“I didn’t ask for random musings. I wanted a plan.”
There were three more shots in rapid succession, one of them very high, one to the side, and one in the dirt behind them. Sam peered over the rim of the hole toward the distant rocks. “There’s a car—looks like a Range Rover—up by the rock shelf. There are three or four of them with rifles, aiming at us.”
Remi said, “Has it occurred to you that they’re using the same strategy as the Romans and Visigoths: arriving first at the high ground and then holding us down with fire from a distance?”
“If only they were shooting arrows,” said Sam. “Here. Take this.” He put another Roman helmet on her head, picked up a Roman scuta, rapped it with his knuckles, then set it aside and chose another. “This one’s better. It’s got a layer of metal on the outside.” He picked up a third scuta.
“This won’t stop a bullet,” she said.
“No, but they’ll make us harder to kill.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Hold it over your back like this.”
“You look like a turtle.”
“Success. That’s the idea. It’s hard enough to hit someone who’s running in the dark at this distance. If you have this between you and them, it will be hard for them to pick out what’s you and what isn’t. Now, let’s go before it occurs to them that they can advance.” He picked up his bundle of javelins, the round shield with the message, and the scuta he had selected.
Sam climbed out of the trench, ran away from the road as though he had a miraculous new plan, then made a quick jog to the side just as the shooters fired again. Remi saw he was drawing fire, climbed up and held her scuta behind her as she sprinted straight for the parked truck.
Sam reversed his direction and ran after her. Not noticing Remi at first, the snipers fired at him again.
Remi was still dashing for the truck, her body low and the four-foot scuta on her right shoulder to keep it toward the snipers. She ran past the nearest of the test holes, the one filled with artillery shells. As she had feared, the snipers fired round after round at the hole, trying to set off an explosion. But, as she had hoped, from where they were, they couldn’t do anything but hit the dirt piled up around it. Even after she was past the danger zone, she could hear them wasting rounds on the explosives, thinking Sam’s approach was a second chance to hit the old shells.
After that, each of the shooters seemed to share his shots evenly between Sam and Remi, which showed her that none of them had any training. The sniper’s stock-in-trade was to select a target and ignore everything else in the world until that target was dead. The American sniper’s standard, “One shot, one kill,” was far out of reach of most other services, but all of them were much better than this.
As she dashed past the next test hole that had uncovered the French cannon, a rifle shot hit the right edge of her Roman shield. It punched the scuta hard to the side, and she felt splinters bouncing off her helmet, but she was able to hold on to it and keep running. The shield’s curvature had served its purpose and diverted much of the force of the bullet. Running even harder, she made it to the shelter of the big truck. She crouched on the street side, away from the snipers, climbed into the passenger seat, slid to the driver’s side, and started the engine. The shooters fired at the cab, blowing one of the side windows inward. They hit the cargo box, then the frame of the truck. Remi kept her body curled in a low-profile crouch.
Then, just as she was beginning to feel hope, one of the shooters managed to ricochet a round off something at the edge of the ammunition pit, and there was a loud, fiery explosion in the field. She looked, saw Sam dive to the ground with his scuta over his back. He scrambled forward as three more rounds went off, then a volley of six.
A moment later, Sam, still carrying the two shields and the bundle of javelins, appeared on the safe side of the truck. To her surprise, he climbed into the cargo bay, slammed the door shut, ran to the small window that separated the bay from the cab, and yelled, “Get us out of here.”
Remi sat up, released the hand brake, depressed the clutch and shifted into first gear, then let the clutch out too tentatively, the truck making a jerky start. It didn’t stall, so she poured on more gas until the transmission whined that it was time to shift again. She worked her way up to fourth gear and kept her foot on the gas. Urging the big truck up to fifty along the dark country road with no headlights on, she just aimed for the center of the pavement. She took off the ancient helmet, threw it on the seat, and moved her head to keep catching the reflection of the moonlight on the dark, smooth surface of the road.
As soon as she could look in her rearview mirror and not see the rocky outcropping, she switched on the headlights and went faster. She kept adjusting in her lane to straighten the curves. She got up to sixty, then seventy, still climbing. She hoped there would be no cars coming from the other direction, but hoping seemed to make them appear. There was a glow in the sky above the hill ahead, and then a pair of headlights popped over the crest and came down toward her.
Remi moved as close to the right edge of the narrow road as she dared, trying not to lose any speed. The first car seemed to miss her left headlight by two inches. As its headlights went past and became a pair of red taillights fading into the distance, the driver leaned on his horn, a blare of protest into the night. The next three cars shot by in silence, maybe taking advantage of a slightly wider stretch of road or maybe just speechless with shock over her reckless driving.
She kept glancing in the rearview mirror, hoping the shooters hadn’t decided to pursue her. Again, her hopes seemed to conjure what she most feared. On the road behind her, a pair of headlights appeared, accelerating toward her rapidly. When she went around a curve, she looked in the side mirror to get a clearer view of her pursuer. The vehicle was bigger than most, and higher—the Range Rover they had seen parked partway up the rocky shelf on the battlefield. There was a larger vehicle behind it, a truck much like the one she was driving. Of course there would be a truck, she thought. The treasure chamber had been as big as the cargo bay of a truck. When these men had taken out the gold and silver, it must have been too much weight for the SUV to carry.
The Range Rover quickly moved up behind her, and soon the truck was close. She knew the next move would be to come up beside her so somebody could aim a rifle out the window and shoot her.
The car came closer and closer, and she realized that the driver was trying to hold his headlights to illuminate her tires so rifle shots would bring her to a halt. She heard Sam fiddling with the rear doors of the cargo bay. She steadied the truck and watched the side-view mirror. The Range Rover was about as close as it could be when the doors of the truck swung open.
An ancient javelin came flying out of the dark cargo bay. It had a small, narrow, sharp tip at the end of a steel shaft that extended nearly half its length, then about three feet of fragile old wood. Flexible, it seemed to slither in the air, spiraling as it flew.
In Remi’s rearview mirror, she saw the driver’s eyes go wide and mouth gape open as the metal shaft hurtled toward him. The tip struck the windshield with an audible bang, and she saw the white impact mark appear in front of the driver, the tip of the javelin stuck in the safety glass. The wind made the shaft move back and forth wildly, swinging the sharp tip around in front of the faces of the driver and his companion.
The Range Rover weaved crazily for a moment, as the driver fought for control, and then spun sideways. The truck had been following the Rover too closely to avoid it and plowed into the driver’s side near the left front wheel and spun the car around before both vehicles stopped.
Remi kept driving. The truck crossed into Reims about ten minutes later, and she parked it at the rental agency. She and Sam put their Roman weapons and armor into the rental car they had left at the agency and drove to their hotel.
Dressed in black clothes covered with dirt from the field, they carried their heavy armloads of ancient war gear into the lobby. They both had dirt smeared on their faces and hands. When Sam stopped at the front desk, the clerk looked at the ancient helmet and seemed uneasy. “Sir?” he said.
“I’m Samuel Fargo from Room 27.”
“Yes, sir. Is everything satisfactory?” He eyed the javelins