The black pointed up the slope with his left hand and put his right hand to his mouth at the same time. A whistled treble emerged from his lips A bird, a bat, an owl . . it made no difference. There was a corresponding sound from the top of the river bank, beyond in the jungle.
'Go up, mon. I will wait here,' said Lawrence.
McAuliff would never know whether it was the panic of the moment or whether his words spoke the truth as he saw it, but he grabbed the black revolutionary by the shoulder and pushed him forward. 'There won't be any more orders given. You don't know what's back there. I do! Get your ass up there!'
An extended barrage of rifle fire came from the river.
Lawrence blinked. He blinked in the new moonlight that flooded the river bank of this offshoot of the Martha Brae.
'Okay, mon! Don't push!'
They crawled to the top of the slope and started into the overgrowth.
The figure came rushing out of the tangled darkness, a darker, racing object out of a void of black. It was Alison. Lawrence reached back to McAuliff and took the flashlight out of Alex's hand. A gesture of infinite understanding.
She ran into his arms. The world... the universe stopped its insanity for an instant, and there was stillness. And peace. And comfort. But only for an instant.
There was no time for thought. Or reflection.
Or words.
Neither spoke.
They held each other, and then looked at each other in the dim spill of the new moonlight in the isolated space that was their own on the banks of the Martha Brae.
In a terrible, violent moment of time.
And sacrifice.
Charles Whitehall intruded, as Charley-mon was wont to do. He approached, his safari outfit still creased, his face an immobile mask, his eyes penetrating.
'Lawrence and I agreed he would stay down at the river. Why have you changed that?'
'You blow my mind, Charley...'
'You bore me, McAuliff!' replied Whitehall. 'There was gunfire up there!'
'I was in the middle of it, you black son of a bitch!' Jesus, why did he have to say that! 'And you're going to learn what the problem is. Do you understand that?'
Whitehall smiled. 'Do tell... whitey.' Alison slapped her hands off McAuliff and looked at both men. 'Stop it!'
'I'm sorry,' said Alex quickly.
'I'm not,' replied Whitehall. 'This is his moment of truth. Can't you see that, Miss Alison?'
Lawrence's great hands interfered. They touched both men, and his voice was that of a thundering child-man. 'Neither, no more, mon! McAuliff, mon, you say what you know! Now.'
Alexander did. He spoke of the grasslands, the plane - a plane, not the Halidon's - the redneck ganga pilot who had brought six men into the Cock Pit to massacre the survey, the race to the campsite, the violent encounter in the jungle that ended in death in a small patch of jungle mud. Finally, those minutes ago when the runner called 'Marcus' saved their lives by hearing a cry in the tropic bush.
'Five men, mon,' said Lawrence, interrupted by a new burst of gunfire, closer now but still in the near-distance to the north. He turned to Charles Whitehall. 'How many do you want, fascisti!'
'Give me a figure, agricula.'
'Goddamn it!' yelled McAuliff. 'Cut it out. Your games don't count any more.'
'You do not understand,' said Whitehall. 'It is the only thing that does count. We are prepared. We are the viable contestants. Is this not what the fictions create? One on one, the victor sets the course?'
... The charismatic leaders are not the foot soldiers... They change or are replaced... The words of Daniel, Minister of the Tribe of Acquaba.
'You're both insane,' said Alex, more rationally than he thought was conceivable. 'You make me sick, and goddamn you - '
'Alexander! Alexander The cry came from the river bank less than twenty yards away. Sam Tucker was yelling.
McAuliff began running to the edge of the jungle.
Lawrence raced ahead, his huge body crashing through the foliage, his hands, pulverizing into sudden diagonals everything in their path.
The black giant jumped to the water's edge; Alex started down the short slope and stopped.
Sam Tucker was cradling the body of Marcus the runner in his arms. The head protruding out of the water was a mass of blood, sections of the skull were shot off.
Still, Sam Tucker would not let go.
'One of them circled and caught us at the bank. Caught me at the bank... Marcus jumped out between us and took the fire. He killed