Part 12 (2/2)

My second shot either nicked the guy on the right, or came close enough that he changed his mind about going ash.o.r.e. He turned, waving frantically for the boat, which was backing away. The man at the controls threw the engines ahead again. I put a bullet through his winds.h.i.+eld but he was brave; he kept coming to the rescue of his embattled comrades. I threw a shot at the man on the left, missing by about three feet, but he didn't like the sound of it ricocheting off the water; he turned back, too.

Hartford was yelling at them angrily. He might be a fairy-although that wasn't proved-but he had guts enough to keep coming until it became obvious that he was also a general without an army. Then he stood there and gave me a burst from his weapon for effect, before he turned back and waded out and was hauled aboard the boat by his friends, who'd negotiated the cruiser's high bow faster than you'd believe it could be done. The steersman threw his engines into reverse again, and the boat slid back out of pistol range.

I said to Carol, ”We'd better find a place to make ourselves comfortable. Having tried a head-on a.s.sault and been driven back, the enemy will now regroup his forces and advance systematically from the flanks..

There they go. One guy on the point to the right, two on the point to the left, converging towards the middle, us. That's what we call strategy, sweetheart. How do you feel?”

”Scared,” she said frankly. She stood up, brus.h.i.+ng at her clothes. ”Do bullets always make that horrible screaming noise?”

”Wait till you hear one really close,” I said. ”That guy on the right, now. I feel he's superfluous. I don't want to have to watch him, sneaking up behind me. He's apt to shoot me in the back while I'm putting on my act for the other two. Let's pull back a little-there's a better foxhole up behind us-and you keep an eye on them. Here. Try an occasional shot with this .380; it doesn't kick much. Keep them under fire and tell me what they're doing while I get rid of this lone-wolf character... .”

I built up his confidence, first. I used Priscilla's gun, which I had no faith in; it had too short a barrel for long-range accuracy, and she hadn't looked like the kind to be careful with her firearms, anyway. I was right, the .38 shot way low and left, but I managed to put them close enough that they guy knew he was being shot at, while still staying far enough away that he soon lost respect for my marksmans.h.i.+p. I heard Carol fire, and gasp.

”I thought you said this gun didn't kick!”

”Wait till you work up to a .44 Magnum,” I said. ”How are they doing?”

”They're taking it very slowly. I think they must want your man to get into position first.”

”Well, he's coming right along,” I said. ”He's Sergeant York taking on the whole German army single-handed. Ouch!” I ducked, as my man put a rifle bullet a couple of feet away, stinging my face with sand. ”So my amigo knows how to shoot. That means he'd better not get much closer.”

I fired the last shot in the .38 as the man darted from a clump of brush to the shelter of a dune. The bullet came only close enough to encourage him in the notion that he was invulnerable, at least to my lousy marksmans.h.i.+p. I dropped the revolver, and took out Ha.r.s.ek's big German automatic once more, and made myself a steady rest for my hands, lying there.

He came out of hiding fast, and dove for cover again after a weaving ten-yard sprint. I didn't shoot. This made him feel neglected, I guess, because after a little he looked out. I put the sights on him, taking a coa.r.s.e bead to allow for the range, but I held my fire. He wasn't presenting quite enough target for a certain hit.

He slipped back into hiding, gathering himself for another dash; this time, however, overconfident, he ran straight when he emerged and not so fast. Maybe he was getting tired. I led him by roughly two feet and pressed the trigger of the Luger. He fell headlong and pushed himself to hands and knees. I took careful aim and fired again, and once more, and a third time. There was nothing to be gained by saving ammunition. After all, the guns should be pretty well empty when the time came to surrender-all the guns but one.

The man just stayed there on hands and knees, head down, unmoving. I was reaching back for the gun I'd lent to Carol when he finally collapsed and lay still. Well, no pistol has the instant knock-down power of a good rifle.

I said, ”Okay here. How are your people coming?” I got no answer, and turned to see Carol staring at me, very pale. ”What's the matter?” I asked.

”You ... you killed him!”

”Wasn't that the idea?”

”But you deliberately kept shooting even after he was wounded! He was just crouching there, and you kept shooting!”

I looked at her and knew I'd done it at last. She'd forgiven the brutal murder in the sky, perhaps because of the harrowing circ.u.mstances, but this was too much for her sensitive nature to bear. It was all right, presumably, to kill a man with one powerful rifle shot, but to do the same thing with four feeble pistol shots was not to be tolerated.

I said, ”Do we have to go into all that again, doll? Wounded men have been known to fire guns, but it has never happened with a dead man. I'm not going to get myself shot in the back by a guy I forgot to finish off, like a sentimental TV hero, or something. Okay?”

”No!” She licked her lips. ”No, it's not okay! I-”

I was getting a bit fed up with her moral judgments, not to mention her incessant gasps of surprise or dismay. I said, ”d.a.m.n it, if you don't like it, go out there and surrender like I told you in the first place... . Down!”

I threw myself on top of her, as Tony Hartford opened up with his squirter from a nearby sandpile. The submachine gun burst threw sand all over us.

I said, ”G.o.dd.a.m.n all amateurs! You were supposed to be watching them, not me! Give me that Browning!”

I rolled to the side, and tossed some sand back at friend Tony with Vadya's .380. There was a man missing, and that worried me, but there wasn't anything I could do about it, pinned down by the rapid-fire weapon across the way. Then Carol screamed, and I saw a man aiming a rifle down at us from the knoll that was the highest point of the island.

I rolled aside again, and emptied the .380 fast enough to make him take cover temporarily. This gave us a chance to wriggle farther down into the hollow we occupied, but there was obviously nowhere to go from there, except into the path of somebody's bullet. Well, that was exactly the way I'd wanted it, wasn't it?

I looked at Vadya's empty automatic, and tossed it aside. I'd once had some notion of keeping it for a sentimental memento, or something, but it was a silly idea. I took out Solana's pistol, and glanced at Carol, huddled down beside me.

”Forgive the imprecations,” I said. ”Everything's working out fine, just fine. We hope.”

Tony Hartford's voice called: ”Helm!”

”Right here,” I said. ”Where would I be going?”

”I think you see the situation. If you raise your head, my man will shoot it off. Throw out your gun.”

I hesitated long enough to make it seem as if I were having a big struggle with myself. At last I called back, ”It's empty. They're all empty.”

”Toss them out anyway.”

I reached for the Browning and lobbed it over the crest of the dune. I pitched the .38 Colt after it, and waited.

”Ha.r.s.ek carried a Luger,” Hartford called. ”Let's see it.” I tossed out the Luger, and he said: ”And one more.”

He was trying it on for size; he couldn't know I had a fourth weapon. I let him wait some more. Then I picked up the Solana gun, kissed it once for good luck, and threw it after the rest. I heard sounds of movement on the other side of the dune.

”So they were all empty!” Hartford's voice said sarcastically. ”Not a bullet in the lot-except for one automatic fully loaded! I ought to shoot you, Helm, just for that!”

I winked at Carol. Our electronic baby had found a home.

”All right,” Hartford called, ”all right, send the girl out.” I nodded at Carol, and she got to her feet and walked out there, slipping in the sand. Hartford's voice came again: ”Now you, Helm. Hands up, remember. Way up!”

I stuck my arms into the air and climbed over the ridge. Carol was standing in front of Hartford, looking small and disheveled and scared, with sand clinging to her soggy sweater and skirt. The rifleman was coming down the hill to join us. Hartford swung his ugly little squirt-gun to cover me.

I saw him smile slowly, and I knew .he was going to shoot. I could hardly complain. It was the logical thing for him to do; it was exactly what I'd done to Priscilla, for exactly the same reasons. They were still valid. There was nothing he needed me for. Any questions he had to ask, he could ask Carol.

I was just a threat, a potential danger to him and his operation as long as I was alive. Any sensible man would kill me now, and young Hartford, whatever his real name was, whatever his s.e.xual att.i.tudes might be, undoubtedly prided himself on being eminently sensible.

I saw the submachinegun swing and steady, and I braced myself for a last-minute dive to somewhere, not that there was any hope of escape, but I might as well take it moving as standing still. Then there was a single sharp report from down near the sh.o.r.e, and Tony Hartford went to his knees and pitched forward on top of his weapon. The man, with the rifle stopped and looked in the direction of the shot. He dropped his gun and raised his hands.

We turned to watch Seor Ramon SolanaRuiz approach, accompanied by a couple of Mexican soldiers in khakis, one carrying a rifle with a telescopic sight.

23.

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