“They will kill you!”
“Johnny, you’re wasting time!”
“It’s too late! I will not leave you! We have to run before they see us!” They were putting the noose around Macintosh’s neck.
“ Johnny…” In desperation, Andre hit him with a hard right cross. He crumpled to the ground, unconscious. “I’m sorry. Johnny.”
She’d run out of time. They were already hoisting Macintosh up off the ground. He was jerking on the rope like a fish. Andre slid the metal plate in front of the pistol’s trigger guard forward, exposing the hidden magazine well, then she quickly reached into her coat pocket and removed a plastic magazine holding fifteen staggered rounds of specially designed ball ammo. She slapped the magazine into the pistol and racked the slide. She fired the pistol into the air and started running, heading around the circle of hooded figures gathered beneath the Liberty Tree, firing as she ran, trying to make it seem as if them were a number of men shooting from different directions.
At the sound of the first shot, the hooded men glanced around, startled, and with the second and the third shot, they started looking all around them in confusion. They began shouting and several of them started running. Andre kept on shooting into the air as she ran. The hooded figures bolted, thinking that a group of armed men was upon them, ‘the men hoisting Macintosh up off the ground released the rope and ran. Macintosh dropped down to the ground and lay there, jerking, the noose still tight around his neck.
Andre reversed direction and ran back the other way, still firing. She had no idea how many rounds she had left, but she kept going, firing as she ran, and her deception worked. Since they were completely unfamiliar with the concept of a semiautomatic pistol, the members of the Hellfire Club naturally assumed that they were facing a force of armed men and they took off in all directions, running across the Common, some of them heading toward Frog Lane and Treamount Street, others going in the opposite direction, toward Beacon Hill, where Hancock’s mansion stood. In moments, they had all scattered in panic and the grassy Common was deserted.
She ran over to the fallen Macintosh and kneeled beside him, loosening the noose around his neck. She pulled the noose over his head and then removed his gag. He sucked in air and started coughing and retching.
“Easy, man, easy.” she said, working at his bonds. “Try to breathe slowly.”
He gasped and there was a rattle in his throat as he made a series of horrible rasping sounds, trying to draw air into his lungs. Andre freed his hands and propped him up, steadying him with an arm around his shoulders. He was breathing like a patient in a cancer ward and clinching at his throat.
“Slowly,” Andre said. “Try to breathe slowly. Take deep steady breaths.”
She helped him to his feet and propped him up with his back against the tree trunk.
“Thought I was done for,” he croaked.
“Don’t try to talk,” said Andre. “Where-where are the others?” he rasped.
“I said don’t try to talk! They’re all chasing the men who tried to hang you.”
“Who-who are…”
“I’m a friend of Hunter’s,” she said. “Stop trying to talk, for God’s sake. Just breathe, slowly and steadily, in-out-in-out…”
His chest rose and fell as he tried to take slow, deep, steady breaths.
“You’re going to be all right,” said Andre. “Thank God we got to you in time.”
“I–I am most grateful to you.” Macintosh said, his voice still coming out in a wheezing croak. “You-you saved my life. What is your name?”
“Never mind that,” she said. “You were just lucky my friends and I were passing by.”
He nodded. “Must warn Adams… bastards could try for him…”
“Can you walk? You need my help?”
“Thanks, friend, you’ve done enough. I’ll manage. Must hurry…”
He clapped her on the back and shambled off across the Common, his hand
still holding his throat. Andre leaned back against the tree trunk for a moment and sighed with relief, then she started heading back toward the spot where she had knocked out Johnny. She got no more than ten paces when she was struck hard across the back of her head. She grunted and collapsed to the moist grass.
Lucas felt like a sitting duck. The first thing he’d done was to have Linda Craven clock to headquarters with their prisoner. She clocked back in only minutes later, though she’d actually spent hours in the future, getting Dicenzo admitted and briefing the hospital M.P. detachment and the T.I.A. interrogation unit that would question him. They had all gone without sleep and they were tired, but the razor edge of tension kept them keenly alert. It would have been pointless to try going after Moffat, by now he could be anywhere. Lucas cursed himself for not having kept a closer watch on him. He had underestimated the hominoid’s strength, something he never should have done. They had to assume he had gone back to Drakov and now their base of operations was blown. If he didn’t already know about the house on Lime Street, Drakov would know about it very soon, which meant there was a possibility they could be hit at any time.
The trouble was, they couldn’t move the base. Their people were spread out all over the place and until they reported in. there was no way of letting them know what had occurred. Lucas had considered having Craven try to clock around the city, looking for them, but that would be too dangerous and he had no way of knowing exactly where the others would be at any given time. They had discussed it briefly, and when she had insisted upon staying because it would be too risky to leave him alone and vulnerable, he was forced to agree. He was not afraid for himself, but he could not risk being taken out and leaving the people under his command vulnerable when they returned to the field base, not knowing it was blown. They armed themselves and settled down to a tense wait.
“How about some coffee?” Linda said.
“You’ve got coffee?” Lucas said.