Rising Storm

The shotgun came up automatically. The first round of buckshot sent the girl-thing jackknifing back and down. Sarah emptied the magazine with a motion as mechanical and precise as the motions of a Terminator…

'You're terminated, you little bitch!' she rasped. Nothing remotely organic could have survived that. Then the adrenaline flowed out of her. Even so, it took an effort of will to check the cooling corpse.

Sarah took a deep breath. A tarp, she thought. She'd need that to get the body out of here. It might be a good idea to arrange a little bit of blood spatter leading out

to the car. God, she thought in self-disgust, I'm getting to be an artist about shit like this. All at once she knew what she was going to do.

Sarah fixed the emergency brake and got out of the rental car. With one knee braced on the seat, she dragged the Terminator over the gearshift and into the driver's seat. Leaning down below the steering wheel, she pressed the gas pedal down with a stick, making the engine rev. Then, carefully, she backed out, put the car in drive, and dove to the side. The car zoomed forward, slamming the door, and fairly leapt into the swamp.

With an effort, Sarah rose to her feet and watched the car start to sink. The windows were down, so when it finally did reach them the water and mud would pour in, sinking it faster. But for now it floated and she began to worry that this wasn't the bottomless bog that she'd been told it was.

She took a deep breath, then let it out. Turning her back, Sarah started jogging at a limping trot, across the scrubby pasture and back to the house. It sank or it didn't. She'd bury the gloves she wore in one of the flower beds. She would tell the Ayalas that the pretty young girl had a boyfriend hidden in the car and that they had broken in. When she'd arrived he started hitting her, demanding money.

When the girl had finally interfered he'd begun beating her. Sarah tried to stop him and he knocked her out. When she came to they were gone.

It was plausible. Certainly more plausible than the real story. The only thing she couldn't control, that she feared, was what time the Ayalas and the rest of the hands got home from the fiesta. As she approached the house her fear grew that they might already be there.

If they came in and found all the blood and signs of a fight and her missing…

Well, I suppose I could always stay missing. In a way that might solve a lot of problems. But in a way that would also be like giving up. And she wasn't one to just quit. She hadn't yet, even when faced with every reason in the world to do so, and she wasn't going to quit now.

I'm going to go in there, lie on the floor, and wake up screaming and crying like a baby when I hear them come in, she thought, her jaw set. And I'm going to make them believe me. And then she was going to by God wait for her son and the man she loved to come home.

Sarah slowed her pace for a moment as she realized what she'd been thinking.

The word home and the phrase man I love didn't often pass through her mind.

She swallowed a lump in her throat. But I think I approve. Then she started jogging again. She had to get home.

***

As they drove up to the house Epifanio slowed the truck. 'Linda,' he murmured, pointing at the little mare. 'The senora didn't put her away.' Which was most unlike her. One of the things he respected about Senora Krieger was the way she treated her animal.

'That girl!' his wife said. 'I knew she'd be trouble!'

Epifanio stopped the truck and Marietta rushed ahead of them, bursting through the front door exclaiming, 'Senora Krieger! Senora…' Her voice trailed off in consternation as she looked at the wreckage in the front hall. 'Senora?'

Dieter and John, following on her heels, froze in the doorway.

'No,' John said quietly.

He started to move forward, but Dieter's arm barred his way. The older man shook his head slightly, his expression brooking no argument. They held that way for a long moment, then John nodded shortly. Dieter gestured to Marietta, who had watched them in confusion, and she moved slowly to her husband's side.

Von Rossbach swallowed hard and moved down the hallway, looking left and right, into the office, then into the living room. To him it looked like the fighting had been fiercest there and he walked in.

Sarah was sitting on the couch, her face buried in her hands, her elbows on her knees. He stood still for what seemed like a long time; something in him that had clenched tight stretched and he let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding in a great rush of air.

He rushed into the room and she looked up startled; for a second he saw the old fear flash in her eyes, and then she recognized him. Sarah flashed to her feet and moved toward him, and without thought, as naturally as breathing, they came together, despite the limp, and the growing bruise on one bare ankle. Dieter held her as tenderly as if she was made of spun glass, but Sarah clutched him to her with all her strength and their kiss was a conversation that might have gone on for years had they the time.

'You're safe,' he said, pulling back just slightly.

'Yes.' She smiled up at him, then gasped. 'John?' she said desperately as

though to make up for not asking about him first.

'He's safe,' Dieter said, his voice grim.

Sarah looked at him warily. 'But… ?' she prompted.

Von Rossbach bit his lip. 'Wendy didn't make it.'

'Oh, my God,' Sarah whispered. 'Oh, my God.' She shook her head. 'It's my fault,' she said. 'I never should have let a civilian go with you. If she hadn't been so rattled by me she'd have been willing to stay here and wait for John to get back.' She looked up at Dieter. 'He must hate me.'

Dieter put his hand to her cheek; his thumb rubbed at a spot of blood. 'What happened isn't your fault,' he said. 'We needed her skills. Skills that you do not have. You weren't in any condition for the Antarctic—it was brutal.' He shook his head. 'And more people on the mission might have jeopardized its success.

Fewer people equals more covert. You know that.'

'Dieter?' John called from the hall. 'Is it all right to come in?'

Von Rossbach took a deep breath, looked uncertainly at Sarah, and then called out 'yes.' He leaned toward Sarah and whispered, 'John took a wound. He's fine, but it looks bad. Brace yourself.' She looked alarmed and tried to step back from him, but von Rossbach refused to let her go.

John walked in trailed by the Ayalas and their niece, all of whom began exclaiming at the sight of the room's destruction and Sarah's bloodied and battered state.

But John and Sarah only had eyes for each other. Now that John had seen them like this, Dieter let her go and Sarah looked up at him once, gently touched his arm, and walked toward her son.

Sarah looked into John's eyes and knew that all trace of youth, of childhood, were gone, as though the boy had never been. She was looking at a man.

In that moment when their eyes met they shared a new bond. John understood now what she had lost when his father was killed. But unlike her, he had no part of Wendy that he could treasure as Sarah treasured him. No child to love and protect; perhaps there never would be.

She stepped forward, one hand reaching toward his wounded face; she hesitated and settled for stroking his hair. Then she embraced him. John stiffened in her arms and he did not return the gesture.

'I know,' she whispered, tears in her eyes and in her voice. 'I am so sorry.'

Then he clutched at her and she felt him tremble, begin to shake. He was silent, but she knew he was weeping and was glad that he could let go, that he trusted her enough to show his feelings before her.

Sarah looked up and met Dieter's sympathetic eyes. He reached out to her and she took his hand. A sudden, primitive possessiveness flamed in her heart and she clasped them both more fiercely. They were hers and she would protect them both with all of the strength in her body and soul. As they would protect her.

They were a family, each lending strength and support to the other. After so long on her own she knew the