But all she had was a six-shot .22 Smith & Wesson—against six heavily-armed men.
As he climbed down over the tailgate, Jim managed to stumble. Under the cover of tangled limbs he managed to switch his powerful handgun from its holster to the back of his trousers, hidden by his jacket.
“Don’t fool around, Jack, or you get to be dead before you get to be dead. Move it, people.”
Steve and Kyle stood close together, masking off the interior of the cab from the men with the automatic rifles. Sly was next to his father, but Steve was making sure the boy didn’t turn and see Carrie, knowing that Sly wouldn’t be able to control himself, wouldn’t recognize the danger.
Heather stood next to Sly, her father close by on her left.
The five military types were ranged in a half circle and were now slightly more relaxed. Behind the barrier the machine gunner had lit a cigarette and had climbed down off the platform.
“Now, we better think about some names, people. I got me a list…” The tallest of the group, who was still holding the bullhorn in his left hand, was rummaging through the pockets of a smart combat jacket decorated with what Jim Hilton could now see was a silver sun, transfixed with a stylized golden arrow.
“What list?” asked Steve Romero. “Didn’t think anyone was organized enough to have a list.”
“Then you thought wrong, didn’t you? Because I got me a real good list. You tell me who y’all are, and I’ll see if we have you down as being a wanted or a not wanted.”
Jim didn’t much like the sound of “wanteds” and “not wanteds.” It was looking as if things were going downhill fast.
Maybe because the paramilitaries didn’t realize they could be a threat, they hadn’t been searched for weapons, at least, not yet.
Kyle’s Mannlicher rifle was in the back of the truck, but Jim didn’t know what the navigator had done with his Mondadori .32.
Steve’s bowie knife, strapped to his waist, was in sight. But the sawn-down shotgun was also in the bed of the pickup, alongside the .357 Magnum rifle.
Against the group of men, it would have provided the most effective weapon. Maximum punch at a minimum range.
But Steve had also been wearing a small blued-steel .32 automatic. A very old Beholla pocket pistol, holding seven rounds. Jim wondered just what he’d done with the gun.
The leader of the gang finally pulled out a sheaf of crumpled computer paper and peered uncertainly at it. “Right, got it now.” He pointed at Jim. “Start with you.”
“Name’s Laszlo Kovacs.”
The finger, heavily tobacco-stained, ran down the list. One of the other men suddenly nudged the leader in the ribs.
“What?”
“That guy’s carrying a big knife. Maybe the fuckers got guns.”
“You carrying a gun, Kovacs? If you are, you got one chance to take it, slowly and very, very, very carefully, and lay it in the dirt down by your feet. Same applies to the rest of you.”
Nobody moved.
“Don’t like that sort of response. You don’t have guns, then let’s hear you all sing out good and loud! Come on, people!”
Jim was aware of everyone’s eyes slanting toward him, and even more aware that Carrie Princip was hiding just behind him, presumably waiting for the right moment to make a move.
It looked to Jim as if this might be about the last right moment they were going to get.
“I don’t have a gun, mister,” he said slowly and clearly. “If I did, then it’d be an instant condition triple-red, right now!”
The phrase was familiar to all United States space exploration crews since way back when it had meant what Zelig had once referred to, in a rare joke, as an ordure-ventilatory situation.
Carrie reacted immediately to the prompt.
The small-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver seemed to make more noise than a grenade launcher, the sound reverberating in the cab of the truck. Sly Romero screamed and started to fall to the ground, hands going over his ears.
Heather dived for cover, away from her father, scrabbling to get under the pickup.