She was the sea; I, a mighty rider sailing upon the crests of her waves. She moaned like the wind through hidden forests; I bent like a tree beneath her. She burned-a fiery essence; I was consumed utterly. She covered me like soft, warm earth; I lay buried in ecstasy.
I had run out of metaphors.
I had also run out of cigarettes. Somehow, though, I had no craving for smoke. I just lay there gazing at her, a golden treasure.
I was having a difficult time finding the right words to say. Despite the reputation my profession has received as lusty villains in popular thrillers, an assassin almost never gets involved with women. Except perhaps as tools. My affairs had always been just that-affairs. A short farewell, if any.
I'd never made love to a friend before.
Tough guys aren't supposed to think about such things as love and warmth and worship and forever. Dell Ammo was a tough guy. Dell Ammo never worshipped a woman. Or a man. Or a God.
What did I worship, then? Anything? Could I fool myself into thinking I worshipped justice? Yeah-I could sprain my arm patting my back over that. Dell Ammo, assassin. Crusader for justice. It had a cozy counterfeit ring to it.
Ann interrupted my thoughts by pulling me closer.
"Do you still see me?" she asked.
"Like a dream I carried over into waking."
"You're no thug," she said, stroking my hair. It had grown out jet black again, as it had been years ago. "You're a sensitive, brilliant man."
"Rats, doll, you've blown my cover. All these scars are fake. I'm actually John Donne."
"That was no island," she said. "That was a continen-"
The air rumbled around us. Ann stared at me. A dull, stunned expression spread across my face. The library swirled about me and snapped like wet silk.
I floated in a totally black realm. From somewhere in the darkness, Isadora screamed out a warning. The library returned to my vision, her words reverberating in my head.
"Run, Dell!" she cried. "The Ecclesia's attacking!"
22
Blastoff
"Let's go!" I shouted to Ann. The throbbing sound around the library grew louder as we threw on our clothes. I grabbed my Colt from beneath a pile of abstracts and pounded down the stairs, Ann seizing her handbag and following inches behind.
Something whumped against the side of the building. The subsequent concussion knocked us against the wall.
"Ecclesia!" I yelled in answer to a look from Ann. We scrambled over scattered books and shattered bookcases toward the northern exit.
Instead of the door, though, we clambered out of one of the windows-I figured the bushes outside would serve as cover.
Six unmarked blue Hughes Cayuse helicopters roared over Old Downtown like movie Indians around a wagon train. The tenement capping Auberge flared savagely-a blazing funeral pyre. Thick columns of smoke rose overhead, chopped apart by the copters' propwash. The crowds pouring from the Auberge exits were greeted by machinegun and air-cannon fire.
One of the air-cannon rounds burst a section of the hill away to reveal the crumbling interior of the Auberge Hilton. Bodies lay sickeningly still inside the ruins.
A chopper roared above us, too swift for it to have seen us. It closed in on Bunker Hill. From somewhere within Auberge, the defense systems were retaliating.
Fifteen-millimeter machine guns opened fire on the aircraft. A couple of brave souls crawled to the surface armed with TOW missiles.
"Can't they use their interruptors?" Ann asked.
"Not enough range for the power. Too strong a field would knock out everyone on the fringes." I edged toward the west end of the building, Ann's hand in mine, keeping behind the bushes.
A thunderous explosion shook through us. I looked past Auberge to see the Union Bank building lose its top thirty stories. I had a feeling my office wouldn't be in great shape after that. The chopper that fired the missile landed atop the Bonaventure Hotel to hide from the action below.
"Where are the police?" Ann shouted over the battle's roar. "The army?"
One of the copters disintegrated in midair. The guard who fired the killing shot jumped up triumphantly, only to be blown from his perch by a cannon round from another attacker. His body whirled and danced through the air before tumbling down Bunker Hill and out of sight.
"Why should the cops or the feds get involved?" I said, looking down Fifth Street for a safe escape route. "They figure anyone in Auberge is a criminal of some sort. It'll give them an excuse to crack down on all the undergrounds."
Another copter fell flaming into the World Trade Center.
"Someone high up may even have approved the attack. They'll call it a gangland massacre."
"Dell-over there."
I turned to see pickup trucks racing toward Auberge, the beds loaded with scores of young men-healthy, well-armed, and fit for a new crusade, another jihad.
The Hueys drew back to safety as the boys stormed the hills, firing at anything that moved.
"It touches my heart," I said, "to see how the world's different faiths can work together for a change."
Ann grabbed my arm with painful tightness. "Where's Isadora?"
"I don't know," I said. I was concentrating on the truck pulling up to the library.
"Go sensitive and find her."
"Go what?"
Ann crouched down to where I was peering out at the truck. "You can do it," she whispered. "Just calm yourself and concentrate lightly on her image. Conjure her up in your mind."
"Calm myself? During this?" I felt like a kid on stage with a hypnotist. I wanted it to work. I wanted everything to go fine, even though I knew it wouldn't. I tried as hard as I could to believe that it would work while inside me I felt it was impossible.
"The column of mirrors," I said as if I'd just remembered it.
"See? You're getting something."
I glanced back at the troops leaping out of the truck. Something shook the earth. I stared up in bewilderment as a sleek black Learjet screamed over the library, two Vulcan machine gun pods under its wings chattering like the Fourth of July.
The Lear knocked two of the remaining three copters out of the sky. The third turned to escape, the jet pursuing in an uncontested race. Twin Vulcans blazed for an instant. The Huey's pilot bubble shattered. An instant later, the machine wheeled about, twisting crazily toward the Music Center. It crumpled into the Second Street overpass and hung there unburning-a dragonfly pinned to a rail.
The jet vanished to the northwest. I watched it depart, glancing at the fires of Auberge reflected in the mirrored windows of the Bonaventure.
"She's in the hotel." I whispered.
"Let's go."
I shook my head and pointed toward the young troops. "Wait until they're inside."
It didn't take long. They rushed the building at a dead run, whooping and screaming like a phalanx of John Waynes.
I led her through the bushes to where the walkway turned to block us. We paralleled the steps and hotfooted it into the parking lot, using what weeds grew there for cover. I kept my automatic ready.
The Auberge guards, in control of the high ground, seemed to be turning back the assault. The Wells Fargo building blocked our view as we ran past. We crossed Flower toward the hotel entrance.
Two kids sped around a corner, saw us, and whipped their rifles up to aim. They were too slow. I had already dropped to a kneeling, twohanded shooting stance. Ann crouched behind me. I had a sneaking suspicion she was fumbling for her knife.
I sighted in on the boy to my left-a sandy-haired teenager who looked like the lead in a high school production of The Idiot. The other-a lanky Panarabian-divided his aim between my head and Ann's.
"Neither of you wants to shoot us!" I yelled. "One of you will be dead before I drop!"