'Come on, Michael—gotta find your sister—and Millie, too.'
She pushed through the tent flap, stepping over the dead Russian soldier.
Gunfire from the helicopter above laced the center of the street, running men and women dying.
She pushed Michael ahead of her, 'Toward the fence where the children play—hurry!'
Carrying a knapsack and a second sack loaded with ammunition and spare magazines, her son ran ahead of her, Sarah stopping to pump the trigger of the M-, catching a Soviet soldier in the chest. She started to run again, the whooshing sound—she guessed it was a mortar. The tent behind her exploded, the tents on each side catching fire, someone running from the nearest tent—she couldn't tell if it were a man or a woman, the body a living torch, screams shrieking from inside the flames.
She pumped the trigger of the M-—a long burst, the body tumbling to the ground, the screaming stopped.
She kept running, Michael ten yards ahead of her, already beside the fence. 'Get through and onto the other side—hurry, Michael!'
The boy slipped through the fence, starting to run across the corraled area. She reached the fence, climbing up, rolling, half falling down, firing the M-into a knot of Russian soldiers too close to her, gunfire ripping into the fence posts and runners, the M-bucking in her hands, two of the Russians going down.
She rammed a fresh magazine into the rifle, stuffing the empty into her jeans waist band. She made to fire—nothing happened.
She worked the bolt, letting it fly forward. Nothing happened again as she fired.
One of the Russians remained. He was wounded, on his feet, running toward her.
She looked down at the rifle as she worked the bolt—the bolt wouldn't pick up the top round, wouldn't chamber it.
'Damn,' she shouted.
'Damnit!'
The Russian was less than ten yards from her, his arms raising as he shouldered his assault rifle.
Sarah dropped the rifle, reaching for the Trapper ., thumbing down the safety, extending the pistol at arms length—she pumped the trigger once, then once again, then once again, the Russian's body stopping as though frozen, the assault rifle dropping from his hands as he lurched forward. She fired the .—again, then again, the slide locking open, the Russian falling, against the fence runners, his body hanging there, inches from her face.
She pushed the magazine release, taking the empty magazine and pocketing it, then finding the second loaded spare Bill Mulliner had given her. She stuffed it up the butt of the pistol, thumbed down the slide stop.
She picked up the malfunctioning M-in her left hand, backing away from the fence, the cocked . in her right fist.
'Momma!'
She looked over her shoulder.
Michael—and someone pulling him into the bushes.
She started to run, toward the far side of the corral, to the fence, through the fence this time rather than over it, the . extending ahead of her.
'Momma!'
It was Annie's voice this time.
She was ready to kill—but the red-haired head that bobbed from behind the hedgerow—Bill Mulliner. 'Mrs. Rourke—come on!'
She started to run, the whirring of the helicopter rotor blades overhead. Instinctively, she threw herself down, __ machinegun fire tearing into the ground on both sides of her as she looked up, the underbelly of the green chopper passing over her head, the rotor sound fading.
She pushed herself up, upping the safety on the Trapper ., running.
'Sarah—over here!' It was Mary Mulliner.
She saw Bill Mulliner now—Michael, Annie and Millie Jenkins with Mary.
'Halt!'
The accented English—hard to understand, but easy to understand as well.
She wheeled, depressing the thumb safety—two Soviet soldiers. She pumped the trigger of the Trapper . once, hearing a burst of gunfire from behind her, lighter sounding like an M-. She threw herself to the dirt, firing her pistol again and again, hearing more of the M-fire from behind her, the Russian nearest her firing his AK-wildly as he went down, falling, his head slapping against the dirt inches from hers. The second Russian fell—backward, the body bouncing once.
She pushed herself to her feet, turned—Michael and Annie stood beside Bill Mulliner. The red-haired boy knelt on the ground, his mother further back in the trees.
Sarah ran toward them.
'Bill—what—'
She looked over his shoulder. Millie Jenkins—the girl whose father was tortured to death by brigands, whose mother committed suicide after watching it. The girl Sarah had never liked—a quiet girl since the death of her parents. Her skull was split by a bullet, or perhaps more than one.
