1632

The miners nodded, and crowded a little closer.

'So get your guns, boys. I know damn well you've all got something stashed in your vehicles. We're going hunting.'

As the men started moving toward their trucks, Mike reconsidered. 'Except you, Ken. You've got to get Dan back to the high school. They've got a clinic.'

Seeing the elderly Hobbs' look of suspicion, Mike elaborated curtly. 'Don't argue with me! It's not your age, dammit. You've got the only van here.' He pointed at Frost. 'Better than tossing him into the bed of a pickup.'

Mollified, Hobbs nodded. 'I'll get my gun. Leave it with you guys.'

Mike heard Nichols murmur something to his daughter. A moment later the doctor was rising.

'Sharon can do as much for him right now as I can,' he said. 'It's just a flesh wound. Big one, but nothing worse. She'll go back with him to the clinic.'

Mike cocked an eyebrow. Nichols smiled thinly. 'I'm coming with you.' Nichols nodded toward the wall. 'Like you said, something bad's going down here. I suspect you'll need me down the road a ways.'

Mike hesitated. Then, studying the hard, rough face-a very thin smile that was-he nodded. 'Okay with me, Doc.' He looked down at Frost. 'Can you get that holster off him? You better have a weapon yourself.'

While Nichols occupied himself with that task, Mike went over to his own pickup. It was the work of a few seconds to haul his gun from its place of concealment behind the seat. And a box of ammunition. He hefted the big.357 magnum. The weapon was a Smith Wesson Model 28 Highway Patrolman fixed-sight revolver, tucked into a clip holster. Fortunately, Mike had insisted on dress pants using a belt instead of suspenders. He attached the holster to the belt and shoved the ammunition in the rented tuxedo's deep pockets.

Then he went over to Dan's Cherokee and took out the shotgun. He also found two boxes of ammunition. One of them contained rounds for the.40 caliber. The other held double-ought buckshot. The same rounds would be in the shotgun's magazine. He pried out a half dozen shotgun shells and stuffed them in his pants pockets. The box of.40-caliber ammunition he kept in his hand. Between the revolver and all the ammunition, he felt like a waddling duck.

Screw it. I'd rather be a well-armed duck than a sitting one.

By now, Sharon and Hobbs had gotten Dan into the back of the van. Jenny Lynch had recovered enough to lend them a hand. Less than a minute later, the van was turning around and heading back to the high school.

Mike's union members were gathered around him. All of them were armed. Most of them with pistols, except Frank's beloved lever-action Winchester and Harry Lefferts' 'For Christ's sake, Harry,' Mike snapped, 'don't ever let Dan catch you with that.'

Harry grinned. He was the same age as Darryl-they were best friends, in fact-and shared Darryl's carefree youthful attitudes. 'And what's wrong with a sawed-off shotgun?' he demanded. He jerked his head around, pointing to everyone else with his chin. 'It's not as if every damn one of these guns isn't illegal, when you get right down to it. So what's another concealed weapon-among friends?'

A little chuckle swept the group. Mike made a face. 'Yeah, well-you better be damn close, with that thing. Don't forget these guys were wearing armor.'

He turned now to the doctor, and handed him the box of.40-caliber ammunition he'd found in the glove compartment. Nichols put down the first-aid kit he was carrying. Mike was not particularly surprised to see the quick and expert way in which Nichols reloaded the automatic pistol.

'Well-trained, you Marines,' he murmured.

Nichols snorted. 'Marines, my ass. I knew what to do with one of these before I was twelve.' He hefted the automatic. 'This is Blackstone Rangers' training. I grew up within spitting distance of Sixty-third and Cottage Grove.'

Suddenly, the black doctor was beaming wickedly at the white men around him. 'Gentlemen,' he said, 'the Marines are at your side. Not to mention Chicago's worst ghetto. Let's deal.'

The miners grinned back. 'Nice to have you along, Doc,' announced Frank.

Mike turned, and strode toward the embankment. 'Like you said. Let's deal.'

Chapter 3

Mike used Jenny's car, still dug into the embankment, as a stepping stone to climb onto the embankment. When he planted his foot on the peculiar wall, it immediately gave way, showering more dirt on the car. He sprawled awkwardly, cursing under his breath, and dragged himself over the edge.

Once he arose, he gazed down at his tuxedo. Between his recent mishap and the effects of throwing himself onto the pavement when the shooting started, the elegant outfit was looking more than a little scruffy.

The rental company's not going to be happy with me, he thought ruefully. But-

Mike gave Frank a hand climbing up. 'Be careful,' he urged. 'That wall looks solid because it's so shiny, but it's nothing but loose earth.'

Once Frank was atop the wall, he turned to help the others. Mike took the moment to examine his surroundings.

His new surroundings. What he saw confirmed his suspicions.

But I think a ticked-off tuxedo rental company is probably the least of my problems.

The 'wall' wasn't a wall of any kind. It was simply the edge of a plain stretching into the distance. Everything about that landscape was wrong. There was no level stretch that size anywhere in northern West Virginia. And the sun Frank vocalized the thought. 'Mike, what's happening? Even the damn sun's in the wrong place.' He pointed to the south. 'Should be over there.'

Or is that the south? wondered Mike. At a guess, I'd say we're facing north instead of east, like we should be.

He thrust the problem aside. Later. There were more pressing problems to deal with. Much more pressing.

The plain was heavily wooded, but not so much so that Mike couldn't see one-two-three farmhouses scattered among open fields. One of the farmhouses was not more than a hundred yards away.

Close enough to make out some details…

'Jesus,' hissed Frank.

The two farmhouses in the distance were burning fiercely. The one nearby was not. It was a large and rambling structure. Unlike the wood-frame farmhouses which Mike was familiar with, the construction of this one leaned heavily toward stone. Hand-fitted stone, from what Mike could see. If it weren't for the fact that the farmhouse had all the signs of current occupancy-that unmistakably ragged-respectable air of a place where people worked-Mike would have sworn he was looking at a something out of the Middle Ages.

But he didn't spend more than two seconds studying the farmhouse itself. The farmhouse was still being 'worked,' but not by farmers.

His teeth were clenched. He could sense that Frank, standing next to him, was filled with the same outrage. Mike looked around. All of his miners were on the plain now, standing in a line staring at the scene.

'All right, guys,' he said softly. 'I count six of the bastards. May be more inside. Three of them are assaulting that poor woman in the yard. The other three-'

He looked back at the horrendous sight. 'Don't know exactly what they're doing. I think they've got that guy nailed to his door and they're torturing him.'

Slowly, as softly as possible, Frank levered a round into the chamber of his rifle. Despite its incongruity with the suit he was wearing, the action was quietly murderous. 'So what's the plan?' he demanded.

Mike spoke through tight jaws. 'I'm not actually a cop, when you get right down to it. And we haven't got time anyway to rummage around in Dan's Cherokee looking for handcuffs.' He glared at the scene of rape and torture. 'So to hell with reading these guys their rights. We're just going to kill them.'

'Sounds good to me,' snarled Darryl. 'I got no problem with capital punishment. Never did.'

'Me neither,' growled one of the other miners. Tony Adducci, that was, a beefy man in his early forties. Like many of the miners in the area, Tony was of Italian ancestry, as his complexion and features indicated. 'None whatsoever.'

Tony, like Mike, was holding a pistol. He reached up with his left hand and quickly removed his tie. Angrily, he thrust it into a pocket. The rest of the miners did likewise with their own. None of them took off their jackets, however. All of them were wearing white shirts and all of them were experienced hunters. Their suit jackets, gray and brown and Navy blue, would make better camouflage. After removing their ties-a bow tie, in Mike's case-the miners simply loosened the top collar buttons. For the first time in their lives, they would 'hunt' in their Sunday best, wearing dress shoes instead of boots.

Mike led the way, working toward the farmhouse through a small grove of trees. Birch trees, a part of his mind noted idly. That's odd too. Most of his mind was simply wishing that the slender trees provided more concealment. Fortunately, the criminals at the farmhouse were too preoccupied with their crimes to be paying any attention to the area around them.

The miners got within thirty yards of the house without being spotted. They were now squatting down, hidden in the trees at the very edge of the farm yard. The woman being raped was not more than forty feet away. Mike's eyes shied away from the sight, but his ears still registered her moans.

And the coarse laughs of the men assaulting her. One of them, the man holding her arms to the ground, barked a jeering remark at the man on top of her. The rapist grunted some sort of reply.

Mike couldn't understand the words, but they sounded German. He'd been stationed in Germany for a year, while he'd been in the Army. But he remembered little of the language beyond the essential phrase, ein bier, bitte.

'Those guy are foreigners,' muttered Darryl. The young man's face was tight with anger. 'Who do they think they are, coming here and-?'

Mike made a short, curt gesture, commanding silence. He went back to studying the criminals.

All of them wore that same peculiar armor and those weird helmets, although the men assaulting the woman had removed theirs. The discarded gear was lying on the ground nearby. The men torturing the farmer still had their armor and helmets on, but they had stacked their firearms against the wall of the farmhouse. From a distance, the 'rifles' looked like the same kind of weapons carried by the two men killed by the police chief.

The helmets and armor reminded Mike of pictures he had seen of old Spanish conquistadores. The helmets were metal pots, basically, with flanges tapering into points toward the front and back. The armor, if he remembered right, was called a cuirass. Steel breast and back plates, tied on with leather strips. Outside of the antique-looking firearms, the only weapons they had in their possession were Swords? Swords?

He looked back at the three men asaulting the woman. They were not wearing swords, but now that Mike knew what to look for he spotted the weapons immediately. The scabbarded blades had been unbuckled and tossed onto the ground near the firearms. Mike had never once in his life considered the practical mechanics of rape, but he could understand why a sword would be awkward. These men, he was suddenly quite certain, were not committing this crime for the first time. There was a relaxed and practiced casualness about their activity.