Screaming an inarticulate 'No!' Elpidia unfroze. Her rifle flew to her shoulder and her finger to the trigger. If the range was short, the shooter was unpracticed. If the shooter was unpracticed the rifle had nine bullets still in the magazine. If the bullets were small caliber they were each hollow points.
The muzzle of Elpidia's rifle flashed fire.
* * *
Though again Elpidia aimed for center of mass, her first bullet took Musashi in the throat. The soft lead slug entered just below the Adam's apple. As it met the resistance of flesh the lead peeled back, expanding and tearing its way through larynx, meat, blood vessels and cartilage. Musashi's mouth gaped like a fish. His body shuddered from shock and pain.
Rifle weaving, Elpidia struck next the agent's right collar bone, missing the rectangle of light body armor the agent wore under his suit. Under the bullet's impact, the bone shattered, casting its own splinters inward along with the fragments of lead.
Musashi groaned and, letting go his pistol, reached both hands up to where his throat spurted crimson.
Elpidia's third shot missed her target's right ear, but her next two punched into and through the agent's face, doing a fair job of scrambling his brain.
The girl's next shot missed completely as an incredible, shocking roar exploded in front of her own face; Miguel's shotgun.
* * *
Miguel too, had seen the pistol being drawn. Yet the year-old words of the Father shone clear in his memory: 'Do not point a weapon at a man unless you intend to kill him.'
Miguel didn't want to kill anybody . . . but understood the priest's unspoken words: 'If you do point a firearm at someone, kill him.'
He stood frozen, as Elpi had earlier, while her rifle spit its first flame. When he saw the rest of the agents reaching inside their suit jackets—more guns being drawn to kill the girl he loved—he unfroze immediately and lifted the muzzle to point at the nearest of the agents. As if shooting skeet, his finger stroked the trigger. The recoil rocked him backwards, though not nearly so forcefully as the buckshot knocked back the agent who took the blast full in the face. Bones, blood and brain burst, a crimson cloud hanging briefly in the air before decorating the wall.
Miguel recovered from the recoil and swept the muzzle left for his next target. Sweep, stroke, blast, recoil, recover, sweep . . .
The last agent standing exclaimed, 'My God they've got guns!' before Miguel's last—hasty—shot tore away half the agent's left leg. He fell outward and, whimpering, began to crawl to safety.
Miguel advanced to finish the job until held in check by Montoya's outstretched arm.
* * *
Though shocked by the shotgun's fierce blast, Elpidia recovered quickly . . . as anyone whose life had contained as many hard knocks as hers might have recovered quickly. Her last three shots took Musashi—quite needlessly, he was already dead and his body and mind simply didn't know it yet—in the chest. One was stopped by the body armor, the others just missed and entered the chest cavity, perforating lungs and other otherwise useful organs.
Leaving a trail of blood, the agent's body slid slowly down the wall to come to rest on the bloodstained floor.
* * *
Still holding Miguel back, Montoya's eyes swept over the scene: three fresh corpses, three spreading pools of blood. His nose sniffed at the familiar cordite smell. His ears heard the wailing of the lone survivor as he dragged his mutilated body down the neatly kept walkway that led to the mission's door . . . as they heard the retching of Father Flores, spilling his pungent vomit to join the spreading blood.
Montoya sniffed again. Yes, there
In the distance, but growing rapidly closer, the priest sensed as much as heard the wailing of police sirens . . . many of them.
Chapter Four
From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of
Virginia v. Alvin Scheer
* * *
DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED
BY MR. STENNINGS
Q. So what did you do about it, Alvin?
A. Do? Me? I didn't do a damned thing . . . excuse my language. Didn't see where there was anything I could do. Me being a kinda' little fish in a pretty big pond, and all. I saw on TV where somebody decided they could do something about it, though. Quite the thing, it was. News stations didn't hardly cover anything else for weeks.
Seemed some priest, the Catholic kind, I mean, well . . . when the government tried to bust into his church? Done kilt 'em. Most of 'em. Least that's what the TV said.
There were troops everywhere. Coming off planes from Washington. Unloading them things something like tanks but on wheels . . . that was that new 'Presidential Guard, Secret Service' group. PGSS they called it. Something in that name rung a bell . . . the name and them black uniforms they wore. But I wasn't sure what. Like I said, I ain't no educated man.
They were landing by helicopter from all over, too. Surrounded the place.
Another funny thing. First few days? There were mostly Texas police surrounding the place. By . . . oh . . . lemme see . . . maybe three days later? Nothing but feds and reporters.
And all the reporters? Well, wasn't too much difference among 'em. All the same story. 'Priest was a pervert.' 'Murderer, too,'
