by Farris, John
Carol hesitated only an instant, took two quick steps and wrenched the rifle from his hand. He stared at her. "Run!" the General shouted. "Carol, get away from him!" There was fear in his voice and it broke her nerve. She saw a doorway and dodged through it, pausing to slam the heavy door behind her. Sam screamed. She ran witlessly down the red hall, lugging the potent rifle; it didn't occur to her to try to fire it. As she made the kitchen Sam came yelling down the hall. There was an overturned table in her way, then another body, mangled beyond belief. When she reached the second floor Sam was following, three jumped steps at a time. She was too short-winded to outrun him for long: terror cut her flight to a slow, hazy stumble.
The body at the bottom of the stairs stopped her for good, and when she recognized the upturned face she cried out. Sam caught her there on the ground floor and flung her against a brick wall with his good hand. She cowered there. He tugged at the rifle but she was welded to it.
Behind them a door was opened and the light of the moon struck the wall, stopping Sam. He turned. A flashlight beam isolated his face, was reflected in his rounded eyes.
He had only a glimpse of the dark falcon before it spread its wings on the girl's wrist, shrieked at him and launched itself. The hunting bird struck immediately with a sharp curved talon that pierced a transfixed eye and sank deeper still into the brain. It hovered about his head for three swift wingbeats and then disengaged itself and alighted on the railing of the stairs nearby with a gloating hiss. Sam fell heavily forward at the feet of Lone Kels.
"God," she breathed, and turned in the doorway as if to sprint away. But Carol stepped forward, pointing the rifle.
"Wait," she said. "Lone? I don't know anything about guns, but I think I might shoot you if I have to. Do you hear me, Lone? You just wait."
At dawn the dolorous sky had a rusty tinge and there was more rain in the air; a cool wind blew through the lofty branches of the cedars. Special Agent in Charge Robert Gaffney had switched on the heater of the government car as they sat in front of the General's house. There were still half a dozen official vehicles parked in the drive and a good many others had come and gone during the small hours of the night.
"Don't you think I ought to take you home?" he asked Carol.
"Mother has plenty of people watching over her; she'll be all right until I get there." She sipped the black coffee that someone had provided and kept her eyes determinedly on the door. She looked awful, Gaffney thought. There were great tarnished circles under her eyes. Not a dab of color in her face, which resembled a carved bone mask more than flesh. But she had lasted splendidly through the night and too much questioning; he was not about to deny her the satisfaction she might get from a confrontation with Lone Kels.
Within a few minutes the door opened. Lone, platinum, tigerish and poised, came out in the company of two FBI men. She wore handcuffs as if they were high fashion. Carol went to her, a wraith in a baggy trench coat, and they met on the steps.
After a few moments Lone smiled.
"You have to admit," she said to Carol, "that I was awfully good."
Carol said nothing. She trembled delicately. She showed no anger but nevertheless she took a step up and cracked Lone across the face. Neither of the FBI men did anything. Lone just shrugged.
Carol looked curiously at her hand. "I'm sorry," she said.
Lone smiled flippantly. "Don't worry about it." She glanced at the two men and they took her down the steps to one of the cars. Carol stayed where she was, the wind tangling her hair, until Lone had been driven off. Then she came back and got in beside Gaffney.
She sat looking at him as if trying to comprehend something she was never going to get remotely close to.
"I always felt," she said in a small voice, "that Lone had been badly used. And I was sorry for her."
Gaffney saw tears forming in Carol's eyes and he wondered self-consciously if she was going to break down then, as she certainly was entitled to do. But her emotion passed. She clasped her hands primly in her lap, licked at her parched and blood-flecked lips.
"I'd like to see my mother now," Carol said eagerly, and Gaffney drove her the short distance to her home.