Gideon turned his head, and saw the wreckage of the helicopter. It had collapsed partially, its tail dangling like a broken tree limb, flames licking from the inside, casting a deathly rose glow over the area around him.
He looked the other way, and saw that one of the helicopter blades had impaled itself as far away as the split-rail fence.
In the air above the farm, silent to Gideon's blast-numbed ears, he saw a trio of helicopters hovering above the house and the barn. As he watched, he saw men dropping down from the bellies of the choppers on black rappelling lines.
Gideon saw Volynskji and three other guards rise from the snow at the edge of the clearing. They were turning to face the woods.
Volynskji yelled something.
Gideon couldn't hear what it was above the sound of his own pulse. The guards raised their weapons and fired at something that Gideon couldn't see.
Another helicopter swept in from the woods. This one narrower than the others, with a cannon slung under its nose. Gideon saw the flash of the cannon, and the ground around Volynskji's guards erupted in a dozen explosions of snow and dirt. Only one or two shots hit Volynskji, but they were enough to tear his body in half.
Gideon gasped, and felt himself growing light-headed. He tried to keep pressure on the hole in his side, but he couldn't keep himself from blacking out.
The explosion shook the walls of the barn and set the hanging fluorescents swinging. D'Arcy turned toward the noise. That meant he also turned toward Ruth, who was in the process of bringing the keyboard down on D'Arcy's head.
D'Arcy saw Ruth and brought the gun around to bear on her. Ruth had too much momentum going for her to stop now. All she could do was try to shift the trajectory of the keyboard so it intercepted D'Arcy's gun. She shifted too late.
She watched D'Arcy's finger tighten on the trigger. Then, suddenly, Julie was there between them, grabbing D'Arcy's gun arm.
There was a gunshot as the keyboard struck D'Arcy's left shoulder, far away from the gun and Julie. Keys flew everywhere, some bouncing off the lights above with a dull metallic noise.
Julie slid to the ground by D'Arcy's feet, and D'Arcy just stared at her, as if he wasn't quite sure what had happened.
"You bastard!" Ruth said the words hard enough to sear her throat. Anger burned her as she bent for her sister, and she didn't know if it was anger for D'Arcy, at herself, or at Julie for such a stupid move.
Ruth knelt and rolled Julie over so she could see her face. Blood was everywhere. The bullet had entered her chest and hadn't come out. D'Arcy stared at both of them, a dumbfounded expression on his face.
"This wasn't what. . ." His voice trailed off.
Ruth was crying. "No." The word was ashes in her mouth. She gripped Julie as if she could keep her here by force.
Julie raised a hand to Ruth's where it gripped her shoulder. Ruth's hand was shaking, its knuckles white, and Julia stroked it. "You cared about me, whatever I did—you shouldn't have . . ." Julie coughed, blood flecking her lips.
"Quiet. Save your strength." Ruth pulled her hand away and moved to put pressure on the wound. Ruth let out a shuddering half-gasp, half-sob when she felt the sickening sensation of Julie's breath through the hole under her hands. "We'll get you to a hospital," Ruth said, talking fast, to her or Julie she wasn't quite sure. "You're going to be all right. You have to be. I can't lose you again— Damn it, think of what'll happen to Mom!" She was yelling now, the explosion still going on, a roaring in her ears.
D'Arcy was backing away from both of them, holding the gun leveled at Ruth.
Julia's voice was shallow and wheezy. "This was inevitable—"
"Damn it, you can’t!" Ruth gripped the wound until both her arms were shaking, trying to hold it all in even though everything Julie was seemed to be leaking through her fingers.
Julie smiled, her expression was peaceful. "After this, there's nothing left for me to do. . ."
Julie's face went slack, the eyes staring at something only they could see. Ruth tried to press harder on the wound, as if she could push the life back into her.
"No, damn you. Damn you!" Ruth looked up at D'Arcy, her face smeared by tears and flecks of Julie's blood.
D'Arcy wasn't looking at her. Ruth realized that he heard the roaring as well, the sound of a helicopter. More than one. The sound of gunfire, too.
Ruth heard the sound of someone coming through the door in front of the barn. She couldn't see it from where she knelt, hands still clutching Julie's wound. D'Arcy turned toward the door, gun still in his hand.
The intruders never gave him the chance to bring it to bear. In the act of turning, D'Arcy was riddled with gunfire coming from the door. The impact spun him around in a complete circle until he fell, face-first onto the floor, knocking one of the floor panels askew. He lay, unmoving, half in the hole it made.
The sound of booted footsteps closed on her, and Ruth tried to shrink in on herself, as if she could curl into a ball around Julia's body and disappear completely.
Then two soldiers were standing above her, their goggles and Kevlar helmets making them seem like alien creatures. Ruth looked up, expecting them to raise their guns and finish the job that D'Arcy started.
Instead, one of the men knelt, looked at Julie, and raised a walkie-talkie to his face and said, "We need a medic in the barn. We have another civilian casualty."
The soldier looked at Ruth, took off the helmet and the goggles, and said softly, "Don't worry, madam; we'll get you out of here."
One hour and forty-five minutes after it began, it was over. Senator Tenroyan was watching as the Arrival and Departure screens flickered on the cryptic, alien message, then suddenly resumed normal operation. In a moment the screens were filled with flight numbers, gate numbers, and times—quite a few highlighted red for delayed or canceled flights.
Within moments, computers that had been the subject of some strange possession resumed normal operation, all as if nothing had happened.
3.09 Thur. April 2
RUTH stepped out of the car after him and said, "You should still be in the hospital."
Gideon grunted. He was on crutches again. This time, he had severely sprained his ankle, and his body ached where the doctors had removed a six-inch piece of helicopter shrapnel from his side. He felt like hell. But that wasn't going to stop him from testifying.
"I've got to do this," he told her. Her expression showed she expected nothing different.
The press were on them in moments, and Ruth had to help run interference for him. The reporters shouted now-familiar questions—
"Are the rumors true that you were working undercover for the FBI?"
"How does it feel to be the cop to blow the biggest spy scandal since the Aldrich Ames case?"
"Is it true that President Rayburn is offering you a position in the next Administration?"
Ruth led Gideon through one of the ground-floor entrances into the Capitol Building—the presence of the metal detector effectively gave them a respite from the reporters. Gideon didn't know what to make of his change in fortune. The way the Rayburn Administration was spinning D'Arcy's fiasco had the side effect of turning Gideon into some sort of national hero.
He shouldn't complain, since now that the ever-pragmatic D.C. city political machine had decided that he was an asset, they had called off Magness and Internal Affairs. Even so, Gideon didn't think he liked it.
They walked down the halls toward the committee chambers, their progress slowed by Gideon's crutches. On the way, when they finally seemed to have some privacy to talk, Ruth said, "I still can't believe it."