His eyes bulged. His face began to change color. He was kneeling, both hands at his throat, tearing the shirt collar away. I could see his chest heaving with the effort to get air through the smashed pas sageway. His face darkened and his wide eyes saw nothing any more. He sat back on his haunches, then rolled onto his side in the mud, still pulling at his shirt. There was one long rippling, quivering, muscle-jerking spasm, and then he was still. I retrieved the Uzi from under the motor home and stood, listening and listening.
Not luck this time. The strength and the speed of utter, demoralized panic. The extra adrenaline that came from the horror, the terror, of knives.
I went looking, very cautiously, for Sammy. I found him inside the motor home. He sat on the floor, leaning against a pillow. His eyes were halfopen. On impulse I closed them with my thumb. The belly and groin and thighs of his coveralls were dark and heavy with blood, the color turning from dark red to chocolate. Evidently one of my slugs had clipped a major artery.
I went to T-6. Somebody had taken the gag out of Stella's mouth and freed her hands and ankles. She was on her back, the edge of the blanket across her waist. She breathed quickly and shallowly. The breathing stopped after every half-dozen or so breaths, and she would be still for perhaps thirty seconds before taking a deep gasping throat-rattling inhalation. I touched the pulse in her throat. It was light and fast. Id the dingy light I bent closely and eased her eyelids up. The black pupil of the left one was twice the size of the one of the right eye. I
The Green Ripper knew the signs. Sister Stella was dying. It is called cerebral hemorrhage.
I looked down at her, and saw her die. Poor sallow little dishwater blonde, a hustler recruited for more serious duty. She had pleasured Brother Thomas. McGee had never touched her. McGee could not remember ever touching her... in that direction lies a tantalizingly attractive kind of madness. To become two people means that one need take no responsibility for the other. The pleasant release of guilt or tension can widen the gap between the two.
I covered her to the chin and went out into the blowing mist. There had been ten of them, and two more in the incoming aircraft, and now there were none. I was glad the wind had started again. It was far better than the silence. I shed the belt. I had lost the pack under the motor home. I slung the Uzi over my shoulder. It was comfortable to carry. I went looking for the airplane.
It had gone much farther down the slope than I had supposed. The engine and pieces of the cowling were jammed into a rocky bank. The tail section was up in a tree. The fuselage was in two large parts and dozens of ragged pieces. Seats and bits of plastic and wiring were scattered over a broad area There was a stink of fuel.
One of them had apparently gone into the rocky bank, as had the engine. He lay bent in wrong directions, missing an arm, and it was impossible to discover what he had looked like. There was a faded tattoo of a blue-and-red eagle on his right wrist, almost obscured by curly blond hair. The eagle held a little scroll in its claws. It said "Charlene."
Another was on his face, and he was draped over a boulder, spread-eagled, hip pockets high. He looked almost normal until I noticed how totally flat his chest was. From back to front he seemed to be about four inches thick. He had huge pale hands. I wanted to see his face, but I didn't care to roll him off his boulder. I sat on my heels, put a hand under his cold chin, and lifted. He had no visible eyelashes or eyebrows. His fine blond hair was cropped short. One small gray eye was open, the other almost dosed. A conspiratorial wink. A little mouth, a delicate little nose, and a face pitted and scarred by the acne of his youth.
"And how are you, Brother Titus?" I asked him.
Middling, he seemed to say. Just middling.
"Help!" I dropped Brother Titus's head and scrambled back, tripped, and sat down. "Help met"
I moved over to the larger part of the wrecked fuselage. Brother Persival lay on his back, on what had been the side wall and windows. The gas stink was stronger.
I made certain his hands were empty before I knelt. He frowned up at me. 'McGraw? McGraw, don't touch me. I think my spine is smashed. I can't move my arms and legs."
The Green Ripper
"Makes quite a problem."
"Get some of the others and rig a litter. If you roll me carefully, you can slide me out of here."
"There aren't any others."
He closed his eyes, then opened them again. "Brother Haris has had some medical training."
"There aren't any others."
"They... they ran?" Incredulity.
"They're dead."
After long thoughtful moments he moistened his lips and said, "Then you're a bird dog. You brought a team in."
'Jo. Em alone."
'Y don't understand. You killed them all? How, for God's sake? All those brave young people. Some of our very best. So many thousands of hours and dollars in training them."
'Y had a lot of luck. And of course I had some practical experience in their line of work. And motivation. Let's not forget motivation, Brother."
"Who are you?"
"I'm Brother Thomas, the commercial fisherman."
'what had become evident. It was checked out. I got word about that yesterday. Who are you?"
"Just your average idle Florida beach bum. Name of McGee. Travis McGee. Salvage consultant." I grinned idiotically at him and stuck my hand out. But of course he couldn't take it. He had closed his eyes. I waited a long time before I touched him on the cheek. "Brother Persival?"
He looked at me. Impatience. "Yes, yes. What is it?"
"Your group killed my woman, in Florida. They went out of their way to give her a death that looked like illness."
"Why would we do that?"
"She had been here a long time ago, looking for her husband's kid sister, and she had seen Titus. Then she saw him again in Fort Lauderdale, negotiating to buy land for some Belgians, and recognized him. They shot a little sphere into the back of her neck and she died."