He came out of the boathouse and found Lucy where he had left her. She was pale and shivering. He slit the blanket and the tarp with his knife and made a rough poncho out of it and slipped it over the child’s head. He led her back into the pine wood.
He smiled at her and smoothed the damp hair off her forehead. “Little sister,” he said in Cantonese, “now we must be soldiers for a little while. In my country, during the war, girls the same age as you were soldiers and they did very well, and you will do very well too. Wolfe is planning to escape with one of the boats, and he plans to take Wooten-siujè with him. So, he must come down this path with her, and we will prepare an ambush for him. Do you know this word, ambush? No? We lie here in wait, and when they come out we will capture them.”
“With our guns?”
“Just so, with our guns. Now, we must examine the ground and see where is the best place.”
The Music Lover finished tying up Edie Wooten with adhesive tape. The Marneys were tied up similarly and locked in the cellar, as was the dog, who had been perfectly friendly throughout. It was going very well. The summer storm had been a good break, because it would have been difficult to handle Marlene, Tranh, and the little girl all at once, and now they were off the island with no way to return in time to stop him. He certainly didn’t want to hurt anyone without it being absolutely necessary, especially not Marlene, who had been kind to poor dumb Wolfe.
He left Edie lying on the couch and went to get the cello. Reverently, he caressed the miraculous finish, and reflected that the instrument was much like himself. Stradivarius had taken mute spruce and sycamore and willow, and with varnish and glue had made it into something divine, just as the dull material of Jack Wolfe, a hick security guard, a hopeless loser, had been transmogrified by the power of Edie Wooten’s playing into the Music Lover, the perfect audience, soon to be the eternal and only audience.
He lifted the cello and placed it carefully into its case, and put the bow into its velvet clips. Now, should he take the cello down to the boat first, or the musician first and then her instrument? Perhaps he should ask Edie? No, it was important to show decision. He went over to her and said in his music lover voice, so much deeper and more cultured than Wolfe’s voice, the voice of an announcer on WQXR, “I’m going to put your cello on the boat now. I’ll be right back.”
“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered.
That was puzzling. His brow wrinkled. How could she not understand? She had been telling him to do this in everything she played. “Of course I’m not going to hurt you, silly! I love you. You just rest here for a minute. Be right back.”
He hoisted the cello and slung Marlon Dane’s MP5 on his free shoulder. The cello was lighter than he had expected. It seemed, indeed, lighter than the machine gun. He walked out the front door, swung right and down the garden path to the boathouse.
“You see, little sister, there is the path he must follow to the boathouse,” explained Tranh. They were squatting in the wood line to the west of the house. “It leads through the rose garden and then sinks between two banks and then rises and curves around before it goes down to the boathouse. You see how I have wired and taped your mother’s pistol to the tree there. It is what we call a fixed gun. It is very useful when you have few troops. We have very few troops, only you and me, but if we are clever, we will win. Now, this wire will fire the gun when you pull it. Take it in your hand. You will crawl under the bush. Do it now! Now lift your head over the stone wall. Can you see the path?”
“Yes. A little of it.”
“And that white rose bush at the end. Can you see that too?”
“Yes.”
“Good. This is very important, so listen. When Wolfe passes that bush, not before, you duck your head behind the wall, all the way down to the ground, and you pull your wire twice, then wait one breath, then twice more. I think that when he hears the bullets pass him, he will drop down behind that low bank for shelter, and fire back at the flash and sound of our gun. I think also that he has a machine gun, so you will hear a very loud banging, and you will also hear the bullets passing overhead. They will make a sharp noise like firecrackers, and pieces of wood and leaves may fall down on you. Will you be frightened?”
“No,” said Lucy; then, after a pause, “A little bit, perhaps.”
“Yes, that is normal, but you will still do what is required.”
“Where will you be?” she asked.
“I will wait at the rear of the house. When I hear your shot, I will come up behind him and capture him.”
That was the plan. Tranh thought it a good one. He really had no doubt that Lucy would do what she should, but as always, the most unpredictable part was the behavior of the enemy. When fired on, Wolfe had four choices. He could go to the ground at the convenient sunken path Tranh had left for him, in which case Tranh would come up behind him and stick a gun in his back. Or he could run back to the house, and Tranh would be between him and the house. Or he could run to the boathouse, in which case he would be trapped, with nowhere to go.
As he took up his position he considered the fourth option and the critical angles of the situation. It was near, perhaps too near, but the child was well hidden, and Wolfe would be confused and deafened by his own firing. And there was nothing else to be done. He waited, squatting, watching.
A door slammed. Heavy steps on the gravel path. Wolfe emerged from around the corner of the house, carrying a cello case, and started down the rose garden path. Tranh slipped along the side of the house in a crouching lope, concealed by the rose bushes.
Two shots sounded. Tranh felt a momentary pleasure. An excellent child, though a girl! Then a burst of three from the MP5, a heavy tread, another burst of three. Bad. Wolfe was doing just what Tranh would have done in the same situation. He was charging the ambushing gun, firing controlled bursts. Tranh took off in pursuit.
The Music Lover had to admit that Wolfe had some useful skills. As soon as the shots were fired, he did the right thing, just as in Vietnam. Run toward the ambush, is what the experienced troops used to say, and although it was scary to do it, the guys who did had a better chance than the ones who dropped where they were, because the V.C. always had mortars or heavy weapons zeroed on the most obvious cover.
Whoever was firing from the wood line shot again, high. The Music Lover saw the flash against the rain-soaked leaves. He fired another burst and kept moving. Now he was in the woods. He crouched behind the tree and waited for his ears to stop ringing from his own firing. He listened, but heard nothing but the rush of wind and the patter of the rain through the woods, and his beating heart.
The plan was still in effect, though. He would take down whoever it was and go on as before. Crouching, he moved through the bushes. There it was, a glint of metal, the muzzle of a semi-automatic pistol.
The Music Lover fired a long burst at where the man holding the gun would be. To his surprise, the gun stayed where it was. He moved forward. He came close enough to see that the pistol had been taped into the crotch of a maple sapling. A wire was wrapped around the trigger. He traced it straight back to another tree, where it took a turn and went off to the left and down. He tugged it. It went slack. The Music Lover saw that the wire disappeared into some bushes ten feet away. He raised his weapon.
From behind him a voice said, “Put down your weapon! Surrender!”
The Music Lover whirled around. He saw the Viet-cong standing there, a thin, wet Vietnamese man in the black clothes they all wore, with his pistol held straight out. The Music Lover tried to bring the machine gun up, but before it had moved an inch, the first of three bullets struck him in the chest.