his way as quickly as he could south through the woods, stumbling again and again, his frail arms pushing the branches from his face and body. He veered towards the road; he reached it and saw the killer's car in the darkening distance. He had gone far enough. He turned and started back on the mercifully smooth surface—faster… faster! Move your goddamned spindly legs! That boy must not move, he must not crawl, he must not see! Manny felt the blood rushing to his head, the pounding in his rib cage deafening. There was the young Arab! He had moved—was moving, crawling into the woods. In moments he would see his dead companion! It could not happen!
'Aman!' shouted Weingrass breathlessly, remembering the name used by the half-Jew, Yosef, as if it were his own. 'Ayn ent? Kaif el-ahwal?' he continued in Arabic, urgently asking the boy where he was and how he was. 'Itkallem!' he roared against the wind, ordering the young terrorist to respond.
'Here, in here!' yelled the teenage Arab in his own language. 'I've been shot! In the hip. I can't find Yosef!' The young man rolled over on his back to greet an expected comrade. 'Who are you?’ he screamed, struggling to reach under his field jacket for a gun as Manny approached. 'I don't know you!'
Weingrass smashed his foot against the boy's elbow and as the empty hand whipped out from under the cloth he stepped on it, pinning it to the young Arab's chest. 'No more of that, you fool of a child!' said Manny, his Arabic that of a Saudi officer reprimanding a lowly recruit. 'We haven't covered you to have you cause even more trouble. Of course you were shot, and I trust you realize that you were merely wounded, not killed, which could have been easily managed!'
'What are you saying?'
'What were you doing?’ shouted Manny in reply. 'Running in the road, raising your voice, crawling around our objective like a thief in the night! Yosef was right, you should be shipped back to the Baaka.'
'Yosef?… Where is Yosef?'
'Up in the house with the others. Come, I'll help you join them.' Afraid of falling over, Weingrass held on to the branch of a sapling as the terrorist pulled himself up, gripping Manny's hand. 'First, give me your weapon!'
'What?'
'They think you're stupid enough. They don't want you armed.'
'I don't understand—'
'You don't have to.' Weingrass slapped the bewildered young fanatic across the face and simultaneously shoved his right hand between the buttoned fold of the boy's jacket to pull out the would-be killer's gun. It was appropriate; it was a .22 calibre pistol. 'You can shoot gnats with this,' said Manny, grabbing the teenager's arm. 'Come along. Hop on one foot, if it's easier. We'll paste you up.'
What remained of the late afternoon sun was obscured by the swirling dark clouds of a gathering storm surging out of the mountains. The drained, exhausted old man and the wounded youngster were halfway across the road when suddenly the roar of an engine was heard and headlights of a racing vehicle caught them in the beams. The car was bearing down on them, thundering up from the south from Mesa Verde. Tyres shrieking, the powerful car side-slipped into a skid and pounded to a stop only yards away from Weingrass and his captive who were lunging towards the hedge, Manny's grip tightening on the Arab's field jacket. A man leaped from the large black car as Weingrass—lurching, stumbling—reached into his overcoat pocket for his own .38 automatic. The figure rushing towards him was a blur in the old architect's eyes; he raised his gun to fire.
'Manny!' yelled Gee-Gee Gonzalez.
Weingrass fell to the ground, his hand still gripping the wounded terrorist. 'Grab him!' he ordered Gee-Gee with what seemed like the last breath in his lungs. 'Don't let him go—hold his arms. They sometimes carry cyanide!'
The young Arab was given a needle by one of the two nurses; he would be unconscious until morning. His bullet wound was bloody, not serious, the bullet itself having passed through the flesh; it was cleansed, the openings held together with heavy tape and the bleeding stopped. He was then carried by Gonzalez to a guest room, his arms and legs strapped to the four corners of the bed, where the nurses covered his naked body with two blankets to help prevent any possible trauma.
'He's so terribly young,' said the nurse placing the pillow under the teenage Arab's head.
