Out of the Dark (44 page)

Buchevsky hadn’t realized Basarab had ever visited the United States. Not for a while, anyway. But he’d discovered that despite the dark places
behind Mircea Basarab’s eyes, the man had a naturally warm, sly sense of humor. He could still remember the first night when they’d heard the wolves howling in the mountains’ untouched forest and Basarab had looked at him, laid one forefinger against the side of his nose, and—perfectly deadpan—dropped his voice at least one full octave and solemnly declaimed: “Ah! The children of the night! Hear how they sing!”

Buchevsky had been drinking some of the villagers’ home-brewed beer at the moment, and he’d sprayed a quarter of a mug or so of it across Calvin Meyers. Then the two of them had glared as one at Basarab, who’d shrugged with a devilish smile.

“I saw that film in Chicago years ago,” he’d said. “It was a . . . what do you people call it over there? Ah, yes! It was a
film festival
at the public library there. As a native of Wallachia, I was, of course, deeply impressed by the film’s total fidelity to the land in which I was born.” His smile had gone even broader, and he’d shrugged. “I do not believe they actually got a single thing right, of course, but I have always loved that particular bit of dialogue. It is so delightfully overdone, do you not think?”

“I believe the term you’re looking for at this particular moment is ‘haystack,’ not ‘straw pile,’ Mircea,” Buchevsky said now. “And while I realize Jasmine Sherman, Lyman Curry, and I are probably the only blacks within two or three hundred miles, it’s still just a
little
bit politically incorrect.”

“Oh, and you are
so
devoted to this ‘political correctness’ of yours, are you?”

“Honestly? No, not so much,” Buchevsky admitted, and Basarab chuckled. But then the Romanian’s expression sobered, and he reached across the table to lay one hand on Buchevsky’s arm.

“Whatever you may have been born, my Stephen,” he said quietly, “you are a Slav now. A Wallachian. You have earned that.”

Buchevsky waved dismissively, but he couldn’t deny the warmth he felt inside. He knew Basarab meant every word of it, too, just as he knew he truly had earned his place as the Romanian’s second-in-command through the training and discipline he’d brought the villagers. Basarab had somehow managed to stockpile impressive quantities of small arms and infantry support weapons, but however fearsome Take Bratianu and the rest of Basarab’s original group might have been as individuals, and however devoted they might have been to their chieftain, it was obvious none of them had really understood how to train civilians. Stephen Buchevsky, on the other hand, had spent years turning pampered
American
civilians into US
Marines. Compared to that, training tough, mountain-hardened Romanian villagers was a piece of cake.

I just hope none of them are ever going to
need
that training,
he reflected, his mood turning grim once again.

“Go ahead and sit down with the others, Mircea,” he said. “However much you decide you have to tell them, I’ll back you. I’d rather you didn’t go into too much detail about our own defensive plans and positions, though. They might not do much good against the
puppies,
but I’d just as soon have them come as a surprise if any of our neighbors decide to get all . . . acquisitive this winter.”

“‘Acquisitive’?” Basarab tilted his head to the side, one eyebrow cocked. “This is a word most Marines use a great deal? Or have you been saving it for a special occasion?”

“I know all kinds of big words,” Buchevsky assured him. “I just don’t know very many of them in Romanian yet. I’m sure it’ll come, though . . . assuming those floppy-eared bastards leave us alone, at least.”

His voice had hardened again with the final sentence, and Basarab reached across the table to touch his forearm again.

“Agreed,” he said, and shrugged. “I know it goes as much against the grain for you as it does for me, my Stephen. Yet sooner or later, unless they simply intend to kill all of us, there must be some form of accommodation.”

Basarab’s sour expression showed his opinion of his own analysis, but he continued unflinchingly.

“The people of this land have fought back against conquerors before, my Stephen. Sometimes with success, and other times . . . not so successfully. Indeed, Vlad Tepes himself once had his main fortress, Cetatea Poenari, atop a mountain at Cortea-de-Arges, barely thirty kilometers from here. I realize Vlad has not been much beloved in history outside Romania, although some see him differently in this land because of how much he did to resist the Turks, how successfully he held them at bay—for a time, at least—and it was to Cetatea Poenari he retreated when enemies forced him to yield ground.

“Yet that only underscores the point, does it not? Not even he, despite all the horrific measures to which he was willing to resort—and although my people venerate him in many ways, those measures
were
horrific, my Stephen; far worse, I fear, than anything you have seen in Afghanistan or other lands
in your own lifetime—could defeat the Turks in the end. How then shall
we
defeat an invader from beyond the stars themselves?”

Basarab shook his head.

“No. To dream of such foolishness would but bring the destruction it has brought elsewhere, yet if the Shongairi had intended simple butchery rather than conquest, then they would have begun by destroying
all
of our cities and towns from space. To me that suggests we are at least marginally more valuable to them alive than dead. I fear one could scarcely have said more for the Turks or the Soviets, and no one truly knows how many thousands and millions of Romanians died resisting those purely human conquerors. Now it would seem we must turn our thoughts once more to surviving conquest, and what our people have done before, no doubt they can do again. But I will not subject
my
people to these new conquerors from beyond our world without first holding out for the very best terms we can obtain. And if they prove me in error—if they demonstrate that they are, indeed, prepared to settle for butchery rather than conquest—then they will pay a higher price than they can possibly imagine before they rule
these
mountains. As you say, they will not like
either
of us when we are angry.”

He sat for a moment in cold, dangerous silence. Then he shook himself.

“Well, it seems we are in accord, then. But if we are to have true agreement with our neighbors—and if I am to be certain the agreement is upon
my
terms—I shall have to go in person to negotiate with each of the enclaves and its leaders.”

“Now, wait a minute!” Buchevsky said. “I’ll agree it’s something we need to do, whether I’m all that crazy about it or not, but I’d just as soon not have you out wandering around the woods all alone, Mircea. I’ve gotten a little fond of you, and on a purely selfish note, you’re the one holding this entire arrangement together. We can’t afford to lose you.”

“I am not so easily lost as all that, my Stephen,” Basarab assured him. Buchevsky only glared at him, and after a moment, the Romanian sighed. “Very well, you stubborn American! I will take Take and his men with me. For that matter, it probably would hurt nothing for me to arrive with a suitable . . . retinue to impress my fellow leaders with my importance and formidable military resources.” He made a face. “Will that reassure you?”

Buchevsky opened his mouth to protest again, but then he closed it once more, objection unspoken. He’d discovered he was always uncomfortable when Basarab went wandering around the mountains out from under his
own eye. And a part of him resented the fact that Basarab hadn’t even considered inviting
him
along on this little jaunt. But somebody had to stay home and look after things, and that was logically his job if Basarab was away. Besides, the truth, however little he wanted to admit it, was that he would probably have been more of a hindrance than a help.

Take Bratianu and the rest of his formidable little band all seemed able to see like cats and move like drifting leaves. He couldn’t even come close to matching them when it came to sneaking through the woods at night, and he knew it . . . however little he liked admitting that there was
anything
someone could do better than he could.

Hey, cut yourself some slack, Stevie!
he scolded himself.
Take must be, what—forty or fifty years old? And I’ll bet you he’s spent every month of those years wandering around in the woods. That probably gives him just a
teeny
bit more experience than
you’ve
got, now doesn’t it? And under the circumstances, it makes sense for Mircea not to invite a great big clumsy Marine with him. Even if it does piss you off a little
.

He chuckled and shook his head at the thought, and Basarab smiled at him.

“I think we have a few days yet before the written invitations can reach all of the others,” he mused. “Next week, I think. Wednesday, perhaps. And while I am away, you will keep an eye on things for me, my African Slav, yes?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Buchevsky agreed.

Rain pelted down, not so much pattering on the leaves as battering its way through them, and thunder rumbled somewhere beyond the coal-black sky which had draped itself over the mountain summits like a lumpy, billowing roof. It felt more like October than the first week of September, Dave Dvorak thought, squatting in the scrub woods west of US-64. And it felt more like seven or eight in the evening than it did like four in the afternoon, too.

He didn’t like being here. Rob Wilson didn’t like being here, either, and neither of their wives had been happy about their going. Yet they hadn’t argued, and despite the unpleasant weather and something roiling around within him which felt entirely too much like terror, he was proud of them for
not
arguing.

“Of course you’re going,” Sharon had said unhappily, meeting his gaze with level blue eyes which refused to weep. “They need you. But don’t you dare get yourself killed, Dave Dvorak! And do what you can to bring my idiot brother back with you, too.”

He’d wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, feeling her nestle under his chin and press against him almost as if she wanted to crawl inside his skin with him and become one being. And he’d discovered that he had to remind those arms of his that her ribs were breakable.

The weather had already been turning bad, but one good thing about fanatic deer hunters—they had the foul weather gear to stay at least moderately comfortable even in a downpour. And, frankly, Dvorak had wished the afternoon and evening would be ripped by tornadoes and pumpkin-sized hail, battered by lightning and blizzards—hell, invaded by frigging clouds of giant locusts! Anything to keep any rapid-response Shongair shuttles thoroughly grounded.

But that wasn’t going to happen. He’d lost his Google weather bug along with the rest of the Internet, yet he hadn’t really needed the Internet or the
now defunct National Weather Service to tell him the day was going to be thoroughly miserable but nowhere near as miserable as he wished it would.

Just have to make do as best we can with what we get,
he’d told himself, relaxing his embrace at last and standing back from his wife, cupping her cheeks in his hands, tilting her head back so he could gaze down into her eyes and drink up every square inch of that beloved face.

She’d been making preparations of her own—preparations both of them hoped fervently would never be needed—and her weapon of choice lay on the kitchen table: a PSN90, the civilian semiauto version of the fully automatic P90. Developed by FN Herstal of Belgium around its proprietary 5.7-millimeter cartridge, the bullpup-configured weapon really defied traditional definitions. The manufacturer had referred to it, at least initially, as a submachine gun, intended to provide serious emergency firepower for vehicle crews and other military personnel who weren’t normally supposed to need conventional rifles. Eventually, it had come to be referred to as a “personal defense weapon,” which made a certain degree of sense given its designed function. Yet the majority of militaries which used it actually employed it as an assault rifle, instead, and although the PSN90 had been limited to a civilian-legal thirty-round magazine, it could also use the fifty-round magazine of the military and law enforcement version of the weapon.

There were lots of things to like about the weapon, in Dvorak’s opinion, although he generally preferred his guns a little bigger, more comfortably suited to his large frame, and he didn’t much care for the ejection port’s location. Sure, putting it on the bottom simplified the design of a truly ambidextrous weapon, but he didn’t like lying in his own spent brass firing from a prone position. He had some doubts about the round’s stopping power, too, although it certainly had excellent penetration! And he had to admit Sharon was deadly accurate with it. In fact, she’d always been a good shot—the first real gift he’d bought her, when they’d both been in college (she at Furman, he at Clemson, which had offered altogether too many opportunities for mutual verbal sniping) had been a Taurus PT-92 automatic. He’d given it to her as a Valentine’s Day present, which hadn’t really been as weird as it sounded. (All right,
some
weird. He’d give it that much. But not
as
weird as some people might have argued. He’d given guns to quite a few women over the years, on the basis that if Colonel Colt had made all men equal, he could damned well make
women
equal, too.) Nonetheless, there’d been some truth to Sharon’s boast that he’d bought it for her because he’d
be damned if he’d let her go on outshooting him with his
own
handguns after he’d taught her how to shoot in the first place!