Achilles shuddered. One could be in worse shape than Achilles was-his whole body worked; every limb did its job. He'd seen men whose resurrection had been botched, for less reason.
"Yeah," he said, retreating. "I heard that," And promised himself silently that he'd find some way to blame this whole mess on Welch, when he got back to New Hell.
Got back alive. After having surrendered. It wasn't something he could take with equanimity. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and jumped for the doorsill of the canted chopper, then pulled himself up and sat on it.
Tamara looked up at him from inside the chopper and said, "Well, at least they're asking, not shooting."
"Achilles didn't have a thing to say to that New Dead slut. He just crossed his arms and wished she wasn't there. if she hadn't been, with her nasty little side arm pointed casually at him from the darkness of the chopper's belly, he'd have barricaded himself inside.
But Welch, as usual, had everything covered. He surrendered their party with grace, poise, and good manners to the Dissident leader known as Guevara, and there wasn't a damned thing Achilles could do but go along. For now.
"We ransom you. gringo, back to your slime-bag masters," Che said with a wave of farewell, and ducked through the tent-flaps before Welch could respond.
Alone in the interrogation tent, Welch tried to ignore the pain in his bound wrists and ankles, the complaint of muscles strained and skin chafing against the tent-pole. He had some time to consider his options. He ought to take it.
Guevara was an old pro at this. He'd stripped the captives naked, made a number of lewd suggestions as applicable to men as to women, dual separated them. Welch's main concern was for Tanya. He should have known that, when Guevara realized who the woman was, there'd be no reasoning with him.
He had no doubt that Guevara would ransom him, and Achilles, and Nichols, but he had a feeling that Tamara Burke was going to return to New Hell the hard way. He felt bad about that, he really did. It surprised him how bad he felt about it But there wasn't much he could do; not tied to a tent-pole, there wasn't.
Guevara would ransom them back, eventually, but until then, it was going to be mind-fuck and interrogation, lots of if. If Welch had anticipated this mess correctly, he'd have shot his people himself, to spare them what was coming.
But he'd screwed up-he'd forgotten about Ch& and Tanya and their long history of kill-me/kill-you-the sort of history that got repeated endlessly in Hell because people never learned. If you could keep from making the same mistakes that got you here, you could probably get out, at feast to Purgatory. But nobody ever could. Or, at feast, nobody ever did.
Welch spent an interminable interval staring at the tent-flap that shivered in the wind-the same sort of wind the chopper had run into. Hell's heaviest weather, complete with thunder and lightning: there'd been no anticipating that. Things screw up. Perfect planning prevents piss-poor performance, but nothing was ever perfect in Hell.
Only some sort of screw up on Che's part, something Guevara hadn't planned for, was going to get them out of this anytime soon. He hoped Tanya was thinking about that. If he could have reached her, he'd have suggested she try to make Che...
Pardon me, do you mind a visitor?" said a man who poked his head into tile tent. A blond head.
A slightly glowing countenance in tile dim light. A perfect, beautiful smile that made Welch's heart ache.
"Hello, Altos," said Welch calmly, because all he had left now was his inner arsenal-apparent calm, clear-headedness, incisive analysis of his own plight.
"Come to save me from the Dissidents?"
In came the angel, who wasn't about to do any such dung. Blue eyes lowered and Welch was glad enough not to meet them. It had hurt, the last time he'd looked tills supernal errand boy in the eye.
"Not exactly," said Altos very quietly.
"How about alleviating my suffering? A quick cut, a slug in the brain-me and Tanya. Yeah, Tanya first. Do her a world of good. Good's what you're about, here, right?"
"Don't tease me, Welch. I am here to help." A flicker of darkness crossed the angel's face like a storm cloud scuttling before the moon. "Alexander of Macedon is here. He would speak with you."
"It doesn't look to me like you need my permission," said Welch, giving a desultory pull against his bonds. "You want it, then loosen some of these ropes. I'm all pins and needles."
"I can't," whispered the angel with something like real despair. "Not yet. But Alexander needs only to know that you wish to be rescued. For the rest, honor will exact its due."
Welch began to see where Altos was headed. "Tell Alexander I'm waiting for him to make his move. I'll gladly see him. But I want somebody to check on Tanya-she's in more danger from Che than you know."
"Perhaps more than Alexander knows," said Altos wearily. "I, unfortunately, know exactly how much danger the lady is in." He shook his head. "I shall bring Alexander to you, as soon as possible. And ... thank you, Welch."
"Don't thank me, friend. You could have just said I ...oh, I see, you couldn't: can't he, I bet. That so?"
The angel nodded glumly and turned to go, shoulders slumped.
Welch watched without another word. The angel hadn't been able to loosen his bonds because he'd promised not to; Altos couldn't spring him personally because he'd given his word to Guevara. He couldn't even go to Alexander on Welch's behalf unless Welch expressed the need himself.
Much be tough, in this crowd, having to walk the straight and narrow.
As the flap fell, cutting off Welch's view of the angel and the ruddy light beyond, Welch was grinning. He wasn't that bad off. He could be working for the same agency Altos was-that would have been torture.
Alexander lay on his friend's pallet and listened while Maccabee talked. Judah Maccabee would never lie to him and Maccabee said that Che was doing evil upon the persons of men who had fought at Alexander's side.
"So," said Judah, with the light of the lion in his eyes, "we have only one recourse." He sat back, his muscular shoulders gleaming m the cook-fire's light.
"Which is?" Alexander was barely recovered from his fall-every muscle still hurt. Oh, he was bandaged and clean, bat whenever he wanted to turn his head, he had to do it very carefully. So very carefully he mopped himself up on one elbow. "Speak plainly, Judah."
"Force Che to turn the prisoners over to us - to you, Alexander.
"To 'us' will do." Judah was a guest-friend, and more. Judah was his Hephaestion, the man to whom he was closest. "But how, and on what grounds?"
"Will you see the one called Just Al, my lord?" said Maccabee then.
When Judah called him "lord," he wanted something. And Alexander thought he knew what Judah wanted. Judah wanted what Judah had always wanted: a way out of Hell; power over his own fate; a conduit to God, whom Judah knew was just testing him. And minions, to cleave a way to Heaven through force of arms.
"See Just Al, the one who saved me, the..." Alexander knew, because Judah had told him, what the Israelite perceived Just Al to be. He did not believe it, but he would not hurt Maccabee's feelings by saying so.
And he should thank the one who'd saved him from the Trip. "Yes, bring him here. And see that, if he and you know a way that we may release our comrades from bondage, this is told to me."
You had to be careful with minions, even beloved ones who were friends. You had to let them know that you were who you were-Alexander the Great. Thus, no matter how dose he wished to be with Maccabee, he kept this shred of distance.
He was a living god, or had been. Judah was merely a guerrilla fighter of infinite courage and unshakable resolve.