CHAPTER 35
Other structures squatted nearly a kilometer distant, but they knew better than to risk any more time in the open than absolutely necessary. They were supposedly locked in mutually deadly embrace, still in the circling sprint chopper that slowly circled downwind across the valley.
'Quantrill, you made a hell of a try; the best,' said Control in his head. 'If you remand yourself to Sanger's custody now, maybe we can get you both down alive. If you don't you are suiciding. Do you agree?'
'Maybe; maybe not,' he panted, hurling the wooden doors open.
'We hold too many cards,' Control insisted, and reminded him by setting the squalling infant on the slate again at medium strength. Then, over the cacophony, Control began a seductive spiel with one theme:
'Give it up, Quantrill. You've taken too much punishment. Let us help you. You must be exhausted, hurt, afraid. We understand; we don't want you hurt. Relax; let us take the burden…'
The two desperate rovers stormed down a center aisle in the nave, pausing at the sanctuary which, for their immediate needs, was no sanctuary at all. Control's transmissions were still too loud, too clear.
Sanger darted toward one of the hallways that flanked the sanctuary; discovered only a gloomy little bathroom and a gloomier reconciliation room with its confessional screen.
Quantrill took the other hall, now limping again, and was ready to blow the lock off the sacristy door when a lean aged figure appeared at the end of the hall, buttoning the long sleeves of a black shirt. 'Is there something—,' the man began, and saw the chiller, and crossed himself. Quantrill nearly shot him dead before seeing that the priest was not reaching for a sidearm.
The man of God faced this hellish apparition with its dirt-caked face, its torn bloody coverall, its deadly weapon and half-mad eyes that glowed with more deadly purpose. The rounded shoulders straightening, he stared at the young rover. 'I'm Father Klein. You won't need that in my chapel,' he said, nodding at the chiller.
In answer, Quantrill pocketed the weapon, waved for the priest to follow, hobbled back to the nave. He had remembered the visitor’s register near the doors. Sanger all but collided with him, saw his silent gesture to his rear, tried a sickly smile as she spied the elderly man hurrying toward them.
'Are you in trouble? Can't you talk?' But she was shaking her head, pointing to her breast and then drawing a finger across her throat. The gestural shorthand of S & R rovers would not take her very far with this man, who could not know that his were the only spoken words to which Control was wholly deaf.
The felt-nibbed pen in Quantrill's hand flew across the register, the few scrawled words high and bold.
NEED BASEMENT OR CAVE. THEN TALK.
The priest bent to study the scrawl. His response seemed to take an eon. Unheard by him, Control babbled in two heads. 'There's nothing like that here,' the priest said, blinking. 'The nearest mines are some distance away,' he gestured, leading them back through the nave and past the sacristy.
When Sanger half-sobbed, 'I need time to think. Control,' the priest studied her with curiosity and compassion.
Then he led them into a spacious kitchen meant to serve large gatherings. 'I haven't a car, and it's a brisk climb up to the mines,' he said, pointing through the nearest window.
It was all of that, Sanger judged. Even with help, the battered Quantrill would need a half-hour to get up- slope to the nearest mine shaft. She scanned the kitchen. She did not see the ancient clipboard near the sink, but took in the huge butcher block that squatted near the center of the kitchen with cutlery of many kinds arrayed on its solid flanks. Staring at the gleaming blades she said aloud, 'I have a bad cut and I need a doctor right now. Immediately.' Her calm was ice-brittle. She knew Quantrill would never agree with her silent decision.
Father Klein frowned; he could see no bloodstains on her clothing. 'Let me help,' he said, stepping nearer.
From Control: 'Some things take time, Sanger. We're on the way.'
Sanger juggled her auditors, waved the priest away savagely while staring hard into his face. 'A surgeon, as soon as humanly possible. How long?'
Control: 'Not long.'
Father Klein: 'Ten minutes, I suppose. I don't have a link to him but I'll take my bicycle to the village. It's pretty primitive here, I'm afraid.' He gazed at Quantrill, fascinated. Sanger saw that Quantrill was staring at nothing, but his hand tore at the hair over his mastoid as though idly plucking fur from a stuffed animal.
Then he glanced at the others, half-smiled; dropped his hand, oblivious to the strands of hair caught between his fingers.
'Make it five minutes, will you?' So far, she had given Control no hint that she might be speaking directly to a fourth party. She gestured the priest on his way, looking about her for equipment she could use. In a thigh pocket she had the first item, the hypospray canister.
'Is that as loud as you can do it, Control?' Quantrill's forehead glistened with sweat, his eyelids flickering in tune with some maddening noise that Sanger could not hear.
Using muted gutterals that Control alone could decipher clearly, Sanger lied, 'I think he's fainting.
Control.' If the bastards thought him unconscious they might not pull his plug. Oh, but they wanted him
She noted the prewar dishtowels folded near the sink, the small hardwood cutting board that hung at the side of the chopping block. They would have to serve. She faced Quantrill, hurrying on with it, certain that if she faltered only once she would not be able to continue. She addressed him twice, once aloud and then in sign talk. 'Quantrill, you're about to get your moment of truth.' Pause, then,
He was plucking at his hair again, but stopped as he read a phrase he had never seen her use. Evidently the sounds in his head took a lot of cognitive jamming because his silent reply was jerky:
Lips and hands moving: 'Don't try to scare me, little man.'
She moved to him, raised a hand to his cheek, saw his eyes close as he kissed her open palm to seal a pact; one that might accept, if not mutual suicide, then double murder. It was then that she brought up her other hand with the tiny canister of hypo-spray.
Sanger's weapon was not as gentle as most drugs, but only curare was quicker. At least the stuff would put him out instead of leaving him paralyzed and fully conscious. She placed her mouth on his for one heart-rending instant before triggering the canister against the side of his head and then, as she pulled back, spraying it into his mouth.
Stumbling, wiping furiously, he backed against the chopping block. 'Sanger! Oh Sanger, what the hell have you done?'
'Outlasted you,' she said. She dared not approach him as he faltered; his dismay was tinged with fury.
Yet her hands said,
Control was braying for a report. 'Hypospray,' she gasped. 'Got the little fucker but — inhaled a little.'
She pulled him onto the butcher block, face down, and snatched up a handful of clean towels. Two of them, folded thick, went under his chin. Her belt medikit provided sterile pressure patches which she lay face-up on the wooden surface. Her utility knife with its retractable blade guard was as sharp as a filleting knife. If Sanger could shave her legs with it, perhaps it would shave a patch of skull. She did, nicking him only once over the swell of mastoid behind his ear; and saw the thin scar appear, a neat job by men of great expertise and no vestige of human compassion.
The cleaver was her first choice but she feared it was too dull. The largest of the carving knives was almost as heavy, and wickedly sharp. She sterilized its blade with an ampoule from her kit, grabbed the small cutting board by its handle, laid it down again and gripped her hands tightly to quell their trembles.
She might be killing him anyway, but if either hand shook she would surely fail.
