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Thick, black smoke hung over the whole area, billowing from truck tires stacked and set afire as makeshift barricades. The smoke mingled with gray wisps of tear gas rising over rock-throwing rioters surging back and forth across the road. Policemen wearing gas masks and carrying nightsticks and Plexiglas shields raced from trouble spot to trouble spot, clubbing protesters away from the buses before they could pry doors or windows open. Trucks waiting to cart off prisoners to the city jail stood empty. Nobody had any time to make arrests. They were too busy fending off total disaster.

Hradetsky swore under his breath. Damn that idiot Gellard and his arrogant masters in Paris! They hadn’t bothered to inform him of their plans until earlier this morning, far too late to put together any kind of coherent crowd control plan. As a result, his first police units hadn’t been in time to stop Eurocopter’s enraged workers from blocking the bus convoy.

Angry shouts, screams, and the muffled thump of more tear gas launchers being fired drifted uphill on the wind. More smoke stained the sky, rising from behind the stalled column now. Rioters had cut off the convoy’s line of retreat.

He turned on his heel and stalked toward the worried-looking officers clustered around his command vehicle. “Radio Kapuvar and tell them we need reinforcements now, not next week! And find out where those bloody water cannon are! We’re running out of other options fast.”

“Your panic may not be necessary, Colonel.” Francois Gellard, the factory’s general manager, folded his arms across his chest. Somehow he managed to look bored despite the confusion spilling over the highway only a few hundred meters away. Two of his own security guards stood nearby, cradling short, compact FA MAS assault rifles.

“And just what the hell do you mean by that?”

The Frenchman smiled thinly and pointed at the western sky. “I’ve already taken steps that should bring this farce to a quick end.”

Hradetsky followed his outstretched arm and saw three black specks on the horizon, specks that took on shape and size as they closed at high speed. Helicopters with Eurocopter corporate markings.

Moments later the helicopters flashed by low overhead and slid downhill toward the highway, rotors howling as they decelerated. Each had its side doors open and men leaning outward over the struggling throngs only fifty meters below.

Moving slowly now, the Eurocopter aircraft flew eastward along the highway, trailing bright white flashes and a rattling, thumping series of ear-splitting bangs as the stun grenades their crews were lobbing exploded on the ground and in the air. High-pitched screams rose in their wake. Policemen and rioters alike were knocked down by the blasts and then trampled as the panicked mob broke and scattered away from the road.

Turbines whining, the helicopters spun through a tight turn and made another pass. More explosions hammered at Hradetsky’s ears. And more men and women were left lying broken and bleeding on the highway.

He whirled round to face Gellard. “You fucking bastard! How dare you order this… aerial massacre!” He stabbed a finger toward the bodies littering the pavement and roadside.

“Calm down, Colonel. Most of those people aren’t seriously hurt at all — simply breathless and stunned.” The French factory manager nodded toward his orbiting helicopters. “In any event, your vaunted police were losing this battle. And my men and machines have won it. I doubt you’ll find very many of your superiors willing to second-guess my actions.”

Hradetsky felt his face grow red with barely suppressed rage. “I don’t give a damn what those toadies in Budapest say or don’t say. You’re operating on my territory now — not your precious factory grounds.”

He moved closer to Gellard, watching as the manager and his bodyguards tensed, obviously unsure of what to expect from this short-tempered Hungarian. “I’m putting you under arrest, monsieur. The charges will include murderous assault on my police officers down there and on other citizens of this district. I will not allow anyone — no matter how powerful — to take the law into his own hands. Not while I command this post.”

Gellard shrugged. “Then you may not command here for long, Colonel.” The Frenchman turned away, more interested in watching the buses carrying his new workers edging their way past abandoned barricades.

Hradetsky swore again and moved downhill, already issuing the instructions needed to bring some kind of order out of the bloody chaos along the highway.

SEPTEMBER 2 — FAX TRANSMISSION, SOPRON POLICE HEADQUARTERS
...

FROM: Ministry of the Interior

TO: Col. Zoltan Hradetsky, Commander, Sopron Police District

1. Effective immediately you are relieved of all duties at your current post. All special pay allowances and cost-of-living adjustments are also revoked.

2. Effective immediately you will suspend all extraordinary investigations or operations, pending arrival of your designated successor.

3. You are strongly reprimanded for your conduct on 30 August. Despite recent worker-related changes, Eurocopter’s Sopron facility remains an important contributor to our nation’s economy. Your unprofessional behavior has jeopardized this vital relationship, and this reprimand will become a part of your permanent service record.

4. Effective 05 September you are ordered to report for duty in the Office of Criminal Records, Budapest. For the purposes of pay and office organization, you will carry the nominal rank of captain — while retaining your existing grade should future assignments warrant it.

Imre Dozsa

Brigadier General, commanding

CHAPTER 3
Sentinels

SEPTEMBER 11 — DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Hydraulics whining, the huge 747 rolled out of its turn and slid downward, thundering low over the green, wooded Virginia countryside. Four thousand miles and nearly seven hours after leaving Great Britain, American Airlines Flight 128 was on final approach to Dulles. Row after row of houses, steepled churches, and flat-roofed shopping malls slipped past beneath the plane’s wings. Many stood empty or unfinished. The world recession had brought even Washington’s suburban sprawl to a grinding halt.

Joseph Ross Huntington III pulled his gaze away from the narrow cabin window and frowned. He saw signs of economic gloom everywhere he looked these days — even on this morning flight from London. More of the airliner’s seats were empty than were occupied, and most of his fellow passengers were weary-looking businessmen. Several years of global trade war had taken their toll. With the nation’s unemployment level locked near twelve percent, few American families had the money or inclination to vacation overseas. Public contempt for “foreigners” was at an all-time high.

Huntington shook his head at that. At least Americans could still put food on their family tables. That made them fortunate compared to most of the world’s population. Africa and both Central and South America lay mired in unpaid debts, deadly disease, utter poverty, and political upheaval. Asia, except for Japan, South Korea, and a few others, wasn’t in much better shape. Even Europe’s proud, industrialized nations teetered on the brink of economic collapse, kept afloat only by frantic government spending, subsidized production, and wishful thinking.

A jarring bounce and the sudden roar of reversed engines interrupted his own depressing thoughts. They were down.

Overhead speakers crackled to life. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Washington’s Dulles International Airport. On behalf of the captain and your entire flight crew…”

Huntington tuned out the standard announcement he’d heard several hundred times before, waiting patiently while the 747 taxied off the runway toward the soaring steel and glass terminal building that was the airport’s trademark. Patience was a virtue he’d been forced to acquire in late middle age, and he still found his willingness to sit calmly somewhat surprising.

Certainly none of his former employees or shareholders would have described him as a patient man. Far from it. They’d have said he was hard-charging, aggressive, and often painfully blunt. And they would have been right.

Business Week had once called him “the CEO with a linebacker’s body, a first-rate mind, and a sailor’s mouth.” Those characteristics had helped him transform his family’s aging, tradition-riddled machine-tools firm into one of the country’s most profitable small corporations. They’d also nearly killed him.

At forty-nine, he’d been a driving, dynamic businessman. But he’d celebrated his fiftieth birthday in intensive care, felled by a massive heart attack brought on by stress and overwork. His recovery had been slow and painful, and his doctors hadn’t given him many choices. Retire immediately or face a likely sudden death. The frightened look on his wife’s face left him with only one real alternative. He’d turned the CEO slot over to his oldest daughter and settled into what he considered slower, quieter pursuits.

Other men in his position played golf or bridge or took up painting. Ross Huntington had other interests. Political interests.

He was one of the first passengers out the jumbo jet’s forward cabin door. Flying first-class had its compensations, and beating the mad rush through carry-on-bag-choked aisles was the one he prized most. That and the extra legroom it offered. At six feet two inches tall, Huntington believed coach seats could only have been designed with midgets and screaming children in mind. Personal wealth let him indulge his height.

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