“I won’t let anything happen to you. When he tries to force you into the car, he’ll have to release you for a moment. You give me the sign, and I’ll make my move then.”
“All right. Please be careful, I don’t want you hurt,” Caitlin transmitted.
“Damn straight.”
Dewatre and Caitlin reached the Ford’s front door.
“Open it,” he said.
She did as he ordered, and the dim light doubled. Even with the extra light, she could barely see John at the front of the Jeep.
“On ne meurt, qu’une fois, et c’est pour si longtemps.”
“What was that Frenchie? You forget your English?” John asked.
“John, it’s a quote from Molière. `One dies only once, and it’s for such a long time.’” Caitlin transmitted.
Although they weren’t in physical contact, John could feel her fear.
“He’s shifting the gun. Look out!”
John dove for the front of the Jeep even as the shot cracked the calm. He felt a strong blow against his right shoulder blade. The force of the blow spun him halfway around. For a fraction of a second, he could see Caitlin struggling to prevent Dewatre from shooting. Then a muzzle flash seared his eyes, and a hot lance of pain exploded against his head.
CHAPTER 25
Caitlin watched, frozen in horror as the first bullet hit John. Before he could fire again, she grabbed Dewatre’s arm and pulled it out of line as a second shot broke the stillness.
“John!” She screamed.
There was no answer. She broadcast another shout over the egg, but again there was nothing.
She raised one hand to claw at Dewatre’s eyes, but missed and left four deep cuts in his cheek instead.
He cursed and swung the gun’s barrel at her. Caitlin ducked under it and ran toward where John had fallen at the front of the Jeep.
Just as she rounded the bumper, a hand closed on her coat, and Dewatre jerked her to a halt.
He shoved the gun barrel under her chin until it forced her head back against him. “You bitch, one more stupid move like that and I’ll kill you.”
The snow was matted down where John had fallen, but there was no sign of him. The compressed area went about five feet to the edge of an embankment, and from there the brown dirt was scraped clean of snow.
A red speckling stained the snow around them.
Caitlin felt her knees go weak.
Not John. Not John too.
She tried transmitting to him again, but there was no reply.
The swirling snow parted and, for a moment, she thought she could see the dark shape of a body at the foot of the embankment. It wasn’t moving.
Although the bank was only ten or so feet high, it was steep and obviously slippery.
“Damn, life is just one damned thing after another,” Dewatre said. “There’s no time to be positive. If he was lucky enough to survive, then, c’est le guerre. Come on, give me any more trouble, and I’ll kill you and take the chance that you don’t know anything critical.”
She let him pull her toward the Ford. He forced her into the front seat, and then got behind the wheel. He cranked the engine, turned around, and pulled onto the road heading toward the Springs.
The Ford was cold, but the shiver that came over her had nothing to do with the temperature. “Why’d you have to kill him?”
His eyes met hers for just a second, and then returned to study a road that was barely visible through the snow. “John Blalock impressed me as the unforgiving kind. If I hadn’t killed him, then someday he would have come across me again, and then I might not have the upper hand.”
“John wasn’t like that. If you’d let us go, he wouldn't have ever bothered you again.”
“Truly? Well, perhaps, but I think not. He was a hard man with a reputation in the business of being both ruthless and determined. He was not a man to cross.”
“No, he wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a monster like the rest of you,” Caitlin said. “I ... he was kind, sacrificing, he wasn’t the vendetta type.”
“And you base that opinion on what?”
“I knew him once, a long time ago.”
“Ah, so he couldn’t have changed so much, eh?”
“No, not that much,” Caitlin said.
“Did you ever read Nietzsche?”
“A little. A very little, his writings seemed to contain the touch of base paranoia.”
“Truly? I suppose that could be one interpretation. But he had a saying that fit this man you once knew.”
“I hardly think so.”
“‘He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby becomes a monster.’“
She stared at him for a moment, and then she asked, “Is that what happened to you or were you born this way?”
“Ah, touché. Perhaps the saying may apply to me also. Who knows?”
They reached Powers Boulevard and turned south. “What are you planning? Are you going to kill me too?”
“Only if you make it necessary. You will have a questioning, a debriefing, and if you are honest with us, we will give you a choice of returning home or accepting our protection.”
“Your protection? Are you crazy?”
“No, Ms. Maxwell, I am not crazy. Surely you realize that those in your government who are after this artifact are willing to kill you to get it.”
“And you’re not?”
“Ah, well if you insist on a strict interpretation of my orders, then yes, we are also willing to kill for it.”
“I think I’ll take my chances at home,” Caitlin said.
“That is your choice, and I do not care.”
She stared at him for a moment. “You called it an artifact, why?”
“What else could it be?”
There was a tone in his voice that Caitlin had not expected. His voice held the almost innocent note of a child
