It was Lime. He must have taken the dead soldier’s gun from the wreck of the chopper.
Watts didn’t move.
“You have no shot, and you know it. Stretch out your hand and drop the weapon. Now. Or she dies.”
Watts complied as Corrie felt Lime take back his weapon from her holster. Pushing her forward, he emerged from behind the rock. Lime kicked Watts’s weapon away.
“We share a common problem,” he said. “How to get through that fence. Right, Corrie?” He gave her a little shake.
“Fuck you.”
“You were turning into a good agent. Unfortunately, in this particular situation, too good. I realized that when we watched you search Morwood’s house and saw what even we had missed. I truly regret losing you. I can’t say the same, however, about your friends.” Lime gave a dry laugh. “Sheriff, they told me you were some sort of hotshot gunman. And you did outdraw me back there—that psychological trick of mine never failed me before. But it’s a pretty sad commentary, how you let me get the drop on you. And given the way Mr. Kelly, here, crashed the chopper, I presume he suffers from suicidal mania.”
He suddenly shoved Corrie to the ground. Keeping the gun trained on them, he circled around to Skip.
“Move just once, and I’ll indulge that death wish of yours.” He took Skip’s forearm and jerked it behind his back, forcing Skip to bend down. He shoved the gun in Skip’s ear and said to Corrie, “You can get up. Keep your hands in sight.”
Corrie rose cautiously, showing her hands.
Lime went on. “I’ve got a solution to our problem. A way for us to get in and alert the base in a hurry to your presence. Elwyn Kelly here is going to help. Right, Elwyn?” Lime propelled him toward the fence, keeping the gun pointed at his ear. “That fence carries six thousand volts at eleven amps—more than an electric chair. I saw a deer run into it once. That was some show.”
He pushed Skip closer. Corrie could hear the wires humming and smell the electricity in the air—and she realized with sudden horror just what Lime planned to do. She braced herself as Lime spun Skip forward toward the fence, using himself as a pivot. But Skip twisted around just as Lime shoved him, and at that moment Corrie lunged forward, slamming into Lime like a linebacker. The blow propelled the already off-balance Lime past Skip, turning his own momentum against him as Skip wrenched free of his grasp. The gun went off as it flew from his hands, while Lime windmilled, twisting backward and grunting in an effort to recover his balance. He succeeded only in striking the fence full-on with the back of his body, from head to thigh.
There was a great flash-boom of sound and light. Lime screamed briefly, once, as coruscating sparks rose like the embers of a disturbed campfire into the night sky. His skin began to fry with the sound of raw meat being seared in hot grease, first clothes, then hair bursting into flame. The wires popped and vaporized around him, whipping in sync with his writhing form. His eyes filled with crimson, swelled grotesquely, then popped, one after the other.
And then all was quiet, save for the crackle of smoldering weeds from a little ground fire triggered by the shower of sparks. The dead wires dangled, spitting ineffectually. Lime’s smoking remains were stuck against the fence, now sagging inward, the concertina wire partially melted and falling away to one side.
For a moment, no one moved. Corrie stared in horrified fascination.
“Hey!” Skip said, breaking the spell. “The circuit’s broken—we can get in. Quick!”
He scampered up and over the dead body, which, effectively glued to the sagging fence, bounced up and down like a spring under the impact of his feet. Skip eased aside the melted concertina wire, then ducked under and past. “Hurry up! They’ll be here any minute!”
Corrie snatched up her gun from where it had fallen and then rushed across the improvised bridge—which had begun to smell like an overdone porterhouse—and under the fence. Watts followed suit.
“Into the ruins!” said Skip.
They sprinted into some sort of dormitory, with skeletons of cots arrayed in ghostly rows. They took cover in a small annex in the back, with a broken window facing northward.
“Jesus,” said Watts, “did you two rehearse that martial arts move, or what?”
“Dumb luck,” said Corrie. She turned to Skip. “Why did he call you Elwyn?”
“Forget it.”
They waited, recovering their breath. Seconds afterward, Corrie heard a low vibration. Peering through the window, they saw a rectangular shape rise from the side of—in fact, apparently out of—a nondescript hill.