But when they got back to the trucks, the position of the sun, seen through scudding cloud, said it was only noon. There were no Russians returned.
The guard got into the driver’s seat of their cab and began to sort out the presents he had bought. Bittie, almost engulfed by the huge Psychlo passenger seat, closed the window against the chill wind and dead flying leaves and sat there impatiently twiddling his new riding crop and looking out the window, his eyes just above the level of the bottom, keeping watch for the rest of the Russians.
From where he sat he could see a side entrance to the capitol building. There was a big executive ground car sitting there with blacked-out windows.
Suddenly he saw Sir Jonnie! There he was, dressed as usual in buckskin, unmistakable. He walked out of the side entrance of the capitol. The door of the executive ground car was swung open from inside and Jonnie got into it.
Bittie scrambled to get down the window and shout. He got it open partway. He couldn’t get it all the way down.
Then somebody else came out of the capitol, somebody dressed like a cadet. A plaster cast around his neck. This second person stopped and called back into the capitol stairway where somebody must have asked a question.
The man in cadet clothes yelled back, “He’s just going down to the compound first to pick up his horses.” Then he too got into the ground car and it started up.
Bittie was wild! He hadn’t been able to get the window down and call to Sir Jonnie. Get the horses! That was why he was here, what he’d come all the way to America to do!
He tried to get his guard to just start up the truck and follow. But Bittie’s command of Russian was not up to it. Gestures and motions and repeating the sense of what he was saying got no place. This Russian was not about to go after that executive ground car. He was here to wait for the rest of the contingent.
But Bittie got him out of the cab and they went sprinting around looking for the rest of the Russians. Minutes went by and they couldn’t find them. This ruined city was too big, too spread out, too filled with rubble.
Suddenly they spotted one Russian. He was walking along the edge of a park by himself, eating some nuts he had bought. He was a man named Amir, and he had no reputation for being quick in the wits, although he was a nice fellow.
Bittie reeled off the situation to him, using gestures and a Russian word he did know, Skahryehyee! meaning “Hurry up!” and trying to get the man to understand he was to find the others and tell them to come along right away.
He was not at all sure the man got it, for he looked blank, but the action was enough to convince Dmitri that it was now all right to follow the ground car so they got back to the truck and the Russian started it up, and they went roaring out of the city to catch up to the vehicle Bittie had seen Jonnie enter.
7
Lars Thorenson had taken every precaution. He had gone over it very carefully. If there was no public display of arms and guards, while making sure that this Tyler was thoroughly covered at all times by adequate weaponry, then no alert would go out and no misguided friends of this felon would come pouring around to rescue him.
Lars had left guards in the car, had let no other Brigantes appear on the streets or openly in corridors, had sent word to the commando now posted at the compound to keep out of sight but ready, and not to shoot unless attacked.
He had a little surprise for this Tyler at the compound, but all should go smoothly and well. He thought even Hitler would have approved of the tactical skills Lars was displaying. They would pick up the horses, drive up through the pass to the meadow, order this Tyler to go into his own house, and that would be that. The scourge and menace to the stability of the state would be ended. Thoroughly and with no blame at all to the council.
The day had gone gray. The sun was more and more overcast. The wind was picking up and billows of dust and clouds of dead grass were running before the approaching storm.
Lars’s driving was not all that good to begin with, and gusts were buffeting the ground car, swerving it from already badly chosen courses. He was not driving fast.
Jonnie was considering his chances. He had no idea they intended to let him out of this alive, for all their smooth assurances. What point of that plaster cast, if hit, would finish the job of breaking this traitor’s neck? How familiar were these two evil-smelling Brigantes with a Thompson submachine gun?
The weapon, deadly though it was, had been obsolete for a century at the time of the Psychlo attack. It fired pistol ammunition that was too heavy for a hand-held automatic weapon and caused it to kick upward furiously so that you had to hold the muzzle down with great force. These weapons they had were not equipped with “Cutts Compensators” that used some of the muzzle blast to help hold down the upward kick. They were loaded with sixty-shot drums and the springs of those drums were often weak and failed to feed. A certain percentage of the very ancient ammunition failed to fire and one had to know the trick of recocking rapidly to keep the gun shooting on automatic. Jonnie knew these things for he had fired a lot of practice rounds with them when Angus had first dug them out of the old camion where they had lain through the ages, protected by heavy grease and airtight ammunition packaging. But did the Brigantes? Probably they had fired a few rounds with them, the first firing of powder missile weapons they had ever done in their lives. The improbable and rapidly discarded ploy had occurred to him to talk to them about the weapon, and then take one to explain a fine point and blow their foul matted heads off.
Unless he thought of something, this was going to be his last ride. It was in Lars’s manner. It was in the looks the Brigantes gave him. They were very, very confident.
The compound appeared in the distance ahead of them. There was some stock scattered about in the plains. Lars narrowly avoided a group of buffalo, dodged a scrub tree, nearly dumped them in a gully, jolted them over some boulders anyone who could drive would have avoided, and finally halted about a hundred feet short of the beginning of the rise that ended in the plateau near the cage.
It was not as close to the compound as Jonnie had expected them to stop. And then he saw the reason for it. The ground, aside from some boulders, was open, and a man trying to run away could be cut down.
There were his horses, three of them standing with their heads away from the wind. Where was Dancer? Then he saw her. She was up on the plateau and she seemed to be wearing a lead rope, not too unusual. She wasn’t facing away from the wind. What was that? Ah, her lead rope was caught in some rocks. Just beyond her was a large boulder, and beyond that the compound itself offered numerous points of cover for a marksman as they had learned to their concern in the old battle here. Jonnie looked at it through the windscreen. What was this, some kind of ambush or trap? Where one expected some cadet sentries, there wasn’t a soul in sight.
Now Lars chose his moment to spring his little compound surprise. He had read in the works of Hitler—or was it Terl?—“If you want someone to remain inactive, crush their hope. Then guide false hope into a new channel where you can finish them off!” It was an extremely wise military maxim.
Lars, lolling easily now over the console, said, “You know that battle plane, the one with the serial ending in ninety-three that was parked and refueled just inside the hangar door? I’m sure you know the one I mean. Well, it isn’t there anymore. The fuel was removed from it and it was put way back in the hangar out of sight this morning.”
So that was why Angus and Ker didn’t stop when they left, thought Jonnie. They saw no battle plane and thought he had flown safely away. This accounted for no one’s showing up to trace him. Well, he hadn’t expected any help anyway. And it was a very good thing they had not walked in on these nervous Brigantes and their submachine guns.
The traitor let him digest the surprise and then said, “But we won’t be riding horses to the meadow. I will go down to the garage and get a stake truck and we can load the mounts in and I might even be persuaded to let you drive up into the mountains.” He h
ad no intention of doing that. But it was a good false hope. In fact, masterful! Hitler—or was it Terl?—would have approved. “You can get out and start collecting the horses. The two Brigantes here will keep you covered.”
Lars got out and jogged off in the direction of the garage entrance on the other side of the compound.
Jonnie was pushed out with gun muzzles and he stood on the left side of the car, a Brigante on either side of him with their guns on him and fingers on the trigger. He was studying the apparently unpeopled compound. Was this the assassination area?
8
Jonnie heard the rumble of a truck above the wind. He looked to the north. An empty truck was approaching at considerable speed, the occupants of the cab invisible to him in this light. From behind that truck to the horizon in the north it was only empty plain, no other vehicles.
He heard another rumble. A plane? He spotted it in the east, approaching slowly just below the overcast. Only a slow-flying drone scanning for its endless millions of pictures.
Well, no real help was coming from those directions. He was on his own. The truck, now quite near, was probably one of theirs and part of this snare.
Jonnie looked back at the compound. He had a feeling of watchful eyes and danger there.
The two Brigante guards were on either side of him about a pace to the rear. They seemed to be watching this new truck. That they held guns was masked from the truck’s view by the ground car’s bulk.
The huge vehicle roared on by them on the other side of the ground car. It went a short distance up the rise toward Dancer. It stopped suddenly, banging to earth in a cloud of dust as its suspension drive cut off.
Somebody leaped down through the dust from the eight-foot height of the cab floor and began to run up the slope toward Dancer.
Jonnie couldn’t believe his eyes.
It was Bittie MacLeod! He was carrying something in his hand. A crop? A switch?
“Bittie!” shouted Jonnie in alarm.
The boy’s voice floated back to him, carried by the wind: “I’ll get the horses, Sir Jonnie. It’s my job!” Bittie was racing up on the hill.
“Come back!” shouted Jonnie. But the throb of the drone and a rumble of thunder in the mountains drowned his voice.
The Russian had had trouble getting his truck level. It had tilted on a boulder. But now he flung open the door and shouted toward Bittie, “Bitushka! Astanovka! (Halt!)” A sudden spurt of wind and the drone muted his words. “Vazvratnay! (Return!)”
The boy ran on. He was almost to Dancer to free the lead rope.
“Lord God, Bittie, come back!” screamed Jonnie.
It was too late.
From behind a boulder, just beyond the horse, a Brigante stood up, raised his submachine gun, and fired at full burst directly into the stomach of the running boy.
Bittie was slammed back, pummeled by bullets that drove his body into the air. He crashed to earth.
The Russian was running forward, trying to unsling the assault rifle from his back, trying to get to Bittie.
Two more Brigantes rose into view in different places and three Thompsons roared. The Russian was cut to pieces.
Jonnie went berserk!
The two Brigante guards stood no chance. With one backward stride, Jonnie was behind them. He sent them slamming together like egg shells.
He caught the gun of one as that Brigante went down and stamped his heel into the side of the mercenary’s skull, crushing it.
He reversed the gun and battered the other Brigante with bullets from a range of three inches.
Jonnie dropped on one knee, turned the Thompson on its side so its kick would fan the bullets, and blew the two last Brigantes who had risen to bits.
He spun to find the one who had shot Bittie. That one was not in sight.
Five Brigantes rushed from a door in the compound and sent a hail of lead in his direction.
The Thompson he had used was jammed. It would not recock. He threw it down and picked up the other one.
Totally unmindful of the slugs ripping up the ground, running low and firing as he went, he raced forward toward the fallen Russian.
He knelt behind the body, turned the Thompson on its side, and fanned a storm of bullets into the five. They crashed back against the compound, bodies jerking as a second spray of slugs hit them before they could even collapse.
Jonnie got the assault rifle off the Russian and yanked its slide to get a bullet in the chamber.
He was after the Brigante who had shot Bittie.
To his left and behind him eight mercenaries who had been lying in wait in the ravine rushed into view.
Jonnie whirled. Then he stood there braced until the last one was out of the ravine.
They came on firing. Jonnie raised the assault rifle to his shoulder and took careful aim. He shot the last in the line first so the others would not see him go down and then fanned a barrage of shots from there to the first one in the lead.
The squad came sprawling forward in an avalanche of dead men.
Down in the garage, Lars heard the firing. He sprinted up toward the plateau. Then he heard the assault rifle’s sharper bark racketing against the compound. Instantly he knew that Jonnie was not dead. No Brigantes had assault rifles. This intermediate ammunition, halfway between a pistol and a rifle, was far more accurate than a Thompson. He knew. He had tried to get some and he could not. He halted.
There was another prolonged burst from the assault rifle. The heavier staccato thud of the submachine guns had dwindled. Lars suddenly hit upon a better course of action for himself.
He scuttled backward into the garage. He sprinted into its depths. He found an old wrecked car and he crawled under the heaps of damaged body plates stripped from it. A far-off hammer of the assault rifle again. He burrowed deeper, sobbing with terror.
Jonnie raced over to the side to get a view behind the boulder, still trying to nail the mercenary who had shot Bittie.
A group of Brigantes sprinted into sight on the other side of the compound, firing submachine guns as they came.
Jonnie braced himself on a rock, fired over its top and riddled them.
Terl in his cage had dropped down below the parapet that held the upright bars, lying flat to be out of the path of bullets. He raised himself cautiously now. It was the animal! He ducked back. At any moment now he supposed the animal would charge over here and riddle him. It’s what Terl would have done. He wondered whether he could get to the hidden explosive charge in the cave and make a grenade out of it, and then he saw he would expose himself if he did so and abandoned the idea. He lay there, panting a little in fear.
Taking advantage of trees and boulders, running from one to the next with deadly purpose, Jonnie was still trying to get the Brigante who had shot Bittie.
The wind was rising. Thunder was sounding amid the gunfire. The slow-flying drone was very near overhead now.
Where, where was that Brigante?
Two mercenaries jumped into view in a door and bore down on him with Thompsons. A bullet flicked the side of his neck.
Jonnie pounded them into rolling balls of dead flesh with the assault rifle.
He snapped in a fresh magazine from the bag. The ape he was looking for must have taken refuge back of a wrecked tractor. Jonnie probed it with bullets fired to ricochet behind it.
Running, he rushed it, firing as he went.
There he was!
The Brigante ran away. Jonnie sighted in on him. The Brigante turned and started to shoot.
Jonnie sliced him in two with the assault rifle.
The sound of the drone grew less. There was no thunder at the moment. Save for the moan of the wind it seemed strangely quiet.
Jonnie put another magazine in the assault rifle. He quickly walked over the ground, glancing at one or another of the strewn dead.
A mercenary was crawling, trying to get his hands on a Thompson. Jonnie put a burst into him.
He waited. There seemed to be no sound
or movement in the area that would be dangerous.
Dancer had broken free in the firing and fled down the slope.
Jonnie held the assault rifle ready in the crook on his arm. His battle rage died.
He went down the slope to Bittie.
9
The little boy lay on the bloodstained ground, his head back and in the direction of the lower slope.
Jonnie had been certain he was dead. Nobody could take that many submachine gun slugs in the middle of his body—and a small body—and live.
He felt awful. He knelt beside the torn boy. He was going to pick the body up and he put his hand under the head and lifted it slightly.
There was a light flutter of breath!
Bittie’s eyes trembled open. They were glazed in shock but they saw Jonnie, knew him.
Bittie was moving his lips. A very faint whisper of a voice. Jonnie bent closer to hear.
“I . . . I wasn’t a very good squire . . . was I . . . Sir Jonnie.”
Then tears began to roll sideways from the boy’s eyes.
Jonnie reacted, incredulous! The child thought he had failed.
Jonnie tried to get it out, tried to speak. He couldn’t make his voice work. He was trying to tell Bittie, no, no, no, Bittie. You were a great squire. You have just saved my life! But he couldn’t speak.
The shock was wearing off in the boy; the numbness that had held back the pain vanished.
Bittie’s hand, which had risen to clutch Jonnie’s wrist, suddenly clenched bruisingly in a spasm of agony. The body did a wrenching twist. Bittie’s head fell to the side.
He was dead. No heartbeat. No breath. No pulse.
Jonnie sat there for a long time, crying. He hadn’t been able to speak, to tell Bittie how wrong he was. He was not a bad squire. Not Bittie. Never!
After a while, Jonnie picked the boy up in his arms and went down the hill. He laid the body very gently on the seat of the ground car.
He went back and picked up the dead body of the Russian and carried it to the car and put it in.
Windsplitter had seen him from a distance and came up, and the other horses, over their fright now, approached.