Enceas gritted his teeth. “And then there were two.”
Brewster was shaking his head. “Jesus! I should have seen that coming.”
Conventional weapons fire was coming in now, along with the razor-edged metal from the Gatling gun. Shredded leaves and bark drifted down from the trees and brush above them.
Enceas glanced at him. “It isn’t as though we didn’t know that our ticket home had expired.”
Brewster scowled, raised one eye over the fallen tree trunk he was hiding behind, and fired off a quick burst before replying. “Hope springs eternal, and all that. I keep hoping that I’ll see a Kicker floating into the clearing.”
“Don’t bet the farm,” Enceas told him. Without bothering to look, he awkwardly raised his good arm and fired over the trunk in the general direction of the shots. “Don’t forget… we may still have a guy behind us up in a tree, ready to take potshots.”
A deep, resounding whump, almost below the limit of hearing, came across clearly over the sound of the guns.
“What the hell was that?” Brewster demanded.
“Sounded like artillery, but neither side is going to drop shells in here with us this close together. They’d hit their own men.”
“One way to find out,” Brewster said, cautiously looking over the tree.
When he was silent for nearly twenty seconds, Enceas could stand it no longer. “What is it?”
Brewster shook his head slightly. “I dunno. Looks like—”
The Brazilian bullet took him neatly in the eye.
Enceas screwed his eyes shut. “And then there was one.”
Something big opened up. A repeated crump, crump, crump.
Enceas frowned. It sounded like a—
“Any Americans left around here?” boomed a voice. Electronically amplified, it was loud enough to wake the dead.
Crump, crump. A sound he had not heard since training. A short range, rapid-fire mortar. Not a Brazilian weapon, nor Mexican… American.
The whine of the Gatling gun ceased abruptly, as though shut off by a switch. There was none of the usual winding down.
Crump, crump, crump…
“Come on, boys! We don’t have all day, you know! We’ve got other pickups to make,” came the amplified voice.
A trick?
Crump, crump!
Kickers were quiet, but not that quiet. He’d have heard it coming in.
Judging by the sound, the Brazilian fire had been cut in half. Was it safe to look?
Crump.
“Come on, gentlemen! My supper’s getting cold!”
Enceas couldn’t stand it. He carefully inched his head up, ready to duck back instantly. What he saw made him forget fear. Wonder washed through him.
Stretched diagonally across the clearing was a dimly lit hangar-like room. The walls were stone. Soldiers… soldiers in American fatigues were spread prone across the lip of the hangar behind sandbags, directing a steady stream of fire into the trees on the other side of the clearing.
Crump, crump!
The muzzle flash from the mortar lit the Mexican dirt a meter below the floor of the chamber. Below, above, and to the sides of the bizarre apparition, Enceas could still see forest. He had a perfectly clear view into a stone room floating in midair.
“Any Americans left?” bellowed the voice.
Enceas saw the loudspeaker now. The voice was coming from behind the soldiers. He decided to chance it.
“Over here,” he called.
His voice was too weak to carry over the guns. He dropped his gun and seized a bush with his right hand and began shaking it with as much strength as he could muster. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
“We see you. Sit tight.”
What followed made Enceas giddy. The improbable vision of a room hovering in the sky changed perspective, slewing rapidly towards him, pivoting as it came. The edge stopped just short of the trees.
“That’s as close as we can get. Can you make it on your own, or will you need help?”
“Damn well going to try!” Enceas called in reply. Summoning every last bit of energy in his body, he lurched to his feet, stumbling towards the edge of the room.
The bullet caught him in the thigh, taking his leg out from under him, pitching him face forward into the dirt.
Boots slammed into the ground only a hand’s breadth from his face. “Take his arm—Jesus, no, not that one, can’t you see he’s hurt? Got him?”
Strong hands lifted him and he felt himself swung sideways. As his body passed over the threshold, he felt an amazing transformation. When he hit the floor, he weighed only a fraction what he normally weighed. It almost seemed that he was floating. Perhaps blood loss was affecting his perceptions.
A face hovered only inches from his. “Are there any more?”
Confused and entering shock, he whispered, “Any more what?”
“Men. Americans.”
He shook his head slightly. “Only me left. All the rest are dead.”
“Are you sure?” The man demanded.
“Yes.”
The man bellowed, “Cut the Door! Let’s get out of here!”
Instantly, the Mexican rain forest vanished, to be replaced by a solid rock wall.
Comprehension was slow in dawning. “A Holmes Door… neat.”
The man who had been questioning him was already on his feet. He looked down. “What?”
Enceas shook his head slightly. “Nothing.”
A man and a woman swam into his field of view. He felt distant tugging motions as they cut away the leg of his fatigues to begin work. Snatches of conversation floated into his consciousness. “Missed the femur… artery… we’re losing blood pressure, somebody…”
A hand slipped into his and squeezed. “Fight it. Stay here with me.” A woman’s voice.
Summoning the last of his strength, he fought to open his eyes. It was worth it. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jenny.” She blushed as she said it.
“Am I dead?”
“No, and you won’t be if I have anything to do with it. I’m tired of killing people with this Door. Live, damn you… live!” Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m… trying…” he sighed as his hand relaxed, slipping from hers.
“Jenny?” Alan Lister called softly.
“Whatever you want, the answer is no. Not just no, but hell no! Go away. I hate you and I never want to see you again.”
Jennifer Holmes was slumped in the operator’s seat for the Holmes Door. The Plexiglas booth had been hastily armored with steel plates. A small slot had been left open for Jenny to visually observe the Door. She stared out this slot blindly.
Alan closed the door to the control booth behind him. “I wanted to thank you for trying.”
“Every time you ask me to come near this Door, people die, Alan. How do you think that makes me feel?”
“You didn’t kill him. You tried to save him.”
“I didn’t even know his name.”
“His name was Lawrence Enceas.”
She clenched her fists and held them to her ears as though to block out the sound of his voice. “Damn you!” she shrieked. “How dare you come in here and tell me his name?”
“I thought you might like to know.”
Her eyes squeezed shut and a tear slid down her cheek.
“Would you rather have left him to die alone in the jungle?”
A great, shuddering gasp shook her.
“At least here, he was able to see a friendly face before he went.”
Slowly, unwillingly, her hands came down. She rose from the seat and stumbled towards him. He reached out to catch her.