He thought of Danton about to be beheaded, saying to his executioners, "Thou wilt show my head to the people: it is worth showing." Yet even if the plant fell, the games would be uploaded and he would be free. He would fall back to one of the many national and international facilities he'd designated as backup sites. His plastics firm in Taiwan. His bank in Paris. His CD-pressing plant in Madrid.

He shut down the TV screens, donned leather gloves, and walked briskly from his office toward the elevator. He was not retreating, he told himself. He was simply moving his headquarters. What a waste, he thought, if this first wild skirmish should claim him as a victim.

The elevator took him to an underground passage which led to the landing field behind the factory. He entered the code in the door at the end. When it popped open, he snatched a New Jacobin pistol from the gun rack, then climbed the steep steps. The LongRanger helicopter was already warming up. Dominique walked along the tail boom assembly, ducked under the spinning rotor blades, and was greeted by one of his official Demain guards, who came running over.

"Dominique, your factory guards are still not involved in this action. What do you want us to do?"

Dominique replied, "Disassociate me from the New Jacobins. Make it seem as if they've come here uninvited to send the foreigners back home."

The guard asked, "How can I do that, monsieur?"

Dominique raised his pistol and shot the guard in the forehead. "By making it seem as if you resisted them," he said as he dropped the pistol and hopped from the boarding step into the cabin.

"Let's go!" he said to the pilot as he entered the spacious cabin. He pulled the door shut.

The flight deck was to his left. The copilot's seat was empty. In the main cabin, there were two rows of thickly cushioned seats. Dominique sat in the first one in front, beside the door. He didn't bother to buckle himself in as the helicopter rose.

The pounding drone of the chopper seemed to rattle away his facade of equanimity. Dominique scowled angrily as he looked back at the bastide. The VTOL had begun to move toward the field from which he'd just taken off. The craft took up a large section of the field as it set down. The NATO soldiers were no longer in the parking lot. Dominique could see flashes of gunfire through the windows and in the compound.

He felt violated. The soldiers were like Visigoths amok in an English church, destroying wantonly. He wanted to scream at them, "This is more than you understand! I am the manifest destiny of civilization!"

The helicopter crossed the river. Then it circled back toward the bastide.

Dominique yelled to be heard over the rotor. "Andre, what are you doing?"

The pilot didn't answer. The chopper began to descend.

"Andre? Andre!"