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And the coarse laughs of the men assaulting her. One of them, the man holding her arms to the ground, barked a jeering remark at the man on top of her. The rapist grunted some sort of reply.
Mike couldn't understand the words, but they sounded German. He'd been stationed in Germany for a year, while he'd been in the Army. But he remembered little of the language beyond the essential phrase, ein bier, bitte.
"Those guy are foreigners," muttered Darryl. The young man's face was tight with anger. "Who do they think they are, coming here and—?"
Mike made a short, curt gesture, commanding silence. He went back to studying the criminals.
All of them wore that same peculiar armor and those weird helmets, although the men assaulting the woman had removed theirs. The discarded gear was lying on the ground nearby. The men torturing the farmer still had their armor and helmets on, but they had stacked their firearms against the wall of the farmhouse. From a distance, the "rifles" looked like the same kind of weapons carried by the two men killed by the police chief.
The helmets and armor reminded Mike of pictures he had seen of old Spanish conquistadores. The helmets were metal pots, basically, with flanges tapering into points toward the front and back. The armor, if he remembered right, was called a cuirass. Steel breast and back plates, tied on with leather strips. Outside of the antique-looking firearms, the only weapons they had in their possession were—
Swords? Swords?
He looked back at the three men asaulting the woman. They were not wearing swords, but now that Mike knew what to look for he spotted the weapons immediately. The scabbarded blades had been unbuckled and tossed onto the ground near the firearms. Mike had never once in his life considered the practical mechanics of rape, but he could understand why a sword would be awkward. These men, he was suddenly quite certain, were not committing this crime for the first time. There was a relaxed and practiced casualness about their activity.
You are dead men. The thought was grim, final.
He turned his head and whispered in Frank's ear. "You've got the only rifle. Can you take out the bastards at the door? Don't forget, they're wearing armor. Can't go for a body shot."
Mike and Frank stared at the three men torturing the farmer. The heavy door of the house had been opened wide and pressed against the wall. The farmer's wrists were pinned to the door with knives. A man in front of him was digging another knife into the farmer's thigh, while his two companions shouted at him. The shouts, Mike thought, were some kind of interrogation. It seemed a pointless exercise. The farmer was screaming with pain, oblivious to any questions.
"Forty yards?" Frank snorted. "Don't worry about it. A .30-caliber slug in the ass will take anybody down."
Mike nodded. He turned the other way and motioned toward Harry Lefferts. Harry crept up to him.
Mike scowled at the sawed-off double-barreled shotgun in Harry's hands. "Forget that stupid thing. We've got innocent people mixed up with these thugs." He handed Harry the riot gun he'd taken from the Cherokee. "Use this. It's loaded with buckshot. The magazine's full—I already checked. When Frank shoots those guys at the door, you back him up. He's going to be aiming for their legs, on account of the armor. You finish them off after they're down."
Harry nodded. He tucked the sawed-off shotgun under a nearby shrub and took the riot gun. After passing over the additional shotgun shells in his pocket, Mike glanced around at the rest of his men. All of them, like himself, were armed with nothing more than pistols and revolvers.
He decided there was no point in developing any more of a battle plan. Besides—
I can't bear listening to this any longer.
"Just back me up, guys," he whispered. To Frank: "Don't start shooting till I do."
A second later, Mike rose to his feet and strode out of the trees toward the rapists. He held the revolver in his right hand. His steps were quick, but he was not running. Mike hadn't boxed professionally in years, but the old training and experience had taken over. Steady, steady; don't lose your cool; it's just another fight. A stray, whimsical part of his mind told him how foolish he looked, marching toward mayhem in wingtips and a tuxedo, but he ignored it.
The first man who spotted him was the one squatting on his heels about three feet from the woman. The man had been simply watching the scene, leering. When Mike's movement caught his eye, the man turned his head. His eyes widened. He was not more than thirty feet away, turned sideways.
Mike stopped. He crouched slightly, in a firing-range stance, bringing up the revolver. Some part of his mind noted the instant reflexes of the man he was going to kill, and was impressed. No tyro, he. The man was already rising, shouting a warning.