“—enough, pard! Enough! He’s dead! Snap out of it!”
Blade shook his head, his eyes narrowing, puzzled. He looked to his right.
“Are you okay?” Hickok asked, holding onto his friend’s right wrist. “It’s me! Nathan!” A machine gun was over his right shoulder.
“Blade?” said someone to the giant’s left.
Blade glanced around, inhaling deeply, his temples throbbing. “Hello, Rikki,” he said huskily.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi peered intently at his friend. “You’ve been cut. I must tend to your wounds.”
“I’m fine,” Blade said. “Really.” He faced forward, surprised to see Cat eight feet away.
El Gato gazed at the littered bodies, at the dead and the dying, at the pools of blood, the severed fingers, and the slashed throats. He stared at the gore-spattered Warrior, his eyes widening. And then he did a strange thing. He crossed himself for the first time in many, many years and uttered a phrase he hadn’t used in ages. “Madre de Dios!”
Epilogue
They stood at the rendezvous site, awaiting the arrival of the Hurricane.
“—worked my way around to the south side of the compound,” Hickok was explaining. “I figured they wouldn’t be expectin’ me to pull a stunt like that.” He chuckled. “I almost bumped into three turkeys on the west side of the estate. Anyway, to make this long story a mite shorter, I went lookin’ for Rikki and found him takin’ a mud bath.”
Blade looked at the martial artist. “A mud bath?”
“He exaggerates,” Rikki said.
“Your clothes were dirty until you took a bath in that stream yesterday,” Blade remarked.
“He went swimmin’ in quicksand,” Hickok disclosed.
“That sounds like a stunt you’d pull,” Blade said to the gunman.
“What’s that crack supposed to mean?” Hickok demanded.
Rikki stared to the south, in the direction of Miami. “What will we do about the Dragons?”
“With most of the Masters dead, the threat to the Family has been removed,” Blade said. “And without firm leadership, the Dealers will undoubtedly start fighting among themselves for control of the organization. I don’t see the Dragons as a danger any more.”
“You still haven’t told me what that crack meant,” Hickok stated.
Blade glanced at the gunfighter. “Which Warrior nearly ran over half the Family when he was learning to drive the SEAL?”
“Me, but—”
“And which Warrior,” Blade went on, “confided to me that he accidentally drove a tank into the moat at the Home?”
“Me, but—”
“I could go on and on,” Blade said, “but I rest my case.”
Hickok looked from Blade to Rikki and back again. “Pitiful. Just pitiful.”
“What is?” Rikki asked.
“A couple of teensy-weensy boo-boos and you’re branded for life!”
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK
July 1989
Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
276 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY
Copyright© 1989 by David Robbins
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