George Chesbro - Two Songs This Archangel Sings

"Satchel charge," Worde murmured. "Whoever made it to the cabin knows we're not there. Now we'll see what kind of communications they have."

As if in response to Worde's thought, the cargo plane came flying in low from the south, gained altitude, and then banked into a tight circling pattern with the flaming cabin as its epicenter. Then flares began to fall, incandescent balls of fire that stripped the cloak of night from us.

We were in trouble; although the hillside was covered with trees, there was no foliage. There would be a spotter up in the plane equipped with high-powered binoculars to search for us, or signs of our passing. We threw ourselves to the ground next to the trunks of trees and froze as the plane flew off into the distance. Finally the flares winked out, and night rushed back in over the mountain. We waited, listening, but could hear nothing but the drone of the airplane circling somewhere out of our line of sight. After more than two minutes passed, I began to dare hope that we hadn't been spotted.

Then the plane came into view; it banked against the moon, then began to descend rapidly, coming directly at us.

"Oh, no," Worde moaned in a barely recognizable voice as the first black canister dropped from the belly of the plane and began to tum lazily end over end as it angled down toward us. "Oh God, no."

We sprang to our feet. Worde threw his nunchaku away and we half-ran, half-fell down the hillside as fast as we could. There was an explosion, and I didn't have to look back to know that the spot where we had been was erupting with napalm flame. We were flushed, and there was nothing left to do but run.

We'd become separated in the scramble down the hillside, but Garth and I found each other just inside the tree line by a small, open glen. Ten yards to our left, just beyond the tree line and bathed in moonlight, a trembling Gary Worde was kneeling on the ground with his hands crossed over his head.

"Gary!" I shouted as Garth and I ran to him and grabbed his arms. "Gary, get up!"

We managed to pull Worde to his feet and drag him back into the minimal shelter of the trees as another canister dropped from the sky and splashed a river of flame through the forest on the opposite side of the glen. Still holding Worde, Garth and I started to run back through the trees. We had gone perhaps fifty yards when Worde suddenly broke free from our grasp, spun around, and screaming, ran back through the trees. Garth and I sprinted after him, but stopped at the edge of the tree line and stared in horror at the figure kneeling in the very center of the clearing. This time his head was neither bowed nor covered, but back; his rifle was in his hands, and he was pumping bullets at the fast-approaching plane.

"Gary!" I screamed. "Get up! Get the hell back here!"

But the hidden veteran was beyond the sound of any human voice; the spiritual barbed wire that had been holding him together for so many years had finally snapped and was flailing at him. He was back in Viet Nam, and this time he didn't intend to come back.

I started to run toward the hopeless rifleman in the clearing, then felt my feet fly out from under me as Garth grabbed the hood of my parka and yanked me backward. It was Garth who darted forward as I scrambled to my feet-and then we both dropped to our bellies as automatic weapons fire suddenly erupted from the top of a rise a hundred and fifty yards to our left. Bullets raked through the bare, skeletal trees, snapping off branches which rained down all around and over us. When I turned my head, I could see the figure of the commando standing straight and with his legs braced to either side of him as the submachine gun he held against his hip bucked and chattered. Gary Worde's lifeless body jerked spasmodically under the impact of the bullets, while above us the plane banked and reversed course for another napalm run.

If Gary Worde's corpse went up in flame, so would the oilskin packet he carried. The only piece of evidence-if it was evidence-against Orville Madison would be destroyed.

"Cover me, Garth; throw some fire in that prick's direction. We need that packet."

"What-?!"

Garth lunged and grabbed for me, but I was already on my feet and scrambling through the snow in the clearing. Bullets kicked up little white fountains around me as I ran, rolled, and crawled toward Gary Worde's bloody corpse. I heard Garth's rifle shots-three, four, five. But a rifle in the darkness against a man equipped with a submachine gun wasn't much of a match.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cargo plane coming in low over the treetops, on a direct line with me. Another black canister dropped from its belly; if I wasn't ventilated by bullets, I was soon likely to get roasted.

"Mongo!"

"I see it!"

Worde's corpse was on its belly. I rolled it over, then put my hand inside his coat and groped through the gore I found there. My fingers closed around the packet. I pulled it out, jumped to my feet, and started back toward the trees just as the canister landed behind me. I leaped and rolled, clawing my way through the ice and snow as a great whoosh rolled over me in a tidal wave of sound. The odor of gasoline stung my nostrils as thick, billowing clouds of suffocating black smoke swirled over and around me. Flames slapped at my face-and then I was out of it, and into Garth's grasp.

"Jesus!" Garth shouted as he lifted me up, then slammed me back down into the snow. He rolled me back and forth a few times to smother my burning clothing, rubbed snow through my hair, over my face and neck. Finally, apparently satisfied with the fruits of his labors, he sighed and sat down hard in the snow.

"How am I?" I asked loudly in order to be heard over the roar of the fire in the meadow and the forest beyond.

Garth frowned and shook his head in disgust, even as tears welled in his eyes. "Only slightly singed."

"I'm glad to hear it." I held up the packet. "Look what I've got."

Garth, a strange expression on his face, didn't even glance at the packet. "Why did you do a dumb-ass thing like that?"

"Huh?"

"Why did you run out and risk your life like that? Trying to save somebody's life is one thing, but Worde was already dead. That package wasn't that important, Mongo. None of this shit is."

"I don't understand what you're saying."

"Who gives a shit if Orville Madison becomes secretary of state or not?"

"I thought you were beginning to."

"Wrong. I'd break the man's spine if I could get my hands on him, but I don't give a shit if he becomes secretary of state. I give a shit about trying to keep you in one piece. Then you go and do a damn fool thing like that and almost get yourself killed for a lousy package which could contain dirty laundry, for all you know. What do you think would happen to me, Mongo, if you died?"

I had no answer for a question I'd never expected to hear. I was trying to think of something to say when I suddenly realized that the shooting from the ridge had stopped. Startled, I glanced toward the ridge; the silhouette of the commando was gone.

"I think I got the son-of-a-bitch," Garth continued quietly.

"Then what the hell are we doing sitting here?!" I shouted, jumping to my feet. "Let's go!"

A dead commando meant a hole in the ever-tightening cordon, and so we began climbing the ridge directly toward the spot where the gunman had been standing. However, we had to take into account the possibility that the man was just playing possum and hoping we would do exactly what we were doing, and so we proceeded with a good deal of caution. Halfway up the ridge we split up, with Garth going to the left and me to the right. With my Beretta out, I darted from tree to tree, listening for any sound from the top of the ridge, looking for any movement. I'd made it all the way to the crest of the ridge when I heard Garth's voice.