The Fortress in Orion Read Online Free Page A

to spring me, use my real name.”
    He smiled. “Snake is your real name. Sally Kowalski is just the name the government knows you by.” He looked around the small cell. “You’re the best—or at least you were. There was almost no space you couldn’t slither through, no locked room you couldn’t break into or out of. How the hell did you ever wind up here?”
    â€œI trusted a man.”
    He shook his head. “You should have known what scumbags they can be.”
    â€œAll except you, Nathan.”
    â€œHow come you haven’t broken out of here?”
    â€œSee the sink and the toilet?” she said, gesturing toward a corner. “No metal. Same with the bars, front and back. I don’t even have a hairpin.” She grimaced. “And the cell’s electrified, Damned hard to short it out with no metal.” She pointed to a camera that was mounted in the ceiling just outside her barred door. “Watch.” She walked across the call. The camera swiveled and followed her every move.
    â€œSo they’ve finally build a Snake-proof jail,” said Pretorius.
    â€œOh, I’ll find a way out,” she said. “It’s just taking a little time.”
    He shrugged. “Well, if that’s the way you want to get out . . .”
    â€œYou got a better way?” she asked, suddenly alert.
    â€œIt’s a possibility,” he said. He looked around the small cell. “I don’t know how you keep in shape in a place like this.”
    â€œWatch,” she said, twisting her body in ways he would have sworn no human could bend. “Satisfied?”
    â€œYou’re still the best contortionist I ever saw,” he said.
    â€œDon’t need a whole lot of room to stay limber,” she replied. “Though I probably can’t run a four-minute mile these days.”
    â€œCould you ever?”
    She grinned. “It depended on who was after me.”
    Pretorius laughed aloud. “Damn, I’ve missed you, Snake!”
    â€œEnough to spring me from durance vile?”
    â€œThat’s what I’m here to talk about.” He paused and pulled a small metallic cube out of his pocket. “Activate.” The cube suddenly glowed with power. “Okay, no one can monitor us now.”
    â€œYou mean spy on us.”
    â€œComes to the same damned thing in these surroundings.”
    â€œOkay.” She smiled at him. “Who do you want killed?”
    â€œMaybe no one.”
    â€œRobbed?”
    â€œTry not to get ahead of me,” said Pretorius.
    â€œOkay,” she said. “But every minute you drag this out is another minute I’m stuck in this goddamned cell.”
    â€œYou ever hear of General Michkag?”
    â€œWho hasn’t?”
    â€œWhat would you say if I told you I was putting together a team to kill or kidnap him and put a double in his place?”
    â€œYou know better than that, Nathan,” she said. “They’ll spot him in ten seconds.”
    He shook his head. “Not this one, Snake. He’s a clone.”
    â€œHow the hell did they pull that off?”
    â€œI’ll tell you all about it if we can come to an agreement,” said Pretorius. “I ran all the factors through the computer. It says it’s a suicide mission. It gives us a six percent chance of surviving.” He paused. “But it gives us a ten percent chance of pulling off the replacement before we’re killed. How do you feel about ten-to-one odds against?”
    â€œSounds generous,” she said.
    â€œProbably is,” agreed Pretorius.
    â€œYou think there’s a better-guarded person in the whole damned galaxy?”
    Pretorius shook his head. “I doubt it.”
    â€œI hope they’re paying you a lot for this,” said Snake. “Because right off the bat, you need to buy a computer that can dope out the odds better.”
    He laughed. “So . . . you