After about seventy yards of the restrictive bushes, he emerged into the wide-open space of the Tryall Club's golf course. He could see the Caribbean then, faint line of foamy surf. He could make out the main clubhouse, a long low building with half. a hundred windows facing the golf course-closed for the summer season.
Peter's wide eyes methodically searched the dark Tryall golf course. He was in a combat trance now, all his movements automatic: search and destroy, kill the mercenary or get killed.
His eyes ran over the neat, handsome clubhouse; along the dark flagstone patio and walkway; past hedges, gardens; down a long porch filled with rocking chairs.
Somewhere between the bramble and the club- house he'd missed a turn by the tall running man. His powers as a tracker of men were rusty, Peter realized-gone altogether, kaput. A good Vietnamese soldier would have killed him by now.
A stitch of white lightning lit up the night sky. Then Peter heard Metal Johnson's first scream. Usually more athletic, he took a clumsy header onto the flat, rolling lawns.
Not very expert, he realized as he hit down hard. More like a heavy box bouncing out the back of a speeding truck.
Except that when he stopped bouncing, he was still alive. Chewing dirt, as Sergeant P. Macdonald once instructed new men in the field.
And Johnson was still screaming like an agonized madman. 'Stay down, Macdonald! Stay there!... Stay there, Peter!'
Up near the clubhouse, Peter spotted the shadow of a man with a rifle. The blond man? One of Hill's people? Too dark to be sure.
His heart started to pound so hard, he couldn't catch his breath. His mind filled with choking rage. He wanted the bastard so badly! It was fucked up, pathetic as hell-it was against everything he'd been trying to make of himself since Vietnam. But he wanted the man all the same. He wanted him so badly it ached. Infinite pain... why didn't you shoot me, you prick?
Suddenly automatic rifle fire came out of a grove of trees to his right. Rifles winked in the night. Licks of orange flame.
As he looked on, bullets mercilessly ripped and pounded the clubhouse. Expensive windows crumbled out of the dining room. Lights broke all over. A drainpipe was blown off a wall like papier-mAch6. Peter carefully aimed the Walther at the shadowy man. He squeezed off a single wild shot. A long, impossible shot that came surprisingly close. Then the shadow with the rifle was gone. All the shooting stopped, and it started to rain.
'Fuck you!' Peter stood up in the rain and shouted.
'Fuck you!
'Fuck you, you lousy son of a bitch!'
Sheets of rain came in cool, streaming torrentsmaking it nearly impossible to see. Like having a gunfight in a waterfall. Total confusion.
Somehow or other, he was thinking, Clive Lawson-late guttersnipe out of Billingsgate, late of the British Commandos, late of the unannounced Third World wars-had gotten himself into a nasty little booby trap....
there'd been no word around that Damian and Carrie Rose were doubled dealers. Quite the opposite, in fact.... Christ! Why hadn't he stayed in Miami! Lived to fight another day?
The mercenary lay sideways like a hurt fish in a stonework gutter. He groped around for a flesh wound and found his left side to be numb. Then it burned as if he'd set a gasoline torch to himself.
Lawson turned his left arm to his face. Looked at the glowing silver dials on his watch: 9:12. Too bloody bad. His escape had been arranged for nine. Right after he'd gunned down Campbell. The Roses were supposed to get him out of there. Supposed to.
He started to crawl on his belly inside the littered gutter. He made little fish-fin strokes with his hands.
Then, at the end of the gutter, Clive Lawson got up and started to run.
Damian was God-slowly counting off the final few seconds of confusion.
He studied the teeming grounds through a light intensifier mounted on the stock of his sniper's rifle. The sighting device let him see in the dark. It threw whatever was in the rifle scope into a clear circle of eerie, Christmas-green light.
Watching the human vignettes in the strange green light, he slid his index finger gently down onto the rifle trigger. His finger took in the slack of the trigger....
Peter's face was so wet, it was a bitch just to stop his eyes from blinking. Rainwater was rushing off his forehead. Rolling off his nose. He was actually choking on the rain. Getting frightened now because he couldn't see.
There was no sound around him except for the downpour and his own heavy breathing. His mind was racing at a madhouse pace. Throwing out Technicolor combat images, firefight scenes, disconnected phrases.
Up ahead he could see the outline of overturned furniture on a dining veranda. Wrought-iron tables and chairs. Broken plants and flower pots.
He took one more step forward....
Then Peter saw the shape of another man across the open-air patio.
The man was crouching in front of baby palm lifts. So far, he didn't realize that someone was on the terrace with him.
Peter used the cover of the loud rain to circle around closer. Inch by inch he got ten feet closer. Fifteen feet... another ten feet and he thought he would have a decent pistol shot.
He conned his mind into thinking that he couldn't miss, not even in the rain. He would squeeze off at least two quick shots, he knew. Then as many more shots as he could get in. He hoped the man would never get to use
