64. Retribution

Chapter 1

The mission had lasted over a week and the 'accommodations' had been lacking at best. The five men in the back of the military truck were beyond tired, to the point of exhaustion. It was evident in the slumped postures, downturned mouths and lack of conversation. A shower, some food, and a soft bed were what the men looked forward to. The truck pulled to a stop in the car park in front of the steps to the Mansion and let them out. The first thing they noticed was the MG was not there, meaning Terry was not there to welcome them and fuss over them. That put a further damper on their anticipation. It also meant they were left with Sgt./Major Rawlins and his sorry excuses for breakfast, chirpy voice that grated on nerves, and no opened beds welcoming aching bodies.

Casino was the first one to trudge up the steps to the door. He pushed it open and it slammed against some obstacle. He pushed harder and had to lean his shoulder into it. Peering around the edge of the door, he saw the coat tree lying across the floor, blocking the free swing of the door. Casino pulled his gun out.

"Hey, Warden! Something ain't right," the safecracker called down in a loud whisper to the others still at the base of the steps with the duffle bags.

Four guns came out and the men slowly eased up the steps. Casino wiggled inside and stepped over the coat tree. He was about to right it when he spotted the battered, crumpled figure at the foot of the stairs in front of him.

"Actor!" He practically screamed for their medical man. The coat tree was kicked farther from the door.

The other men pushed inside and stepped over the coat tree. Casino was on one knee beside the still auburn-haired figure on the floor, fingers feeling for a carotid pulse.

"Terry!" exclaimed Craig, rushing over.

"Caro Dio!"

Actor knelt down on the other side of the girl from Casino.

"Got a pulse, but she don't wake up," said Casino. He backed out of the way of the Lieutenant.

Actor carefully felt her head and along her neck and spine. Except for a knot on the back of her head, he did not feel anything grossly abnormal. He eased her on her back, propped against his thigh. She did not arouse. There was partially dried blood on her face and the clothes she was wearing. Both eyes were blackened, but her nose was undamaged. Basal skull fracture. Sometimes the confidence man wished he did not know as much as he did. He pushed the hair back from her face and lifted first one eyelid and then the other. Her eyes did not focus on anything and the pupils reacted sluggishly.

Garrison got up and moved to find the phone where the table was smashed. It was on the floor but was still working. He called the base hospital at Archbury and asked for Doc Kaiser; voice and words saying it was an emergency. The Major came right to the phone.

"I need an ambulance at the base," said Garrison. "Somebody worked over Terry. She's not responsive." The others listened and watched Garrison shake his head. "I have no idea how long she's been out." There was a pause. "Please, hurry!" The military was gone from his demeanor.

Goniff and Chief looked around. The common room had been trashed. The cabinet doors were open, and cups and glasses were smashed on the floor. At a glance, more were missing. Now they noticed the little things. There was blood on the wall by the door. An andiron from the fireplace was on the other side of the girl. Actor noticed it and checked her for broken bones.

"She put up a good fight," he said. "I don't think the blood by the door is hers and it doesn't appear she was hit with the andiron. She did damage to whoever did this to her."

"Had to be more than one," said Garrison. "She can usually handle herself if she's conscious."

Goniff stepped around the ones on the floor and went silently upstairs, gun in hand. Chief checked the library and the Warden's office. They were unoccupied, but books, papers and drawer contents were strewn over the floors.

Garrison crouched down beside his sister and picked up a limp wrist, feeling for a pulse. There was one and it was strong and regular. The knuckles were slightly swollen and bruised on that hand, skin broken over two of them. She had slugged someone. Craig looked at his medical person, who shook his head indicating he did not know how bad she really was injured. The soft swelling on the back of her head led Actor to surmise she had been hit with a cosh. He was the first to realize the girl was alone.

"Where's the Sgt./Major?" asked Actor, anger in his voice because the man was not with Teresa.

Casino glanced around into the dining room with the chairs lying scattered on the floor. There was no sign of the man.

"Find him!" ordered the Lieutenant. "He may be hurt too." He didn't say dead, but the others had already thought of that.

Goniff appeared at the top of the stairs. "Clear up here, Warden. An' the door is still locked to the other half o' this place."

"Come on, Limey," said Casino, gun held with both hands and pointed up.

Chief held the same stance. They waited for the pickpocket to come down, skirting the three at the foot of the stairs. Goniff tried to look around Actor and the Warden at the girl but couldn't see more than her hair and bloodied clothes so he followed the other two into the dining room.

Casino stood ready to the right of the swinging door into the kitchen, Chief on the left. The Indian nodded. Casino's foot kicked the door back to bang against the counter. Chief jumped into the room, Goniff and the safecracker right behind him. There was a bowl smashed on the floor, food atop the table, but no one was present. Goniff scooted around the table and checked the mudroom. It was empty too.

A banging noise came from the room behind the butler's pantry. It was the storeroom next to Rawlins' room. Chief and Casino repeated the dance of kick and jump inside. They found the Sgt./Major, bound and gagged on the floor against one of the shelving units. He struggled as he looked up at the men.

Chief put his gun away and dropped the switchblade into his hand. As he knelt to cut the bonds tying Rawlins' hands and feet together behind him, Casino took the gag from the man's mouth.

"What the hell happened?" demanded Casino.

The Sgt./Major ignored that. "Where is Miss Terry? She was fighting them."

"She's out cold by the stairs," replied Casino.

"Who did it?" asked the Cockney voice from behind the safecracker, deadly serious anger in his voice.

Unfettered, the non-com sat up and rubbed his wrists. "I don't know. They didn't say. They just broke in and started tearing the place apart."

"You didn't recognize any of 'em?" asked Chief.

Rawlins shook his head. "I didn't see them. They talked Cockney."

"That could be a lotta people," grumbled Casino.

Chief held a hand down and pulled the skinny man to his feet. They went back to the front room.

Before Garrison could ask, Casino said, "Found him tied and gagged."

Rawlins looked down with a stricken countenance at the bloodied and still girl resting against the big Italian.

Actor's anger spilled over. "And what were you doing? Didn't you try to help her?"

Garrison said nothing in reproach to the Italian. He wanted the answer to that too.

"I heard the noise and Miss Terry's voice. She were angry, she were. I came in and somebody 'it me from behind."

Goniff was standing behind the Sgt./Major. "E's got blood in his 'air."

Rawlins could not take his eyes off the woman. "Oh bloody 'ell, Leftenant! I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I let this 'appen."

Chief was the unlikely voice of reason. "Probably nuthin' you coulda done, Man."

It stopped Actor's immediate response to blast the unfortunate Englishman, but the pause was enough to make him agree with Chief. Knowing Teresa, she would have been fighting the men the minute they broke in.

"Sit down, Sgt./Major," said Garrison. "We'll take you to get checked out when we go with Terry. There's an ambulance coming."

Chief took up his window seat while Goniff picked up an overturned chair by the game table and brought it for the non-com. It was twenty minutes before the faintly growing sound of an ambulance siren could be heard. The Indian watched the boxy military ambulance with the red cross on its sides back into the car park.

Two medics with a stretcher entered the house and moved over to check on the young woman. Garrison backed out of the way with an inner reluctance, Actor allowed the medics to place Teresa on the stretcher.

"Our Sgt./Major has a head injury also," said Garrison trying to maintain his military bearing.

"Yes, Sir," said one of the medics. "We'll take him too."

"Actor and I are riding with you," added Craig.

The other medic looked at the two big men. "One of you will have to ride in the front."

"I'll ride in the front," said Garrison. At Actor's questioning look, he added. "I want you back there in case she needs you."

The Italian nodded; relieved he was being allowed to stay with Teresa.

Craig pulled Chief aside. "I want you to stay here. Check the grounds for anything you can find about who and how they entered the house and keep an eye open in case they're inclined to come back."

The Indian nodded. "You want me to dispose of 'em, Warden?" he asked with a wicked grin.

"Only if you have to," said Garrison. "I want to know who and why." His tone boded more than normal curiosity.

It was something Chief could readily understand.

He followed Garrison out to the ambulance and watched it pull out, siren blaring before it hit the driveway. The Packard was behind it, driven by Casino with Goniff riding shotgun. Chief slowly made his way around the manor house, eyes darting about and at the same time looking for footprints or any sign of forced entry into the lower level. There was nothing to indicate whoever it was had entered by any means other than the front door. The jeep was still parked in the area behind the tall wooden gate that opened onto the wide expanse of lawn behind the house.

Chief made his way to the woods, gun in one hand and knife in the other. Once he moved into the trees, he stepped off the path and moved silently through the area. Satisfied after a long search there was nobody there, he went back to the house to wait for a call from Garrison with instructions or at least word on the condition of Terry.

Inside the house, he took a closer look at the damage to the common room. The gun case had been forced open and the Entfield and pistols were missing. Some of the crystal glassware was gone from the cupboard; the less expensive glasses smashed on the floor. The bottles of booze they kept downstairs were absent too.

The Indian entered Garrison's office. The desk had been rifled and the lower right drawer was partially open. The Warden's bottle of bourbon was gone. Chief was beginning to wonder if whoever it was had been more interested in the alcohol than the other treasures that were in the house.

The picture on the wall behind Garrison's desk was swung out. The wall safe was closed. Chief spun the dial and turned it to the combination. They had all learned the combination to that safe and after a time, Garrison had ceased changing it. Casino would have figured the sequence out within a couple minutes, so it was useless to change it. The door opened, and Chief studied the contents. Nothing had been removed from the looks of it, including the money they all kept in it.

Taking a pad of paper from the top of the desk, Chief began writing down a list of what he knew was missing. Finishing the downstairs, he went up to check the common room and their bedrooms. He didn't think Casino and Goniff had much of value, though with Sticky Fingers it was hard to tell. Garrison had very little that would have been of value. Actor had enough jewelry and lighters to make a thief happy. Chief knew Terry had some expensive jewelry hidden in her room but did not know where.

Some of the small statues had been removed from the upstairs common room. Low class thieves, thought the Indian. Even he knew the stuff they had taken would be easily identified at the pop shops. That much he had learned from Goniff and Actor.

Casino's room had been rifled a little. Chief bent down and picked up a girly magazine from the floor. The centerfold had been ripped out. It brought a smile to Indian's face. That would make the safecracker mad.

After checking the rest of the rooms, Chief went back downstairs and got a wastebasket, broom and dustpan to begin cleaning up the mess of shattered glass on the floor. He didn't have anything better to do and figured it would be a long time before he heard anything about Terry and the Sgt./Major. Besides, even if they brought Terry back to the Mansion, she wouldn't be in any shape to clean the place up.

GGGGG

The siren blared its singsong warning. Actor glanced around as they were jolted from side to side; the driver trying to miss the worst of the potholes.

The Sgt./Major was leaning back against the wall of the truck, trying to keep his head from hitting it. His eyes remained glued to the girl on the stretcher, his expression concerned and possibly guilty. Beside him, the medic sat across from Actor. Like the group's medical man, he held Terry's left hand, fingers on her pulse, as Actor did the same with her right hand. There was no response to the touch or the rough ride.

"How long from the time they left until we arrived?" Actor asked the Sgt./Major.

Rawlins shook his head. "An hour at best," he replied.

Actor focused back on the girl's face. An hour. Add the time between now and the time they had arrived at the Mansion and it meant Teresa had been unconscious for almost two hours. The longer she remained unconscious, the worse the prognosis. The con man was pretty certain she had not been hit with the andiron. That would have left a split on her scalp and an indentation. There was only soft tissue swelling evident. Only. Any head injury was dangerous as he knew from experience, his own and the others.

Now he remembered the Sgt./Major. Teresa was Actor's priority, but the British non-com had a head injury too. He took an assessing look at the man. The eyes locked with his.

"I know it's my fault," said Rawlins steadily.

"I doubt that," acknowledged the tall Italian. "What did they hit you with?"

"I don't know. I didn't see the one what hit me." He frowned. "I'm sorry."

Actor let that go by. "How long were you unconscious?"

A look of uncertainty crossed Rawlins face. "I'm not sure. Long enough for them to do that to Miss Terry." He looked down, trying to concentrate and remember. "They was still in the house when I come to. I could 'ear breaking glass and noise from upstairs. I heard them come down the stairs and out the front door. Just before the door closed, I 'eard the coat tree fall. Probably to slow down anyone coming into the house."

"No names?"

"None that I could hear."

Actor looked back down at Teresa. She looked as though she were merely a sleeping raccoon and would wake up at any minute and give him a big smile. How he wished that was the case, but she did not wake up, even when they moved her from the ambulance to the base hospital.