Before I could get the ray gun up, his gun flashed — that was the last thing I saw. A tremendous blow hit me on the head and everything went dark.
Jake Grafton was in the car that roared up alongside the van. Another car was right behind. Callie was already standing outside; Willie was in the van, monitoring the radio, waiting for Carmellini’s call.
“Tell him Jake’s here,” Callie said through the window before the cars braked to a stop.
Willie complied. “No answer,” he said, and hopped out of the van.
Willie and Callie piled into the rear seat of the lead car with a man neither of them knew. Jake turned around in the passenger seat and said names. “Pink Maillard,” indicating the man at the wheel, “and Inspector Papin, of the French police.”
“Bonjour,” Callie said to the Frenchman. She was all business. She said to Jake, “Tommy called on the radio and said he had been attacked by an Arab. Now he doesn’t answer when we call.”
“Sounds as if they arrived a bit quicker than I thought they would,” Jake muttered as the car sped along the road adjacent to Rodet’s estate. “Did he say where the people were?”
“I don’t think he ever got inside.”
“Yeah, he would have said,” Willie added. Then he pointed. “Up there on the right. That’s the entrance.”
“What if the gate’s closed?” Pink Maillard wanted to know.
“Go right on through anyway,” Jake Grafton said matter-of-factly. He glanced through the rear window. The other car was immediately behind them. The admiral grabbed the hand strap and held on firmly.
“This the first time I ever been in a car with the police without wearin’ handcuffs,” Willie declared as Maillard braked for the turn ahead.
Fortunately the gate was still open. Maillard feathered the brake and slewed the car, then accelerated up the driveway.
Two guys were dragging me up a flight of stairs when I came to. It took me a few seconds to figure it out, and that was the answer I came up with. One had each arm, and they were yanking and lifting and tugging as my feet dragged over each step. Something was wrapped around my face; I thought it was the headset or straps for the night vision goggles. Whatever it was obscured my vision — or maybe the blow I took had affected my eyesight.
I tried to move and couldn’t. My head was splitting; my face was numb; my legs felt as if they were being hammered on by lumberjacks. I must have moaned or something, because one of them paused and slugged me in the face. Then they resumed their ascent.
Somehow I knew we were going up the stairs to the apartment over the garage. I don’t know how or why I knew that — I just did.
I was in damn big trouble — that I also knew. Two of these holy warriors had already tried to kill me. These two and however many more were waiting upstairs were going to finish the job if I didn’t get to kicking and scratching pretty damn quick. My muscles didn’t seem to work. Panic set in, probably stimulated by a quart or so of adrenaline.
As these two dragged me up the stairs they were jabbering loudly in some language I didn’t recognize — calling to someone in the room above, a man who answered them.
As Pink Maillard braked to a stop near the rear corner of the house, he stuck his arm out the window and motioned for the car behind to pass him. It did. It roared between the garage and the house and stopped near the dog pens, where the four men inside came tumbling out. Someone in a window of the apartment over the garage opened fire with a pistol.
One of the men below was hit in the arm, and he dived back behind the car. As one, two of his colleagues opened fire with submachine guns at that window. The glass shattered; the framing around the window splintered. Pieces rained down.
The third man ran for the door of the garage.
I was going to die. Unable to move, I was going to be slaughtered like a steer by these Arab lunatics.
Not like this — no!
I tried to move, to resist, oh, my God, how I tried, but I couldn’t make my muscles respond!
Then I heard the pop of a pistol, followed by the roar of submachine guns.
One of the men released an arm. They were going to kill me right here!
I grabbed a handful of balls and tried to rip them out. The man they belonged to screamed and went nuts. In that enclosed stairwell, the sensation was like being in a barrel with a tiger. His high-pitched wail of agony was like a tonic to me.
The other man tried to release me to get to his weapon but found that I had him, rather than the other way around. I didn’t have a good hold, though, and there wasn’t much I could do about it with this other guy kicking and pounding on me, trying to get me to release his scrotum.
Somehow I got my feet under me and regained my balance. I was screaming, too, I guess, because the noise in there was unbelievable.
Muhammed Nada ran into the bedroom in response to a call from the lookout as the two cars roared in. He got there just as the lookout fired his pistol out the window, then died under a hail of submachine-gun bullets.
Nada was tempted to rush to the window and return the infidels’ fire, but he changed his mind: They couldn’t get in through the window. He scrambled for the stairs.
Jake Grafton and Pink Maillard also charged for the stairs. Grafton was carrying a borrowed pistol and Pink had a submachine gun. They arrived behind the Secret Service officer from the lead car. The three of them started up the narrow staircase just as Muhammed Nada opened the door at the top.
He looked over the men struggling at the top of the staircase, ignored the screaming of tortured souls, and fired his pistol at the men at the bottom of the stairwell.
I didn’t really have a grip on the man on my left; I was banging him off the walls as I tried to rip the balls off the man on my right, who was down, kicking wildly, threatening to break my ribs. I was about all in, at the absolute limit of strength and endurance, when the gun went off right over my head.
I let go of the man on my left and fell on the man who was down.
A burst of submachine-gun fire followed, and the man beside me collapsed over me. I tried to shrug him off and couldn’t.
I couldn’t breathe under his weight. With all this wrestling around, I lost my radio headset and night vision goggles. Relieved of the obstruction, I found that my eyes still worked, even if I wasn’t getting much air.
I let go of the scrotum I had been tearing at and transferred my attention to the guy’s throat. That stopped his screams. As another burst of submachine-gun fire assaulted my ears, the guy under me struggled feebly, tugging at my wrists; I stopped squeezing when I felt his larynx go and he went limp.
I fought to free myself of the dead weight on me and get my feet under me, fought to fill my lungs. As I did, my hand hit something that I recognized. My ray gun. One of these guys had pocketed it. I pulled it loose and felt the switch to ensure it was charging.
Somehow I managed to fight loose of the corpses and crawl up the stairs. Nearing the top, I saw a body on the floor. I recognized him at a glance: old Muhammed Nada, holy warrior, a little worse for wear now that he sported at least five bullet holes that I could see.
There were three other people in the room, all tied to chairs. I looked at Rodet, who was slumped in the chair with blood covering his left side. I raised Arnaud’s head and saw the hole in his forehead.
I heard voices, turned, and saw the good guys coming into the room.
There was another figure slumped in a chair. No clothes. Covered with streaks of blood. Long hair.
Oh, my God…
I walked toward her. Lifted her head. They had sliced her terribly. I couldn’t even tell for sure who she was. Then I saw her eyes flicker.
“She’s still alive! Somebody — quick!”
Two people rushed by. One was a woman — Callie Grafton — and Willie Varner. They began tearing at the ropes that held the woman to the chair.
“Rodet’s alive, too,” Jake Grafton said. He and a man I didn’t recognize were examining him.
The room was spinning by that time. Later they said I had a concussion from the bullet that ricocheted off the night vision goggles. Whatever, everything faded to black; that was the last I remember.
