Crooked River

68

Coldmoon — dazed and bleeding — could only turn his face from the crushing blow he knew was coming. But there was nothing. Instead, a strange silence fell, a hush, like a collective intake of breath.

“Well,” he heard Kormann say. “And just what the fuck do we have here?”

The hush was broken by a low murmuring among some of the soldiers. Everyone had turned to look at a curious figure standing in the ruined archway at the far end of the courtyard.

Coldmoon blinked the blood out of his eyes and tried to focus. He wondered if he was seeing things. It looked like some woodland elf, petite, girlish, smeared with mud. Bits of leaves and plant fronds were plastered here and there, one fern flapping back and forth in the wind. The figure itself remained motionless, in a posture that seemed easy and confident, even relaxed. It held a dagger in one hand.

“Who’s this?” Kormann said. “Catwoman to the rescue?”

One soldier laughed. The rest remained tense, on guard.

The figure had been looking around the courtyard, as if memorizing it. Now it stared directly at the colonel and spoke. Coldmoon wasn’t sure what he recognized first — the violet eyes or the voice: calm and unusually deep for such a small frame.

Constance Greene.

“Let them go,” she said.

This was so ludicrous a demand, so unexpected, that several soldiers laughed this time.

Kormann issued a sarcastic laugh of his own. “Is that all?”

Constance remained impassive.

“Is there anyone with you? Batman, perhaps, or a squad of SEALs?”

Constance shook her head.

“In that case, I’d be happy to release them,” Kormann went on. “There’s just one thing.”

“Yes?”

“You forgot to say ‘please.’”

More snickers from the soldiers. Coldmoon used the moment to rise to his feet. This unexpected interruption, he noticed, had diffused a little of the tension and perhaps lessened their own immediate danger. As astonished as he was to see her, it was still a futile and almost ridiculous situation, surrounded by twenty soldiers, with more surely on the way. He looked at Pendergast to see his reaction, but his face was, as usual, unreadable.

Still, she just stood there. Constance... He had no idea what she might do next, armed with only a thin-bladed knife. What the hell was going through her mind? All she could do was provide a little sport for the soldiers before dying. But there was something catlike about her, an apex predator.

“I don’t beg from cowards like you,” she said. “Men who are all swagger and tough talk — all very easy when backed up by thugs with automatic weapons.”

Nettled, Kormann said: “Why don’t you come in and join your friends for their final, painful moments on earth?”

“Not quite yet,” she said — and then, with a sudden flash of movement, she disappeared.

This caused almost as much consternation as her initial appearance. Except for a few soldiers, who kept their weapons trained on Pendergast and Coldmoon, everyone was staring out through the broken archway, now empty.

And then, abruptly, Constance reappeared. Only this time she was lugging something heavy across her shoulders, and also awkwardly carrying two ammo boxes. Coldmoon looked on, incredulous.

A murmur, like a rustling of grass, swept through the platoon.

With a grunt of effort, Constance put down the two ammunition boxes — green, with the standard yellow stenciling — and shrugged what was obviously a weapon off her shoulders, staggering as it slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground.

At the appearance of the gun, the soldiers instinctively trained their weapons on her, and one fired a shot that whined past Constance. Coldmoon stared; he recognized the thing she’d dropped as a military machine gun, an M240 hybrid with an integrated bipod assembly. One of the cartridge boxes was open, its belt already fed into the M240.

“Hold fire!” Kormann said. He could, of course, take her out at any moment, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He smiled, as if ready to play a game. “Well, now,” he said mockingly. “So Tinker Bell has gotten herself a machine gun.”

“I found it on my way up from the river,” Constance replied. “I hope you don’t mind my appropriating it.”

The soldiers were on edge, but her retort only seemed to goad Kormann on. “What are you going to do now, Tinker Bell?” he asked. “Shoot us all with that thing?” As he spoke, his hand crept down, unholstering his handgun. “You can’t even lift it. You could never hold it steady long enough to get off a single burst. Besides, you probably don’t even know which end to point.” He paused. “But touch it again, and we’ll open fire.”

Constance looked toward Pendergast. “I’m sorry I couldn’t arrive sooner, Aloysius.” She nodded at the machine gun. “He may be a Neanderthal, but the brute’s right about one thing: this is heavier than I expected.”

A mocking tone had entered her voice. Kormann flushed, turned toward Pendergast. “Aloysius, is it? So you know little Tinker Bell here?” He stepped toward the FBI agent. “She’s awfully young to be out playing in the swamp with guns. You should spank her. I mean, you must be her daddy — right?”

Pendergast said nothing.

“I asked you a question!” And, raising his arm, the colonel dealt Pendergast a savage blow across the face with the back of his hand.

“Don’t,” Constance said instantly.

Several of the men laughed. Emboldened, Kormann leaned in closer. “So. Are you her daddy? Her sugar daddy, maybe?” And he slapped Pendergast again, harder. A trickle of blood appeared at the edge of the agent’s mouth.

“Don’t,” Constance said again, in a voice that would freeze steel.

“I knew it,” Kormann said, spitting at Pendergast’s feet. “You’re her sugar daddy. A sugar daddy who likes his pussy extra sweet.” And he drew his hand back for another blow.

In a blur of motion, Constance raised one hand — the gleaming tip of her stiletto appearing between her fingers — and whipped the knife at him even as she appeared to drop straight down and out of sight.

There was a moment of stunned disbelief, a fresh rattling of weapons, several shots fired into the darkness where Constance had stood. And then silence. Nothing seemed to have happened — until Kormann staggered slightly and made an odd gesture, lifting his hand to his throat. And it was only then Coldmoon made out the handle of Constance’s stiletto. It was buried to the hilt in Kormann’s neck, just beneath the jaw.

Kormann tried to speak, but only a gurgling noise emerged. He took one step and crumpled onto the stone floor of the courtyard.