Part 68 (1/2)

What will you give me for what you want?

What indeed.

G.o.d . . . what had he told her?

How had he answered that horrible question?

There was a rustle and he spun around. Bear had turned his face toward

Finn.

Finn stared in horror, trying to understand this.Was it rigor mortis? Was

the heat from the fire shortening the tendons in Bear's neck? Was . . . Jazzman and Cheech Wizard turned their heads, too.

All three of his men stared at Finn with eyes that were nothing but fire

and smoke.With the eyes of h.e.l.l.

All Finn could do was scream. It was the only reasonable response to this.

It was the only choice left to him.

6.

echo teAm The shooter was so close that I heard him racking the bolt a split second before the shots started banging their way through the day.That little bit of warning saved my a.s.s, because as soon as I heard it, I threw myself off the path and behind a heap of fallen rock. The bullets hammered a line along the ground where I'd been standing. I saw that much as I scurried like a lizard into the smallest crevice I could find. The impact points walked up the path a yard from my nose.

I realized that it was only a single shooter and started to breathe a sigh of relief.

Then I heard other guns open up from back the way I'd come.

I heard someone yell: ”It's more of them! Kill the unholy! Allahu akbar!”

We'd walked into a nice trap, but then I heard Top and Bunny open up with their M14s set on rock 'n' roll and immediately the valley was filled with thunder. There were some yells amid the thunder. Screams of pain and curses in Pashto.