before feeling pain, instantly incinerated. Twisted sheets of steel floated upward in the flames.
Shielding his face from the flash, the standing Outlaw watched the warehouse disintegrate, then squatted beside the biker. But the biker was dead, drained of blood.
The Outlaw put the expended launcher tube on the biker's chest, folding his hands around it.
Then the Outlaw slipped away into the swirling smoke. Motorcycles roared to life, moved on out.
16
Wind tangled his hair with his beard. Horse surveyed the devastation and death. The warehouse still burned. Smoke poured from the shell of buckled, scorched sheet steel. Gutted hulks of cars smoldered in the parking lot, wisps of acrid matter drifting from blackened interiors.
At the entrance to the parking lot, Horse looked down at Charlie's annihilated squad. The four Outlaws were sprawled amongst the wreckage of their motorcycles. Their ripped bodies had stiffened in the postures of death: hands knotted over spilled viscera, faces contorted in agony as if they still screamed. A pool of oil, gasoline and coagulated blood added background color to the group.
Twenty feet to one side, a dead man embraced the tube of the expended LAAW rocket.
'Last thing he did,' Stonewall said.
Without commenting, Horse strolled on. He looked down at the scabs, bones, greasy meat that had once been an Outlaw. He observed closely the eight-inch barrel of the revolver lying in ash.
'That was Banzai,' he said. 'I gotta talk to Turk.'
Stonewall called to a group of bikers standing near the burning warehouse. 'Turk! Horse here wants to talk to you.'
The balding giant plodded over to his commander. Turk carried a riot shotgun slung over his back. Only two 12-gauge cartridges remained in the bandolier that crossed his chest.
'Where were you?' Horse asked him.
'I was over there.' Turk pointed to a seawall on the far side of the airline terminal. 'Hanging my ass over the water, covering the big door and the side facing the water.'
'Did any of them get away?'
'Nothing got out. Banzai had us surround the place. Guys on the other side, guys on these sides, me covering that end. We kept shooting until the rocket hit it. And bang, it went up.'
'They're not even shit now,' Stonewall said, looking at the warehouse.
'Just smoke,' said Turk.
'It ain't funny!' Horse's eyes were fit to kill. 'We lost twelve brothers. You understand? Those locals took twelve of us with them.'
Turk backed away as Horse brought up his MAC-10. 'Horse, easy man. I was here. It was bad, man, it was bad! But we won. We offed them. Take it easy.'
Turning his back on Turk, Horse walked to the warehouse. He shielded his face against the heat and moved closer to the red hot wall of the warehouse. He snatched up a cartridge casing and an odd bit of metal from the concrete.
'What's that?' Stonewall called to him.
'A .308 casing and a belt link for an M-60.'
'No wonder they ripped our dudes up. They had a goddamned machine gun. Where the fuck did they...'
'From Chief. He had one of the M-60's. These were the locals who got the Chief. And all of Chief's men. And the Monk. And the twelve men here. Heroes. Thinking they're going to save the day, screw up our plan, protect the wife and punk kids...'
Horse angrily threw the cartridge casing and belt link into the flames. He spoke to the rising column of smoke. 'This is it, heroes. You killed my men, I killed you. But that payback ain't enough. Now I'll kill your people! All of your people!'
He laughed eerily, his gaunt addict's face cavernous like the skull in flames on his jacket's insignia.
'I wonder who they were?' Roger Davis said, rewrapping his shot-through forearm. He drew the strip of hotel sheet tight and tucked in the end. He tried to make a fist, but winced from the pain.
'Whoever they were,' Chris told him, 'they took out a lot of creeps.'
From the roof of the hotel, the youths could see only the smoke from the burning terminal. But they had monitored the pursuit and battle on the captured walkie-talkie.
'If everyone had fought like them,' Roger said as he looked into the distance, 'the Outlaws wouldn't have lasted ten minutes. But everyone just did what they were told...'
'The Outlaws tricked everyone, people didn't know. Only people who didn't follow instructions got away. Like us. Like Mr. and Mrs. Shepard. Like those three guys.'
'Wonder who they were... ' He turned to Chris. 'What'll you do if they spot us? If they try to take us?'
'I saw what they did to those old people. That's what they'll try and do with us. But in these jackets...' he pointed to the bloodstains on the denim '...with rifles and pistols and all the stuff that we took from their guys, oh man, we don't have any choices. We fight. That's all there is.'
'Here they come!' Roger hissed. The roar of motorcycles announced the return of the Outlaws from the Pebbly Beach seaplane terminal.
Drawing their heads down as the Outlaws passed, both boys tightened their grip on their weapons: Chris holding the M-14, Roger a revolver in his left hand. They had counted only five bikers.
They looked up again, saw the bikers continue to the Casino. Chris grinned. 'Not as many as there used to be.'
Shirley pressed through the Ballroom's crowd. A child pulled at her sweatsuit. She leaned down, listened to the little girl, then took the girl's hand. She walked with her to the edge of the huge circle of residents in the center of the dance floor.
'Joe, Andy,' she called out. Two wide-shouldered men turned. 'This little girl — what's your name, honey?'
'Georgia, like the state.'
'Well, gentlemen. Please escort Miss Georgia to the little girl's room. She's afraid to go with just her mother.'
The shorter, stronger man glanced to the Outlaw guarding the exit door near the women's restroom. 'I know the story. We'll take her over.' Then he leaned close to Shirley: 'Notice there's only one of them at each door now? What's happened outside?'
'I don't know. Something.'
Joe smiled slightly, then he and the second man walked with the young girl across the expanse of dance floor.
Shirley continued on to Max Stevens. A teenage boy was speaking with Max.
'Why would they need gasoline? You think they're going to make a break for it in a boat? Maybe a plane?'
'Who knows? But thank you for reporting, try to hear something whenever you think it's safe. Shirley, just a minute. Mr. Andrews over here has been waiting to tell me — yes, Mr. Andrews?'
The elderly man in red silk smoking robe and leather slippers told his story:
'... I kept my legs up. He came into the restroom and walked along the toilet stalls checking to see which ones were empty. I had my legs up, and he went into the stall next to me. What he said, I listened to every word: 'Horse, this is your friend. Have you eliminated... good. The loss of your men is unfortunate. Horse, understand this, it is the threat of action against the hostages that keeps the authorities at a distance. You do not need an army to defend the island. The threat is your defense. After we board the submarine, the survival of these petty bourgeoisie' — that is what he said — 'the survival of these petty bourgeoisie is immaterial. We will have the gold, we will have
