Rough Weather

I needed to put that away. Now, to rescue Susan, I would need to stop thinking of her. Now it was me and Rugar and no time for anything else.

It was a little hard to plan ahead, since I didn’t know where Rugar was, or what was waiting back at the chapel. My guess was that Rugar would hold everyone hostage until the storm let up enough for him to get off the island. Even if some intrepid soul with a cell phone had alerted the cops on the mainland, they couldn’t get here any better than Rugar could get off. And with a roomful of hostages, Rugar could probably hold them at bay anyway until he could fly.

If I were Rugar, that would be the best I could think of. Unless he knew stuff I didn’t. Which he probably did. Lightning flashed and I could see the big house starkly, and then nothing. I wondered where the Tashtego patrol was. Wherever they were, they weren’t doing me any good, and there was no point thinking about them, either. I was at the chapel now, standing close to the building among some large shrubs that thrashed about in the wind. I imagined the chapel inch by inch. Windows, doors, things to hide behind. I bent over and took my gun off my ankle and cleaned it the best I could with my shirttail. Then I held it in against my chest and bent over, shielding it the best I could. It was a revolver, a simple mechanism, not likely to jam, but caution is not a bad thing when it’s available.

I edged along the wall to the door that led into the anteroom. With my gun ready, I reached over and turned the handle. The door opened. I stepped in and closed it behind me. The room was dark. I stood stock-still with my gun ready and waited. Nothing moved. I felt unworldly after so long in the elements. I could hear the storm outside, but by comparison, with the wind shut out, and no rain driving into me, the anteroom seemed preternaturally still. As I stood I could see a hint of light through the peephole in the door opposite, the same door we had peered through earlier when the wedding was to begin.

I walked to it and looked. The room was lit by a pair of big candles on six-foot candlesticks on either side of the entry door at the back of the chapel. Someone had wisely thought to extinguish the others to conserve candles in case they needed more later. Otherwise, everything was much as it had been. The remaining five guys with the MP9s were still along the wall. I could see Susan. She sat perfectly still, looking straight ahead, right where I’d left her. I counted the rows to where she sat. Occasionally an explosion of energy outside caused the candle flames to sway and flicker. Occasionally, as I would check the time, one of the gunmen would look at his watch. The time wasn’t going to get better. If Rugar arrived it would get worse.

I took a deep breath and turned and opened the window behind me. The tempest came howling into the room, and I jumped to the anteroom door and pushed it open and dove onto the floor. The storm howled into the chapel and blew out both candles at once. Some people screamed. One of the guards, nerves shot from waiting, fired an aimless burst at the door. I was well below it, squirming along the floor in the dark behind the back row of pews. Several people stepped on me, probably the gunmen converging on the door. I turned the corner and bellied down the aisle, touching the pews with my left hand as I went. One… two… three… when I got to eight, I rose up and whispered.

“It’s me, babe.”

Susan’s voice said, “Yes.”

I put my hand out and touched her thigh, and she took hold of my hand.

“Down,” I said, “low, behind me. Door to the right of the altar.”

The sudden blast of storm, the darkness, and the burst of gunfire had broken the vow of silence in the chapel, and people were scrambling to get out.

Gun in my right hand, holding Susan’s hand with my left, I broke trail, ramming people out of the way as we moved. I couldn’t see if they were men or women or gunmen or hostages, but if they were in front of me, I shoved. Then we were at the door, I pushed it open, and we were out into the tempest.

“Now we run,” I said.

Susan kicked off her heels, and hanging on to each other, we sprinted away from the chapel into the roaring darkness, toward the barn.

11

There were horses in the barn. Probably the big Belgians. It was too dark to see them, but as we felt our way along the inside wall, I could hear them moving in their stalls and making that sort of lip-smacking snort that horses make sometimes, for reasons of their own. It was a stone barn, and the thick walls made the storm outside seem more distant. We found a bare space and sat down, our backs against the wall, and breathed for a while. I still had the gun in my right hand, and Susan’s hand in my left.

“Do you think they’ll find us here?” Susan said.

It was an actual question of interest. Not an expression of fear. Susan could approach hysteria over a bad hair day. But in matters of actual crisis she became calm, and lucid, and penetrating. If they might find us here, we’d best prepare.

“I don’t think they’ll look,” I said. “At the moment, I doubt that anyone in the chapel quite knows what happened. Think about it. The door bursts open. The candles go out. Shots are fired. People scream and run out. Most of their hostages are scattered all over the island.”

“What did happen?” Susan said. “I assume it had something to do with you.”

“It did,” I said. “But you may well be the only one who knows that. For all they know the doors blew open and the rest of it followed.”

“So what will they do?”

“It’s what Rugar will do,” I said. “Once he knows the deal, he’ll collect what hostages he has left and assemble them with his shooters by the helicopter. The first moment the storm allows, he’ll ditch the hostages, except Adelaide, hop in the chopper with his shooters, and get out of here.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure,” I said.

“Because?”

“Because that’s what I’d do,” I said.

“Should we try to stop him?” Susan said.

I loved the “we.”

“I have a thirty-eight with five rounds and a two-inch barrel,” I said. “Rugar’s got five guys with at least thirty rounds each, plus himself, who can shoot the balls off a flea at a hundred yards.”

“I don’t think fleas have balls,” Susan said.

“Their loss,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

The barn was warm. The horses generated some heat. And a comforting horsey smell.

“All those circumstances existed when you came to get me,” Susan said.

“That’s true,” I said.

“I get special treatment,” she said.

“You do,” I said.

“If we get out of this,” Susan said, “people may be critical that you didn’t save the bride.”

“Probably,” I said.

“What would you tell them?”

“Never complain,” I said. “Never explain.”

“No,” Susan said. “I want to know.”

“I would,” I said, “tell them that saving you was all I could manage, and trying to save anyone else would have endangered you.”

“And if someone said you sacrificed Adelaide for me, what would you say?”

“I’d say, ‘You bet your ass I did.’”

“And you couldn’t do both,” Susan said.

“No.”

“It is one of your greatest strengths,” Susan said. “Since I have known you, you do what you can, and do not