Hooker’s feet scraped the ground. “You slimy little bastard.”
Saville said, “Cut it out, damn it.”
“Then keep this puking peckerhead off my back, Captain.”
Khang said bitterly, “We get all the breaks, don’t we?”
Saville said, “We’re still alive. Which is more than I’d have bet on this morning.”
“Maybe you got something there, Captain.”
Saville said, “You hear that laugh? That’s the laugh of a man holding a Goddamn gun. Sure of himself — but take that damned gun away, and he won’t laugh so loud.”
Khang said, “They’re telling dirty jokes.”
“Sure.”
Outside, the soldiers’ voices rose and fell. Tyreen said, “What’s that?”
Khang moved toward the door. He listened a moment. “They’ve stopped somebody on the street — they’re questioning him... Now they’re letting him pass.”
The scent of motor grease was thick. Tyreen said, “We’re missing something. Theodore?”
“Beats me.”
Someone started to mutter. Tyreen cruised across the room and knelt by Eddie Kreizler. Saville settled by him. Kreizler’s talk was unintelligible. “Out of his head,” Saville said.
“Quiet him down.”
“I’ll give him a Seconal injection.”
Tyreen moved aside. There was a way. There was something obvious that he had missed. He looked around, peering into deep shadows. One of the soldiers whooped outside. Tyreen made inventory of everything in the room. The greasing pit, the truck, the rusty tools, the old potbellied wood stove, the radio, the demolition equipment, the grenades, the submachine guns.
He stopped in his tracks. “Back up,” he muttered. “The stove.”
He went over to it and struck a match and threw his head back. The stove had a metal stovepipe going up to the roof, an old black metal flue with several loose seams.
“Theodore.”
Saville came around behind the truck. Tyreen’s glance traveled up the stovepipe to the ceiling. “Hole in the roof,” he said.
A wooden square covered the hole; the chimney went up through a circular cut. “We can lift that wood off.”
“It’ll be a tight fit, especially for me.”
“You’ll make it, Theodore.”
“Sure I will.”
“We’ll have to get the stovepipe down without making a racket.”
“That’ll be ticklish, David. I can imagine what that thing would sound like, falling down.”
“A dogfight in an alley full of garbage cans.”
Saville chuckled. Tyreen shook the match out. “Everybody over here, now.”
“Push,” Tyreen said. J. D. Hooker grunted. Saville shouldered against the truck’s fender. The truck slowly rolled backward. “Hold it!” Khang hit the brake and the truck stopped, backed against the stove.
Khang came down. “All right,” Tyreen said. “Up you go.”
Saville got on the tailgate and made a stirrup of his hands. Nguyen Khang scrambled up onto the rear hoop of the tarp frame. Saville’s great hands gripped Khang’s calves, bracing the man’s weight. Khang reached out. He had to lean precariously outward to reach the stovepipe. The match burned down and burned Tyreen’s fingers. J. D. Hooker said, “Here. Use my lighter, Colonel. Not much fluid left in the puking thing.”
The stovepipe projected up through a square of boards. Khang said, “I guess it’s covered with tarpaper and nailed down.”
Hooker held the lower end of the pipe steady. The small yellow flame flickered, turning bluish. Khang worked with a rusty screwdriver, trying to pry the stovepipe out. Saville braced his weight. Presently Khang uttered a sigh and dropped his hands. “Arms get damn tired up there.” After a moment he lifted them again. Tyreen glanced down, and at that moment the lighter went out. “Just as well. It was getting too damned hot to hold.” He had only a few matches left. “Hurry up.”
“Take it easy, Colonel.” There was a metallic crackle, the flue bending back. Everyone froze. Tyreen held his breath and listened.
Nothing stirred. After a long interval, one of the sentries laughed in the street. “All right,” Tyreen said, and lighted a fresh match. “I’ve only got three of these left.”
“I’ve got some,” Saville said. “Be careful, Sergeant.”
“What in hell you think I’m doing?”
Tyreen measured time by the matches he burned. He reached into Saville’s pocket for a matchbook. The floor was littered with burnt matches. Khang said, “God, my arms are tired. I think it’s about ready to bust loose. Somebody catch the thing if I drop it, for God’s sake.”
Saville stood like a heavy machine, supporting Khang’s legs. Hooker waited below the stove, his head far back and his mouth hanging open. Inscrutably patient, Saville stood unmoving, holding up Khang’s weight at a difficult angle.
“I think my arms are falling off,” Khang said.
“Relax a minute, then,” Saville said.
“No — it’s about to come loose. I can feel it.”
Another match. Sulphur was a stink in the air. Tyreen’s lips pulled away from his teeth as though tugged by strings. He sweated and felt dizzy. Saville bulked above him — enormous, silent, unmovable, the great fists untiring. Tyreen heard the soft klink of metal on metal, metal on wood, the creak of nails working loose. There was faint laughter, an echo from the street. “You’d think they’d know each other’s jokes by now,” Saville said. Tyreen’s chest moved shallowly, the cautious breathing of fear.
Khang’s voice came quick and low: “Here it comes.” Tyreen’s cheeks sucked in.
One stretched squeak, and all motion stopped. The soldiers outside still laughed. Khang straightened his back, pulling the chimney and boards toward him in a piece. The stovepipe bent slowly. It began to come apart in the middle. Khang said, “It’s jointed there. Let it come loose. Hooker, hold that stove steady. You want the puking thing to fall over?”
“Shut up.” Hooker braced his arms against the stove. His pendulous mouth hung away from his teeth. In the matchlight, a tide of color turned his cheeks ruddy. The thick muscles of his arms bunched against the sleeves. With a scrape, the top half of the pipe lifted away and Khang stood like a diver ready to plunge down, holding a two-foot square of wood pierced by a black tube of metal.
“Coming down.”
Tyreen lifted a match overhead. The chimney passed down from Khang’s hands to Saville’s to Tyreen’s. The match went out. He laid the stovepipe down. “Don’t step on this thing. Theodore, can you fit through up there?”
“Not without making a racket.”
“Then wait here with Eddie. Cover us from the door.”
Sergeant Khang said, “I’m up here already. I may as well go on up. Somebody hand me my gun.”
“No guns,” said Tyreen. “Go on up.”
“No guns, Colonel?”
Saville climbed down. “You heard him. Quit wasting time.”
Khang grabbed the edges of the hole with his hands. “I hope this old roof holds our weight.” He kicked himself away from the truck. For a moment his legs dangled. Then they pulled up out of sight, and in a moment his face appeared. “Looks safe enough. I can’t see anybody. There’s a parapet, kind of, around the edge. Come on up.”
Tyreen climbed onto the truck. He felt Saville’s arms lifting him up. The square hole splashed sky light in his face. He crawled onto the roof, out of breath, and rolled away from the hole. The roof creaked. Hooker came up through the hole, dragging his gun and a harness full of grenades. Tyreen made motions violently. With a sour face Hooker took the weaponry off and laid it aside. Tyreen moved forward toward the edge of the roof, crawling on his belly. A mountain lifted behind them, but there was no sign of life on it. The gasoline storage tanks still burned on the farther hillside. A thick black roll of smoke hung over the fires. Tyreen could smell it. He reached the edge and snagged himself forward to look down.