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"Idiots," Groschen said. He picked up his Grog gun, holding it with the aid of a sling. "Let's go get them."
Valentine looked to Beck. "Wait here, Captain," he said. He shuffled crabwise to the sandbags covering the front of the hut. He followed his gun muzzle over the side. Two bodies and a third guard, whimpering out his confusion, lay there. The man must have been in shock, otherwise he'd be screaming, judging from the absence of his foot.
The man's pain still triggered instincts not wholly lost.
"Groschen, help this man."
"Sure thing, sir." Groshen drew a palm-sized automatic from his vest and shot the man through the ear. It was carried out with the same smooth, careless motion that he might use to toss away a gum wrapper.
"That's not what I meant," Valentine sputtered.
"Sorry, sir, but it's just a Kurpee."
Who are you to judge ? Valentine had killed helpless men in anger, in desperation, in fear. He'd machine-gunned helpless sailors and murdered men in their sleep-and been giddy and sickened by the act. Maybe Groschen was better than Valentine after all; he didn't look like he'd enjoyed it.
"Coming out, Gross," Brass said from the doorway.
"Come ahead."
Brass came out, splattered with blood. "Even dozen. Rain's taking the heads now."
"You two, get the prisoners out of the tower. I'm going to see about getting the women out."
Groschen and Brass walked toward the tower, Groschen keeping his gun pointed up, holding it from the hip like a Haitian erotic fetish Valentine had seen in the Caribbean. He took one more look at the executed Quisling-he'd seen the man's face before, standing watch over prisoner labor. Whatever thoughts, ideas, dreams, or regrets had lived within that bloody head were forever lost.
Bullets flew. Shots from outside the camp made Brass and Groschen throw themselves to the ground. Valentine vaulted over the sandbag wall and landed on one of the splayed bodies.
"What the hell?" Nail said from the doorway.
"It's Zhao's company," Valentine said. "They're shooting at us."
"Fuck!" Lost & Found swore. For a man with "Born Again to Kill" written on his helmet, he had a distinctly unchristian way of expressing himself. Brass and Groschen both hollered "Cease fire" as best as they could with their faces planted in the common yard's dirt.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Valentine asked, looking at Lost & Found's swollen hand.
"It will tomorrow. Don't worry, sir. She'll heal up."
Valentine caught motion out of the corner of his eye; a figure ran out to the gate of the camp.
"What's that idiot doing?" Nail said.
Valentine peeped over the edge of the sandbags. Beck stood in the open, waving a white rag with his remaining active arm. "Hold your fire!"
"My former captain," Valentine said. "Never short of guts."
There was another shot from the darkness. Beck didn't even flinch. He kept shouting and signaling.
"Boy's wiring is definitely not grounded," Nail observed.
* * * *
Fifteen minutes later some order had been restored to the camp, now darkened by the destruction of the generator. Zhao's men were in a screen around it, their guns pointed in a less dangerous direction while Valentine organized his prisoners. Some blocks away a building burned; Valentine guessed it to by Xray-Tango's headquarters.
A quick headcount gave him five hundred twenty-seven men and sixty women. All were in this particular camp because they had been captured in Southern Command uniforms. Beck explained the half-assembled nature of their accommodations in a few terse sentences.
"The expected us to just be here a couple days. Then they found work for us, the flood started-a few days turned into weeks. Men were scheduled to ship to Texas, women to Memphis, by rail or water, whichever opened up first."
"Solon owes his neighbors for the loan of troops," Valentine said.
