The Ancient Rain by Domenic Stansberry Page B

not see her again after this, he realized, unless it was at the trial, and there, too, she would keep her distance. In a little while, Annette turned on the boom box, playing Andean flute music, then she and the Sandinista disappeared by the bamboo to change into wardrobe.
    â€œI’m chilly,” said Kate. “Can I get my sweater?”
    Marilyn leaned toward the girl. “I’ll get it for you. I need mine, too.”
    The back door was locked, as Owens suspected. It was just like Annette, the way she tried to control everything—and so he got up and walked with Marilyn, key in hand, to let her in himself.
    â€œOh, thank you.”
    â€œMy pleasure.”
    â€œI don’t want to miss the play.”
    â€œThey’ll wait.”
    He stood in the kitchen, in the hall, and watched Marilyn go into the living room. Marilyn bent over, picking his daughter’s sweater up off the couch, then looking for her own on the rack by the window. She had her back to him, and he stood in the doorway admiring her. She was not of their group, no, with her silver blouse and her jewelry and her dark hair that smelled of the salon—and maybe Owens found her more attractive for that reason, for her wide hips and her tight skirt. But at the same time there was something else, darker maybe—and he suspected Marilyn was conscious of his looking, that there was something studied in the way she lifted her head, gazing out the window, curious, as if something out there had drawn her attention. Then the window imploded.
    There was flying glass and a sudden burst of light. Then smoke, thick smoke, and in that smoke, as he struggled forward, Owens caught a glimpse of Marilyn, just ahead, a shadow illuminated by fire, a figure in flames—but then he could see nothing.
    The smoke overcame him. He fell to his knees.

PART THREE
    Code Pink

FOURTEEN
    The cocktail had been well made. It was Finnish-style, the police said later—made in a vodka bottle, with a Bengal light strapped on each side. The Bengals were slow-burning flares, of compacted powder, that emitted a small blue flame. Whoever had thrown the cocktail had likely stood inside the hedge, invisible from the street, and hurled it through the window. The cocktail ignited when it hit the glass and the contents splattered out—a mixture of gasoline and grease and tar.
    When the glass broke, the liquid splattered. The flames followed the mixture. The curtains were sheer and ignited easily, and smoke issued from the couch. It was noxious smoke. Where the mixture landed on flesh, the effect was like napalm—a tarry mixture that generated its own heat and burned through the clothing and onto the flesh and kept burning.
    Some of the mixture had hung for a split instant in midair, droplets of gas suspended in vapor.
    Then there was a burst of flame and light.
    Marilyn felt a searing in her lungs, as if she were on fire from the inside—a burning across her face, her chest, her thighs.
    The flames leapt from her dress.
    *   *   *
    At the moment of the explosion, Dante had been at the table in the backyard, watching the Sandinista and Annette Ricci move in pantomime, puppetlike across the lawn.
    Then he was on his feet.
    At first he could not enter the living room, the smoke was so thick. Back in the kitchen, he ran a dish towel under running water, then held the wet cloth over his face. He entered the living room on his knees, close to the ground, where the smoke would be less dense.
    He saw Owens—down low, on his elbows, struggling along the carpet.
    Dante pulled Owens into the kitchen. He left the man gasping on the tile and went back after Marilyn.
    The towel slipped and soon he was gagging, his eyes streaming from the smoke. He saw her in the center of the room, where she had collapsed on the carpet, apparently trying to roll out the flames. He put his body over hers, smothering the fire. The air was better down low, and he