Overload

What worried him was the nearness of the explosion. He checked his watch.

Eight minutes to go.

The car stopped, only a few feet from Georgos and Yvette, and a figure got out on the passenger side. As the figure moved forward into the range of headlights, Georgos could see a man in security guard uniform. The guard had a flashlight with a powerful beam which be directed at the fence surrounding the substation. Moving the beam from side to side, be began walking, making a circuit of the fence. Now Georgos could distinguish the shape of a second man-the driver-who seemed to be staying in the car.

The first man had gone part way around when he stopped, directing the flashlight downward. He had found the opening where the fence 1was cut. Moving closer, he used the flashlight to inspect inside the fence.

The light moved over power lines, insulators and transformers, paused at one charge of plastic explosive, then followed the wires to the timing device.

The guard swung around and shouted, "Hey, Jake! Call in an alarm!

Something's funny here."

Georgos acted. He knew that seconds counted, and there was no alternative to what had to be done.

He leaped to his feet, at the same time reaching to his belt for a hunting knife he carried in a sheath. It was a long, sharp, vicious knife, intended for an emergency such as this, and it came out smoothly. The leap had carried Georgos almost to the car. One more pace and he wrenched open the driver's door. The startled occupant, an elderly man with gray hair, also in security guard uniform, turned. He had a radio mike in his hand, close to his lips.

Georgos lunged forward. With his left hand be pulled the guard from the car, spun him around, then with a powerful upward thrust buried the knife in the man's chest. The victim's mouth opened wide. He began a scream which almost at once subsided to a gurgle. Then he fell forward to the ground.

Pulling hard, Georgos retrieved the knife and returned it to the sheath. He had seen a gun in a holster as the guard fell. Now, snapping open the holster, he grabbed it. Georgos had learned about guns in Cuba. This was a- 38 Smith & Wesson revolver and, in the reflection from the headlights, he broke the gun and checked the chambers. All were loaded. He snapped the gun closed, cocked it, and released the safety.

The first guard had heard something and was returning to the car. He called out, "Jake! What was that? Are you okay?" His gun was drawn but he had no chance to use it.

Already Georgos had slipped like a silent shadow around the rear of the car, making use of darkness behind the lights. Now he was down on his knees, taking careful aim, the muzzle of the -38 cradled on his left elbow for stability, his right forefinger beginning to squeeze the trigger. The sights were lined on the left side of the approaching guard's chest.

Georgos waited until he was sure be would hit his target, then fired three times. The second and third shots were probably unnecessary. The guard pitched backward without a sound and lay still where he had fallen.

There was no time, Georgos knew, even to check his watch. He grabbed Yvette, who had risen to her feet at the sound of the shots, shoving her forward as they began running. They raced together down the hill, taking a chance on missing the roadway in the darkness. Twice Georgos stumbled and recovered; once he trod on a loose rock and felt his ankle twist, but he ignored the pain and kept moving. Despite his baste he made certain that Yvette stayed close. He could hear her breath, coming in sobs.

They were a third of the way down when the sound of an explosion reached them. The ground vibrated first, then the sound wave followed -a loud, reverberating cruump! Seconds later there was another explosion, and then a third, and the sky lit up with a bright, yellow-blue flash. The flash repeated itself, then the reflection of flames, from fiercely burning oil from the transformers, lighted the sky. Rounding a bend in the gravel road, Georgos had a sudden sense of something being different. Then he realized what it was: His objective had been fulfilled. All the lights of Millfield were out.

Aware of the urgent need to get clear, not knowing if the security guard in the car had radioed a message or not, Georgos continued running, leading the way.

With relief, and both of them near exhaustion, be found their car where they had left it-in the stand of trees near the foot of the hill. Minutes later they were on their way, headed for the city, with blacked out Millfield behind them.

* * *

"You killed those men! You murdered them!"

Yvette's voice, from the front seat of the car beside him, was hysterical as well as still breathless from her exertion.

"I had to."

Georgos answered tersely, without turning his head, keeping his eyes directed at the freeway which they had just reached. He was driving carefully, making sure to stay slightly below the legal speed limit. The last thing he wanted was to be stopped by the Highway Patrol for some driving infraction. There was blood, Georgos knew, on his clothing from the man he had knifed, and there would be blood on the knife also, identifiable by type. He had discovered, too, that he was bleeding copiously himself-from his left thigh where the wire had penetrated more deeply than he had realized earlier. And he could feel his ankle swelling from when it twisted on the rock.

Yvette whined, "You didn't have to kill them!"

He shouted at her fiercely, "Shut up! Or I'll kill you."

He was thinking back, mentally running over every detail that had happened, trying to remember if there were any clues left behind which would identify either him or Yvette. 'they had both worn gloves at the fence and in laying the charges. He had slipped his off to connect the timer, and later when he fired the gun. But the gloves had been on when he attacked with the knife, so there would be no fingerprints on the car door handle. Prints on the gun? Yes, but be had had the presence of mind to bring the gun with him and would dispose of it later.

Yvette was sniveling again. "That one in the car. He was an old man! I saw him."

"He was a dirty fascist pig!"

Georgos said it forcefully, in part to convince himself, because the memory of the gray-haired man had been eating at him too. He had tried to push out of his mind the recollection of the shocked, open mouth and stifled scream as the knife went in deeply, but be had not succeeded. Despite his anarchist training and the bombings since, Georgos had not killed anyone at close quarters before and the experience sickened him. He would never admit it though.

"You could go to prison for murder!"

He snarled back, "So could you."

There was no point in explaining that he was indictable for murder already-for the seven deaths resulting from the La Mission plant explosion and the letter bombs mailed to GSP & L. But he could set his woman straight about tonight, and would.

"Get this, you stupid whore! You're in this as much as I am. You were there, a part of it all, and you killed those pigs just as if you pulled the knife or fired the gun. So whatever happens to me happens to you. Don't ever forget it!"

He had got through to her, he could tell, because she was sobbing now, choking on words, burbling something incoherent about wishing she hadn't gotten into this. For an instant he felt compassion and a surge of pity. Then self-discipline reasserted itself; he dismissed the thought as being weak and counterrevolutionary. He estimated they were almost halfway to the city, then realized something he had been too preoccupied to take in earlier. The area they were passing through, normally brightly lighted and well beyond Millfield, was also in darkness; even street lights were out. With sudden satisfaction he thought: It meant that the other freedom fighters had succeeded in their objectives. The entire battle, fought under his generalship, had been won!

Georgos began humming a little tune, composing in his mind a communiqué to acquaint the world with one more glorious victory by Friends of Freedom.

3

"When the power failure happened," Karen Sloan said from her wheelchair, "Josie and I were on our way home in Humperdinck."

"Humperdinck?" Nim was puzzled.

Karen gave him one of her warm, glowing smiles. "Humperdinck is my beautiful, beautiful van. I love it so much I just couldn't call it van,' so I gave it a name."

They were in the living room of Karen's apartment and it was early evening in the first week of November. Nim had accepted-after several postponements because of pressures of work-an invitation from Karen to join her for dinner. Josie, Karen's aide-housekeeper, was in the kitchen preparing the meal.

The small apartment was softly lighted, warm and comfortable. Outside, in contrast, most of northern California was enduring a Pacific gale, now in its third day, which had brought strong winds and torrential rain. As they talked, rain pounded against the windows.