It annoyed Bale. I was glad; I didn't like him much either.
"You had left the post the preceding day and were proceeding to your headquarters via Stockholm. We had a man on the spot; he kept tabs on you until the shuttle could arrive. The rest you know."
There was a lengthening silence. I shifted in my chair, looking from one expressionless face to another.
"All right," I said. "It seems I'm supposed to ask, so I'll oblige, just to speed things along. Why me?"
Almost hesitantly General Bernadotte opened a drawer of the desk and drew out a flat object wrapped in brown paper. He removed the paper very deliberately as he spoke.
"I have here an official portrait of the dictator of the world of Blight-Insular Two," he said. "One of the two artifacts we have been able to bring along from that unhappy region. Copies of this picture are posted everywhere there."
He passed it over to me. It was a crude lithograph, in color, showing a man in uniform, the chest as far down as the picture extended covered with medals. Beneath the portrait was the legend: "His Martial Excellency, Duke of Algiers, Warlord of the Combined Forces, Marshal General of the State, Brion The First Bayard, Dictator."
The picture was of me.
Chapter 4