Sarah kept her eyes closed. She could hear Michael breathing, hear Annie snoring a little as she always did. She heard nothing from Millie but had checked a few moments earlier—the girl had always been a sound, unimaginative sleeper.
She was alone in the small tent except for them—except for her thoughts. She kept her eyes closed tight, but could not sleep.
There had been no word through Bill Mulliner—no word of John. She had asked David Balfry and he had promised to put out feelers that very night—to see if her husband had contacted the resistance or if U.S. II knew his whereabouts.
"David Balfry," she murmured.
He was a handsome man, by any woman's standards, she thought.
She wondered why he had smiled at her.
She rolled over, the blankets on the hard, damp ground not so uncomfortable she couldn't sleep—since the Night of The War she had slept under far worse conditions.
She made herself think of the refugees—in the morning, Reverend Steel would be back and she'd begin helping him as a nurse—She couldn't stay forever at the refugee center.
She would take up the search for John if no news came of his whereabouts. She would do that.
John was strong—David Balfry—he was strong, too. She remembered the way his hand had felt. It had been a long time since a man had held her hand like that, no matter how brief.
She closed her eyes tighter, rolling onto her back again. She mentally reconstructed her husband's features. His eyes—they could see through you, she remembered. His forehead was high, but it had always been high, his hair thick, healthy, dark. There had been gray hair on his chest—prematurely gray, she had realized then and told herself now. She thought of the hardness of his muscles when he held her in his arms.
She opened her eyes, staring up at the tent beyond the hazy darkness, the grayness.
"John," she whispered, barely hearing her own words, feeling them more. "I need you. now—"She realized what her hands were doing—and she kept them there, closing her eyes.
Chapter 33
Rourke understood it now—why no one had come in response to the shots.
The chanting and screaming would have drowned out any noise.
The wildmen chanted, men and women, dressed in the same curious mixture of tattered conventional clothing, animal skins and rags.
The shore party Cole had risked did the screaming. Men—all of them hung on crudely made crosses of limbs and scrap timbers—were being tortured in a variety of ways. Pyres were set about the bases of each cross and Rourke watched now as one of the wildmen reached a faggot into the bonfire which crackled loudly in the wind in the center of the ring of crosses, the ring of crucified men and their torturers.
The faggot glowed and sparked in the wind—it was now a torch. , "Holy shit," Rubenstein murmured, Rourke feeling the younger man's breath beside him.
"You might say that," Rourke observed.
"What are we gonna do?" It was Cole's voice, his whisper like a blade being drawn across a rough stone.
"That's an odd question for you to ask me," Rourke noted, not looking at Cole, watching the progress instead of the wildmen who held the torch. "We left one man dead on the beach—well, that isn't really true. We sent his body back with the other two and the two prisoners. And one of your two men was wounded. Now even if Lieutenant O'Neal had his shore party in the boats, should still be ten minutes before they'd even hit the beach. Then another fifteen minutes' climb up here. I'd say that leaves only the three of us."
"The three of us against them," Cole snarled. "You're crazy—there must be a hundred of 'em—all of 'em with guns and more of those damn knives."
Rourke turned and looked at Cole, then at Paul Rubenstein. "I guess that doesn't leave three of us then—'nly leaves two of us. You guard the rear, Cole—your rear. Looks like you're pretty damned experienced at it anyway."
Rourke pushed himself up over the rocks, feeling Cole tug at him. He looked back at the man.
He didn't have to say anything. Paul whispered, "What he meant was—save your ass—seems you got a lot of practice at it."
Rourke finished moving across the rocks, hearing Rubenstein beside him as he slipped down onto the grassy expanse below, hiding in the shadow there while he watched the man with the torch stop in front of one of the crosses. "Ohh, boy,"
he whispered to himself.
Chapter 34
Rourke's left hand snaked out through the darkness, in his right the A.G.
Russell black chrome Sting IA he'd retrieved from the dead body on the beach.
The left hand grasped a handful of hair, jerking the head under it back, the right hand plunging the knife down into the voicebox to stifle any scream. He pulled the knife, then raked it once ear to ear as the body fell back toward him—just in case.
He'd killed the man to avoid having someone directly at his back.
He stepped out of the shadow of the trees now and into the meager glow of the fire, some hundred yards away still from the ring of crosses.
The wildman who held the torch stood beneath the cross of one of the shore party—Rourke thought vaguely—at the angle he wasn't able to be sure—that it was Corporal Henderson.
It stood to reason—make an example of the leader and burn him first.
Considering what Henderson had done, Rourke had at least a twinge,of desire to let the man die. But that wasn't his way—and he knew it wasn't.
Rourke glanced at the Rolex as he rolled back the cuff of the bomber jacket and the sweater beneath it. It had been five minutes—time enough for Paul to be in position on the far side of the ring of crosses. He discounted any help from Cole completely.
It was time.
Rourke started forward, searching his pockets for the Zippo lighter which bore his initials, finding it, lighting the chewed stump of dark tobacco in the left corner of his mouth.
He put the light away, swinging the CAR-forward. While he'd been up in the rocks, he'd reloaded the spent and partially spent Detonics magazines. Counting the six pack, he had twelve magazines, including the two in the guns—seventy-two rounds. He carried six spare magazines for the CAR-, plus the one already up the well—no loose ammo for these. The Python was at his right hip, -grain JHPs loaded, three speedloaders ready, plus the loose ammo in the dump pouches on his belt.
If it took him one shot per man—and woman— around the crosses and they all stood perfectly still while he shot so there would be no chance of a miss, he'd have plenty of ammo to spare.
Rourke smiled to himself—somehow, he doubted things would work that way.
The CAR-slung cross body under his right arm, he stopped walking, less than twenty-five yards from the nearest cross—the one on which Henderson was hung, the one before which the wildman stood holding the torch.
Rourke balanced the rifle butt against his right hip, pulling the trigger once, firing into the air.
The chanting stopped, the screaming didn't.
The faces of the wildmen and their women turned— toward him.
His voice little above a whisper, Rourke rasped, "You can stop all this or you're dead—your play, guys."
That was something else he doubted would work that way.
Chapter 35
"Kill the heathen!"
The man with the torch shouted it, Rourke already lowering the muzzle of the CAR-, his trigger finger moving once, gutshooting the man where he stood.