It was too damned cold to be Thailand or Vietnam, but in the next split second, my body reacted with the old combat reflexes my brain had developed there and in a variety of other warm, humid places where I was officially not supposed to be. Slugs thumped into graves around me as I gave Vanessa a great bear hug and rolled with her into a pale protective penumbra in the lee of a polished marble monument.
Slugs tracked us as I rolled, peppering my face with the sharp, stinging shrapnel of frozen earth. When the timbre of the slugs changed key and chewed at the soft stone of the marble monument, I knew we were safe, if only for a moment. I paused then to think, to plot a path of escape, or barring that, better shelter. I didn't want to die in a cemetery, although it did suggest a certain ironic propriety.
Then, a second firearm weighed in from my left flank with a higher, shorter pitch. I looked over and watched Rex shooting from the safety of Mama's headstone. His return fire silenced our unknown assailant. In the brief lull, people yelled into cell phones for help. An instant later rapid semiautomatic weapons fire from somewhere beyond the magnolia plowed the earth around Rex into potting soil, shredded the green canvas canopy, and ricocheted off the heavy steel of the backhoe. There was an instant of silence, the distant snick and clatter of a magazine being ejected, a fresh one inserted, followed by a volley coming as fast as our assailant could pull the trigger.
An instant later, the shots ceased. I focused my thoughts and stilled my ragged breath into the calm, steady rhythms that had served my survival so well in the past. I looked over at Rex. He gave me a thumbs-up and made a questioning nod toward Vanessa.
I wiped at the tissue that covered my face, then examined her closely. As the medical specialist for small, agile detachments of highly mobile combat teams, I had seen wounds like hers before and had never seen anyone survive. Regardless, I laid her gently on the cold earth, ignored the hideous wound, and searched all the usual locations for some signs of a pulse.
Finding none, I pulled back the lid on the intact eye and found the pupil wide, flat, and totally unresponsive even when I raked a fingernail firmly across her forehead. So dilated was the pupil that I had to close my eyes to remember the deep wisteria that had once made her gaze so compelling for me. I looked over at Rex and shook my head. From somewhere beyond the magnolia and, to my ears, farther down Lakeside Drive toward town came the high-pitched whine of an electrical starter, then the growl of a powerful motorcycle engine. It idled for only an instant, then accelerated swiftly into the distance.