Sweat broke out anew on his forehead and he wiped it off. Then he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw they were Marines, not Algerians.
The Marines came out of the smoke like specters, their guns blazing as building by building they drove the rebels back. He looked behind him, trying to see the end of the convoy that was lost in the smoke, twists, and turns of the street. The gunfire from back there told him some sort of battle was going on.
He never heard the bullet. One moment he was watching the approaching Marines, the next he was against the cab of the truck on top of a woman crouching there. She eased him off her, ripped her dress, and pressed the simple compress against the shoulder wound.
“Don’t move,” she whispered.
He put his hand over hers and relaxed. “Your powers of persuasion have convinced me, miss.”
All along the convoy, United States Marines hurried the evacuees out of the trucks. Sporadic fire from the buildings tapered off as the Marines did what Marines do best. Dead and wounded enemy soon outnumbered the casualties of the evacuation. Marine fire teams rushed from one building to the next, lobbing grenades into each, and then following the explosions inside with rifles on semiautomatic fire.
Prisoners were not being taken.
The evacuees, most with vacant stares, followed the Marines as they fought through the smoke and smell of battle toward the harbor. Two embassy men helped Paul out of the truck.
Paul looked back to where two Marines crowded around Captain Banks. One shouted for a corpsman, who ran by Paul to jump into the truck. Paul wanted to find out Banks’s condition, but the two men pulled him forward. Paul leaned on them as they started north. He hoped the brave Marine lived. Paul looked up as another formation of helicopters filled with Marines roared past. Well, Algeria, you’ve done it. You’ve unleashed the Pandora’s box of America’s might.
Those were not frightened faces on the Marines hurrying by him toward the sounds of battle at the rear of the convoy. They were angry faces.
Determined faces. Faces of America’s youth.
Paul fell forward. The two men grabbed him before he hit the pavement.
As Paul faded into unconsciousness, the thought came to him that America had arrived and it was angry.