Target: Point Zero (33 page)

As strange as it sounded,
that
would be enough for him to die a happy man.

Out on the runway of the huge base, it was obvious great preparations were taking place.

Though it was early morning now, and just two hours before sunrise, there was a lot of activity. Trucks moving this way, airplanes being towed that way. Every light on every taxi strip was at full illumination; even the backup lights were on, as were the blue runway fog lights and the blinking red lanterns that were lit only in times of great emergencies.

Every pilot in the employ of the royal family of Rangoon was on duty—most had been on site for the past forty-eight hours, the guard at all of the main entrances to the bases had been tripled. Tanks had been stationed at most of these checkpoints. Special K-9 squads were now patrolling the perimeters. All civilian access to the base and the city itself had been blocked off.

Just about the only weapons systems not turned on were the empire’s substantial antiaircraft forces. Though the whole region was ringed with SAMs and radar-guided AA guns, none of them were operational at the moment—this, on an order from the Palace Mother herself. There could be no errors—an antiaircraft missile launched by mistake now could prove catastrophic on many levels.

It was no surprise that none of the thousands of Royal Burmese troops or their officers knew what all the activity was about, or what was supposed to happen some time in the near future. They were rarely told what was up as far as the royal family and their activities. They were paid warriors, young, impressionable and for the most part, tight-lipped. They simply carried out orders whenever and wherever they got them.

There was one clue lingering about though, one that many of the soldiers could see. At a juncture of roads which eventually flowed into the main thoroughfare leading to the Kitchen there was a knot of T-72 tanks, backed up by a dozen APCs and another half dozen assorted armed vehicles. All this armor was protecting a rather indistinct-looking truck which was parked at the center of this mobile defense perimeter. This truck, known to all as the
hoochee,
was familiar to the soldiers. It was the same vehicle that showed up any time they got paid—and today was not payday.

The Kingdom of Rangoon was expecting some kind of payment for whatever the hell was going to happen. How large a payment?

Enough for more than twenty-four armed vehicles to be on hand to guard it.

The sound of all this activity wafted up from the huge air base and carried easily over the palace-fortress and into the tower cell currently occupied by Chloe. She was more confused than frightened now. She knew Hunter was close by; she thought Baldi was with him, too. At least they were all together. But what would happen next? Did Hunter have a plan? She couldn’t imagine he didn’t. But what if she had an opportunity to do something, to get them all out of this safely. Should she take it? No matter what?

She lay on the floor of her cell, looking out the skylight. The stars were very bright tonight—it was not too long ago that she was riding up there among them, Hawk at the controls of the big noisy plane, her nose pressed up against the cockpit window. She thought at that moment that she would like to be up there forever, to be as close to the stars as possible. But then she laughed a little at herself.

There was no way
that
kind of dream could come true—how could someone stay up high, dancing in the sky, and be close to the stars for the rest of their lives?

The knock on her door came softly.

Chloe rose to her feet and backed herself against the wall. Who would this be? The guards? The Mother?

The door swung open to reveal the Kid King. He was surrounded by heavily armed soldiers, all of them peering in at her. The kid took a step forward, stopped and then began fidgeting.

“Am I…disturbing you, ma’am?” he asked in a barely audible whisper.

Chloe shook her head no.

The Kid King took two more steps forward. “Can I…I mean, may I talk to you…for a moment?”

“Of course,” she answered sweetly. His chubby cheeks rose into a smile.

With the snap of his fingers, the guards disappeared. The Kid King pulled the door shut behind him and took two more steps inside.

“What’s your name?” he asked her innocently.

“Chloe,” she told him. “What’s yours?”

He shrugged. “I don’t have one,” he replied. “Not a real one anyway. Everyone calls me the Swammi-wan. But that’s not a real name. Like yours.”

He took another tentative step closer. His eyes were now glued on her.

“Why did you come here?” he asked.

She just shrugged and smiled. “It’s a long story,” she replied. “But I can tell you we didn’t come to hurt anybody. Not you, or your family. Or any of your men.”

“That guy,” the kid said. “The one that knows all about the airplanes. Is he famous or something?”

Chloe laughed. “Everyone seems to think so,” she told the kid. “He really would have come back here in his superplane, to show it to you. I know he would have…”

The kid’s features dropped a mile and a half. “I know,” he said. “But my mother. She never lets me do anything.”

Chloe studied the boy for a moment, then motioned him even closer.

“But you own all this, don’t you?” she asked him. “You’re the king, aren’t you?”

“I am the Swammi-wan, yes,” he told her. “But still, my mother is a big nag. I really can’t do much…”

Now Chloe took a step towards him.

“I thought kings could do anything they wanted.”

The kid shrugged nervously. She was so close to him now he was beginning to tremble. She was still wearing her stunning black jumpsuit. But she had long ago cut off the legs to thigh-high, and unzipped the front to halfway down her cleavage. On Chloe, it actually looked stylish.

“Does she let you see your friends?”

The kid shook his head sadly. “I don’t have any friends.”

She moved a step closer. “No friends?” she exclaimed. “Like you mean, you’ve got no playmates? No
girlfriends?
”

The Kid King actually laughed at this one. “My mother would
never
let me have a girlfriend,” he said.

Chloe was right up against him now. She bent forward slightly.

“How old are you?” she asked.

The kid let a tremor go through him. “I don’t even know that,” he admitted. “I suppose I’m fourteen or so.”

She reached over and ran her fingers through his tousled hair.

“Oh, you look twice as old as that,” she told him.

The kid was shaking like a leaf now. His breathing became heavy. He was moving like he had ants in his pants.

“Really?” he asked her, jittery.

She put her arm around him. He felt stiff as a board.

“I admire anyone who is a king,” she cooed. “I know it must be hard work…”

“It is…” the kid said, losing his train of thought as Chloe squeezed even closer to him. His eyes were now level with her chest. He was getting an awesome shot of her left one.

“And of course, a king’s subjects must do whatever he says, that’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yes…” he gulped.

She reached down and unzipped her suit to just above the navel. “It’s so hot in here,” she lied—actually it was quite comfortable inside the cell. “I think if you ordered me to take off my top, I would have to do it, wouldn’t I?”

The Kid King looked up at her, his face a perfect combination of amazement and fear.

“Really?” he gasped. “Do you think so?”

She nodded and snuggled her near-naked breasts right into his plump little face.

“Yes, I think a king should get anything he wants, no matter what his mother or anyone else says,” she told him.

“Me, too,” he breathed, his nose now lost, in her bosom.

“So you could stop a spacecraft from landing here, if you wanted to, right?”

The kid suddenly withdrew and looked up at her. “A spacecraft? Here?”

She looked down at him, still fondling his pudgy ears. “One is coming, isn’t it?”

The kid shrugged—and thought for a moment.

“My mother
has
been talking to some people…” he said with some uncertainty. “It’s all about a special package or something being brought in here. But I don’t know much about it…”

Chloe now grabbed the kid so tightly, he nearly lost his breath. She buried his face even deeper into her breasts, and slowly began grinding his little belly with her hips.

“But whatever this thing is, you could prevent it from coming here, couldn’t you?” she asked him, her voice dripping with sex.

That’s when the Kid King felt his crotch begin to rumble for the first time ever. Finally, he’d caught on.

“I…I can do anything,” he declared, reaching up and at last boldly grabbing her lovely breasts.

She pulled him even closer still.

“So can I…” she whispered softly.

Hunter had almost dozed off when he heard the handle to the cell door begin to turn.

He was on his feet in an instant; Baldi was wide awake now, too. They looked at each other even as the door began to open a crack. What should they do? Jump the guards and attempt an escape? But to where? And what about Chloe?

The massive door did at last swing wide open to reveal a dozen gawky guards outside peering in. They suddenly snapped to attention though, as the dark shadow of another figure fell over them. This person walked into the cell and glowered at Hunter and Baldi.

It was the Kid King’s mother. She looked furious.

“Why did you have to come here now?” she asked them through angry, gritted teeth. “At this time…”

“We meant no harm, my lady,” Baldi tried to explain. “We were just…”

But the woman raised her hands over her head and let out such an ungodly shriek, she drowned out Baldi’s words. Then, suddenly, tears began to flow down her face.

“I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done!” she cried.

With that she snapped her fingers and the guards flooded into the room. Three grabbed hold of Hunter; three grabbed hold of Baldi. They had no choice but to go peaceably.

A minute later, they were being hauled into the court of the palace-fortress. The Kid King was there, as well as twice as many armed soldiers. Each one looked more nervous than the next.

As they’d been brought by the main door, Hunter had been able to catch a glimpse of the nearby air base. The runway was filled with the empire’s collection of MiG-23s and Viggens. Lined up two by two and stretching off into the haze, they were blocking it off completely. What was this all about? Were the airplanes getting ready to take off and provide an escort for the descending Zon? Or was it something else?

Hunter and Baldi were brought up close to the throne, the kid’s mother taking her seat and glaring down at them. The Kid King himself looked almost as confused as before—but oddly, Hunter detected a hint of contentment on his face.

Everything became very quiet. The dozens of soldiers in the hall became absolutely mute. Even the noise from the nearby air base disappeared. Hunter pulled himself up to his full height and stared up at the Mother and Kid team.

The son got to his feet.

“I am letting you go,” he said simply. “I want you to return to your home base and come back, in your super-fighter, just as you promised.”

The kid stopped to take a deep breath.

“And in that time, I will not let any kind of foreign spacecraft land here, until you return…”

Hunter was nearly struck dumb. This was definitely a turn of events he didn’t foresee.

“Will you do this?” the kid asked him.

“I’ll be glad to…” Hunter managed to blurt out, trying his best not to let his astonishment show.

Then he looked over at Baldi. “But what about my friends?”

The Kid King pointed at the Maltese officer. “He may stay or he may go,” the kid said. “Either way, it’s okay.”

Baldi now straightened himself. He couldn’t imagine any circumstance in which he would want to stay in this weird, Oedipus-mad world.

Hunter looked back up at the kid. He seemed to have matured a couple of years in just a couple of hours.

“And my other friend?” he asked gravely.

At that moment everyone in the hall turned eyes right—to the door from which the royal family came and went. Standing there, dressed in a tight, sheer, Asian-style silk gown was Chloe.

She looked beautiful.

“She’s staying here,” the kid declared as Chloe joined him on the throne. “With me.”

Hunter felt like someone hit him in the head with an anvil.

“No…she can’t…” he began to say.

“She will,” the kid told him forcefully, adding: “Besides, she wants to…”

Hunter took a step forward—so did the two hundred soldiers stationed inside the hall.

At that moment, Chloe whispered something to the Kid King. He nodded and allowed Chloe to approach Hunter.

“I’m not letting this happen,” Hunter told her before she could say a word. “I just need a few minutes to figure out how we can all…”

She put her fingers to his lips.

“No, he’s right,” she said. “I
want
to stay…”

That’s when the second anvil came down on Hunter’s head.

He stared at her—he never quite knew what to expect from her. But this?

“Why?” was all he could ask.

“Because, you’ve got a mission to do, and you can’t do it until you get out of here,” she said, very authoritatively. “Now, here’s my chance to make that happen. My chance to make up for all those terrible things I did to you. You know, back in St. Moritz.”

Hunter reached out and clasped her shoulders.

“What terrible things?” He really couldn’t remember.

But she didn’t answer him. Instead she got closer and whispered in his ear. “Just go,” she said. “And don’t worry about me.”

But Hunter knew that was impossible. If he left without her, that’s all he would wind up doing: worrying about her.

“I can’t…” he said defiantly. “Screw the mission. I’m not letting go. Not this time…”

She was right up close to him now, looking deep into his eyes.

“If you really care about me, then you have to go,” she said. “Now. While you’ve got the chance…”

Hunter was shaking with anger and frustration—not the usual state of affairs for him.