He was invisible now but immobilized. Boats was making the best of a shitty situation. The plan was to hammer these fuckers hard enough to make them turn tail. They might leave him alone long enough to let him withdraw and find the rest of the team. He lay back, propped against the bark of a dead tree trunk with the plastic det clicker on his lap. He examined his wound. The leg wasn’t broken, but there was bone pain deep in his leg. There was a steady flow of blood from the exit wound, but it wasn’t pulsing. That would change if he was dumb enough to yank the shaft out. Better to let the flesh swell around the wound for now. But he couldn’t have the wooden shaft sawing in his leg as he moved, and he would need to move.
Boats slid his combat knife from the sheath on his chest and lifted himself enough to see the feathered end of the arrow protruding from his leg midway between the hip and knee. He used his fingers to secure it in place where it entered the muscle and sawed at the springy wood. It hurt like a bitch as the vibration traveled down the shaft into his leg and rocketed up into his groin. He bit down on a strip of belting clenched in his teeth and kept cutting until the shaft came away clean. The SEAL lay back panting and sweating, his mane of red hair sodden and matted to his head.
Voices came from above him. They were gathering together up there. Sure as shit one of them came across his blood trail and called the others. From his shelter under the apex of two fallen boles, he watched them cautiously moving down toward him. They had arrows nocked and their bows curved back ready to fill the air with missiles. The little men glanced about, blindly scanning the dark ahead as the center man bent to follow the smear of crimson on the forest floor.
Four of them moved cautiously toward the deadfall with two more behind. All had bows raised and bent full back, moving the barbed points back and forth, sighting down the shaft for the target they knew to be here. Knew to be close.
The SEAL covered his eyes with one arm and flipped the cover off the clicker. He depressed the switch twice.
A charge of C-4 send hundreds of steel balls rushing from the Claymore. In an instant, the area before the mine was transformed into a ballistic hurricane of flesh, bone, and blood as well as a cloud of dust and fragmented debris from the forest floor.
The four archers closest to the blast were vaporized. The two behind were dismembered. A seventh archer unfortunate enough to wander into the kill zone lost both legs below the knee and collapsed with a high keening cry that died away as his blood sprayed from torn stumps. All in a fraction of a second thanks to the baddest anti-personnel weapon in the SEAL’s arsenal.
Lying less than fifty feet behind the blast, Boats was deafened. His head felt like there was a clapper inside it striking off the inside of his skull. He fought to remain conscious.
He lost that fight.
31
At Madame’s Pleasure
Caroline knew two things for certain. She could not be in this room when the registrar returned with either gendarmes or soldiers. And the single door to the hallway was the only way out of this room. The door was locked from the outside, but the key was still in the slot. She knew this by crouching silently and peeping into the keyhole to see it was blocked by the barrel of the key.
Her room was on the third floor. The windows opened onto a narrow balcony that was mostly decorative. It was an escape route she’d hesitate to use if she were alone. With Stephen in her care, it was beyond any consideration.
She swiftly packed the carpetbag with all it would hold, then put on the woolen coat and hat and a pair of scarves. The baby was dozing in his basket, but would not be for long if the plan she carried out was to work. Caroline retrieved the revolver from its hiding place and worked the hammer back with the heel of her hand. She then went to the door and pounded on it with her fist.
“My child! My child is ill! Mercy! You must have mercy!” she screamed in her tourist French and hoped she was selling her desperation. The drumming on the door and the shouts of his mother awoke Stephen with a start. His pitiable cries added to her performance.
She could see a shadow shift in the crack of light under the door. Big, dumb, drunken Patrice heard her. “Please, help me. Have mercy on a small child who has harmed no one. I beg you, sir!”
The key rattled in the lock, and the door swung inward. Patrice entered the room with wide eyes devoid of suspicion. Caroline backed farther into the room and raised the pistol in both hands.
“Please?” Patrice said once he realized what he was looking at.
“My baby and I are leaving,” Caroline said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Pick up that bag, and I will not be forced to hurt you.”
Patrice looked down at the packed carpetbag resting by the door.
“I am not certain.” he said.
“Well, I am certain, monsieur,” she said and gestured at him with
