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"That's from something called The Rite of Spring," he explained. "Becky's real fond of it."
"Glad she's no my wife," muttered Lennox under his breath. "Even if t'lass does look like Cleopatra."
Mackay smiled. He stepped forward, coming alongside Mike at the tent's entrance.
"I'm curious," he said. "Rebecca's been with you lunatics for not much more than a year." Alex gestured into the darkness with his chin. "So how has she managed to learn so much of your music?"
Mike shrugged. "Beats me. Her father helped, of course. Balthazar's gotten to be a fanatic about classical music. Says he's sick to death of stupid lutes." He hesitated, torn between pride and a desire not to seem like a doting husband. But, since he was both proud of his wife—fiercely proud—and a doting husband, the struggle was brief.
"I don't know, Alex. How she managed that, along with all her reading, and everything else? I just don't know." His chest swelled. "The only thing I know for sure is that Becky's the smartest person I've ever met. Or ever will, I imagine."
Mackay nodded. "True enough. Still—"
He froze. "What is that?"
Mike listened, for a moment, to the sound of Leontyne Price's powerful soprano. Then, laughed. "Don't you like it? It's called the 'Liebestod.' By a guy named Wagner."
Alex pursed his lips. "Incredible voice, I grant you." He grimaced. "But it sounds as if the poor woman is dying."
"She is." Mike turned his head, staring at the battlements above. Gaily: "And she takes her sweet time about it, let me tell you."  And so it went, through the night. The program which Rebecca had prepared followed the "Liebestod" with a whole dose of Wagner. She detested the composer, as it happened—as much for the histrionics of his music as for his personal vileness and anti-Semitism. But she thought the music suited the occasion. So, striking their ears like lead mallets, the Spanish soldiers forted up in a German castle were assaulted by the ultimate in Teutonic bombast. "The Ride of the Valkyries" came next, followed by all of the orchestral grandiosities from the Der Ring des Nibelungen: "Entry of the Gods Into Valhalla," "Wotan's Farewell," "Siegfried's Funeral March" and—last but not least—the "Immolation of the Gods."
When it was over, Frank Jackson sighed with relief. "Good thing they lost World War II," he growled. "Can you imagine having to listen to that shit forever?"
Mike snorted. "You think that was bad?" He glanced at the eastern horizon. The first hint of dawn was appearing in the sky. "Try listening to Parsifal, some time."
He raised the binoculars and studied the battlements. They were still shrouded in darkness, except where the spotlights flashed across the walls. There was not a soldier in sight.
"Becky made me do it, once. All five hours of the damned thing."
Jackson frowned. "Why? I thought you told me she hated Wagner."
"She does. She just wanted to prove her point."
A new, very different strain of music came over the loudspeakers. Mike glanced at his watch. "Perfect timing," he said softly. "What the French call the 'pièce de résistance.'"
Frank cocked his ear. "What is it?"
"According to Becky, this piece of music captures the heart of war like nothing else ever composed." Mike stepped out of the tent and strode into the clearing beyond. Seeing Ferrara standing nearby, he signaled with his hand. The former science teacher nodded and turned to his youthful subordinates. Partners in crime, rather.
"Time to start the fireworks, boys." Grinning, Larry, Eddie and Jimmy scampered off, each headed for one of the catapults—and the rocket stands which stood near them.
Mike returned, walking slowly and pausing at every step. He was listening to the music. By the time he got back to the tent, Frank's face seemed strained.
As well it might be. Shostakovich's Symphony no. 8 was well underway now, blasting the horror of a war-ravaged Russia of the future across the war-ravaged land of today's Germany. Stalin had wanted a triumphalist piece, to celebrate the growing tide of Soviet victory over the Nazis. But Shostakovich, though a Soviet patriot himself, had given the dictator something quite different—the greatest symphony of the twentieth century. And if the piece as a whole transcended the year 1943, the third movement did not. It was a pure, unalloyed, cold-eyed shriek. Terror and agony and heartbreak, captured in music.
The first rockets sailed from their launching pads and began exploding over the ramparts. The explosive charges in the warheads were not designed for destruction so much as for show. Instead of splattering the castle with shrapnel, they shrouded the Wartburg with sparkling dazzle. A glaring, flaming accompaniment to the Symphony no. 8—a visual promise, added to a musical one. This is what awaits you, soldiers of Spain.  Dawn arrived, and the third movement screamed into silence. The last rockets flared in the sky.