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STRASSER AND MILDRED had been the only two on their inflatable who'd
seen the terrifying drop before plunging over. Rafe had been looking back toward
his chief, staring past him to see if he could catch a glimpse of their inexorable
pursuers.
Rosa, still gripping Mildred's revolver, lay on her face in the swilling water at the
bottom of their raft, oblivious to everything.
Mildred saw the silken edge of the fall and was already starting to untie herself.
Strasser also spotted the peril, and he began to laugh.
That was the last sound that Mildred heard as they dropped vertically, ending with
a great wave of white foam.
In the smaller inflatable, the effect was even more devastating, with most of the
strained panels bursting, and whole sections disintegrating. The mooring rings
ripped away, releasing all four of them from the sinking vessel.
Mildred had untied herself from Rosa and was now completely free, trying to kick
to the surface. She broke into the light and sucked in a great gulp of cold,
wonderful air, when something snatched her ankle and pulled her under.
In the dark deeps, she realized that it was Strasser's woman, and, locked into blind
panic, she was still holding Mildred's blaster!
Using all her strength, Mildred reached down the other woman's right arm,
groping for the hand and the solid weight of the ZKR 551, feeling it and twisting
with savage power. She was aware that she'd probably broken at least two of
Rosa's fingers. She managed to wedge the pistol into the back of her belt, out of
sight, but she was still pinioned below the water.
Mildred groped in the suffocating blackness, aware of the splintered emerald light
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far above, finding Rosa's long black hair and fumbling lower. The woman
snapped at her, and Mildred barely jerked her fingers away in time.
Now she found the neck, her strong hands clamping around the slender throat,
crushing the arteries and cutting off the supply of blood to the brain. For several
startled, fearful seconds Rosa fought against the strangling grip. But Mildred's
medical training had taught her precisely what to do.
Her own breath was fading, but she was inexorable, maintaining the brutal hold,
forcing the other woman still deeper. She felt Rosa go limp, but she didn't relax,
grimly counting off another twenty seconds, though her own lungs were bursting.
She finally let go, kicking the corpse toward the bottom of the pool.
When she surfaced, Strasser was already kneeling on the gleaming rocks, the
Stechkin steady in his fist. Rafe was on hands and knees at his side, coughing and
spluttering.
"You chill her, bitch?" he shouted.
"She drowned." Mildred waited for the tearing shock of the bullet, but it never
came.
Strasser laughed. "Saved me the trouble. Was going to chill the double-stupe little
Mex gaudy today. Come on out. Let's haul ass!"
Ryan was agonizingly conscious that Cort Strasser could be waiting for them
behind any of the thick grove of trees. There were clear tracks leafing off up the
path from the river, one that was definitely Mildred's. Over the past few weeks
Ryan had familiarized himself with her trail. He also spotted Strasser's footmarks,
which meant that the third was the lieutenant, the man with the polished nunchaku
sticks. Rafe.
Even with the former sec boss of Mocsin holding Mildred, unless she'd managed
to break free after strangling the woman, the odds still favored Ryan and his
friends. Whatever the cost in blood, the end of the trail was coming closer.
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After the fatigue of the river passage, Strasser drove Rafe and Mildred along at a
fearful pace.
There was a track from the river that wound up steeply for two hundred feet.
There the trees began to thin out, and open spaces appeared. Twice Strasser called [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]