Games of State - Tom Clancy [135]
Herbert snatched the flashlight from his chair and took a moment to glance into the driver's side of the car he'd followed here. Then he scooted to the side lest someone shoot at his light. He watched from the darkness as the sentry reached Jody and she finally stopped walking. Then Herbert pulled the Skorpion from under his leg.
Jody and the sentry were about ten yards from Herbert and twenty-five yards from the line of neo-Nazis. Beyond them, the rally continued undisrupted.
Jody was standing directly between Herbert and the sentry.
The boy asked something in German. Jody said she didn't understand. He shouted to someone behind him for instructions about what to do. As he did, he stepped slightly to the left. Herbert aimed the Skorpion at the boy's right shin and fired.
The brawny youth went down with a shriek.
"Now we're both crippled," Herbert muttered as he stashed the gun in a worn leather pocket on the side of the chair. He rolled quickly toward the passenger's side of the car.
The crowd fell silent and the line of neo-Nazis hit the dirt well behind the wounded man. The rise in the terrain made it impossible for them to fire from where they were-- though Herbert knew they wouldn't stay there for long.
As Herbert rounded the car he yelled to Jody, "Do your thing and then let's go!"
The girl looked at him, then looked across the field of white faces. "You didn't beat me," she yelled in a strong voice. "And you won't."
Herbert opened the passenger's side. "Jody!"
The girl looked down at the wounded boy, then ran back.
"Get in the driver's side," Herbert told her as he started to pull himself in. "The keys are still in the ignition."
Some of the ralliers had begun to shout. One of the neo-Nazis in the line had gotten up. She was holding a gun. She aimed at Jody.
"Shit," Herbert said and fired through the window. Jody screamed and clutched at her ears. Hebert's shot struck the German in the thigh and she was thrown backward behind a splash of blood.
Herbert got back out of the car and into his wheelchair and covered her retreat from behind the open door. Jody got into the car, started the engine, and gunned it. The young woman was no longer composed. She was shaking and breathing heavily, exhibiting a classic post-stress breakdown.
Herbert couldn't afford to lose her. "Jody," he said, "I want you to listen to me."
She began to cry.
"Jody!"
"What!" she screamed. "What, what, what?"
"I want you to back the car away slowly."
She was gripping the wheel and looking down. The mob was roiling like ants behind the prostrate front line. In the distance, Herbert could see the speaker talking with a woman. It was only a matter of time, maybe just seconds, before they were attacked.
"Jody," Herbert said patiently, "I need you to put the car in reverse and back away very slowly."
Herbert knew that he wouldn't be able to get in the car without lowering the gun. And lowering the gun, they'd be attacked. He took a quick look back. As far as he could tell in the dark, the terrain behind him was clear for several hundred yards. His plan was to let the open car door move him and the chair backwards, allowing him to keep the gun trained ahead as they retreated. When they were a safe distance away, he'd pull himself in and they could drive off.
That was the plan, anyway.
"Jody, are you listening?"
She nodded, sniffled, and stopped crying.
"Can you drive us back slowly?"
With painful slowness and uncertainty Jody put her hand on the gearshift. She started to cry again.
"Jody," Herbert said calmly, "we've really got to go."
She moved the lever just as the front tires exploded.
The car left the ground as they blew up, chewed apart by a burst of gunfire from somewhere ahead. The open door flopped back, slapping Herbert toward the rear of the car. A moment later gunfire from a semi-automatic began eating into the open door. The crowd had parted to make a path and a woman was holding the weapon under her arm. As Lang had said-- was it only that morning?-- "This can only be Karin Doring."
Herbert rolled