the shirt of the guy on the floor. I had expected to feel something more, but it had happened too fast, there was too much to manage, the weight of him, the rifle, the need for silence. Then the stunned aftermath. And now Diana.
I went to her, knelt down and whispered, 'Be very quiet. We're getting out of here, now.'
She stared at me, as if my words were hard to understand. Then she nodded, slowly. She held up her bound hands. I brought up the knife to cut the rope. There was still sticky blood between my fingers.
The front door to the room began to open. I backed away from
Diana and stood against the adjacent wall, next to the corpse. She lay down again in the position I had seen her in through the window.
Mathenet strode in. He went right to the desk, to the left of the door. He hadn't seen me or the body. He opened a drawer with a key and took something out, put it in his jacket pocket and picked up a briefcase from under the desk.
'Jean?' he called out as he straightened up. I had the Thompson leveled at his gut. He opened his mouth again but no sound came out.
'If you don't want that nice uniform all messed up, then do what I tell you.'
His face went white. He nodded.
'Shut the door,' I said.
He did. Diana sat again, holding her hands out to me. I cut through the rope, and I saw Mathenet s eyes dart to the guard's body and back to the knife.
'What do you want?' he said.
I was about to say, to get the hell out of here in one piece, when I heard yelling and footsteps outside. Loud engine noises reverberated in the courtyard again, and then the door flew open, in the midst of a torrent of French from Villard. He stopped in mid-sentence when he saw me, one hand on the doorknob, the other at his holster.
'No,' I said.
Moving the Thompson to cover him, I debated killing him right then and there, but we needed to make a getaway and pissing off a dozen or so SOL thugs by gunning down their boss would not help us. Diana walked over to pick up the dead guard's rifle.
'No,' I said again, for her benefit.
'Lieutenant Boyle, once again I must protest your interference with purely French internal affairs. Formulation of charges will have to wait though, as we must be on our way. Lieutenant Mathenet, give me the briefcase,' said Villard as he held out his hand.
'Not so fast,' I said.
'What are you going to do? Shoot us? Then what? You will be dead within the minute.'
'It's not a very good plan, I'll admit, but it does have something going for it,' I said.
'What is that?' Villard said with a sneer.
'You'll die first.'
He laughed. 'You are too gallant to sacrifice the life of this young lady in order to kill me,' Villard said. 'Come, Mathenet, now!'
Mathenet was still thinking. He didn't have Villard's bravado and his indecision showed. Villard took a step toward Mathenet and grabbed him by the collar. I tried to keep my aim on Villard but he ducked behind Mathenet and then propelled him toward us, as he snatched the briefcase from his hand. The door slammed behind him as Mathenet bumped into us. Diana went down, her rifle firing into the ceiling. I staggered, trying to keep my balance as Mathenet struggled to untangle himself from her, but I steadied myself a split second before he broke free and gave him a rap on the head with the butt of the Thompson. He fell to the floor just as the door opened and two SOL goons spilled into the room. I pulled the trigger and sprayed them with the Tommy gun. They went down with arms and legs flailing. Smoking cartridges littered the floor and now there were three dead Frenchmen in the room plus one who was unconscious. It was getting crowded.
I lifted Diana. She still looked dazed, not quite sure where she was.
'Are you hurt?' I asked, my eyes on the door.
'You came for me,' she said. 'I was dreaming about you… You were on fire.'
'I'll explain later. We've got to blow this joint in a hurry. Come on.'
'Wait.' She knelt and unbuckled Mathenet's holster. She pulled out his revolver, cocked the trigger and held it to his head.
'No!' I said. 'I need him. I need his evidence.'
'He injected me, kept me drugged. I won't let him escape.' The barrel was still pointed at his temple.
'No, he won't. We've got the exit covered, but you and I need to get out now!' I grabbed her arm and pulled her along. She held on to the revolver but she followed me. We stepped over the twisted bodies of the two guards in the doorway. I had expected the SOL to send reinforcements, but no one else was in the building. The other barracks room was empty, the only sign of life two cigarettes in an ashtray burning down, the gray smoke curling up from them, left by the two dead guards.
I heard a faint, muffled yelling coming from somewhere. Then, from outside, a loud noise of engines again, and machine gun fire. It sounded like a full-fledged battle. Maybe the rest of the commandos had arrived. I ran to the doorway, signaling Diana to stay low, leaned around the doorframe and saw a bright muzzle flash as bullets hit the wall just above my head, wood splintering, concrete from the walls spraying me with gray dust.
I lay in the hallway, my head buried under my arms. What the hell was that, I asked myself.
'Armored car,' said Diana.
'Whose?' I said.
'They have an armored car in the garage. An old model, from the First War.'
'Damn!'
I sneaked another look. The armored car was there all right, moving up to the front of the line with its machine gun chattering, firing away at the jeep from behind the safety of steel plate.
Villard must've given us a parting shot with that burst. Now he was focused on the exit, and forcing his way through. I ran toward the gate, wondering if I could get close enough to lob a grenade under his vehicle. Then the tarp on the back of the last truck in line flew up; more rifles than I could count were pointed at me. I dove and rolled to the side of the headquarters building as bullets sang past my ears. Lying flat on the ground as more shots dug up dust and dirt, and slammed into the wood at the corner of the building, I caught a glimpse of Diana, still standing in the doorway. She had her revolver up, the grip cupped in the palm of her left hand, squeezing off carefully aimed shots at the guys shooting at me. After the fourth shot, they turned their fire on her, and she dropped to the floor.
Slugs from the SOL men peppered the doorway. I stood and fired a burst at them, then ran around the back of the headquarters building, discarding the empty clip and ramming a new one in as I went. The shooting died down. As I peered around the corner, I could see the armored car going through the entrance as Duxbury backed up the jeep, wisely retreating. There was no way four men in an open jeep could take on an armored car. Villard led the procession, the column of SOL trucks and cars following. I could have peppered any of them, but I didn't know which held prisoners, who were now hostages. And without the machine gun firing to cover me, the SOL riflemen would gun me down in a minute. I watched the column disappear down the dirt road, out toward the desert.
Diana! Had she been hit?
She was alone. With Mathenet, and he was the only link I had to Villard now. I ran to her, hoping not to hear a single revolver shot.
Chapter Twenty-five
Diana was inside the room, unharmed, leaning against the desk, reloading the revolver. She had emptied Mathenet's cartridge pouch and tied his hands, using the same rope on him that she had been bound with. He had a nasty cut on his forehead from where I'd whacked him, but he was awake, murmuring in French and wincing every time he moved his head.
Diana didn't look at me. She chambered the last round and closed the cylinder. I touched her shoulder and
