The Chosen

A slow trickle was getting in, through the postern gate beside the main ones; people with valid Santander papers, or spouses, or embassy personnel who'd gotten trapped out in the city.

'Sir?' The Marine captain looked around incredulously.

'Captain, my wife is out there, and I need some volunteers to help me get through the crowd.'

The captain opened his mouth; John could see the snap of refusal forming. He looked the man in the eye.

'This is very important duty,' he said meaningfully.

It wasn't much of a secret in the compound that John was with the Secret Service. Nor that he was immensely rich, or that he had connections at the highest levels, military and civilian.

'I'm not sending any of my men out into that,' the officer said bluntly, jerking a hand towards the near-riot beyond the gate. Just then was a barked order, and the dozen troopers by the gate fired a volley into the air. The crowd surged back with screams of panic, then ran forward again when nobody fell.

'I wouldn't ask you to,' John said. 'I'm going, whether anyone wants to come with me or not. I'd appreciate some help, but I don't expect you to order anyone out.'

The Marine officer hesitated. 'My responsibility is to guard the perimeter.'

'And to assist the staff in their functions.'

Decision crystallized. 'All right, sir. You can ask. Sergeant!'

A thickset man with a shaven head covered in a network of scars looked up. The Santander Marines saw a lot of travel, mostly to places where the locals didn't like them.

'Sir!'

'Mr. Hosten needs some volunteers to accompany him into the city and pull someone out. See if anybody feels like it.'

What was left of the sergeant's eyebrows-they'd evidently been burned off his face at some point-rose. He looked appraisingly at John and smiled like a dog worrying a bone.

'Hey, Sarge.'

John looked around; it was the driver.

'Yeah, Harry?'

'It's righteous, Sarge. I'm going.'

The noncom looked down at the drivers legs, and the graying man shrugged.

'Hey, we're driving-I don't have to sprint.'

'You always were a natural-born damned fool, Harry,' the sergeant said. He looked back at John. 'I'll pass the word, sir.'

John stripped off the morning coat as he waited, switching to the four-pocket hunting jacket his valet brought and gratefully throwing aside the starched collar of his dress shirt. Smith glanced at the shoulder rig that lay exposed.

'Guess I shouldn't have asked about the scattergun, sir,' he said.

'How could you know?' John pointed out. 'Look, am I likely to get anyone?'

'Besides me?' Harry shrugged. 'I've been out of the corps a while now, but Berker knows me-hell, Berker carried me out when I got a slug through both legs. He'll-'

The bald sergeant returned, with five men behind him. They were all armed, and several of them were stuffing gear into field packs.

'Sir!' he said. 'Corporal Wilton, privates Goms, Barrjen, Sinders, and Maken.' In a whisper: 'Ah, sir, I sort of hinted there'd be some sort of reward, you know?'

'There certainly will be,' John said. To the men: 'All right, here's the drill. We're heading for the main train station and the emergency hospital that's been set up there. We're going to pick up Mrs. Hosten-Lady Pia Hosten- and then we're either coming back here, or getting out the city to the east, depending on which looks most practical. I expect anyone who comes with me to follow orders and not be nervous about risks. Understood?'

A chorus of yessirs, a couple of grins. None of the men looked like angels, but then they were Marines, and assignment to the embassy guard in Ciano had been something of a plum, reserved for men with something on their records besides a decade of well-polished boots.

He looked up. Something was flying through the pillars of smoke that reached up into the sky over Ciano. A huge shark-shape, three hundred meters long, a shining teardrop droning through the air to the sound of motors. Dozens more followed it, a loose wedge coming in from the west like the thrust of a spearpoint.

'Let's do it, then.'

* * *

Wounded men screamed in fear as the building shook. Pia Hosten grabbed a pillar and held on as the stick of bombs rattled the iron girders of the roof. The fitted stone swayed slightly under her touch, a queasy feeling. Half the nursing sisters were gone, and there were wounded everywhere-hundreds in this room, thousands in the building, the heat mounting under the tall arches and the smell of puss and gangrene mounting, and more still coming in. The gas was off, and the mains.

'Water. . water. .'

I should have done as John said, she thought, hurrying over with a dipper.

She raised the man's head and put the rim to his lips. He drank, then choked and began to thrash.

'Sister Maria!' Pia called.

The man arched, then slumped; his eyes rolled up and went still.

The nun arrived, then scowled. 'He is dead.'

'He wasn't when I called you!' Pia snapped, then leaped up to hold the older woman as she sagged. 'I am sorry, Sister.'

'There are so many,' the nun whispered. 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?'

'Where is Doctor Chicurso?'

'Gone-most of them are gone. The guards at the entrances, they are gone also. Only the ambulances keep arriving.'

'The guards are gone?' Pia asked sharply.

'Yes, yes. An officer came, and said they were needed. But many had just left, I think, taken off their uniforms and. .'

She made a weary gesture towards the rest of the city.

Pia swallowed and stood, walking quickly towards her work station, taking off the hideously stained apron that covered her plain gray dress. If the guards were gone, it would be very bad.

John was right. I should have left for the embassy yesterday. There was no more she could do here. But it was hard, very hard, to leave the Sister standing slumped amid the impossible need of the hurt.

She walked quickly along the aisle that separated the rows of men lying on the floor, through to the cubicle that had served her and a dozen other volunteers and nurses. She heard a scream and a crash before she arrived, and men's voices.

The door was half-open; she slammed it back. The sharp reek of medical alcohol hit her like a wave; the three army hospital orderlies had been drinking it. The scream had come from Lola Chiavri, one of the volunteers; two of them had her pressed down on a table, her dress ripped open to the waist. The third was wrestling with her thrashing legs, trying to rip down her underdrawers, laughing and staggering. They turned to stare at her, open- mouthed. One sniggered.

'Hey, Gio', somebody new for d'party.'

Pia drew herself up. 'Release that lady at once! Where is your officer?'

The one at the foot of the table was a little less drunk than the others. He released the other woman's legs and turned, grinning like a dog worrying a bone.

'Officers all run away, missy, 'fore the tedeschi gets here. Why shou' the tedeschi get all the liker an' cooze? C'mere!'

He turned towards her, his pants obscenely unbuttoned, laughing and fondling himself with one hand and reaching for her with the other. Pia drew the four-barrel derringer from her pocket and pointed it.

'Y'gonna hurt me with that little thing?' the man laughed. 'Oh, don' hurt me, missy!'