They’d been waiting for maybe five minutes when, from around the corner of the building, came a couple of grunting noises. Then it was quiet again, just the crickets and the yapping of a faraway dog. Teresa looked over at Still.
“Whattaya think?” she whispered.
“Not yet,” Still whispered back. “Wait for the signal.”
Teresa nodded and settled back. From behind them came a sneeze. It wasn’t all that loud, and she knew that the Old Man couldn’t help it, having just gotten over a cold, but it was still jarring in the extreme, given the surrounding silence, and she whipped around to glare at the place where he and Case were hiding. Still did likewise, but no further noise came from the darkness and she and Teresa looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to watching and waiting.
It seemed like a long time went by and Teresa, antsy and hyper-vigilant, was about to ask Still what they should do, when suddenly the quiet urban night was pierced by the high, bird-like shriek of a metal whistle. Tweeee! Twee, twee, twee!
“That’s it,” said Still, starting to rise. “Let’s move.”
Then, out of nowhere, came a gruff man’s voice that froze Teresa in place like a bath of liquid nitrogen.
“Don’t move a fuckin’ inch,” it said, harsh and loud in the stillness.
Teresa and Still both did as told, tense as drum heads, as a man, dressed in some kind of fancy suit, what they called a uniform, all black with shiny buttons topped by a black cap, slowly stepped out of the shadows and into view. Average-looking otherwise, he had a shotgun and the business end pointed at a point midway between the two women.
“Drop them guns,” the man said stonily. “And get up, real nice and slow.”
They did as the man said. Getting to her feet, Teresa felt her limbs beginning to shake and her breath come in short gulps. Having a gun pointed at her always made her angry like that. Instinctively, she started judging the distance to the man and how quickly she could get her hands on him.
The man was about to say something else, but the very instant he opened his mouth, something heavy came smashing down on his head and, cap and shotgun flying, he gave a strangled groan and fell onto his face, more or less at their feet. And standing there with a metal bar in hand, shaking his head sadly, was Justin Case. He’d knocked the black-suit greep into the middle of next week!
Teresa grinned at him. “Nice work, hey!” she said. “Dropped him like a sack o’ ploop!”
“Yeah, doc,” nodded Still. “Way to go! Now come on. We gotta get movin’, so get the Old Man and let’s—”
“The Old Man’s right here,” came Lampert’s voice, and he came tottering up, the camo-blanket around his shoulders like a robe. He stopped and looked down at the unconscious black-suited man and then over at Case. “You had to do, it, Doc,” he said. “Don’t feel bad.”
“I hope that he’s not too badly hurt, but I’m afraid we don’t have time to see to him. The signal…”
“Yeah,” said Still. “Let’s move.”
Teresa gave Case a fleeting grin, nodded and then took the lead towards the main gate. Before they’d gone ten steps, the rattling, banging sound of gunfire came from inside.
When they got into the mansion itself, past a big courtyard and some smaller buildings, where the inert forms of about a dozen of those black-suited men lay scattered around like discarded, life-sized toys, Teresa was a little disappointed to find that she’d missed all of the action. There was still a hint of gun smoke in the air, bullet holes here and there, and brass casings and shreds of burnt wadding all over the floor, but nothing stirred. But as she soon discovered, the aftermath turned out to be eventful enough.
The main building was huge, at least by her standards, and so neat and clean and lavishly decorated that she had a hard time at first not gawking at the splendor and alien orderliness of it all. There were so many rooms and stairways and hallways and all kinds of rooms she didn’t have names for, plus all this furniture, chairs and tables and lamps and cabinet-things, all super-fancy and shiny, and pictures hanging on the walls and rugs on the gleaming floors, all of it brightly lit with real old electric bulbs. It was like something out of an old vid or a picture from an old book from Before. Amazed, she actually stopped and lowered her boomstick to gape.
“Hey, come on!” said Still, nudging her and breaking the spell. “Up here!”
Following the woman’s lead, she made for a big central stairway, an enormous, carpeted, incredibly wide set of stairs with big thick wooden railings. From somewhere at their head, they could hear muffled voices, intent but not angry. The rest of the place was quiet. Teresa stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back at Case and Mr. Lampert.
“Wanna lift, Misser Lampert?” she asked, jerking her head at the imposing stairs. “Ain’t no thing.”
The Old Man looked at the stairs, made a face, and then looked around.
“Naw,” he finally said. “I don’t wanna get carried around anymore. And there’s an elevator, right over there.”
Teresa glanced up the steps and saw that Still was almost at the top. She looked urgently back to Case and Lampert.
“Go ahead,” said Case, nodding, sort of sad-like. “We’ll be right up.”
Teresa nodded eagerly and bolted up the stairs, three at a time. When she got to the top, the sound of the voices drew her down a wide hallway, to a huge double door, thrown wide open, that led into another gigantic, well-lit, impossibly perfect room. Here she paused to take in the scene.
Standing on either end of a big table-like desk were two of their friends: the big man, Lumler, and Shipman, the mean little greep with the fancy camo-suit. Lying all around, in various positions like rag dolls, some in pools of blood, some alive but groaning and hurt, were about ten of the black suits. Some of the furniture in here had been thrown around, upended or knocked over, and there were lots of bullet holes in the walls and floor.
With a sharp pang, she noticed another body on the floor, this one covered with a camo blanket, and then another just like it, two of their comrades obviously dead, just two pairs of boots sticking out from under a blanket. Grim process of elimination told her that it had to be the hispano Army guy, CJ, and Santiago, the animal doctor.
The two remaining men, the big one and the little one, looked highly pissed-off and had their weapons trained on the center of attention, another man she’d never seen before who was sitting in a big padded chair behind the desk. Some do-dads, papers and pens and lamps and things, sat in front of the man, and if he knew that he had two angry men pointing guns at him, he sure as hell didn’t show it. Fact was, he looked more like he was bored.
Not much to speak of looks-wise, the man—the Governor, she now realized—was average sized, though it was hard to tell since he was sitting, and dressed in an old-style suit, like in the old vids of President Ortega, a black suit with a red necktie and collared white shirt and everything. His face was hard for her to read. His skin was pink and smooth, but his eyes were deep-set and small, like an angry pig, and his mouth turned down at the edges like he never smiled.
Walking slowly, like she was in a dream, she stepped past Still, who’d taken up a guard position in the hallway, and into the room. As she did, the Governor looked up at her and smiled. The other men moved not an inch, their weapons never swayed, and the angry looks on their faces only got angrier.