Crooked River(113)
A burst of fire came from the broken wall, more gouts of dirt spitting up all around Constance as she struggled with reloading. The remaining soldiers were organized—and they were shooting from an elevated position at the increasingly exposed figure fumbling with the gun.
“Cover me,” Pendergast said.
Coldmoon laid down suppressing fire while, in a sudden break, Pendergast ran at a crouch across the courtyard to get a better line to the parapet. Rising himself, Coldmoon also took aim at the parapet. The shooting from the soldiers temporarily abated while Constance cleared the feed tray and succeeded at reseating the belt. Out of the corner of his eye, Coldmoon saw her close the cover and yank the charging handle into position. A moment later, the deep, powerful cadence of her weapon began raining death upon the parapet. Huge pieces of stone fell from its walls, like an exhalation of ruin, a web of cracks spreading as the wall itself began to crumble. And then, abruptly, the entire structure collapsed, sending soldiers and stones alike down into a cloud of brick dust and powdered mortar.
“Move,” said Pendergast. They both leapt up and, trading off suppressing fire, ran along the edge of the courtyard until they reached the ruins of the archway, then took up positions on either side, flanking Constance.
She seemed unaware of their presence, all her attention fixed on the courtyard. And then, Coldmoon saw a man rise, hands in the air. Now more men began to stand up, hands raised. Still Constance gripped the machine gun, stock pressed against her shoulder, the barrel of the weapon smoking and steaming in the rain. She took aim, breathing heavily.
Pendergast put a hand on her shoulder. “Constance?” He gave her a gentle shake. “You can stop shooting now.”
For a moment she remained motionless in the gathering silence; then she eased her finger from the trigger. Silence fell as more soldiers rose up, shakily, some splattered with their comrades’ blood.
Although her face remained composed, her eyes were afire—a wraithlike, mud-covered specter of death.
“We’d better get the hell out,” Coldmoon said. Even as he spoke there was a scattering of fire in the parking lot beyond the courtyard. The soldiers who had surrendered, seeing their comrades arriving, hesitated, and some broke into a run to get away.
In an incongruously courteous gesture, Pendergast motioned down a faint road into the dark swamp. “Constance, if you’d kindly lead the way?”
They ran down the track and were soon enveloped in protective darkness. A few random shots rang out behind them, but nobody, it seemed, cared to follow.
“Where’s that woman?” Coldmoon asked abruptly.
“Alves-Vettoretto? Gone,” Pendergast replied. Then: “She’s a survivor; she can take care of herself.”
“Why did you take her with us, anyway?”
“I believed I saw something worth saving. Chalk it up to a personal weakness, perhaps.”
70
THEY JOGGED DOWN the muddy path toward the docks, Constance in the lead.
In his entire law enforcement career, Coldmoon had never seen anything remotely like what this woman had just done. He wondered if she was really Pendergast’s “ward”—this crazed angel of death, in her torn and filthy clothes—or instead some kind of homicidal bodyguard the man had trained for his own protection. For a moment, his thoughts strayed back to his grandmother, and her description of Wachiwi. He recalled seeing Dancing Girl with his own eyes, walking through the frozen trees, her thin form wrapped in a blanket. She is mortal, as we are. Yet she is also different.
Pendergast had taken a spotlight from one of the dead soldiers, and it now illuminated a grisly sight: three dead guards in a rude pillbox made of earth and bricks, their bodies sprawled and splayed in various attitudes of death.
“Your handiwork, Constance?” Pendergast asked.
“I needed their weapon.”
“How did you do that with only a stiletto?”
“Chief Perelman lent me his gun. Not voluntarily, of course. He’s down at the river, with a broken leg. We were caught in a tornado as we were landing.”
They proceeded through the dark trees and around a bend in the lane. Ahead now, Coldmoon could see the black mass of the river through a tangle of wrecked docks, piers, and metal buildings. Constance veered off the road and they made their way to the embankment.
“I left him here,” she said as they came to a small grove of trees. Pendergast shone the light around.
“Over here,” came a faint voice from downriver.
They worked their way along the embankment to find Chief Perelman lying on his side next to his wrecked boat. He had the mike of a VHF in his hand, the radio next to him, wired to a marine battery from the boat.
“Dragged myself over,” he said, gasping, his face smeared with mud and dripping with rainwater. “When I heard all that shooting, I figured you wouldn’t mind if I called in the cavalry.”
As if on cue, Coldmoon heard the distant rumble of rotors and saw—above the treetops in the east—a line of choppers moving fast and low. A moment later, lights appeared downriver, with a rising drone of outboard engines, as a phalanx of Coast Guard patrol boats materialized out of the darkness, moving at high speed, their spotlights playing along the shore.
“That was fast,” Coldmoon said.
“I told them federal agents were engaged in a firefight, with a man down. That did the trick.” Perelman lay back, looking at Constance. “I can’t believe it—you actually went in there alone and rescued these two?”