swept half the wall down. The roof sagged with a creak and then a splintering crash, but by then I was in the backyard with my two guests. I dropped the man and cradled Madero like a baby.
“Wait for the others,” I vocalized unnecessarily. We could hear townsfolk running down the gravel road toward the house, but our people were moving faster.
Ten black giants exploded out of the forest behind us. Smoke there there there, I thought. Lights on. White smoke welled up in a semicircle around us and became an opaque blinding wall with our sunlights. I turned my back on it, shielding Madero from the random chatter of gunfire and laser stab and sweep. Everyone VA and split! Eleven canisters of vomiting agent popped; I was already in the woods and running. Bullets hummed and rustled harmlessly overhead. As I ran I checked her pulse and respiration, normal under the circumstances, and checked the dart site on the back of her neck. The dart had fallen out and she’d already stopped bleeding.
Leave the note?
Candi thought, Yes: on the table somewhere under the roof now. We had a supposedly legal warrant for Señora Madero’s detainment. That and a hundred pesos would get you a cup of coffee, if there was any left after export.
Out of the forest, I could run faster. It was exhilarating, bounding over the rows of low coffee bushes, even though in some corner of my mind I always knew I was lying inert a hundred miles away, inside an armored plastic shell. I could hear the others running just behind me and, as I moved up the hill toward the pickup, the faint hiss and snap of the approaching chopper and flyboys.
When it’s just us soldierboys they snatch us at speed; we hold up our arms and grab the bail as it sails by. For a warm-body snatch, though, they have to actually land the helicopter, which is why she had two flyboys as escorts.
I got to the top of the hill and broadcasted a bleep, which the helicopter returned. The rest of the platoon came loping up in twos and threes. It occurred to me that I should have called for two choppers; do a regular snatch on the other eleven. It was dangerous for all of us to stand out in the open for any length of time, with the helicopter noise attracting attention.
As if in answer to my concern, a mortar round hit fifty meters to my left, orange flash and muted thump. I linked with the flyboy in the chopper and sensed a short argument she had with Command. Someone wanted us to drop the body and do a regular snatch. As the flyboy came over the horizon, another mortar round hit, maybe ten meters behind me, and we got the modified order: line up for a regular snatch and she would come in as slowly as practical.
We got together in file with our left arms up, and I had one second to wonder whether I should hold Madero tightly or loosely. I opted for tight, and most of the others agreed, which might have been wrong.
The bail snatched us with an impulse shock of fifteen or twenty gees. Nothing to a soldierboy but, we found out later, it cracked four of the woman’s ribs. She woke up with a shriek as two mortar rounds hit close enough to hole the chopper and damage Claude and Karen. Madero wasn’t hit by the shrapnel, but she found herself dozens of meters off the ground and rising fast, and she struggled hard, beating at me and screaming, writhing around. All I could do was hold her more tightly, but my arm had her pinned just below the breasts, and I was afraid to press her too hard.
Suddenly she went slack, fainting or dead. I couldn’t check her pulse or respiration, hands full, but there was not much I could have done in any case, other than not drop her.
After a few minutes we landed on a bald hill, and I confirmed that she was still breathing. I carried her inside the helicopter and strapped her into a stretcher that was clamped to the wall. Command asked whether there were any handcuffs, which I thought was kind of amusing; but then she elaborated: this woman was a true believer. If she woke up and found herself in an enemy helicopter, she would jump out or otherwise do away with herself.