Rick Stancell did not think in terms of martyrdom or sacrifice. He had not come to terms with the idea that he was, suddenly, an orphan. There was no place in his mind for an examination of some hypothetical tomorrow: where he might wind up; who might be left among the dwindling stock of relatives to take him in; what would become of his ambitions, college, all the rest of it that added up to some uncertain concept called "the future." There could be no future now. If he disgraced himself and tried to run away, the animals would hunt him down and kill him. If he tried to move against them, they would surely drop him in his tracks, but he could salvage something of his pride, his self-respect, along the way.
No point in thinking of his father. His deep, abiding rage was there to keep him warm, and it would never go away, but Rick was focused on Amy. Her softness and her warmth, one final touch, perhaps a kiss goodbye before he set about his final business with the jackals on the street. Just like the movies. "We, who are about to die, salute you," and the credits roll across an image of a fallen warrior as the world goes up in flames.
He was surprised to find the back door of the hardware store half-open, silence warning him away and simultaneously urging him to enter, have a look inside. The open door was nothing, really. In the present circumstances, it was less than nothing, trivia beneath consideration by the conscious mind. But Amy's parents never left the back door open. Never.
Pushing through as quietly as possible, he closed the door behind him, heard the latch engage. The storeroom was as silent as a church when all the members of the congregation have departed for their homes, a hush that somehow was not reassuring in the least. He listened briefly at the open doorway to the store itself, stepped through... and froze.
He spotted Amy's mother first, a crumpled rag-doll figure to his right, her face averted, wispy hair in back all clotted with blood and something that resembled suet. Stancell felt his stomach lurch again, but fought it down, eyes traveling around the store until they came to rest on Amy's father, sprawled behind the register. The whole top of his head was gone, and there was no need for a check on vital signs.
A moaning, whisper-soft, distracted Rick and brought his heart into his throat. It came from the direction of the rifle rack, which Amy's father kept well-stocked, empty now, together with the shelves that usually supported ammunition boxes. In a flash, it registered that someone had cleaned out the weapons, obviously trying to disarm the town, and then his thoughts were back with Amy, focused on that feeble moan.
He stepped around the counter and the first glance told him everything. Naked, she huddled against the wall, her knees drawn up and encircled by her arms. Her face was hidden, muffling the hollow sound of weeping, but she flinched and screamed out loud as Rick knelt down beside her and rested one hand on her shoulder. It took several moments for the girl to recognize him — one eye was swollen nearly shut from the explosive impact of a fist or boot heel. Blood had dried in abstract patterns on her face, but Rick ignored it, busy helping her to stand, supporting her while she tested her legs to see if she could walk with his assistance. Holding her against him, standing between Amy and the lifeless bodies of her parents, he eventually steered her toward the storage room and found a long smock hanging behind the door. He helped her into it, but Amy folded as he fumbled with the topmost button. He caught her halfway to the floor.
He held her in his arms, and she was feather-light, as if the substance of her soul had already flown. He checked her pulse with trembling fingers, pressed his ear against her lips and held his breath until he felt hers, faint and tickling on his skin. She moaned when he lifted her again, and Rick was thankful for the smallest sign that she was still alive.
The Santa Rosa Clinic was a hundred yards from where he stood, but Rick knew he would make it, as he had succeeded with his father earlier that morning. This time, with a little luck, his trek might not end up in death for someone he loved. This time there might still be a chance.
He carried Amy, and the rage within him had a different thrust, a different focus now. He knew precisely what had happened in the hardware store, what she had suffered — granting that a man can understand the pain, the stark humiliation. He hurt for Amy, for his father and the Grundys, and his burning anger made itself apparent in the tears that streaked his face, the wordless curses that emerged in primal snarls as Rick pushed through the doorway, out into the alley and the noonday heat.
One final stop to make before he doubled back and got his father's pistol at the station. One more stop before he set about exacting his revenge. It might be brief, but it would still be sweet, for all of that. When he was finished — when they finished him — the bastards would be conscious of the fact that someone had opposed them, someone had resisted to the death. It wasn't much, but at the moment it was all Rick Stancell had. And it would have to do.
* * *
Enoch Snyder had been old as long as anyone in Santa Rosa could remember. He had been Old Enoch, since the fifties, maybe earlier. He had been old at twenty-two, when he came home from Tarawa with steel enough inside him to make magnets go berserk, and scars like some demented road map covering his slender frame. At twenty-three, his hair had been snow white, and he had been Old Enoch ever since. A man could only see so much and cling to youth, a solemn fact Enoch viewed with philosophical acceptance, leaving the regrets to others who were cursed with worse misfortunes than himself. He did not really mind the way his body ached all over just before a rain; the rains were few and far between in Santa Rosa, as it was, and he had not seen snow in more than thirty years. At sixty-six, the wiry former Leatherneck admitted that was old now, but he was far from finished.
Those madmen in the street had startled him — with all their guns, and bodies being hauled out of the ambulance that way — but he was not afraid. He knew that he would miss Bud Stancell and their conversations over coffee in the afternoon. Ex-Leathernecks were hard to find these days, and Stancell knew — had known — what it was like to lose your youth inside a foxhole, waiting for the enemy to hit you one last time before the break of dawn. Korea wasn't Tarawa, but hell was hell, no matter where you found it. And if you came out of the flames at all, you were a different man. You came out old before your time, with something hard and cold inside that never really went away. The memory of wholesale killing followed you around forever, waiting on the fringe of your unconscious for a chance to haunt your dreams, but you survived and went about your life as if that frozen part of you inside was still alive and well.
For Enoch Snyder, fear had been erased at Tarawa, blown out of him along with spleen, appendix and eighteen inches of intestine. Having seen the worst that life could offer, having dragged himself away from it and lived to walk again, he knew that fear was nothing more than dread of the unknown. He did not pass his hand through fire or pick up rattlesnakes, because he knew precisely what would happen, but he did not fear tomorrow, either. Having seen and done the worst that man could see or do, he had no tune for fear. He would survive, or he would die, depending on his timing, whether it turned out to be his turn, and in the end, it would not make a bit of difference either way.
But in the meantime he could make the dirty sons of bitches dance a little, yes, indeed.
The M-l rifle was a classic carbon copy of the one that he had used on Tarawa. He had not fired the piece in over seven years, but it was oiled and polished, sighted in and ready. Once a week or so, he took the weapon out and cleaned it, for the practice, for the memories it held. They did not give him nightmares anymore; they were the stuff of Snyder's life, and he had learned to live with them, as he had learned to live with stiffness in one hip, the aches and pains of growing old with bits of shrapnel in your flesh.
His eyes were clear, his vision twenty-twenty, uncorrected, and his hands were steady as he raised the rifle to his shoulder, looped his index finger through the trigger guard and sighted on a mental image of the dark man's face. On Tarawa, he had been taught to kill up close and personal, before the w
orld exploded in his face and he was hauled away for makeshift reconstruction on the mercy ship offshore. How many had he killed before they nearly killed him back? No way to tell, at this late date. In the confusion, with steel and smoky thunder in the air, you killed with the finesse of a demented butcher run amok, and some of those you killed got up a moment later, slashing at your back, your friends, with bayonets and sabers. It's hard to keep a tally when the dead don't die, and all a man can think about is whether he has ammo left to kill again, again, again.
Old Enoch had sufficient ammunition for the job at hand, and no mistake. A thousand rounds of ought-six, eight rounds to a clip, all ready for the big Garand to feed. In Snyder's mind, he could already feel the recoil kicking at his shoulder, rapid-fire reports like thunder in his ears. He had a GI bayonet to fit the rifle, but he would not need it; there would be no place, no time, for any action hand-to-hand. If they got close, if he was still in any shape to notice, he would fall back on his .45 for mopping up. If that was not enough to do the job, or if he moved too slowly, they would kill him, sure, and that would be the end of it.
But not before he made the sons of bitches dance.
He owed Bud Stancell that, at least, and while he never had much dealings with the Grundys, it was wrong for some slick shit to take them out that way. A lesson was required, and Enoch Snyder was the very man to teach it, while he lasted. Enoch loaded the Garand and set its safety, smiling to himself.
A little while, and school would be in session for the grown-ups. He was betting that the class would be a damned sight smaller when the last bell rang, but no one would be bored. Hell, no.
Old Enoch was about to make a cameo appearance in the hottest show around.
14
Rebecca Kent was startled by a sudden rapping on the back door of the clinic. There was something less than fifteen minutes left before the expiration of the stranger's cryptic deadline, and his men were still on Main Street, so it must be someone else. Without a word Bolan faded into an examination room and closed the door behind him. She could almost see him, standing in the darkness of the little cubicle with gun in hand, prepared to kill a total stranger if he was discovered. Strangely, though, his presence gave her comfort, as if he were a living talisman that warded off evil.
More like a lightning rod, she thought, proceeding through her surgery to reach the door, where someone had begun to knock insistently. On second thought, it sounded more like they were kicking at the door. She peeped through the Venetian blinds and was immediately stricken by a sense of deja vu.
Rick Stancell stood outside, a woman cradled in his arms, all swaddled in some kind of pink material. Rebecca threw the door back, motioned him inside and saw at once that it was Amy Schultz. Her face was bruised and swollen, there were other bruises on her legs, and she was obviously naked underneath what seemed to be a smock of some sort, draped around her body like a cape.
"In here," she said, and realized at once that Rick would know the way. It had been — what? three hours — since his father had come through that door in need of help, and now Bud Stancell was a corpse, stretched out on Main Street with the Grundy brothers. In a flash, before she concentrated fully on her patient, Kent had time to wonder what must now be going through the young man's mind.
"Where did you find her, Rick?"
"The hardware store," he grunted, lifting Amy up onto the table, stepping back, as if afraid to touch her now. "Her mom and dad are dead."
Another jolt, but she was getting used to sudden death. "What happened?"
"They hit the store for guns and ammunition," he replied, and there was no need to explain who "they" might be.
"She's fortunate to be alive." And even as she spoke the words, she thought, or is she? Having glimpsed the smear of drying blood on Amy's thighs, she knew the teenage girl had suffered more than just a beating. Sometimes, Dr. Kent suspected — or had once believed, at any rate — survival was the worst of it.
"I need some time alone with Amy, Rick."
"Oh, sure. I've got some business at the station, anyway." His voice was strange, remote and lifeless. Glancing at him now, concerned, Rebecca scarcely recognized the boy whose life she once had saved.
"Rick?"
"Mmm?"
"You won't do anything... well, foolish, will you?"
"No."
"You promise?"
"Sure."
"I'm sure the state police will be here soon."
"Okay."
She was not getting through to him, but Rick was levelheaded, sober, and her more immediate concern was Amy Schultz. The girl was drifting in and out of consciousness, and Dr. Kent was worried that she might have suffered a concussion. Rick was gone before she could come up with any other platitudes to pacify him, and he left a residue of rage behind him, like another living presence in the room.
With trembling hands, she peeled away the smock that Amy wore, examining her briefly for external injuries or any sign of broken ribs. She had been beaten, but her wounds were not on par with those sustained by Bud Stancell. Sated by the act of rape, her tormentors had done a sloppy job of finishing the girl. In retrospect, considering the grim experience she had undergone, the murder of her parents, Dr. Kent could only wonder if the girl would count herself lucky, or cursed.
The memories came back upon her in a sudden, dizzy rush, and for an instant she could almost feel the grasping hands, smell alcoholic breath as she was trapped, surrounded, pinned. She nearly slapped at those imaginary hands before she caught herself, face flushed and short of breath, remembering that it was all behind her now. She had survived — as Amy would survive, God willing — and if she had not exactly prospered, neither had she thrown her life away.
In retrospect, survival was the best that you could hope for in some situations. You survived, by nerve and force of will, and when survival was assured, the danger past, you could start to build your shattered life from scratch. God willing. If you had the strength, the courage to hold on.
Rebecca knew — had known — the Schultzes, as she knew most everyone in town, but Amy was a virtual stranger, never sick enough these past few years to need a doctor's services. Her luck had run out with a vengeance, but Dr. Kent could call upon her own experience to help the girl, at least to some extent. As much as anyone could ever help another person cope with pain that went beyond the physical to scar the soul.
She felt a sudden rush of anger, first at men in general, finally focused on the girl's attackers and upon Grant Vickers, for his failure to control the situation and protect the townspeople. On one level she was conscious of the fact that he was hopelessly outnumbered, powerless to break the siege, yet it was his duty to the people of Santa Rosa and the badge he wore. There should be something he could do, despite the overwhelming odds.
She went to work on Amy Schultz with hydrogen peroxide and merthiolate, attending to the superficial cuts and bruises first, allowing Amy time before she undertook the pelvic work. A few more moments, either way, would scarcely matter now, and it was critical that Amy should not lapse into hysteria, or slip into a catatonic state. The mind was more important than the body at the moment, and Rebecca knew that it could still go either way, depending on the treatment the girl received.
She spoke to Amy, softly and continuously, telling her that it would be all right, the worst was over, she was not alone. Of course, the words were only partly true; in every way that mattered, Amy Schultz would always be alone with her experience, compelled to deal with it in private dreams and waking nightmares. Even with another victim, there were thoughts and fears that never could be truly shared.
But for the moment, having someone close at hand might be enough. At any rate, it was the best that Rebecca Kent could do.
* * *
Grant Vickers pulled his cruiser in beside Rebecca's car as young Rick Stancell left the clinic, double-timing back along the alley toward his dad's garage. Poor kid. He never spared a glance for Vickers, and the constable cou
ld scarcely blame him. Vickers felt about as useful as tits on a bull, and there was no point in reminding himself that he was helpless, outnumbered, outgunned. He had the two-way radio in his squad car, the base station in his office for emergencies, and he had not used either in an effort to obtain assistance. Later, when it came to playing Twenty Questions, he would claim that he was cornered by Rivera's men, ordered to maintain radio silence under threat of death, convinced that outside intervention would precipitate a bloodbath in the streets. It just might work... if there was anybody left to listen.
Gravely worried by the murders of Bud Stancell and the Grundy brothers, Vickers had begun to wonder if it might be too late already. Normally discreet, Rivera did not seem to mind the threat of witnesses this time, as if he had a practical solution already in mind. It didn't take a genius to surmise what that solution might entail: the witnesses from Main Street were as good as dead, but once Rivera started killing, would he dare — or care — to stop? If he was forced to massacre a dozen people, why not raze the whole damned town? And if he leveled Santa Rosa, why would he need the constable alive?
The train of thought was ominous, and Vickers let it go. If it began to look like doomsday, he could always meet with Rivera, let the bastard think he was easy pickings, and then treat him to a magnum-load surprise. It would be suicidal, but desperate cases called for desperate measures, and if it came down to that, his hours would be numbered anyway.
He locked the cruiser then checked it, afraid that someone might attempt to tamper with the radio or lift his shotgun from the dashboard rack. He would be needing both if he decided to defy Rivera, and at this point, even with their past relationship in mind, the constable did not delude himself that he was trusted by the dealer. He was a hired hand, one of hundreds on Rivera's payroll, and he would become expendable the moment that he ceased to meet Rivera's needs. Indeed, he might already be a liability as one more witness to a triple murder, one more target for Rivera's henchmen when they started mopping up. Except that he did not intend to be mopped up. At any rate, he would not go without a fight.
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