Sarah put her head down and tried to calm herself. She had left Maria alone for no more than ten minutes and now she lay dead at the feet of those bastards. Strong, brave Maria. If she hadn’t taken the time to relieve herself, she may have been right there on the ground beside her, just as silent and still. You’ve still got a job to do. Sarah took in one deep breath, letting out all the fear and sadness along with it. These bastards deserve to die! She returned her focus to the scene, drawing on the long hours of training Hiram had put them through.
The sergeant was armed with a pistol, holstered at his hip. The other two men had rifles. She longed for an M22 assault rifle, but the handgun would have to do.
The two men searching the house emerged onto the front porch and all three of the policemen in the yard turned in that direction. Sarah fired.
From a distance of almost twenty meters, she aimed for center of mass, hitting the policemen nearest Tony in the back. He screamed as he crumpled to the ground. Sarah shifted her aim to the second rifleman and fired again. The heavy slug caught him in the shoulder, spinning him around as he fell. His spin revealed more information on her hiding place than the nearly silent shots she’d fired. The policemen on the porch fired in her general direction and she scrambled farther under the wagon. She lifted her head in time to see Ricardo lunge at the sergeant, knocking him to the ground. Both men wrestled for control of his pistol. Without a clear shot, she shifted her fire to the men on the porch.
Tony grabbed the nearest fallen policeman’s rifle and aimed toward the two surviving officers, adding his fire to Sarah’s. One man was hit and the other dove for cover. Sarah returned her attention to the struggle between Ricardo and the police sergeant. Ricardo had lost, he lay dying in the dirt. The sergeant pointed his pistol at Tony. Tony faced the porch, rifle still pointing toward the falling policeman on the porch. Sarah and the sergeant fired at almost the same instant.
19
1410 hours, Tuesday, August 4, 1942, southwest of Monda, Costa del Sol, Francoist Spain
Pasqual drove too fast for the dirt track, but not fast enough for Sarah’s liking. Tony groaned as the truck hit another bump in the mountain road. Every little movement aggravated the bullet buried deep in Tony’s shoulder, and while the magical foam in her medical kit had stopped the bleeding, he needed expert medical care, and needed it soon. She’d given him as much pain killer as she dared, fearful of a fatal overdose. The stout vineyard owner, Pasqual, had directed them to a trustworthy doctor in the town of Monda. But Monda waited fifteen kilometers in the wrong direction, away from the sea and the boat that would carry them to Gibraltar, along a route riddled with police patrols and roadblocks. Sarah regretted not taking the time to bury Maria, but Tony still had a chance and she feared he might die of shock or infection without help.
Peeking between the crates, she could see Pasqual’s wife Josefa following them in another truck, that one carrying most of the family’s possessions. Pasqual and Josefa planned to flee into the mountains after finding the doctor, their cover compromised. The family vineyard would likely be confiscated by the government.
“Bloody hell,” Tony said as the truck jostled around another sharp turn.
“How are you feeling?” Sarah said.
“How much farther?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“I don’t know. Not far.” I hope. The truck eventually slowed, and Sarah stole another glance between the orange crates. They had entered a village. Two more quick turns, and the trucks came to a halt. Between the three of them, they managed to carry Tony through the backdoor of what she presumed to be the doctor’s office. She was disappointed to see they had entered a storeroom instead. At least there was a cot, and they laid Tony down on it.
“Wait here, I bring doctor,” Pasqual said, then turned and left via the room’s front door.
“And I watch trucks,” Josefa said. “Street urchins steal everything.” She left through the door they had entered, leaving Sarah alone with Tony.
“Do you think he’ll come back with the doctor?” Tony clutched his wounded arm.
“Yes. If they wanted to abandon us, they’d have done it at the vineyard,” she said. The heat in the small storeroom seemed to grow more intense as they waited. Sweat beaded on Tony’s forehead. Sarah wet her kerchief with her canteen and mopped his brow, letting a little of the cool water trickle into his hair. Tony relaxed a little despite his suffering.
They waited about fifteen minutes, an eternity in the closed-in space. Pasqual returned with the doctor, a plump middle-aged man a head shorter than Sarah. As the medic bent to examine Tony, Pasqual turned to her and said, “We leave now. The Policía look for the trucks. Ve con Dios.” Go with God◦– a sentiment she learned from Maria. He left before she could reply.
Tony winced as the doctor pulled the bandages back from his shoulder. The doctor talked to Sarah, but she couldn’t understand the blur of Spanish that came out of him. He pointed at the wound, touched the foam that had bubbled up out of the hole in Tony’s shoulder.
“Clotting foam,” she replied.
Tony took hold of the doctor’s hand and said something back to him. His version of Spanish barely resembled the doctor’s language. The short man winced as Tony talked, as if struggling to understand. The doctor looked at the wound again and then back at Sarah.
“Wait outside,” Tony said right before he moaned in agony. “Go,” he hissed.
Sarah reached for her pack on the floor next to Tony’s cot, except it wasn’t there. She looked around the small room, bent and peered under the cot. Not there. Where the hell is my pack?
“It’s on the truck!” Sarah sprinted out the back door where they had come in. The trucks had pulled away. Her backpack, medical kit, handgun, and Icarus drone were gone.
She ran down the road in pursuit. “Pasqual!” She cried. “Josefa!” The trucks kept moving. For a few minutes she watched them, not sure what to do.
Cursing, she ran back to the storeroom. Inside, Tony lay still on the cot with his eyes closed. The doctor’s fingers explored his shoulder determining the extent of the damage. “Dormido, no muerta.” Tony let out a breath.
Sarah sat down on a crate next to the door. She pulled up the sleeve of her shirt, revealing the C2ID2 strapped to her forearm. She tapped a few icons and cursed again. Pasqual’s truck, and her backpack, were six kilometers away and travelling at nearly fifty kilometers per hour. Soon it would be out of the C2ID2’s range. She activated the self-destruct menu, entered the code Hiram made her memorize on the walk to Catalonia. Sorry Pasqual. I hope you and Josefa survive this. She tapped the activation icon. The sound of the explosion disrupted the doctor at work. He looked at Sarah and shook his head. After a few heated words, all unfamiliar to Sarah, he returned his attention to Tony’s wound.
The doctor removed the bullet from Tony’s shoulder, along with a small patch of clothing carried into the wound by the bullet. The cloth and the bullet sat on the cot next to Tony’s limp body. He doused the wound with sulfa, packed it with a poultice soaked in honey, bandaged the wound, and then placed Tony’s right arm in a makeshift sling. Tony had passed out sometime during the process. The pain killers Sarah had given the pilot had worked well enough to get him here, but the pain induced by the doctor’s poking and prodding had been too much. She doubted he’d wake any time soon.