The Language Of Cannibals

CHAPTER EIGHT

Being lowered from the third story of a building by a rope of bedsheets, blankets, pillowcases, and towels knotted together and fashioned into a sling under my arms made for what I considered an ignominious exit. On the other hand, it occurred to me that a short flight in a car and a good knock on the noggin had done wonders for my sprained wrist, sore knee, and bruised left arm, since the stabbing pain in my head had made me forget all about the other injuries sustained while I was bouncing off and being bounced by Gregory Trex, the current scourge of my existence.

The window of my hospital room conveniently looked out over a wide alleyway used for deliveries and garbage pickup; Mary Tree, driving with her lights out, had backed into the alley just as I finished dressing and just as Garth was putting the finishing touches on my improvised escape route-remarking, with another of his ominously sweet smiles, that he hoped it would reach all the way to the ground.

As I continued my descent, with Mary craning her neck and peering anxiously up at me, I tried to improve on my undignified position by crossing my arms over my chest and proudly thrusting out my chin, posturing as if I were totally accustomed to this sort of royal transport. My vamping got a muffled laugh out of the woman. However, there was nothing but shock and concern in her face and eyes by the time I reached the ground and she managed to get a better look at me. She wrapped her left arm around me, used her right hand to undo the sling from under my arms.

"Mongo!" she said in a low, tense whisper. "Oh, my God, your head-!"

"It's okay," I said, gently pushing her arm away and taking a couple of tentative steps. I felt dizzy. "It looks worse than it is. You know how hospitals love to waste bandages."

I glanced up, found Garth half leaning out the window and looking down at me. I gave him a thumbs-up sign. He returned it, let loose of his end of the knotted linens, then stepped back out of sight. Mary gathered the tangle of linens and blankets together in both arms, dropped it all into a dumpster off to one side of the alley. Then she opened the back door of the car for me, supported me around the waist as I eased myself down across the back seat. She closed the door, hurried around to the other side of the car, and slid in behind the wheel. I noted with satisfaction that the interior lights had been disconnected; Garth had briefed her well. And the woman had more than her share of guts.

"What happens now, Mary?"

"Your brother said to wait here," she replied in a low voice that was breathy with tension. She twisted around in her seat to peer out the back window, then squinted down at me over the tops of her bifocals. "He said he's going to go down to the lobby, then try to find a way to sneak out the back without anyone seeing him. God, the way he acts and talks you'd think he does this kind of thing every day."

"Garth's a very good man to have around in a pinch, Mary. Or any other time, for that matter. He doesn't know the meaning of panic." I paused for a moment, then continued, "Mary, I'm really sorry about all of this. I hope you know that I'd never have contacted you if I'd known it was going to involve you like this."

Her response was to reach back across the seat and squeeze my thigh; the gendeness and affection in her touch were belied by the anger in her voice. "Harry Peal never hurt a soul in his whole life. I can't believe some bastard killed him. I told you there was a death squad in Cairn, Mongo."

"In this case, I think the murderer is Elysius Culhane's good buddy Jay Acton."

She grunted softly. "So your brother told me-but it wasn't that cold-blooded, preening son-of-a-bitch who ran you off the road."

"Right."

"Acton may be the mastermind; Pm still convinced there's a death squad operating here."

"You could be right."

The figure of Garth suddenly loomed out of the darkness, appearing outside the windows on the passenger's side. He opened the door, slid onto the front seat beside Mary, quickly closed the door. "Sorry I took so long," he said tersely as he looked back over the seat to inspect me. "The guard wanted to chat with me after I left the room." He paused, turned to Mary, extended his hand. "It's nice to meet you, Miss Tree. You are one gutsy lady. Thank you for helping us get out of there."

Mary pushed Garth's hand away, leaned across the seat, and kissed him on the lips. "Miss Tree-who never wants you to call her that again, since, as I told Mongo, it makes me sound like a character in a nursery rhyme-thinks that it's she who should be thanking you, since it's also her life you're undoubtedly saving. It's nice to meet you too, Garth Frederickson."

Under any other circumstances I would have half expected my brother to faint dead away after being kissed on the lips by Mary Tree, but now he was tightly focused on the matter at hand, all business. "Let's get out of here," he said curtly.

I sat up as Mary turned on the engine and, still leaving her lights off, eased forward out of the alley into a parking lot by the emergency room entrance, then proceeded to the street. Garth motioned for me to lie down again, which I did, and he ducked out of sight.

"Drive around awhile, Mary," he continued, his voice muffled by the seat between us. "We want to make sure we're not being followed."

"Right," Mary replied, and made a left turn. She switched on her lights, drove a block, and made another left turn, then started up a hill. I saw her shift her head to look down at Garth and heard a sharp intake of breath. "Garth, is that a gun?" she asked tightly.

"It most certainly is."

"Garth, do you really think it's necessary to-?"

"Mary, listen to me," Garth said in a firm voice that had a touch of coldness in it. "I know you're a pacifist. For the life of me, I've never understood how a person who lives on this planet could be a pacifist, but that's neither here nor there. I suppose it's a perfectly workable philosophy, just as long as some soldier in an opposing army doesn't have you lined up in his sights. Right now it looks like there are people who mean to see us dead; unfortunately they're not pacifists. I don't intend to cooperate. If I so much as get a glimpse of this Gregory Trex or Jay Acton or anybody else who means to harm you or my brother, I am going to put a bullet through that man's brain. I'm telling you this up front, just so there'll be no misunderstanding on your part if we meet up with any of these men. If the idea of killing or the sight of blood offends you, look away. I will kill them. Clear?"

Garth had never had any problems in making himself understood; there was no need for Mary to reply, and she didn't. However, judging from the stiff angle at which she held her head, she was now considerably more tense as she continued to drive through Cairn's night streets, occasionally going around a block, and once even abruptly making a U-turn and reversing direction. After one right turn she accelerated. The car kept going in a straight line, and I guessed that we were up on 9W. Not knowing how much Garth had told her over the phone, I used the time to fill Mary in on the details of what I'd learned at the meeting with Harry Peal, the fruits of my preliminary computer search, what had happened at the police station later Sunday afternoon, and the subsequent ambush. She listened without interrupting, an occasional, sibilant hiss her only show of emotion.

"How does it look, Mary?" Garth asked quietly when I finished.

I watched as she craned her neck to again glance in the rearview mirror. "I think we're in the clear," she replied evenly.

"All right," Garth said, "let's head for your place." He sat up, looked back at me. "How's the head holding up, brother?"

I sat up, groaned. "Don't ask."

Mary turned around and headed back toward Cairn. Ten minutes later we were at the Community of Conciliation mansion. Just before she pulled into the long driveway, Mary turned off her lights. As we approached the looming, gabled structure she pulled off the gravel drive, drove on the lawn around to the back of the mansion, then turned off the engine. The digital display on the dashboard clock read 4:08. To the right, sixty or seventy yards down the sloping lawn, the Hudson gleamed silver in the moonlight.

Mary got out, then motioned for us to do the same. We stepped out onto the lawn, and with Garth supporting me with a large, strong hand under my left armpit, we followed her the short distance from the car to the mansion. She opened a screen door, which led into a pantry area off a huge kitchen. To our left, barely visible in the moonlight that spilled in through the doorway, was a cobweb-covered door that creaked on its hinges as she opened it. Placing our hands on the wall to our right to guide us in the darkness, we started up a narrow, winding flight of stairs that, judging from the thick curtains of cobwebs that brushed across my face and clung to my flesh, hadn't been used since sometime around the Revolutionary War. After two flights of this I was beginning to feel nauseous and dizzy, but I concentrated on taking deep, measured breaths and placing one foot after the other on the stairs.

On the fourth floor Mary pushed open another door, led us out of the staircase into a musty-smelling corridor that was dimly, eerily illuminated by moonlight streaming in through a large stained-glass window at the opposite end. She led us into the third room on the right, closed the door, and turned on the light. I looked around, saw piles of broken furniture, steamer trunks, dozens of standing lamps without bulbs, assorted bric-a-brac. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. I turned to Mary, found her staring at me; her face was ashen, her eyes filled with alarm. I felt the warm blood on the lid of my left eye a moment before it oozed into the eye itself. Suddenly I was in total darkness.

"Mongo, you're bleeding!"

"Mmm," I replied as Garth grabbed me under the arms, marched me back a few steps, and planted me in the depths of an overstuffed armchair. A cloud of dust rose up around me, and I sneezed.

Garth wiped the blood away from my eye with his handkerchief, then began carefully unwrapping the bandage from my head. "I'll need fresh bandages, alcohol, and lots of cotton swabbing," he said over his shoulder to Mary, who continued to look very pale. "Do you think you can find those things around here?"

Mary swallowed hard, nodded. "Yes. We have medical supplies. I'll get them."

But she didn't move.

"Don't panic, Mary," Garth said in the same quiet, soothing tone as he continued to unwrap my bandages. "And don't worry. The hardest part of Mongo is his head, and we know there's no fracture. Just get the bandages and alcohol, and try not to be seen. Okay?"

"Okay," Mary replied in a small voice, and then hurried from the room.

Garth, who was kneeling on the floor in front of me, finished his unwrapping job. He dropped the blood-soaked bandages on the floor, then wrinkled his nose as he studied the gash above my right eye.

"How does it look?" I asked.

"Gory. Want to see?",

"Why not? I've never seen my own brains, and I need something to cheer me up."

Garth got to his feet and rummaged around in the surrounding piles of junk until he found a cracked hand mirror, which he brought back to me. I looked at myself in the mirror, decided that, all in all, my head didn't look as bad as I had expected. The right eye was swollen shut, which was no surprise. Scalp wounds are notoriously bloody, and all the blood was coming from an area above my right eye where two or three of the dozen or so stitches closing the gash had torn loose. There was also a shaved area the size of a pancake on the right side of my head, just above the ear, and another cut; I counted eight stitches there, and they had held firm.

"No sign of any brains," I said.

"I can't believe you actually said that. You're stealing my best lines."

A few minutes later Mary came back into the attic storage room, quickly and quietly closing the door behind her. She carried a paper bag, which she set down beside her as she knelt on the floor in front of me. Her face was still ashen, but she didn't flinch when she saw my wounds, and her voice was steady when she spoke.

"I'm afraid this is going to hurt a bit, Mongo," she said as she removed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a thick roll of bandages, and cotton swabbing from the bag. "There's nobody living on these two upper floors, so you can yell a little bit if you want to."

"I'll take care of it, Mary," Garth said evenly but firmly as he took the bottle of hydrogen peroxide from her hand. "I like to hear Mongo squeal."

"But-"

"I'll take care of it. Now, I don't know about you two, but I'm hungry. We have to keep our energy levels up. Mary, do you suppose you can sneak us all up something to eat?"

"I think so," she replied distantly. She studied Garth intently for a few moments, then abruptly got to her feet and once again slipped out through the door.

I leaned back in the chair and closed my good eye as Garth began his ministrations. He daubed more blood away from my eye and cleansed the wound with peroxide, then fashioned an effective pressure bandage from cotton wadding held in place by surgical tape. As his fingers moved, he had an almost blank stare, and he was humming some tune in a voice so low it was nearly inaudible. His touch and the humming had a near-hypnotic effect, and for the first time since I had awoken in the hospital I was virtually free of pain. When I opened my eye, I was startled to see Mary sitting on the floor a few feet away, staring at Garth as he worked on me. I had not heard the door open or close.

Beside her was a silver tray containing a loaf of bread, cold cuts, silverware, a tall pitcher of orange juice, and glasses. It seemed Garth's usual calming influence had also worked its powers on the woman, for some color had returned to Mary's face, and she no longer seemed as tense and nervous.

"It's not serious, Mary," Garth said softly, tilting his head back in her direction as he began to quickly and expertly rebandage my head, this time leaving both eyes uncovered. "Just messy. You have to understand my brother. The man craves constant attention, and he's not past flying his car through the air, banging up his head, and bleeding all over the place just to get sympathy."

I tried to think of an appropriate reply, but I didn't feel I knew Mary Tree well enough yet to employ the obscenities required; besides, I was too tired, if now pleasantly so, to engage in a lot of bantering. I satisfied myself with an exaggerated roll of my good eye.

The woman removed her bifocals and set them on the floor beside the tray, then brushed her hands back through her long, fine, graying golden hair. She cocked her head slightly and continued to stare at Garth's profile as he worked on me. There was a strange light in her eyes. "Garth Frederickson," she said at last in a low, husky, decidedly sexy voice, "we've only just met, and yet I have this odd feeling that I've known you a very long time. Maybe it's just that I've wanted to know someone like you. I don't really understand it. There's no artifice or sham in you, and yet I think you're the strangest man I've ever met."

I mumbled, "You've got that right, Mary."

But the folksinger had eyes only for Garth and no time for my piquant observations. I wasn't even sure she'd heard me.

"There's such a strange mix in you," she said, still staring at Garth. "There's no cruelty in you, and yet I sense a great capacity for violence. . even brutality. At the same time there's this incredible gentleness in you, which is what I'm seeing right now. You're like some great jungle cat, ready to either purr or pounce at any given moment. I suspect that with some people you display infinite patience, and no patience at all with others. A half hour ago you were prepared to kill two men on sight."

"Oh, I'm still prepared to kill those two particular men on sight," Garth said mildly.

"I don't understand how you can live with those kinds of emotional extremes, two personalities which are contradictory, and at war in you."

Garth merely shrugged. "I don't see, or feel, any contradiction. Different types of people elicit different reactions and require different handling."

I said, "Garth has never hurt anyone who wasn't truly deserving, Mary."

"Violence begets violence," the woman said quietly, her tone slightly accusatory, but also uncertain.

"There's nothing complicated about me, Mary," Garth said evenly. "I am what you feel I am."

"But what I feel you are would be-is-quite different from what Gregory Trex or Jay Acton would feel if they met up with you."

Garth finished bandaging my head, using thin strips of surgical tape to secure the end of the bandage just behind my left ear. It was an excellent job, much better than had been done at the hospital; I felt considerably less pressure on the gash over my right eye and on the wound on the side of my head. Garth studied his handiwork for a few moments, grunted with satisfaction, then turned to face Mary and resumed speaking as if no time had passed between her words and his.

"Mary, you're a person who would sacrifice her life to save the life of another. But there are people who would gladly accept your sacrifice and laugh at you as they spat on your corpse. Dying for those kinds of people makes no sense to someone like me; you'll save far more lives if you just kill them and be done with it. It's what's called for, and it's what they really deserve. To me, your way of thinking is hopelessly complicated, like your behavior. I don't understand it. But it doesn't matter, because you've more than earned the right to think and behave as you like. I think we're about the same age. At a time long ago when my biggest concerns were pimples and finding ways to get girls to go out with me, you were already a world-class performer, singing on stages around the world and using your music to try to get nations to stop wasting their money on arms and use it to feed their people. You'd fight evil with a song, and that makes you the bravest person I know. I've always loved your music, and I've always thought you were just about the sexiest woman alive. Those tapes you gave Mongo to give me were a very fine gift, and I thank you."

Mary blushed-but she did not take her eyes away from Garth's. It certainly looked to me like the beginning of a mutual admiration society.

I said, "Let's eat."

The three of us sat cross-legged on the floor around the tray, making sandwiches from the bread and cold cuts and drinking the fresh-squeezed orange juice. With some food in my stomach, and my swollen right eye beginning to open, I felt a little better; my vision was not quite so blurred, and my headache was no worse than what I might suffer from a serious hangover-pesky, but not hopelessly debilitating.

"Well, Mongo," Garth said when we finished eating, "now I think it's time to evaluate our situation. I'd say we're in a peck of trouble. What do you say?"

I looked at Mary, grinned. "That brother of mine is such a perceptive analyst. Some of his insights will take your breath away."

Garth smiled benignly at me. "A local loony wants you dead because you embarrassed him. The KGB wants you dead because you can unmask one of their top agents. A very powerful right-winger and his FBI buddy would probably be just as happy if either the KGB or the local loony succeeds in getting you dead, because then you won't be in a position to embarrass them. The police around here turn out to be local errand boys who are willing to lock you up on a trumped-up murder charge, which has probably been engineered so that some sniper will know where to find you in order to put a bullet through your head. The FBI could probably guarantee your-our-safety, but Culhane's buddy Hendricks will make sure the FBI doesn't touch you-us-with a ten-mile-long pole. You're a fugitive from justice, and a warrant for my arrest is going to be issued just as soon as the police find out you're missing. Having talked to you means that both Mary and I are marked for death. The FBI will almost certainly ignore what we have to say, the local police can't guarantee our safety, and there are no good guys in the local vicinity; it seems all the guys around here are bad, hopelessly biased, blind, buffaloed, or simply don't want to be bothered. Have I left anything out?"

"No, I think that about covers it."

"Now, what's our next move?"

"Surely you jest," I said with a shrug. "Our next move is obvious; we call in the very old, very bald cavalry."

"My thinking exactly," Garth said, and turned to Mary. "Where's the nearest phone?"

"There are three, but they're all down on the first floor-two in our offices, and one for personal use in our recreation room."

"You don't have one in your room?"

"No."

"Can I get down there and use the phone without anyone seeing me?"

Mary grimaced. "I'm not sure, Garth. We have some early risers here. You'd have to go through the main living areas to get to any of the phones, and you'd have to stand out in the open to use them."

Garth grunted, then pushed himself to his feet and began searching through the dusty rubble in the storage room. In an old rolltop desk he found yellowed paper and a stub of a pencil. He wrote on the paper, then came back across the room and handed the slip to Mary.

"This is a number where you can reach a friend of ours," he said, smiling reassuringly. "His name is Mr. Lippitt. It isn't necessary that you know who he is or what he does. He's a heavyweight, and he can guarantee our safety until we get this business all straightened out. When you call that number, somebody will answer by repeating the number. Identify yourself as a friend of Robert and Garth Frederickson, say you want to talk to Mr. Lippitt, and state that it's a 'Valhalla priority.'"

Mary studied the name and number on the slip of paper, then looked up at Garth and me. "Valhalla priority? What does that mean?"

"It's not important," Garth said curdy, shaking his head. "After you make the call, you'll forget those words, Mr. Lippitt's name, and the number. Also, please destroy the paper immediately. What will happen is that you'll get through to Mr. Lippitt at once, with no questions asked, no matter where he is. He won't have much to say, and he'll probably be suspicious because he doesn't know you. Just tell him what's happened; tell him everything Mongo told you. Tell him where we are, and why we need him to help us get out of here. There should be men here within the hour to take us out, maybe by helicopter."

"Wow," Mary said softly as she once again looked at the slip of paper in her hand.

"Everything's going to be all right, Mary," Garth said evenly as he helped her to her feet. "Just make the call. Try not to be seen, but if you are just act as if nothing is wrong."

"I'll be right back," Mary said, and once more slipped out of the room.

"There's going to be a lot of nasty fallout from this, Garth," I said. "Hendricks and everyone else at the FBI are going to go apeshit when they find out Lippitt has muddied up their turf. Gregory Trex and Jay Acton and Dan Mosely's buddy-buddy relationship with Elysius Culhane notwithstanding, it's going to be hard to explain why I felt it necessary to skip away from police custody, and why you felt it was necessary to aid and abet me. You had to be there. They're going to say we overreacted."

"As long as we all get out of Cairn alive, anybody can say anything he likes."

"I'm thinking of Mr. Lippitt; he's not exactly a favorite son of the right wing. He could be accused of helping two of his friends elude justice, at considerable expense to the taxpayers. You know the right wing controls a lot of newspaper space and airtime. We don't want Mr. Lippitt hurt."

Garth shook his head. "Mr. Lippitt can take care of himself in any war, bureaucratic or otherwise. If he's smart, and we know he is, he'll send a second team to snatch Acton. With Elysius Culhane's KGB staff member on ice and ready to be trotted out for public show-and-tell, nobody on the right is going to touch a hair on Lippitt's head."

"A hair on, Lippitt's head?"

"I was speaking figuratively, of course."

"That's good."

The door opened, and Mary stepped in. She still held the slip of paper Garth had given her in a hand that trembled noticeably. Her face was ashen again, but her voice was steady. "The phones don't work," she said, looking back and forth between Garth and me. "I can't get a dial tone on any of them."

"We waited too long," I said as I watched Garth take the Colt from his jacket pocket and remove the safety catch. "Somebody's cut the goddamn phone lines. They found out I was gone, saw that your car was still in the parking lot, and guessed where we'd go. Or maybe Mary's car was spotted after all."

Garth nodded tersely, then turned to Mary, who was staring at the gun in his hand. "Mary, you must do exactly as I say, and you must do it quickly. I don't know how much time we have. Right now there are men, maybe your death squad, watching this house, waiting for Mongo, you, and me to show ourselves. When we don't, they're likely to get impatient and come in after us. You have to get everyone else out of here; tell them to go jogging or take a walk into town, or whatever, but get them out."

Mary, who was still staring wide-eyed at the Colt in Garth's right hand, shook her head absently. "What reason am I supposed to give them, Garth?"

"I don't know; anything. Just get them out. I don't think the men will hassle the others; they want us."

"I'll send someone for the police."

Garth shook his head impatiently. "I doubt you'll find any cops in this part of town right now, but even if you did, it wouldn't do any good. Both Mongo and I, and maybe you, would be right back in the situation we just got Mongo out of."

Mary started to leave, and I grabbed her arm. "Mary, I know you don't have guns in the house, but do you have anything I might be able to use to defend myself? A knife, maybe? The people who are after us will kill us in cold blood if they get the chance."

"I believe you," she replied in a hoarse voice. "I'll see what I can find."

"Go," Garth said, and gently pushed her out of the room.

Garth turned off the light, left the door open a crack, and listened. I moved closer, listened with him. I said, "Unless they actually saw us in the car, they can't be certain we're here. They're just guessing."

"Unless they saw us in the car." "Right."

We waited by the door, listening. The air in the room suddenly felt musty and heavy in my lungs. From below I thought I heard a knock, and then the sound of muffled voices, but I couldn't be sure. Then there was silence. Footsteps, another knock, more voices.

And then gunfire-a short burst of automatic weapons fire from the ground or second floor. Shouts. Screams.

"Shit!" I said, and reached for the doorknob.

"Wait," Garth said, pushing me back.

"Jesus Christ, Garth, they were already in the house. They must have seen or heard Mary trying to move the others out and decided they'd waited long enough. We can't just let them kill those people down there."

Garth shook his head. "Wait. I don't think they're going to gun down a bunch of pacifists. That shooting was just to get their attention-and ours. They still may not be certain we're here; Mary may be able to bluff them."

Suddenly there was another burst of gunfire and then the sound of running feet. There were more shouts, but from where we were it was impossible to tell what was happening or being said.

"Christ, Garth, can we take that chance?!"

Garth held up the Colt. "Walking down there is the same as committing suicide. They have at least one automatic weapon, and this thing isn't going to be much use against it."

I couldn't argue with that.

We waited some more. There was no further gunfire, but muffled shouts continued to drift up from below. Then there was silence, which lasted for three or four minutes. Both Garth and I strained to hear some sound; what we finally heard was what sounded like heavy, booted footsteps on the main staircase, slowly ascending. The footsteps came closer, finally stopped at the top of the stairs on our floor, perhaps twenty feet to our right.

"We know the two of you are in here someplace!" a man shouted. I'd half expected the gunman coming up the stairs to be Gregory Trex, but this was not a voice I recognized. "We've got everybody downstairs in the big room! If you two aren't down there in five minutes, those people are going to start to die! We'll shoot the folksinger first!"

Somewhere below a woman screamed, the agonized sound penetrating clearly, harrowingly, up through the hardwood floors and thick plaster ceilings of the old mansion. I thought it might have been Mary, but I wasn't sure. I swallowed hard, glanced at the luminous dial of my wristwatch.

"They may plan to kill everybody anyway," I said in a voice that had gone hoarse. "Ten to one they're local boys, and masks aren't going to keep them from being recognized."

"Uh-huh," Garth said. From the light seeping in from the hallway, I could see that he was staring at the gun in his hand.

"If we go down there, we'll be walking right into an ambush. They certainly mean to kill us, and they probably won't waste any time doing it."

"Uh-huh."

"But we don't have much choice, do we?"

"Nope," Garth said as he turned me around and pulled up my shirt. He stuck the gun into the waistband of my jeans, pulled my shirt back down over it. "This Colt isn't going to do us much good in a straight shoot-out, but on the other hand, they don't know we have a gun at all. We're just going to have to rely on the Fredericksons' natural talents for stealth and cunning to get us through this. If we can get close enough to them, catch them off guard before they cut us down, I just might be able to relieve them of duty. You do the talking, I'll do the shooting. Bail out when you feel me grab the gun."

"That's the stupidest plan you've ever had, brother. What makes you think they're going to let either of us do any talking? They're probably going to cut us in half the moment we step into the ballroom downstairs, which is where they must be."

"You'll just have to talk very fast. Say something instantly hypnotic."

"Instantly hypnotic. I see." I removed the gun from my waistband, stepped around behind Garth, and stuck it into his.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"It makes more sense for me to grab the gun off you; for one thing, I won't have to bend over to get at it. Don't you forget to drop to the floor. If you entertain any thoughts of trying to shield me after I grab the gun, forget them. You'll only interfere with my line of fire."

Garth reached back for the gun, but I grabbed his wrist.

"Mongo, you can't even see, for Christ's sake!"

"What's the matter? You afraid I won't remember to divide by two before I shoot?"

"Can you walk?"

"After all the other scrapes we've gotten into and survived, I find the prospect of being gunned down by a bunch of local shitheads in a place owned by a group of pacifists not only terribly ironic but tremendously stimulating to my nervous system. I can walk, and I'll shoot straight if I get the chance."

Garth sucked in a deep breath, slowly let it out. "Luck," he said softly.

"Luck," I said, then walked with my brother out of the room and into the corridor, which was now dimly awash with the light of dawn.

We'd reached the third-floor landing when a woman-this time definitely identifiable as Mary-screamed again.

"We're coming! Garth shouted, and we quickened our pace descending the stairs.

I half expected a gunman to suddenly appear in the stairwell below us and start shooting, but we made it to the ground floor. With Garth a half step ahead of me and slightly to my right, we walked quickly across the grand foyer toward the entrance to the ballroom. I was talking, loud and fast, as we proceeded under the great arch.

"You men may think you're fighting communism, but the fact of the matter is that the Russians are likely to give you the Order of Lenin for this little caper!"

Ah. No bullets tearing through us yet. We stopped a few feet inside the entrance and surveyed the scene. The sun was just climbing over the horizon, and light was pouring in through the huge bank of windows at the eastern end of the ballroom, to our left. Fourteen men and women, ranging in age from early twenties to middle age and most still in their pajamas and bathrobes, were standing on a paint-spattered tarpaulin, lined up against the wall directly across from us. They were being guarded by three men wearing identical green-plaid ski masks; the men were armed with automatic pistols they definitely hadn't picked up in the local Army Navy store. One man, easily identifiable from his physique as Gregory Trex, was standing next to Mary, twisting her right arm up behind her back. The gazes of all three men were on us.

They certainly looked like a death squad to me.

"If you love the United States of America, you'd damn well better listen to what I have to say before you start shooting anybody!" I continued quickly in a voice that sounded hopelessly high-pitched and squeaky in my own ears. "You've been set up and used by the very Russians you claim to hate so much. The communists have been making fools of you. If you kill us, they're not only going to get away with it but'll be able to go on making fools of you and the whole nation. You think Jay Acton, the man who's giving you your marching orders, is a super-patriotic American. I'm telling you the son-of-a-bitch is a Russian, and a KGB agent to boot! Without realizing it, you've been acting as a goon squad for the enemies of this country. Give it up now! Don't do this thing. If you give us time, my brother and I can prove that Acton is a Russian agent. If you stop the killing now, if you turn yourselves in and cooperate with the authorities, you may be able to strike a deal. If you love your country, you'll lay down your guns and help us nail Jay Acton."

I thought it was rather a nice speech-if not exactly instantly hypnotic, then at least strongly persuasive. However, it hadn't seemed to make much of an impression on my audience, the gunmen, who exchanged glances. It was Gregory Trex-making no effort whatsoever to disguise his voice-who spoke.

"What the hell are you talking about, dwarf? What's this bullshit about Acton giving us orders?"

Hmm. "You're saying he doesn't? You're saying it wasn't Jay Acton who put you up to this?"

"You're fucking crazy."

Trex sounded genuinely confused by the mention of Jay Acton, which tended to genuinely confuse me. The problem was that I didn't have time to be confused. I made an expansive gesture, putting my hands out to my sides, the purpose being to get my right hand as close as possible to the gun in Garth's waistband. Garth began to move slowly across the room, and I moved with him, resting my hand now on the butt of the gun.

Trex, still bending Mary's arm up behind her back, stayed where he was, while the other two men fanned out across the room, one stopping in the center and the other going to the opposite wall; it would make for a hell of a cross fire.

"It doesn't make any difference who gave you the orders, Gregory," I said, tightening my grip on the gun, "because it's obvious that somebody did. You didn't get those weapons on your own."

"Stop there!" the gunman in the center of the room commanded.

We stopped. The figures of the three men blurred in and out of focus, and I squinted to try to keep the ghostly double images away. Sweat was now running into my good left eye, stinging it, and that didn't help at all. If Garth and I were going to die, the man I most wanted to take with us was Gregory Trex, but Trex was still holding Mary close to him. Even if I weren't suffering from double vision, I couldn't be sure of missing the woman if I fired at him.

Almost as if she had been reading my mind, Mary suddenly twisted in Trex's grip, then spat in his face. "Let me go, Gregory! Don't be a fool! You'll never-!"

Trex abruptly released his grip on her arm, spun her around, and drove his fist into her stomach. She cried out, doubled over, and slowly sank to her knees.

"Enough of this bullshit!" the man in the center of the room shouted, and abruptly stripped off his mask. It was the Vietnam vet with the ponytail I'd seen at the art exhibition Friday evening. "We don't need masks! We came here to clean out this nest of communist faggots, so let's get on with it!"

The other two gunmen slowly removed their masks. Trex leered at me, bloodlust gleaming in his milky green eyes. His mouth was half open, and saliva glistened on his small, gapped teeth. I hadn't seen the third gunman before.

It was time, and I began to slowly pull the gun from Garth's waistband. I knew I had no chance of killing all three men before they killed Garth and me, but I was damned well determined to kill Trex.

A balding, middle-aged man abruptly stepped away from the wall and moved toward Trex. "Listen, you-!"

"Don't!" I shouted-too late.

The man with the ponytail leveled his automatic pistol on the other man's stomach, pulled the trigger. The bullets caught the middle-aged man in the stomach and torso, ripping him open and hurling him backward. Blood spurted, misted in the air, sprayed over the rest of the shocked, screaming members of the Community of Conciliation.

I grabbed the Colt from Garth's waistband at almost the precise moment when my brother lunged forward, hit the floor, and rolled at the legs of the ponytailed gunman. I crouched down, squinted, and squeezed off a shot at the blurred figure that was Gregory Trex. I heard him scream, saw him grab at his right shoulder as he spun around and fell to the floor. I cursed my poor markmanship and knew there was no time for a second shot. I leaped to my left, hit the floor, and rolled as a hail of bullets tore through the space where I had just been standing. I had no plan; there was absolutely no cover in the stripped ballroom, and there was no way I could make it out through the archway into the foyer before I was riddled with bullets. It was all instinct now, reflex; I knew I was going to die and was simply determined to elude death until the last possible moment. I was sorry I hadn't had time to say a proper goodbye to my brother.

Then, mixed with the cacophony of screams and automatic weapons fire, there was another sound-the higher-pitched chatter of another, heavier automatic weapon, muffled somewhat, as if the fire was coming from outside the mansion. An instant later there erupted a booming cascade of sound like an explosion of glass, as if the bank of windows at the east end was collapsing. The Colt slipped from my grasp. I stopped rolling, curled up in an instinctive attempt to make myself as small a target as possible; I clamped my arms over my head and waited for bullets to rip into me.

And then the gunfire stopped abruptly, leaving in its wake an echo that reverberated throughout the huge chamber, a hideous counterpoint to the continued screaming of the Community members. Hands gripped my shoulders, and I recognized the touch of my brother.

"Mongo! Mongo, are you hit?!"

I opened my left eye, found myself looking into Garth's face through a film of blood that I knew was coming from the reopened gash over my right eye. But the wound didn't hurt. My head didn't hurt; nothing hurt. Astonishment at finding the Frederickson brothers still alive seemed to be working like a powerful general anesthesia. I wiped the blood away with my shirt sleeve, sat up.

"No," I said. "You?"

"No."

"What the hell happened?"

"We've got a visitor, brother," Garth said in a tone of voice that I thought sounded somewhat cryptic.

"Who?"

"See for yourself," he replied, and moved to one side.

I took Garth's hand and hauled myself to my feet, looked out over the room, and squinted in an effort to focus my vision. The dawn light streaming in through the open space where the windows had been was mixed now with swirling dust and gunsmoke that danced and spun and drifted on the gentle breezes flowing into the ballroom from off the Hudson. A figure moved in the backlit dust and smoke, but I couldn't see who it was. Off to my right, Mary and other Community members were attending to the men and women who had been wounded. The Vietnam veteran with the ponytail was missing not only his ponytail but the half of his head to which it had been attached; he was quite dead, lying in a spreading pool of blood in the center of the room. The third gunman was dead also. Of the death squad members, only Gregory Trex remained alive- thanks to me. The pig-faced young man with the bandaged nose and forehead was writhing on the floor, yelping in pain, clawing at his bullet-ravaged right shoulder. By attempting to kill him but only winging him and sending him to the floor, I had inadvertently saved Gregory Trex's life, protected him from the fate that had befallen his two comrades at the hands of our mysterious rescuer.

This did not please me. Suddenly the identity of the shadowy figure moving in the smoky light was nowhere near as important to me as the rage I felt toward Trex. I pushed Garth's supporting hand away, staggered over to where the wide-eyed Trex was thrashing on the floor, and sat down hard on his chest. There was a strong odor of feces; with the tables turned, with somebody shooting at him, the young killer had lost control of his sphincter.

"Who sent you?!” I screamed into his battered face.

Trex, saliva streaming from his mouth, moved his lips in an effort to speak, but he wasn't making enough progress to suit me. I punched his wounded shoulder, and he screamed; I raised my fist, threatening to punch him again, and he stopped.

"Who ordered you to do this, Trex? Was it Jay Acton?"

He shook his head back and forth, bubbled up some more saliva, and tried to reach across his body to grip his damaged shoulder. I stopped him.

"Who?! You'd better find your voice fast, kiddo, or I'm going to rip your fucking shoulder off! Who sent you?! Who gave you those weapons?!"

". . hane," he finally managed to croak. "Mr. Culhane. We've been. . helping him clean the trash off the streets and fight the communists. He said it was the only way left, because the leftists had taken over the government and the courts. He said what we needed was a death squad like they have in other countries. When he found out you were gone, he called me. He said I should get the other two and go after you. He said that you were probably hiding out here and that we should kill everyone because it was time to get serious about what we wanted to do. He said that you two and these people were just like the communists and that the only way to deal with you was to kill you."

"He gave you the guns?"

Trex nodded, then reached up with his left hand and wiped spittle off his chin. "He gave them to us a few weeks ago. He said first we'd kill some of the scum on the streets, like drug dealers, and then we'd go after communists."

"How did Culhane find out so fast that I was gone from the hospital?"

"I don't know. I suppose the police told him. Mosely's scared shitless of Mr. Culhane; he tells him everything."

"Did you people kill Michael Burana and Harry Peal?"

"No."

"Who did? Acton?"

"I don't know."

"I don't believe you," I said, and raised my fist again.

A voice close beside me said, "I think he's telling the truth."

In my seething rage at Gregory Trex, in my need for answers, I had virtually forgotten all about the man who had saved our lives. Now I raised my head, glanced to my left, and found myself looking into the dark eyes and deeply tanned face of Jay Acton. His razor-cut brown hair was covered now by a black seaman's cap; instead of one of his custom-tailored suits, he was dressed in black-boots, jeans, a turtleneck sweater. In his right hand he carried an Uzi automatic rifle. Under his left arm he carried the three automatic pistols originally wielded by the recently disbanded death squad. Garth's Colt was stuck in the waistband of his jeans.

"Damn," I said.

"What the hell have you two been up to?" he asked curtly, glancing back and forth between Garth, who had come over to stand beside him, and me. "Who have you been talking to, and what have you been saying?"

"What have we been up to?!" I swallowed hard, again used the sleeve of my shirt to wipe blood away from my eyes. "Listen, you lying, spying, Russian son-of-a-bitch, I-!" I stopped in midsentence when I heard the distant wail of approaching police sirens. "This should be interesting," I said, grabbing Garth's outstretched hand and hauling myself to my feet.

Jay Acton glanced quickly toward the front of the house, then back at us. "If you wait for the police, you'll be taken into custody," he said tersely. "If that happens, the chances are good that you'll both end up dead within seventy-two hours. We have to go."

"Why?" Garth asked, studying Acton through narrowed lids. He pointed at the two dead gunmen, then at the writhing, whimpering man on the floor at my feet. "You put the death squad out of business."

Acton shook his head impatiently, again glanced anxiously toward the front of the house. The sirens were much closer. "These were amateurs," he said quickly, in the same curt tone. "Clumsy boobs manipulated by Culhane to act out Culhane's fantasy of operating a death squad like the political death squads they have in his beloved Guatemala and El Salvador. I know because I put the idea in his head."

I blinked, stared into the other man's glacial black eyes. "You put-?!"

"There's no time to explain now," Acton interrupted. "I'm here because a few hours ago somebody tried to kill me-and that person was no amateur. I have reason to believe there's a KGB assassin after me, which means that the same assassin, or assassins, will also be after you now that this attempt has failed. You'll have no chance out in the open. You have to come with me."

"Where?" Garth asked.

The dark-eyed KGB officer with the high cheekbones and strong chin abruptly shoved one of the automatic pistols into my brother's hands. "We have to trust each other now; all our lives depend on it. I need you to tell me precisely what's been going on and to walk me in; you need me to stay alive."

Garth and I glanced at each other, and I could see my own thoughts reflected in his eyes; considering the fact that everyone in the mansion would now be dead if it weren't for Jay Acton, it seemed the man had proved his bona fides. "It's your show, Acton," I said.

"Who else knows about me?"

"I do." It was Mary. I hadn't heard her come up, but she was now standing directly behind me, and it was obvious that she'd overheard most of our conversation. "I'm coming with you."

"And we'll take him," Acton said, pointing to Gregory Trex. "He's been witness to a lot of things we'll need to prove-but he'll end up a dead witness if we leave him here."

Garth grunted, stepped over to Trex, and reached down. He grabbed the front of Trex's shirt, rudely hauled him to his feet.

"Let's go," Acton said as he grabbed one of Trex's arms. "Follow me. Down to the river."

Garth grabbed Trex's other arm, and together they half dragged, half carried the thoroughly terrified young man across the glass-strewn floor of the ballroom toward the gaping hole at the far end. Mary offered me her hand. I gratefully took it, and together we followed along through the clouds of sunlit dust and smoke. As I stepped up and over a jagged ridge of glass and dropped to the lawn outside, I thought I heard the police come crashing in at the other end.

Tightly holding on to Mary's hand for support, I stumbled along over the grass down toward the river and the Community's dock. Garth was already removing a canoe and paddles from the wooden rack nearby. Acton abruptly swung the stock of his Uzi around, catching Gregory Trex squarely on the jaw. Trex crumpled to the ground. Acton helped Garth put the canoe into the water, where Mary and I steadied it while they went back to the rack for a second canoe.

I glanced up toward the mansion, but saw no one in the space where the windows had been. Either I had been wrong about hearing the police coming in just as we were leaving, or everyone was too busy attending to the wounded to bother about us, or the Community members-sensing, if not understanding, our need to escape-were providing some kind of distraction.

Garth and Acton lifted the unconscious Trex off the ground and unceremoniously dumped him into the bottom of the canoe Mary and I were holding steady. Acton handed me a paddle and motioned for me to get into the bow, and I did. He got in behind me. Mary climbed into the second canoe, with Garth in the stern, and we shoved off, heading straight out into the river.

I had no idea where we were going, but since I didn't have to steer, it didn't make any difference; my job was simply to paddle, and that's what I did. Every time I dipped my paddle in the water and pulled, pain shot through my entire body, especially my head, but the hurt was bearable; despite me and my circumstances, my body seemed to be healing itself, and I vowed to give it a healthy dose of Scotch as a reward as soon as I got the opportunity. I scooped up a handful of river water to wash the sticky blood from around my eyes, then looked back over my shoulder. Our mini-armada would be clearly visible from the shore, but there was no sign of anyone there to see us. Garth's steady, powerful strokes were keeping the canoe carrying him and Mary a few feet off our stern and slightly to starboard.

Then we passed beneath the looming prow of a three-masted sloop into a veritable thicket of sail- and powerboats that were anchored a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards offshore up and down the river. Acton trailed the edge of his paddle off the port gunwale, and the canoe turned that way, the bow pointing upriver. Now we were hidden from view and would stay that way as long as we continued to thread our way through the anchored boats.

Suddenly I was very, very tired, as if the healing body I had been so pleased with a few moments before had decided that enough was enough and was shutting down for an indefinite period of time. I splashed some more water on my face, and when that didn't help I laid my paddle across the gunwales, leaned on it, and took a series of deep breaths in an attempt to reenergize myself.

"I can handle it, Frederickson," Jay Acton said from behind me. "We're in the clear now. Take it easy."

I nodded, leaned even harder on my paddle. "How did you know we were in the mansion?"

"I didn't; I just knew that Culhane thought you might be, and, if you were, that his boys would kill you, and everyone else in there, so that you wouldn't be able to expose me. I have a tap on his phone."

"What did he tell Trex and the other two?"

"Culhane always talked to Trex, and left Trex to talk to the others. Nothing complicated. He just said you were all communists, naturally, and that it was time for the real patriots in this country to take some drastic action. I don't imagine it took much to get Trex moving; he's been aching to kill Community members anyway, ever since Culhane gave the three of them those automatic pistols."

I half turned in my seat, looked down at the unconscious man sprawled in the bottom of the canoe, sniffed, and wrinkled my nose. "I don't think our boy here would have made out too well in combat. I really wish he hadn't shit in his pants."

Acton grunted. "You and your brother are something else, Frederickson."

"Garth and I owe you our lives. Thanks for what you did back there, Acton."

"You're welcome. But I've told you that I need you alive for my own purposes."

"To explain to you how you were found out?"

"That and more."

"I don't understand. What use can Garth and I be to you?"

"I suggest you rest now. Save your energy. We'll talk later, when we're all together."

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

The fact of the matter was that, for the moment at least, I didn't really care where we were going; I was simply happy that Garth and I were alive, that the pain in my head and the double vision had eased somewhat, and that I could rest. Leaning forward on the paddle, I kept nodding off.

When I lifted my head and looked around after yet another brief nap, I was surprised to find that we had cut back out of the pack of anchored boats and were almost ashore. Above us, soaring into the sky, was the scarred, gouged, naked stone face of the abandoned rock quarry.

Suddenly the bow of the canoe scraped against the fine gravel that formed a narrow beach at the base of the mountain. I tried to get out, intending to pull the canoe up on the beach and steady it, but wobbled and sat down hard on the damp gravel. I gripped the gunwales with both hands and tried to pull myself to my feet, but couldn't. Finally I just leaned back on my elbows and supervised as Garth and Acton unloaded the now semiconscious Gregory Trex. With Garth holding his arms and Acton his feet, they sloshed the helpless would-be hunter of communist men, women, and children in the river in an attempt to get some of the stink out of his clothes, then unceremoniously set him down hard on a rock a few yards away from me. His milky green eyes, filled now with shock and terror, kept darting around, as if he were looking for someone to come to his rescue. He kept clutching at his wounded shoulder, but otherwise remained still.

Mary came up, knelt down beside me, and put her arm around me as Garth and Jay Acton waded both canoes back out to chest-deep water, then used sharp-edged rocks to punch holes in their bottoms. As the canoes slowly sank out of sight, I slowly sank my head onto Mary Tree's left breast and promptly fell asleep again.