Chaingang

Chaingang clicked the next mag into his SKS, but by then the first car of monkeys was pulling away and he concentrated on the other guard. He had to get out of there soon. His inner clock was ticking at him. He saw the dog coming first and squatted down and got something, putting his weapon beside him. He took the dog from a balanced position, but it still nearly knocked him over—such was the power of the dog's spring at the moment of attack.

But puppy met with a terrible surprise. This was Chaingang fucking Bunkowski, heart-eater, doggie. And he caught the dog in his left hand, holding her by the throat, trying not to strangle her until he could work the cork off the hypo and tranq the bitch. Within a few seconds the attack dog's long, pink tongue was lolling out like she was dead.

“Ilsa! Where are you? Here, Ilsa!” Her master's voice.

“Doggie's asleep,” a deep basso profundo rumbled from out of the darkness as Chaingang blew the guard's head off his neck. “And so are you."

He grabbed the hundred-pound puppy in a fireman's carry, slinging her over one shoulder as if she were a sack of onions, and waddled off to his wheels.

Up on the service road he heard the monkey man shout something to him as he waved.

“Thanks, pardner!” it sounded like.

Chaingang, had Ilsa safely down the road when the south edge of Ecoworld blew into the cosmos.

Royce braked the second he saw the olive drab sphere at the edge of the concrete drive. He was frightened of it, but he was desperate for a weapon, and the MAC-11 was useless to him without a magazine full of cartridges. No amount of money in Christendom would have sent him back into that exploding hell for ammo. He chucked the thing into the backseat and stopped.

He prayed it wasn't a booby trap. It didn't explode when he picked it up, but he didn't start breathing again until he had it resting on the pile of blankets from the old musket. He made a nest for it, tossing the MAC-11 into the road ditch.

“Is that a hand grenade?” Mary asked quietly. She was afraid of very little now. The worst was behind them.

“Yeah,” he told her in a quivering voice. “It's a hand grenade. And I'm scared to death of the damn things."

“Well then...” she wanted to know, the way women so often do ... “why did you pick it up?"

It was a perfectly logical question. It made him lick his lips. He tasted salt.

“What are you going to do with it?"

“God knows,” he said.

34

WHITETAIL POND

There was a three-man team in the car. There were four cars full of agents on the case, one on his cabin, one on Mary's house, one cruising, and this one at the pond. They'd been parked there since four in the afternoon, and everybody was bored, restless, and coffeed out. The replacement car would be a couple of hours more.

“I gotta take a piss,” the man on the passenger side in the front seat said, and cracked the door, walked over to the road ditch, and urinated noisily into the weeds. They were parked on the road overlooking the Perkins cabin.

“Any more jelly doughnuts?” the one in the backseat asked.

“Nope,” the driver said, yawning. “Wish these fuckers would show. I'd like to whack somebody."

“I can dig it,” the one in the backseat said, stretching.

The man who'd had to pee got back in the car, and it was then that Royce came around the bend in the road and saw the flash of light when the car door opened.

“Somebody's up there,” he said.

“Where?"

“Above the cabin.” He pointed. “I saw a light flash. We've probably got company. They're probably in the cabin, too.” He was so calm-sounding, he surprised himself.

“Who do you think it is?"

“The Avon lady?” he said, trying to make a joke and succeeding beyond his wildest dreams. Both of them giggled like schoolkids.

“You're such a zany guy,” she said.

“I really am.” There were limits to how scared you could get. Apparently they had found theirs, because he drove back around the pond and parked about 150 yards from the top of the hill.

“What are you going to do?” she whispered.

“Probably get my ass killed.” Mary just looked at him as he took the wire and the pliers and the grenade and quietly closed the car door. “Stay here. I'll be back."

She didn't say anything. Be careful stuck in her throat. He was gone.

Royce came up out of the bushes as silently as he could, very worried about his breath. It was so loud. His breathing sounded like an antique bellows. Thankful that the woods came nearly flush with the edge of the road ditch, he came out of the woods slow and low, trying to keep the left rear corner post of the car between himself and where the driver was sitting. It was pretty dark, and he was counting on luck.