Vixen 03

"Did you see anybody, honey?" asked Lee.

Maxine shook her head. "He came up the road alone. I kept watch after he entered the house. No one followed him."

"I figured as much," Lee Raferty said, and sighed.

"You've been playing a bluffing hand, Mr. Pitt. If you had any solid evidence against Maxine and me, you'd have brought the sheriff."

"Oh., but I did." Pitt smiled and appeared to relax. "He's sitting in a car about half a mile away, with two deputies hanging on our every word."

Raferty tensed. "Damn you, you're lying!"

"He taped a transmitter to my chest," Pitt said, his left hand loosening the top button of his shirt. "Right here, under my — "

Maxine had dipped the rifle no more than a fraction of an inch as Pitt launched himself sideways and pulled the trigger of the Colt automatic he held under the folds of his jacket.

The Winchester and the Colt seemed to explode at the same instant.

AI Giordino and Abe Steiger had arrived minutes before Pitt and taken up a prone position beneath a stand of blue-spruce trees. Through field glasses Steiger observed Maxine hanging out the wash. "Any sign of the husband?" asked Giordino.

"Must be in the house." The glasses angled slightly in Steiger's hands. "Pitt is approaching her now."

"That Colt forty-five must stick out like a third arm."

"He's got his Windbreaker draped over it." Steiger bent a branch out of the way to clear his field of vision. "Pitt's going inside the house now."

"Time to move closer," said Giordino. He was in the act of raising up on his knees when Steiger's trunklike arm pi

"Hold it! The old broad is hanging back to see if he was followed."

They stayed quiet and motionless for several minutes while Maxine walked around the yard, her eyes probing the surrounding trees. She took a final look up the road and lumbered around a corner of the house and out of Steiger's view.

"Give me time to make my way around back before you move on the front door," said Steiger.

Giordino sodded. "Watch out for bears."

Steiger threw him a tight grin and slipped off into a small ravine. He was still a good fifty yards short of his goal when he heard the shots.

Giordino had been marking time when the roar echoed through the windows of the house. He leaped to his feet and sprinted down a small hill. hurdling a lean-to fence into the yard. At that moment. Maxine Raferty burst backward through the front door like an out-of-control Patton tank, tumbled down the porch steps, and crashed to the ground. Giordino halted in his tracks, surprised by the sight of her bloodstained dress. He stood rooted as the elderly woman scrambled back to her feet as agilely as a gymnast. Not until it was too late did Giordino notice what looked like a battered rifle clutched in her hand.

Maxine, ready to charge back in the house, spotted Giordino standing dumbly in the yard. She gripped the Winchester awkwardly, with one hand under the breech, the other over the barrel, and snapped off a shot from the hip.

The force of the bullet spun Giordino through the air in a half turn and smashed him to the grass, his left thigh exploding in a spray of red through the cloth of his pants.

To Pitt, everything had seemed to grind into slow motion. The muzzle of the Winchester flashed in his face. At first he thought he had been hit. but when he collided with the floor, he found himself still able to move his limbs and body. Maxine's shot had nicked his ear while his bullet smashed the stock on her Winchester, ricocheting into an antique kerosene lamp, shattering its glass shade.

Lee Raferty growled like an animal and swung the pipe. It caught Pitt on the shoulder and grazed his skull. Pitt grunted in pain and swung around, fighting off blackness and trying desperately to clear his fogging vision. He aimed the Colt at the blurred figure he knew to be Lee.

Maxine brought her rifle barrel down on the Colt, pounding it from Pitt' fingers into the fireplace.

Maxine hastily labored to recock the mangled gun as Lee advanced 5 swinging the plumbing pipe. Pitt raised his left arm to fend off the blow and was surprised not to hear the bone snap. He lashed out with his feet and caught Lee on the knees, spilling the scarecrow-bodied man on top of him.

"Shoot, dammit!" Lee yelled to his wife. "Shoot!"

"I can't!" she shrieked back. "You're in my line of fire."

Lee dropped the pipe and violently fought to disentangle himself. but Pitt locked him around the neck with the good right arm an hung on. Maxine danced around the room. excitedly pointing the Winchester, frantically trying for a safe shot. Pitt held on and kept Lee turned in front as a shield while struggling to regain his feet. Then Lee abruptly twisted, kneed Pitt in the groin, and broke free.

Through the burning haze of agony Pitt managed to grab the kerosene lamp and hurl it at Maxine, catching her across the chest. She screamed as the glass splintered into fragments, slicing her dress and penetrating one immense sagging breast. Then Pitt thrust his weight upward and charged, hitting her harder than he had ever hit anyone in his life. For a woman of advanced age, Maxine was hard, but she was no match against Pitt's brutal onslaught. She soared backward with such force that she flew through the front door of the house and vanished.

"You bastard!" Lee screamed. He threw himself into the fireplace, snatched the Colt from among the ashes, and swung to face Pitt.

A window suddenly disintegrated and Abe Steiger tumbled into the kitchen, collapsing the table beneath him. Lee spun, giving Pitt the instant he needed to snatch the pipe on the floor. A dazed Steiger never forgot the sickening sound of the pipe's crushing the bone of Lee Raferty's temple.

Giordino sat on the ground, his eyes staring numbly at his punctured leg. He looked up at Maxine, not fully grasping what had happened. Then his mouth went slack and he watched helplessly as she deliberately ejected the spent shell and recocked the rifle. Maxine took careful aim at his chest and curled her finger around the trigger.

The blast was deafening and the slug tore the breastbone away, catapulting gore and marrow in a grisly pile at Giordino's outstretched feet. Maxine stood inert for almost three seconds before she folded limply to the yard in a fat, grotesque heap, her blood spilling out between her breasts and staining the grass.

Pitt leaned against a porch railing, his hand wielding the Colt., barrel poised in the recoil position. He lowered the gun and walked stiffly toward Giordino. Steiger came out to look, paled, and threw up into a flowerbed.

Giordino's eyes were locked on a gleaming white bit of cartilage as Pitt knelt beside him. "You… you blew that sweet little old lady's chest off?" Giordino asked.

"Yes," Pitt replied, feeling none too proud of himself.

"Thank God," Giordino murmured, pointing. 'I thought that thing on the ground belonged to me."

44

"You fool!" Thomas Machita shouted across the desk. "You bloody fool!"

Colonel Randolph Jumana sat and regarded Machita's outburst with controlled indulgence. 'I had the very best of reasons for issuing those orders."

"Who gave you the authority to attack that village and slaughter fellow blacks?"

"You overlook basic facts, Major." Jumana removed a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses and stroked one side of his flattened nose. "During General Lusana's absence I am in command of the AAR. I am simply carrying out his directives."