Chapter Twenty Three
The roaring of the storm drowned out Margaret's shriek as she found herself six feet from the end of a pistol. Now, in some circumstances six feet might sound like a bit of a length, but not when a little piece of lead could fly that far in a split second and snuff out your life.
Hawkeye was about to run forward but quickly abandoned the idea as he saw the glint of metal and the determined expression on Demorest's face. He and Margaret were held in place by fear of being shot, while Frank and Henry were in a similar position under aim of Frank's rifle. His hands were shaking and so was the weapon, but neither wanted to take any chances.
"So... we meet again!"
Demorest cried. Hawkeye rolled his eyes at the cheesy dramatics, wincing as some flying piece of debris whipped against the canvas tent and created a momentary indentation. It was close. Thunder cracked above them - Margaret screamed again and raised her hands to cover her head. Demorest's hand flinched over the trigger, but he did not pull it.
"YOU IDIOT, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?"
She shouted. Frank and Demorest both looked taken aback as she vented her scared, angry feelings both about the storm and their current situation, onto the Major and Sergeant.
"WHY WOULD YOU TRY AND KILL HENRY IN THE FIRST PLACE? HE WAS JUST A LIEUTENANT COLONEL TRYING TO GO HOME TO HIS WIFE, HIS KIDS! HIS LIFE! DON'T YOU HAVE A WIFE, YOU COLD HEARTED BASTARD?!"
Eyes narrowed, Demorest took several steps forward and placed the cold gun right against Margaret's forehead. There was a sharp intake of breath all around, and Hawkeye made a move towards Demorest, but Frank warningly tapped the rifle's barrel against the back of his head.
"I did, as a matter of fact." He said sweetly, pushing the metal hard against her skin. "Until Blake took it all away."
"What?" Margaret gasped quietly, flinching involuntarily every time there was a loud noise from outside. Thunder, debris crashing into garbage cans, garbage cans becoming debris... Demorest took it as only her being a pathetic weakling, cowering under the thought of a bullet through her brain. Most would have broken under that circumstance, anyway.
"My wife. Jeanine. Died of cancer a year ago."
"How in the hell is that Henry's fault?"
Hawkeye asked angrily from behind him. Demorest didn't even look at him.
"I put in for a hardship discharge. The doctor said she wasn't going to live long... and I wanted to be by her side. So I filled it out and left it with the goddamned clerk who supposedly put it on Blake's desk." His voice was quavering now.
"By the time she died there was still no sign of it. I went in to complain... and he looked... and he found it in a stack of unsigned papers that had been shoved in a drawer. How many more lives were ruined, just because the bastard was too lazy to do his work? Instead he had to sit around and drink and play poker..."
"Uh oh..." Henry mumbled from the back. His voice was high pitched and very scared, and it sounded, at last, as though he were mostly sober. Demorest looked at him and smiled a very, very demented smile.
"Well well well, if it isn't our defective Commanding Officer. I've still got a bullet... or six... for you, but maybe we'll take little Maggie first... after all..."
"Wait, uh, can I ask something?"
Everyone in the tent was close to rolling their eyes as Hawkeye spoke up. He had a very bad tendency to ramble on needlessly when he was nervous or scared. And right now... he must have been prepared for the ramble of a lifetime.
"How did you do the plane crash?"
A demented grin lit up the gun-wielding sergeant's face. It was not a pleasant sight.
"Well, a korean... acquaintance of mine..."
"Mat-Sune?"
Hawkeye asked, recalling the name. Demorest's eyes bulged slightly.
"What? How do you know that?!"
"Your last letter, or as far as we know, never made it to him. Luckily it fell into the right hands."
His eye twitched, but his trigger finger did not. They were all waiting in silence, or so he assumed, unable to hear anything but the horrific whistling of the tornado. Margaret was turned from everyone as best as possible, hunched slightly and crying.
"Mat-Sune is an acquaintance of mine from Pyongyang."
"Wait... isn't that North Korea's capital?"
"Good job, Blake... get another one right and I might give you a cookie. Or a bullet through the brain." Demorest growled irritably. Gods, these people were ruining the effect of all the drama he had prepared for this situation... "Anyway, he owed me a favor, so I asked him to get around a few of his 'low friends in high places'. They commandeered the anti-aircraft guns from the soldiers who manned them, and took that plane out of the sky like a bird with a stone."
He was the only one smiling.
"Anyway, back to the fun part." Sergeant Rowland Demorest really was seriously demented, possibly over the death of his wife when he could not be at her side, or possibly over the fact that all his attempts to kill Henry Blake had FAILED. Whatever it was, it had twisted him into a sick, sick man. He pointed his pistol at Margaret and yelled over the storm
"Here's one for the little spy! Thought you could play both of us, eh, Margaret? You little bitch... you'll pay for everything you ruined!"
But Demorest found a rifle barrel at the side of his head.
"You will not shoot Margaret Houlihan."
"Get that fucking thing off me, Burns, or I'll blow your face sky high!"
"You will not shoot her."
"She was a spy for them, you idiot! What is the matter with you?!"
"She doesn't deserve it!" Frank's voice only held a hint of the usual whine.
Margaret's mouth fell open. Hawkeye's, BJ's, and Henry's all followed. Surely Frank was drunk, drugged, out of his mind... something.
CRACK!
Demorest never saw the butt of the rifle as it slammed into the base of his skull with alarming force and knocked him unconscious. The iron frying pan hit Frank with slightly less force, but still had a similar effect. Radar dropped the pan onto Frank's upturned rear end and clapped both hands over his mouth, astounded at the courage he had worked up to severely assault a superior officer.
And Lori just grinned.
"You four aren't the only ones who meant to seek shelter in the supply tent."
To everyone's surprise, the P.A. blasted on outside.
"GET DOWN! GET DOWN! HERE IT COOOOOOOOOOOMESSSSSSSSS..."
There was a small snap and several quiet clangs as the P.A. speaker broke off and bounced away, carried like a piece of paper by the tornado's ferocious winds. Hawkeye grabbed Lori's arm and dragged her down, also putting his arm over Margaret's back, even though there was no need because she was already curled up in a little ball on the floor.
"Where do we go in a tent like this?!"
BJ shouted. The sound outside had escalated to a screaming, shrieking wind that poured through every crack and crevice, letting the sound that was like fingernails on a blackboard infiltrate everyone's minds. Nothing else could be heard as Henry pulled them towards one of the sturdier supply shelves and ordered them to sit with their hands over their necks/heads, even though they couldn't hear him. Suddenly Hawkeye got up and started to run away from the others.
"PIERCE! YOU GET THE HELL BACK HERE!"
Only those seated directly next to Henry could hear. Margaret's forehead was resting against the shelf, her face pale and streaked with tears, her breaths heavy and short. Radar was much the same way, sitting beside her. Henry was staring off to where Hawkeye disappeared into the darkness that had fallen over all. BJ caught on and followed, and they came back dragging the two unconscious men.
(A/N: This one was also very strangely... or rather, unrealistically written. O-o;; Two notes. 1- I know that Frank being sincere is highly unlikely. However, I derived the concept from the last part of... uhh... the episode where Margaret got married. I don't remember the name of it. But at the end, Frank sounded sincere... didn't he? "Goodbye... Margaret..." :( 2- I know that a one Lieutenant Lori Wilber seems to be a character that was introduced too late to play a major part in the story. But it's mine so I can do that. AAAAAAHAHAHA! Please review! Mwah.)