flashed in the outer part of the basement. There was another flash and Voda felt himself falling, knocked off the slippery stone step to the bottom of the root cellar. He pushed around, pounded on the door.

“It’s me,” he told his wife, lowering his voice to a stage whisper, forgetting that he’d said he would knock in a pattern. “Open.”

The door pulled back. Mircea shined a flashlight on his face.

“I think they’re in the basement,” he whispered.

They slapped the door closed and reset the hatchet blade into the handle, restoring the makeshift lock.

Voda leaned against the door. For a moment, he despaired.

The dankness of the root cellar reminded him of the prison he’d been locked in the first time he played the piano in defiance of the old regime. The thick, musty scent choked him, paralyzing his will, just as it had the first few months he was in jail.

His younger self had been steadied by music. One by one Mozart’s strong notes had returned to his imagination and steeled him for the struggle. But that was long ago.

He’d left music behind, rarely played now, either in real life or in his daydreams, contrary to what those around him thought.

What would save him now?

“Papa, what will we do?” asked Julian.

Voda saw his son’s face across the room, lit by the dim reflection from the flashlight. It was filled with fear, and it was REVOLUTION

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that fear that brought him back from the abyss. In worrying about his son, he remembered how to act.

“You are going to hide with Mama,” he said, springing from the door and moving to the metal trapdoor covering the cistern. “Down into this hole. Both of you.”

“But it’s a well,” said the boy.

“You can hide down there,” said Voda.

“Alin, what if it’s too deep?” asked his wife.

“Come on. Shine the light.” He pushed the metal covering fully aside, then squeezed down. The sides of the hole were slimy, but the stones were spaced far enough apart to let him get a good grip.

There was water four feet down, but it was shallow, less than an inch. The tu

“Mircea, the flashlight!”

She handed it to him. Voda shone it down the tu

Did it lead out? Or was it simply a trap?

Where would you collect rainwater from?

The roof maybe. Gutters. This might just be a reservoir, with no opening big enough to escape through.

Voda tucked the flashlight into his pants and climbed back up.

“Come on,” he told his wife. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t want to die like a rat in a hole,” she said.

There was a burst of gunfire from somewhere above. Voda turned the flashlight back on and saw his son’s eyes puffing up, on the verge of tears.

“We’re not dying.” He picked up the boy. “Come on. Out this way. I’ll be with you.”

Even though it was only four feet, it was difficult to climb down with Julian in his arms. Voda slipped about halfway down. Fortunately, he was able to land on his feet, his back and head slapping against the wall.

Julian began to cry. “That hurt,” he wailed.

322

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“Come on, now,” Voda told his son. “No tears. And we must be quiet. We’re only playing hide and seek until the army comes.”

Mircea came down behind him, then reached back and started pulling at the metal top to the hole.

“I was going back up,” he told her.

“No. We stay together.”

Voda handed her the flashlight, then reached up and put his fingers against the metal strip that ran along the back of the cistern’s metal top. He could hear, or thought he could hear, voices in the basement.

“Come on,” he said, turning to get into the tu

Lined with stone, the tu

“I can stand!” shouted Julian suddenly.

“Wait,” said Voda. Then, as the sound echoed through the chamber, he added, “Talk in whispers. Or better, don’t talk.”

Mircea played the light through the black space before them. They were in a round room about the size of the one they had come down to from the basement. At the far end they found another hole leading upward, similar to the one they had used to enter, though it was about eight feet deep and a little wider. There was a piece of metal on top, again similar to what they’d found in the root cellar.

“Maybe they’re waiting above,” said Mircea.

“Maybe.” Voda climbed up the sides of the well. He thought he knew where he was—the barn about thirty feet from the eastern end of the house, used by the security people as a headquarters so they didn’t disturb the family.

Centuries before, water would have been collected from the roofs of the building, piped down somehow, then stored REVOLUTION

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so it could be distributed from these wells, both in the house and in the barn. The gutters or whatever had fed them were long gone, but the reservoir system remained.

Would they be safer in the tu

He wasn’t sure.

It might be a moot question—the metal panel seemed impossible to move.

He braced himself by planting his shoes into the lips between the stones, then put his hand against the metal, pushing.

Nothing.

“Mama, I need the light!” yelled Julian below.

“Hush. Papa needs it.”

“I think there is another tu

Voda climbed back down. Again he slipped the last few feet. This time he landed on his butt, but at least didn’t hit his head again.