Hartline’s mercs thought that hysterically amusing.
The APC’S and Jeeps were roaring up the small inclines, the ring-mounted .50’s on the Jeeps and APC’S spitting and hammering out death.
Al Maiden lifted his M-16 and shot one machine
gunner in the face. A second later a hard burst from an M-60 spun him around and tore his chest open. He danced grotesquely and then fell to the cool earth, his blood soaking into the ground.
The mercenaries and the IPF troops crested the ridges and were over the top as the troops who had pulled the flanking maneuver sealed off much of the rear escape route. The black troops fought well and bravely, but the better-fed, better-trained and better-equipped IPF and mercs soon overwhelmed the small force on the ridges.
Mark Terry shot the driver of one APC in the head and dropped a grenade into the carrier. The grenade exploded, sending bits of human flesh and brains flying out of the APC. He slashed at Peggy’s ropes, freeing her. He jerked her toward a Jeep, bodily picking her up and throwing her into the back seat. A bullet slammed into the fleshy part of his shoulder, spinning him around and dropping him to the ground. He pulled himself into the driver’s seat with his good arm and jerked the Jeep into gear, racing back to the main encampment, to his command post. But Hartline’s flankers were well ahead of him, and he could see the battle was almost over. Hartline’s men were shooting the wounded in the head.
Cursing, Mark floorboarded the Jeep and headed for the timber. Driving deep into a forest, away from the battleground, he pulled over, off the old dirt road, and switched off the engine.
Mark removed his field jacket and gave it to Peggy. He could see that the woman had been beaten and tortured. Despite that, she was still beautiful.
Mark poured raw alcohol onto his shoulder wound
and bandaged it hurriedly. Peggy crawled into the front seat beside him.
“We’re beaten,” she said flatly.
“Not yet,” Mark said grimly. He slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “Goddamnit!” he cursed. “I just didn’t count on Hartline doing anything like that.”
Her bitter laugh lifted his eyes toward her. “You can count on Hartline doing almost anything,” she told him. “He is brilliantly insane and perversely twisted; and so are a great number of his men.”
“You sound like you know him well.”
The sounds of battle were coming to a close, with only an occasional shot being fired far in the distance. Mark felt like a traitor for running out on his men. But there was still a chance he could regroup some of his people. But it was a slim one and Mark knew it. And he didn’t know if he wanted to see those who refused to fire. He thought he might try to kill them.
The taste of defeat was brass-bitter on his tongue. The word coward kept coming to him.
But Mark knew he was no coward; he had faced too much adversity in his life to be a coward. He just wished he could have done more.
As if reading his thoughts, Peggy said, “That battle was lost before it began back there, and Sam Hartline knew it. Said as much. There was nothing you could have done to change any of it. What is your name?”
“Mark. Mark Terry.”
“I’m Peggy Jones. Yeah, I know Sam Hartline.” The words rolled harshly from her tongue. “I was his … house nigger for a time, reporting back to Lois Peters, and she to the resistance. But he knew what I was doing
all along and the information he gave me was deliberately false. I … got away from him-don’t ask me how-but he finally tortured Lois until she gave away where I was hiding. I can’t blame her for that. He tortured her to death. It was … terrible what he did to her. I will never get that picture of her out of my mind.
“Then,” she sighed, “he had a high old time with me. I… really don’t want to say what he did to me. It was sexual, most of the time. I will never be able to bear children. The IPF people… fixed me.” She lifted her arm and pulled back the sleeve of the field jacket, showing Mark the tattoo on her arm. “Hartline and a lot of his men and the IPF people as well are perverted. They enjoy inflicting pain, and Hartline likes to do it in a sexual manner. And that is all I’m going to say about that.”
Mark touched her hand. “You don’t have to say anything, Peggy. Some of the refugees that came into our area told us a lot about Hartline. What the women said was … sickening.”
Her eyes, filled with the horror of what had been done to her, touched his eyes. “We need to get to a safer place, Mark, and I need to fix up that shoulder of yours.”
Something deep within Mark, something very soft and gentle, moved slightly, touching him in a manner he had never known before. He was unsure of the origin or the meaning. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Right. And … Peggy?”
He looked at him. “Yes?”
“People do adopt kids, you know.”
He put his good arm around her and she put her
ace against his chest and wept.
“Holy Mother of God!” Juan whispered. “That isn’t warfare-that’s evil. his
He stood gazing in disbelief and shocked horror at the line of APC’S coming at them, naked women and naked young boys and girls roped to the front of the carriers.
“Take a look at what is coming up behind them,” a soldier said, his voice hushed with shock in the early morning.
Juan lifted his binoculars to his eyes. After a moment, he lowered them and began cursing, long and passionately, in his mother tongue.
“What do we do, Juan?” The question came out of the knot of company commanders standing behind him. It was a question Juan did not want to hear, but one he knew had to be answered.
After a moment that seemed like an eternity to Juan, he said, “We stop them; we have no choice in the matter.” There was a deathlike quality to his reply.
“Juan, we can’t-was
“Yes, we can!” Juan whirled around, his face tight with anger as he recalled Ben’s words: “If they can’t cut it, Juan, let me have it all up front.” And Juan’s reply now returned to haunt him: “They will do what I tell them to do. They might not like it, but they will do it.”
God, Juan silently implored the Almighty, let my people have the courage to do this awful thing.
“We have to stop them!” Juan shouted the words.
A company commander lowered his binoculars,
tears streaming from his eyes, rolling in rivers down his cheeks. “The little ones are all crying,” he said, his voice breaking under the strain. “The-was
“Stop it!” Juan shouted.
“… Old people are naked and barefooted. Must be two-was
“Goddamn it, fire!” Juan screamed. He looked up and down the line of the first defense. “Fire on them, goddamn you!”
“…Or three hundred of the old people.” The man appeared to be in shock.
Juan slapped the man, the force of his open-handed blow rocking the man’s head back, bringing blood to his lips.
Juan jerked up a rifle, firing at the mercenaries, the IPF, the young and the old. A few more defenders joined him. But most did not. They could not.
The forces, under the command of Colonel Fechnor, drew closer.
Juan’s men began backing off the small ridge, bucking under the awfulness of what lay before them, growing nearer with the screams and cries of the young and the old.
“You have no place to back up to!” Juan shouted at his men.
Over the rumble of the APC’S and Jeeps, the sounds of the children’s weeping drifted to the men on the hill. About a third of Juan’s first line of defense stayed by his side, fighting at his orders. The others drifted back, not out of cowardice, but because they loved life so much they could not bear to fire on the very young and the very old. “Cobardes!” Juan screamed at the backs of his men. “Chacals!” But he knew those men were not cowards or jackals. They simply could not bring themselves to fire on helpless old people and babies.