The Day Before Midnight

meaning as of color. It was too stark. He didn’t really think he could go on.

Yet he couldn’t really go back. Teagarden was Delta, top of the pyramid. Delta culture, surprisingly informal in a lot of ways, was also unforgiving in others. It had its own Bushido. The guys got to wear shaggy hair and blue jeans and sweatshirts as long as they kept their rounds in the 9-zone on the range, could crack an occupied 747 in less than thirty seconds, could fieldstrip an AK-47 blindfolded. But there were lots of guys — Berets, Rangers, FBI SWAT, SEALS, Air Commandos — who had those skills. So what Delta had was this other thing, this, uh, spirit: if you were Delta, you never said no. You just went. It really came down to that one thing: if you were Delta, you never said no. That was an absolute as binding as the dark. When it came time to go, you put aside the bullshit, threw your life into the hot frying pan of fate, and you went.

I cannot go, thought Teagarden.

I am thirty-seven years old, a Green Beret, a ’Nam veteran, the holder of several medals, by all credentials one of the bravest professional soldiers in the world. I cannot go.

He began to cry. He hated himself. He wanted to die. He bit his lip, hoping for blood. Searing pain flashed from the wound. He hated himself. He was weak and worthless. There seemed to be no escape at all.

Teagarden pulled his.45 from the holster. There was a shell in the chamber and the piece was cocked and locked. He thumbed the safety down; it unlocked with a little snik! that sounded like a door slamming in the dark. He put the muzzle in his mouth. It had an oily taste, and was big, enshrouded as it was in its slide housing. With his thumb he found the trigger.

“Brother Teagarden.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Brother Teagarden, don’t do it,” she said in Vietnamese. “Go back to the big tunnel. Wait there. I’ll go as far as I can, and if I find something, I’ll come back. Then well call them. We won’t tell them. Nobody will ever have to know.”

“You’re so brave, Sister,” he said. “I’m not brave. Not down here.”

“Brother, nobody will know.”

“I will know.”

“Learn to forgive yourself. That is the lesson of the tunnels. Forgive yourself.”

He couldn’t see her at all. He could almost sense her, though, her heat, her nearness, her living flesh. Next to it he felt a little stupid. The pistol grew heavy. He put it down. He locked it and put it into his holster.

“I’ll just go back a little ways, okay? I just can’t go any farther, Sister Phuong.”

“It’s all right, Brother Teagarden,” said Phuong.

Turning, she went deeper into the tunnel.

“Mommy,” said Poo Hummel, “Mrs. Reed’s house is on fire!”

Herman turned, went to the window. Yes, black smoke poured from the upper floors of the old house next door. He watched it gush and float up to the sky. Then he heard sirens.

Herman licked his lips. He didn’t like this at all. First a man in a sports coat, now this.

“Herman, is Mrs. Reed going to die?” asked Poo.

“No, I don’t think so, little girl.”

“Will the firemen come and save Mrs. Reed?”

“I’m sure the firemen will come,” said Beth Hummel.

They were all gathered in the living room of the Hummel house. Herman looked out the window again. He could see just smoke, and otherwise nothing.

“Does the lady smoke?” Herman wanted to know.

Beth looked away. Then she said, “No, she quit last year.”

Herman nodded. His two men looked at him.

“Get your weapons out,” he said. “I think we’re going to be hit. You go to the kitchen—”

“Oh, God—” said Beth, “Oh, God, the girls, don’t hurt the girls, I tell you, please—”

Bean began to cry. She was older than her sister and may have just understood it all that much better. She didn’t like the guns, because they made people dead on television.

“Herman, I’m scared,” said Poo. “I don’t want to be dead.”

“Please let us go,” said Beth Hummel. “We didn’t do anything to you. We never did anything to anybody.”

Herman looked at the woman and her two terrified children. He tried to think what to do. He hadn’t come all this way to make war on children and women. Little Poo came across the room to him and put her arms out, and Herman swept her up.

“Don’t go away, Herman. Please don’t go away. Don’t let the firemen make you dead.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to Herman,” he said. “You and your sister, you go upstairs, you stay in your rooms no matter what. No matter what!” he finished savagely. “Now, run. Run, Poo. Take care of your sister.”

Poo scrambled up the stairs, pulling Bean along. The younger one was the stronger one.

“You, lady, you’re grown-up. You gotta take your risks with the rest of us.”

“Who are you? What is this?”

“Here they are,” said the man at the window. He had an FAL, not a house-to-house weapon, with an utterly worthless Trilux night sight. “Should I fire?”

“No, no,” said Herman. “Maybe they are just firemen. Get up on the stair landing, get ready to jump in either direction, depending on which way they come. You”—he pointed to the other—“you get to the rear, in the kitchen. If they come—”

The man cocked his weapon, a Sterling sub-machine gun, in answer.

“Get to the door, lady,” Herman ordered, his voice taut and ugly. He pressed the silenced Uzi against her back. Then he slid the bolt back, locking it. As he held it tightly he felt the safety in the grip yield to the pressure in his palm.

Peering through the window, he saw the firemen racing to unlimber hoses, and others heading into the Reed house with axes and oxygen masks on.

Two firemen in heavy slickers broke from the truck and headed toward the Hummel house.

He could hear them yelling, “Anybody in there? You’ve got to get out!” They were knocking on the door.

Uckley’s heart was pumping like crazy; his knees felt like jelly, loose and slippery. He didn’t see how they’d support him on the run to the house. It bounded in his vision as he and Delta Three careened toward it, though, of course, he was the one doing the actual bounding. Delta Three had a slight lead as they clambered up the porch steps and made it to the door. He saw Delta Three’s slicker open and billow like a cape as the muzzle of the sub- machine gun came out.

“Anybody in there? Goddammit, you’ve got to get out, the flames may spread!” Delta Three screamed, pounding on the door.

Nothing happened for just a second. Delta Three leaned into the door, dropped his ax, his eyes shooting toward Uckley. Uckley now had the Smith in his hand, though he was surprised to find it there, not having remembered reaching for it.

“Mark your target,” muttered Delta Three under his breath, then paused for just a second to hit the speaker button on his belt and talk into the radio mike he had pinned to his collar. “Delta units, this is Delta Three, green light, green light, green light!” the words increasing with energy and urgency.

Delta Three kicked in the door.

Herman heard a burst of gunfire from the kitchen, things breaking, men screaming, everything mixing together in a welter of confusion. “Attack, attack,” yelled the man in the kitchen, firing again. Herman pulled Mrs. Hummel to him and back as the door before him burst open and the two firemen who were police agents plunged through the door. Though the gunfire rose from the kitchen, he stared for just a second at the bulging eyes and distended faces of the men opposite them. Then he fired, the gun pumping with that terrible noiseless stutter of the silencer, its shells cascading out. He put a burst into them, knocking them back, pushed the woman forward at them, spun, and ran for the steps. A bullet came after him, hit him high in the arm and pushed him down, bloodying