Out by the street Hartmann's young aide was dragging himself along with his arms, glasses askew, leaving a snail-trail of blood on the sidewalk. The slightly built terrorist who had shot him ambled up, stuffing a third magazine into his weapon. He positioned himself in front of the wounded man.
Ronnie blinked up at him. Disjointedly Hartmann remembered he was desperately nearsighted, virtually blind without his glasses.
"Please," Ronnie said, and blood rolled from his mouth. "Please."
"Have a Negerkuss," the terrorist said, and fired a single shot into his forehead.
"Dear God," Hartmann said. A shadow fell across him, heavy as a corpse. He looked up with inhuman eyes at a figure black against the gray-cloud sky beyond. A hand gripped him by the arm, electricity blasted through him, and consciousness exploded in ozone convulsion.
Substantial again, Mackie bounced to his feet and tore off his ski mask. "You shot at me! You could have killed me," he shrieked at Anneke. His face was almost black.
She laughed at him.
The world seemed to come on to Mackie in Kodachrome colors. He started for her, hand beginning to buzz, when a commotion behind him brought his head around.
The dwarf had grabbed Ulrich's rifle by the still-hot muzzle brake and spun him round, echoing Mackie's theme, with variations. "You stupid bastard, you could have killed him!" he screamed. "You could have offed the fucking senator!" Ulrich had fired the final burst that downed the cop in the back of the limousine. Weight lifter though he was, he was only just hanging on to his piece against the dwarfs surprising strength. The two were orbiting each other out there on the street, spitting at one another like cats.
Mackie had to laugh.
Then Molniya was beside him, touching his shoulder with a gloved hand. "Let it go. We have to move quickly." Mackie arched like a cat to meet the touch. Comrade Molniya was worried he was still mad at Anneke for shooting at him and then laughing about it.
But that was forgotten. Anneke was laughing too, over the body of the man she'd just finished off, and Mackie had to laugh with her.
IA Negerkuss," he said. "You said did he want a Negerkuss. Huh huh. That was pretty good." It meant Negro Kiss, a small chocolate-covered cake. It was especially funny since they'd told him Negro Kisses were a trademark of the group from back in the old days, back when all of them but Wolf were kids."
It was nervous laughter, relieved laughter. He'd thought he'd lost it when the pig shot at him; he'd just seen the gun come up in time to phase out, and the anger burned black within him, the desire to make his hand vibrate till it was hard as a knife blade and drive it into that fucking cop, to make sure he felt the buzz, to feel the hot rush of blood along his arm and spraying in his face. But the bastard was dead, it was too late now. . . .
He'd worried again when the black man picked up the van, but then Comrade Ulrich shot him. He was strong, but he wasn't immune to bullets. Mackie liked Comrade Ulrich. He was so self-assured, so handsome and muscular. Women liked him; Anneke could hardly keep her hands off him. Mackie might have envied him, if he hadn't been an ace.
Mackie didn't have a gun himself. He hated them, and anyway he didn't need a weapon-there wasn't any weapon better than his own body.
The American joker called Scrape was fumbling Hartmann's limp body out of the limousine. "Is he dead?" Mackie called in German, caught up by sudden panic. The dwarf let go of Ulrich's rifle and stared wildly at the car. Ulrich almost fell over.
Scrape looked up at Mackie, face frozen into immobility by its exoskeleton, but his lack of understanding clear from the tilt of his head. Mackie repeated the question in the halting English he'd learned from his mother before the worthless bitch had died and deserted him.
Comrade Molniya pulled his other glove back on. He wore no mask, and now Mackie noticed he looked a little green at the sight of the blood spilled all over the street. "He's fine," he replied for Scrape. "I just shocked him unconscious. Come now, we must hurry"
Mackie grinned and bobbed his head. He felt a certain satisfaction at Molniya's squeamishness, even though he wanted to please the Russian ace almost as much as he did his own cell leader Wolf