Pilgrimage to Hell

Chapter Eight

Despite orders, you kept to the shadows. The deep shadows. The deeper the better.

You kept to the shadows despite orders, despite doomy warnings from your unit leaders, despite hideously snarled threats of disembowelment or being flayed alive or having your hands nailed to the wall. Despite all these and more, you kept to the shadows because you were beginning to get... cautious.

A sec man's life in the old days used to be different. It used to be fun, used to be a laff riot. It meant you were top of the pile, king of the ville. Meant you could do what you wanted, when you wanted, for as long as you wanted, and free. Mocsin was open city for the sec men, and you could tool along its streets and whatever you saw was yours. Not for the asking — you didn't need to ask for anything. It was all yours for the taking. Yours by right of conquest. Didn't matter what it was, you had an open license on it. Food, booze, men, women. Whatever was your fancy, it was yours.

And sure, on the surface the situation hadn't changed. On the surface it was still the sec men's paradise. On the surface everything was as it was, as it had always been, since Jordan Teague first hijacked the burg way back when most of today's sec men were brawling brats.

On the surface.

But underneath, paradise was maybe not quite what it appeared to be. There was a tension in the air — something you could almost feel, almost gnaw at — that none of the old-timers had ever known. A population that had once been like rabbits, cowed and submissive, seemed to have changed, seemed to have become insolent. They always seemed to be watching you, except when you looked straight at them and then they weren't watching you at all. Except you always caught that twitch of the face, that nervous flicker of the eyes, that meant they had been watching you. And they always seemed to be whispering about you behind your back, except when you swung around and they weren't whispering at all, their lips were closed. Except you knewthey'd been whispering about you, insulting you. And you got so mad at this sometimes that you took a whole bunch of them — men, women, brats — and herded them into the trucks and took them back to the Cellars and you stopped them watching you out of the corners of their eyes by taking their eyes out. And you stopped them talking about you behind your back by sewing their lips together.

But the funny thing was, it didn't seem to do the trick, didn't seem to stop the watching and the whispering. And you couldn't herd the whole town into the Cellars.

And then there was the sniping. You'd be in a jeep and heading to the mines or coming back from them, in the line of duty, and suddenly one of the guys with you would keel over, one side of his head blown away, his soft nose and blood and brains splashed everywhere. First time this had happened everyone had thought it was a marauder attack, although marauders around this neck of the woods were in fact very scarce; they'd been dealt with savagely years back and now didn't come around anymore because of Mocsin's heavy rep. But it wasn't a marauder attack.

There were no damned marauders in the near vicinity or the far vicinity, and you couldn't figure out who it was. And then it happened again. And again. And again. And it got to be a regular occurrence, although randomly timed and in different places, different stretches of the road. And so all the open jeeps were laid off and mine patrols only worked from secure buggies and land wags. And now, over the past couple of months, three buggies had been blown to scrap by mines, their occupants so much torn and bloody meat.

And then there were the disappearances. Every so often a buddy would fail to return to barracks. At first this was thought to have been due to drunkenness, perhaps. In the old days there'd been a great deal of drunkenness, but then it was realized that although everything in town was yours, and free, there had to be some discipline in the force, and you only got seriously juiced in off periods, when it didn't matter. But then it was thought that maybe it wasn't the booze because none of those guys ever came back, and at last count, over the past two months or so, there were about twenty guys gone and it was as though they'd never existed in the first place.

And the worrying thing was, no one at the top seemed to be taking much notice of any of this, despite the rumbles of discontent from the lower ranks. And when you put forward the theory to your unit leaders that maybe something ought to be done about this, and it seemed to you that all of these weird occurrences were maybe somehow linked, and it was just possible that there was some kind of underground cell in town intent on sabotage and murder, all that happened was you got bawled out and told to mean up your act, boy, or you'll be on hog duty in short order.

So you shut up.

Of course, you appreciated that the guys up top had their own problems and plenty of them. You couldn't help but notice these things. Power shortages, food shortages, sewer-disposal problems — even the johns in the barracks were beginning to stink up, and no one seemed able to unblock the crappers. And all these epidemics didn't help matters.

And now these miners. It was unbelievable. How in hell had they been able to fix things the way they'd been fixed? Someone wasn't running a very tight ship out there. Some very red faces would be around when it was all sorted out. Not to mention a few summary executions. Probably more than a few, come to think of it, and it was a relief to realize that you hadn't been involved in mine duty for a good four months. So they couldn't blame you.

Best thing to do under the circumstances was keep your head down; don't make waves, don't attract attention. Let the upper echelons sort the mess out. Just do your job and don't talk back and don't come up with wildies about criminal elements in town being behind all this because those at the top knew what they were about, and if they dumped on such theories the reason had to be because they had the matter well in hand.

That had to be it.

Nevertheless, it was wise to take precautions. Even out here, in the north end of town, outside the Big Man's mansion — outside this sprawling, many-roomed pre-Nuke dwelling place that had once belonged, or so you'd heard, to some guy called Bank Manager, whatever that meant — it was wise to be wary.

You always had to stand, when you were on guard duty, out in the light, out in the glare of the spotlights that lit up the area around the house, the lawns, the driveway. That was where you had to be. You had to show yourself, holding your piece, so that any guy who got past the electrified fencing and then the outer ring of sentry-hides would see you and shit himself. That was the theory, and as a theory it was fine, although of course the mere idea of anyonegetting up this far was ludicrous. Laughable. The last time anyone had tried to ice the Big Man was — well hell, it had to be all of a dozen years ago, and he'd been crazy, and in any case what had happened to him had been so bad that anyone trying the same trick would have to be triple crazy. As far as you could remember — and you'd only been eight or nine at the time — they'd kept the sucker alive for two whole weeks out in the center of town so everyone could see, on a specially constructed platform, and for the last ten days of that two weeks he was screaming to die, begging for it. How the hell they'd managed to keep him alive, with not much skin on him, and things sticking into him and out of him and up him and all, was beyond you. Unreal. Those guys — hell, they'd been real clever, real talented. It was one of the reasons that made you want to be a sec man when you grew up.

So no way was any guy going to be smart enough or brave enough or even stupid enough to get this close to the Big House, and really what you were was a kind of honor guard, and there was no danger whatsoever and it didn't really matter if you stood in the light at all.

In any case, these days the lights weren't so damned bright as they used to be and even here, even outside the residence of the Big Man, there were obviously power supply problems, screwed-up generators and the like. You couldn't help but notice that a couple of the pylons this side of the house were in an alarming state of disrepair, and one of them kept on flickering, which was a nuisance, irritating to the eyes.

It felt safer in the shadows, the deep shadows, where no one could see you — not that there was anyone out there to see you except your opposite number on the other side of the house. You got to see each other every now and again because you arranged it with each other so that that was what happened; so he'd know you were here and you'd know he was there and everything was jake. That way everyone was happy — although, come to think of it, you hadn't seen him for a while now, the creep. He'd probably edged right back to the road and was having a cigarette on the sly, or a woman. And that was exactly what you felt like right now, only this near the House it really wasn't too damned smart, and there go the bastard lights again, right off this time, blackout, and hell, maybe the dark didn't really feel all that safe with no moon in the sky, only the chem clouds shifting in from the west, and here we go again, lighting-up time, flicker-flicker-flicker so it hurt your eyes trying to see across the blasted grass — it made it seem as if there were things out there that couldn't possibly be because your opposite number wouldn't have let them through, and dammit, they really ought to get some sucker to do a job on this system; it was really sloppy, a proper job and no argument. Tell them they'd get their balls bitten off by the dogs if they didn't wire the bastard up the way it should be wired and — shit, that hurt — what the hell is this? Some clown's pissing around, got a knee in your back and a hand over your mouth and you can't yell and your head's being dragged back so you feel your back's going to break any moment and all you can see is this grinning face above you, upside down, staring right at you eyeball to eyeball and then all you can see is some fat blade stroking right into you except you can't see where it's gone, only feel it like an electric kiss on your throat and a sudden shaft of agony that lances straight through you, transforming every single nerve end in your body into an internal live wire, and now the blade's gone and you're sinking backward and there's nohand over your mouth and you want to yell but you can't, you really can't, nothing'll come out and everything's loose and you've shit yourself and there's nothing there, nothing at all, just blackness.

Upside down, in the jittery light from the arcs, the face looked hideous, as though it was grinning up at him with two mouths, one of which had far too much lipstick around it. Ryan knelt, wiped his gloved hands and then the panga on the grass, and thrust the thick-bladed weapon back into its sheath. He glanced around.

Hunaker sidled up and took the guard's legs and they lifted the body and heaved it into the thick shadows at the base of the building's wall, shoving it into the heart of a struggling bush. They crouched beside the bush, waiting, patient.

Out here it was quiet. It was almost as if the rest of the town did not exist. There were trees and lawns and gardens. The gardens were mostly overgrown, a wild and junglelike tangle, although here, around Teague's mansion, some effort had been made to keep the place neatened up, to create not only a setting worthy of Mocsin's lord and master, but also to carve out a loose kind of security zone around the house. There had been other large houses in this part of town, but in the neighborhood of Teague's place they had either been demolished or turned into pens for sec men, so that a weaponed-up enclave surrounded the mansion, small forts around the big one.

That was the theory, and a brief smile twisted Ryan's lips as he thought about it. Actually it was pathetic. Actually security was so damned lax that a single man could have invaded Jordan Teague's sacred precincts with no trouble at all. Sure, there was an electric fence, but the power was on the fritz, as evidenced by the flickering lights, and in any case trees had been allowed to grow over parts of the fence, and it had been a simple matter to swing over. They'd made a few kills, but there were guys out there that they hadn't needed to ice, they were so doped up. In one of the houses every sec man they could see was higher than a bird on happyweed. So high, in fact, that the girls who were also there were utterly redundant, were playing cards and drinking to while away the time.

Decay, thought Ryan moodily, his silenced SIG-Sauer now grip-held in his right hand. The decay of empire. Look back through history and there it was, clearly to be seen. Yet no one seemed to see it. It happened time and time again. Yet nobody ever seemed to learn the lesson. And the chilling thought was that it could happen even to the Trader and his empire, such as it was. All that had to happen was to say the hell with it once in a while, ease up. That was all it needed.

Hunaker muttered in his ear, "Why don't we just take out the light system altogether? Be easier for us."

"Too risky."

"Hell, Ryan, no one'd ever know. It's shot to hell already. Way those damned arcs're blinking on and off..."

"Too risky."

"You're the boss."

Ryan checked his watch. Roughly three hours forty minutes to go. It seemed a lot but wasn't. Not if they got caught up in something, met stiff opposition and had to shoot their way out. It wasn't very long at all.

There was one barrier to success. It was known — it must be known by now — that their little group was outside the net. The guys on the barriers at the edge of town would surely have reported back to Teague or Strasser — probably the latter — that Ryan's buggy had entered Mocsin, unless communications were very sloppy and the guy hadn't bothered to report in. But no, thought Ryan, he must discount that, work on the assumption that right now the alarm was out and Strasser's goons were searching for them. Speed was therefore of the essence. And not only for him but for Strasser, too.

Strasser would need time to think, to plan. A couple of miles outside Mocsin he had a dozen vehicles in a circle — two war wags and land wags, trucks, container rigs — full of stiffs, full of hardware and weaponry and food and all kinds of trade goods, and he couldn't touch them. He had them in his hand, they were his, but they might just as well be on the moon. The only way he was going to be able to get inside them was if someone gave him the key, someone told him how to bypass the boobies and render them harmless. Without the key, the poor fucker was basically up the creek.

Except that he also had the Trader. That was a powerful card. Everyone knew that the Trader's men were fiercely loyal to the Old Man. Strasser's idea would be either to break him or torture him so that someone else would break to save the Trader. What Strasser didn't know was that the intense loyalty of those who worked with the Trader extended into virtually a vow of silence if anything ever went badly wrong. It was impressed into every man and woman never to blab, about anything. Sure, there were probably weak links in the chain — in any large organization there were bound to be — but Ryan, running through those who were now spark-out in the miniconvoy, couldn't think of any.

And the Trader himself wouldn't talk. He was one tough old buzzard. The Trader wouldn't talk even if devils from Hell were peeling his skin off inch by inch, layer by layer. As he'd always said, "If they get me, forget me." That applied to any situation.

Strasser didn't know any of that, of course, and even if he did he would never credit it, would never be able to understand it.

Bastard was in for a shock.

Bastard was gonna pay for so casually destroying so many lives, exterminating without a thought so many good men and women.

And as he thought that, his face bleak, his mouth a thin, tight line, Ryan saw images of the girl, Krysty, in his mind and bared his teeth in a soundless snarl.

Images of her in the mutie-camp barn, smoke smudged, disheveled, her clothes just rags on her, driven by a dynamism he admired in any woman or man; then, having done what had to be done, utterly weary, almost defenseless. And then in the war wag, by turns argumentative, amused, angry, sardonic, sorrowing: so many emotions, so many different facets. A complex and fascinating woman. It had been a case of instant attraction, he had to admit, although that was no big deal in itself. So often it happened, and you took what was offered — if it was offered — and a course was then run to a terminal point beyond which there was nothing else, and that was that. But with Krysty there had been more, far more, even though he had only known her for — what? A couple of hours? Not longer than that. There had been a promise there, a promise of depths he could only guess at, of aggression, submission, self-possession, great intelligence and a deep sensuality that proclaimed itself quietly, with no unnecessary fanfare, in her eyes. Her fathomless eyes.

Well, he thought angrily, the hell with that. The hell with it all. Forget it. Put her out of your mind.

Hunaker whispered, "Here comes J.B., Mr. War Chief Buddy."

Ryan noted grimly that Hunaker was still her usual bouncy, caustic self. She'd said nothing about the massacre, nothing about the loss of one who was to all intents and purposes close to her. But then they'd all lost comrades of one kind or another, and this was not the first time a disaster had occurred, although never on such a scale. Still, he thought, it boded ill for any of league's and Strasser's goons who got in her way in this town. And that was fine by him.

He turned on the crouch, saw three figures threading through the gloom toward them, coming around the side of the house.

J.B. eased close, the tall, blond Koll and Samantha the Panther in tow.

Ryan said, "We can either blitz in fast or do it quiet. If we do it quiet, at some point we're gonna hit opposition and we're gonna kill. And although we're using suppressors, they're not. There could be plenty of bang-bang, and even those dummies in town'll get to thinking there's something up when that happens."

"I go for initially quiet," said J.B.

"Same here. Once we have Teague, fuck it. Doesn't matter. Make as much noise as we like. The louder the better because I want Strasser up here and talking."

Built on a knoll, the house was big, rambling. The man who'd owned it so many years before must have been prosperous, a power in the town. In the windows, lamplight could be seen through chinks in the closed shutters beyond the glass, but there was no sound of revelry or celebration. Jordan Teague was having a quiet evening at home. Probably among his loved ones, although that wouldn't include such mundane items as wife and kids. Word was, the Baron was barren.

J.B. said, "Outhouses at the rear and a lot of old garbage. There's two side doors but they ain't been opened in a hundred years. Rear door opens, passageway to it. There were two guys." He didn't bother to mention that the two guys who'd been muttering to each other and smoking beside the rear door were now shapeless bundles among the garbage.

"Main door's not locked," said Ryan. "You go in the back, head upstairs, check that out and hold the upper story. We'll go in the front, wait for you. Two minutes. Any goons, kill 'em quick."

"Women?"

Ryan shrugged.

"If they pull on you, sure. If not, disable 'em, tie 'em up, whatever. We're not animals." He turned to the tall blonde. "Koll, you stay with me."

Most of this, he knew, was unnecessary. All his combatants were highly trained, knew how to act in a crisis or a battle situation. It was simply a matter of working out the approach and after that they were on their own. He'd never yet, in ten years, had one of his men ice another by accident in kill chaos.

He gave J.B. his two minutes, then turned to the porch. As he'd said, the door was unlocked. Hunaker had already checked that out. The door handle was big and round. He turned it, pushed, went through fast, the silenced SIG in his right hand, Hunaker behind him, Koll at the rear.

They saw a large hallway, wide stairs facing them, a passageway to the left diving to the rear of the house. There were closed doors right and left. The hallway was unlit except for chinks of light below the doors.

There was a strong stink of incense mixed in with the burned straw smell of happy weed. Ryan could hear the mutter of conversation from the door on his left. Muted laughter, nothing else. J.B. materialized, moving quickly but silently up the passageway toward him, followed by Rintoul and Sam. Hennings was therefore out back. Good. A murderous bastard at the best of times who stood no nonsense from antagonists.

J.B. and the other two turned to the stairs, raced silently up them, keeping to the side. They fanned out on the landing above and disappeared. Ryan nodded to Hunaker, then gestured at the door on the left. She now held a squat Ingram MAC-11 LISP, a classic weapon. Koll stood by the now-closed main door, a little to one side, a LAPA in his hands.

Ryan moved to the left-hand door, Hunaker at his side. Without hesitation he twisted the handle and shoved the door inward. They both jumped into the room, taking in everything in a split second.

Seven men, black jacketed or in shirt-sleeves. Five sitting at a round table in the center playing cards, one standing beside the table, smoking and holding a bottle, one in the act of walking unhurriedly down the room toward another door at the far end. There were three kerosene lamps, one hanging from a hook on the ceiling. Many candles. The sudden opening of the door caused the flames to sway and gutter, a ripple effect that threw shadows crazily across the room. It also caused the seven men, as one, to gape in stunned amazement.

As Ryan pushed home the door, two of the men at the table sprang up, shoving their chairs back, pulling at shoulder-rigged pieces. It was enough. Hunaker, her body taut, her eyes narrowed, a feral growl at her lips, squeezed off her mag with about as much noise as a dozen guys having a spitting contest all at once might make. A long-drawn-out Phyyytt-t-t-t't't.As she fired she tight-arced the thrust-out gun, casings spraying. The three seated men were punched backward in their chairs, arms flailing, thudding to the carpeted floor. Of the two who'd reached their feet, the nearest was slammed into the other and both seemed to be glued together as they spun across the room, gasping, scarlet holes magically appearing in their chests. Then their feet tangled together and they toppled, crashing to the floor.

As Hunaker had begun her squeeze, Ryan had thrown up his SIG. His prime target was the man at the end of the room, the man near the far door. Ryan bent at the knees and sent two rounds at him. Both hit, the first slamming through the spinal column as he half turned away and punching out the sternum in a wild spray of blood, the second going higher, shattering the collarbone from the side, almost taking the guy's head off on its way out.

Without pause, Ryan swung to the right and heart-shot the man with the bottle. The man choked out an "Uggh!" quietly and hit the wall behind him, slid down it, arms wide, coat riding up to his shoulders as he sank. The bottle had already left his nerveless fingers and now lay on the floor, its contents soaking into the worn carpet.

Her right hand remagging the MAC, Hunaker sprinted across the room, silently hurdling the bodies. She reached the end door with Ryan at her heels. Again he gripped the handle, twisted, this time pulling it open. Hunaker sprang through the gap before it was fully opened, Ryan jumping through after her, his SIG left-handed now.

A passage, short, one door at the end half open and light streaming through the gap, though mostly blocked off by a man standing in the opening holding a tray with bottles on it.

Ryan snarled, "Shit!" and two-rounded him. It was the only thing he could do. The guy flew backward through the door and the tray crashed to the floor, glass shattering. There was a shout from the room beyond, more of surprise then alarm, but already Hun was flying down the passage, her boots almost not touching down, her short loose coat billowing out behind her like bat's wings. She leaped into the room on the turn and the MAC-11 was spitting even as her feet hit carpet. Ryan, pounding after her, heard glass smash, metal clang and whine, and a sound like someone coughing loudly and very fast.

He reached the doorway, saw Hunaker lowering the machine pistol, a savage expression on her face.

She said "Damn" in self-disgust and turned away from him.

The room was a kitchen. The only guy there had been butchering meat on a block in the center of the room with a cleaver. He'd taken most of the MAC's mag, had been powered back into a table with glassware and copper pans and skillets on it, and now sagged backward, feet in the air, arms hanging, most of his chest blown out and blood splashed over floor and walls.

Hunaker was muttering curses in a harsh undertone. Ryan knew she was cursing herself as much for butchering one single guy who hadn't even been truly armed as for making such a row.

"You had to do it blind," he snapped. "Could've been a garrison in here."

The room stank of powder and blood. It smelled like a slaughterhouse. Ryan touched the young woman on the arm, then clasped her to him, his eye taking in the fact that the windows all were shuttered and there were three doors off to one side. He could feel her trembling slightly.

Hunaker said in a tight voice, "Shit, she was such a sweet kid, Ryan. I'll miss her, dammit. You dunno what it's like."

"No. Probably not."

She shook herself, clenched her eyes, then opened them again and said, "Okay, let's go. I'll get us all killed at this rate." Her smile was terrible to behold.

Ryan checked out the three doors. Storerooms. Nothing there. They went back along the passage, through the big room, still smelling strongly of cordite, warily out into the hallway. Koll gave them the thumb.

Ryan muttered, "You hear anything?"

"What's to hear?" The tall blonde gestured at the door through which they'd just come. "Good paneling there, Ryan. Thick as hell. You make any noise, then?"

"Clearly not so's you'd notice."

He glanced up, saw J.B. at the head of the stairs, alone, holding up his left hand, four fingers extended. His expression was deadpan.

Four kills. Everything jake.

Ryan shot a look at Hunaker and discovered that she was staring straight at him. He inclined his head toward the right-hand door under which no light could be seen and raised an eyebrow. Hunaker nodded almost eagerly as she slipped a third mag into the guts of the MAC-11.

Ryan said, "You sure?"

Hunaker hissed, "For Christ's sake, Ryan!"

He shrugged. It amused him how people still invoked the name of a deity, or, as he understood it from his reading way back in... well, when he wasreading, some kind of secondary deity who seemed to be a son of the primary deity. But he did it himself, when cussing or expressing shock or anger, often using words that had no meaning for him whatsoever, although that of course was a legacy from his father who'd done exactly the same, and probably his father before him, and so on back to pre-Nuke.

For a second, as he thought like this, the image of his father began to form in his mind. But he blocked it off quickly, the hand that held the SIG clenching involuntarily, so that he nearly squeezed off a round into the floor. He shook his head to clear the image finally, shake the memories away. These days it was easier, thank God.

A brief smile twitched his lips as he caught that. There you are, he thought — thank God!

He stepped to the right-hand door, thought about powering in as before but something — he didn't quite know what — stopped him. His gloved hand took hold of the knoblike handle, twisted it firmly, though tugging at it so that no hint of a sound came from the movement. He gently eased the door open slightly. Two inches. There was only darkness beyond. The smell of incense was much stronger here, a positive assault on the senses. He could hear the faint murmur of someone talking, but as if from afar. He pushed the door more, slipped through. He sensed that Hunaker was behind him and half turning his head he muttered, "Close it, but not tight."

He stared at the warm blackness, half closing his eye, then opening it again, wide. Over on his left, in front, was a narrow smear of murky light in the air, which at first he could make no sense of. The light danced, a flickering glow. Then gradually he began to sort out details of the room.

Or half room. It was big, high ceilinged. There was no furniture, but the floor was carpeted. Across the room, from wall to wall, hung some kind of thick curtain. Two curtains, actually, pulled together. Hence that chink of light in the center where the inner folds of the two draperies didn't quite meet.

He slid the SIG back down into its belt rig and reached for the LAPA, holding it one-handed as he silently stepped across the room toward the curtain. There was no point now in using a silenced piece. He'd reached his goal. The voice he could hear beyond the thick draperies belonged to Jordan Teague.

He reached the gap in the curtain. It couldn't have been positioned better if some guy had actually set it up for him. Eye high. Breathing through his mouth, the LAPA held down at his side, he peered through.

One bizarre scene.

One bizarre goddamned scene.

There were candles everywhere, their flames fluttering and guttering in the drafts. It seemed as if there were a thousand candles at first, ten thousand, seemed as though the room itself was vast, extending way beyond the bounds of sanity. But of course it was a mirror effect. Long mirrors on all the walls, to the front of him and to the sides, even fixed down over the closed shutters of the windows on the right-hand wall. Ryan glanced up, his eye widening. Even covering the ceiling.

For the rest, there was not much furniture in the room although the place could not be said to be bare. On the floor were thick rugs, all sizes, all shapes and patterns and colors or combinations of colors. There were two potbellied stoves on the right, doors wide, heat belching out; pipes from the top of each rose into the air, sagging drunkenly in badly welded sections, disappearing into the mirrored ceiling. A couple of small tables, both of which seemed to Ryan's mildly discriminating eye to be more than just well-carved — really old period pieces, probably — stood toward the center, smoke rising from large bowls on them. He couldn't see what was burning, but it was sure as hell the source of the rich, cloying stink that permeated the room.

It was what reared uphigh, center stage but toward the far end, that dragged the word "bizarre" into his mind. A kind of stepped pyramid, twice the height of a man, maybe more, and flat on top. Ryan couldn't see how it was constructed because it was covered with a piece of rich red material, tacked in so that the step treads were tight and thus climbable without getting his boots tangled up in the folds. Atop it, a wide, high-backed wing chair, plain wood from what he could see, although that wasn't much, because of its occupant and the fact that it was partially covered in more material that, as he stared at it, became vaguely familiar, then all at once, after a few seconds searching his memory, became entirely recognizable. He could just make out white stars on a patch of blue, vivid red bars on white. A real relic from pre-Nuke days: a huge version of what they'd called the national flag of this land when it had been a unified country, a power in the world.

Ryan stared at the figure sprawled grossly and grotesquely in the chair, seeming to fill it to overflowing, one foot on the platform, the knee bent back, the other leg hanging over the top step. Except for black knee-length riding boots, worn and dulled, he was evidently naked under what looked to be some kind of fantastic robe, blue in color, thickly lined with soiled white fur, and open at the front. His massive belly bulged in folds, lapping at his thighs. His flesh was pinkish, his face red, the cheeks sagging around a small thick-lipped mouth around which was a fringe of white stubble. The eyes were tiny flesh-choked beads. His head was flung back so that he was gazing up at the mirrored ceiling as he talked, his image gazing back down at him. In his right pudgy hand he held a thick cigar, which, from the look of it, consisted entirely of dry-cured happyweed leaves, rolled tight.

Jordan Teague. Baron of Mocsin.

Ryan almost couldn't believe his eyes, for a moment convinced that the incense that clogged the air was some kind of drug and that what he was seeing was a weird, outrageous vision.

But it was real enough. Two years had clearly made a hell of a difference. Teague had been fat, sure, but this was way different. The guy looked as if he'd need help walking. Or maybe he stayed up there the whole time? There'd been nothing remotely like this in the old days. Teague had gotten around town, done his business, kept a firm hand on things.

In many ways, as Ryan remembered it from the Trader, who knew the background, Jordan Teague had been a typical Baron. He'd come up the hard way. Father and mother had he none — that he knew of, anyhow. He'd cut his own path in one of the southern Baronies and discovered that, as long as he was paid for it — in food, creds or women — he didn't mind killing for his living. Didn't mind at all. He became head blaster for a small-time Baron, supplanted him in a bloody coup and was then, after some years, himself ousted by his own head blaster. There is very often such a symmetry in these matters, although Teague broke the pattern by being slightly quicker on the uptake than his predecessor and escaping with his life. He drifted into the central Deathlands, took up with a band of mutie marauders who had a rather more liberal attitude toward norms than most — that is, they accepted him, instead of spit-roasting him over a slow fire and eating him — and they had a good two years looting, pillaging and raping before the band hit what on the surface appeared to be a sleepy but fairly prosperous settlement ripe for slaughter and rape some distance south of the ruins of the old St. Louis, but which in fact turned out to be a setup by the angry inhabitants of the entire area, who were, after two years of hell, not unnaturally pissed off with the marauders' continual depredations and red-hot for vengeance.

The marauders broke up. Literally. As they drove in they hit a wall of firepower — much of it having been hoarded for years — which destroyed them, their trucks, their jeeps, their women, their bags and traps. Teague, a man of violence but no great brain, for once in his life acted smart by mingling with the normals in the subsequent massacre and distinguished himself by gunning down, with a close-range burst from a hand-held MG, the mutie leader, a guy with a curious piglike snout and the manners to go with it. Actually Teague didn't merely gun him down but cut him in two — it was that close a range. And then blew his head off. Just to be sure. Some days later some busybody with a sharp memory accused him of being one of the band. There was an altercation that Teague won by the simple expedient of icing his opponent with a pump-action. He said it was in righteous rage at such a calumny, but there were those who thought he'd been suspiciously overzealous in pulling his piece and began to get sulky with him. Teague wisely beat it, drifted northwest, landed up in Mocsin. It was ripe for a takeover by someone, and he figured he fitted the bill.

Just about then he bumped into the Trader, who'd recently fallen across his first Stockpile, together with his buddy Marsh Folsom, and had a raft of factory-fresh fowling pieces and mucho ammo to match. Teague had no jack whatsoever, but he did have an astounding stroke of luck. He came across a guy who'd been mooching about in the hills to the southwest of Mocsin and discovered seams of yellow in the rocks. Someone later figured out that the gold had been uncovered by the last rippling tremors from the West Coast cataclysm, when Sov "earthshaker" bombs and missiles back in the Nuke had carved out a new coastline, taking out half of Washington state, Oregon and California, and the whole of Baja, California. But such geological pedantry was of no interest to Jordan Teague, who simply deep-sixed the sucker and grabbed his nuggets. With these he bought a passel of 5.56 mm M-16A1s modified to handle the M-203 grenade launcher, crates of mags, plus boxes — assorted — of 40 mm rounds for the grenade launchers, including HE, frag and M-576 buck. Teague being Teague, he would have liked to have had free what he had to pay for, and pay for highly. But even then, word had gotten around that you didn't fuck with the Trader, and in any case Teague had the location of the strike — unwisely, the panhandler had made a map — and it was more than likely that there was more where the first haul had come from.

There was, indeed, as Teague discovered after he and an assorted bunch of murderous trash had subdued Mocsin and set up there in style. In short order he began to mine the yellow stuff and ship it out East. Slowly at first, but in the past decade more and more successfully. Jordan Teague was now an exceedingly rich man although, as Ryan knew damned well, as anyone knew, none of this wealth had ever rubbed off on Mocsin.

All in all, a pretty inglorious and unedifying career that, did he but know it, thought Ryan bleakly, was moving swiftly to its close.

Ryan still found it barely credible that Teague should end up like this. He recalled what Fishmouth Charlie and said about Teague's not knowing what the goddamned time was these days. Damned right. He looked to be brain-blasted on booze and happyweed, stuffed to the gullet and beyond with food. A gross mountain of flab, fit for nothing but the boneyard.

Ryan almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

There were others in the room. Two women were whispering together at the foot of the pyramid structure, sitting on the lowest step. One was naked, wide hipped with pendulous breasts. Ryan judged her to be well on the other side of thirty. The other was younger; oddly, she wore a top but no bottom, no skirt or pants. They looked bored as they chewed the fat, dispirited. It occurred to Ryan that trying to jolly Teague into raising his flagpole these days must be a full-time occupation, and wearing on the nerves.

Slumped at Teague's feet was a man, a strange and wild-looking guy, at this distance elderly, though Ryan could not be sure. He looked to be medium height though very thin. Sprawled as he was, it was difficult to tell exactly. He was clad all in rusty black except for an off-white shirt. His hair was long and lank and gray. Ryan couldn't see his face clearly because the guy's head was in his hands. He seemed to be crying. Certainly his shoulders were shaking as though he was in the grip of a fit of the ague, although no sounds came from him. Could be he was laughing, but Ryan doubted it.

Hunaker whispered impatiently behind him, "C'mon, Ryan. Let's hit 'em."

"Wait."

His ears were only just beginning to adjust to the wheezy rumble of Teague's voice. He seemed to be talking to himself, with the odd sentence directed down at the crazed old guy at his feet, who took no notice.

Suddenly Teague lashed out with his foot, the tip of his boot catching the old man at the side of his head and toppling him. With a blubbering wail the man tumbled down the steps, a wild sprawl of arms and legs. The younger woman jumped out of the way as he banged past her, landing in a heap on the rugs. Agonized sounds came from him. The girl didn't even turn his way but went around the other side of her companion and the muttered conversation continued as though it had never stopped.

"I told ya!" wheezed Teague. "You listen ta me, Doc, when I'm talkin to ya. An' get up off ya tush."

The man called Doc struggled to his feet, stood with his back to the curtain, his shoulders bowed. He was still trembling.

"Well? "barked Teague.

Though shaky, the old man's voice was rich, deep-timbred.

"I, uh, I fear I, uh, did not hear you, Mr. Teague."

"Don't listen — that's your damned trouble."

"You are, uh, perfectly correct, sir. It is indeed a failing of mine." His voice dropped, as though he wasn't speaking to Teague at all. "I live in the mind, sir. As you know, there is another country there. In the mind. Memories of a better life, a richer existence by far."

"Lotta crap you talk, Doc."

"Indeed, sir. Yes, indeed. Indubitably. I, uh..." His voice trailed off.

"Dunno where you fuckin' are, Doc, that's what's wrong with you."

The old man's head came up, his voice stronger.

"Oh, no, sir. Believe me, I know where I am. Indeed I do, sir. I am in Hell. I have often thought it. It is the only explanation."

"Yeah." Teague chuckled throatily, his cheeks quivering. He was still looking up at the ceiling, had not even shifted his gaze even when lashing out at the old man, but now he dropped his head, stared down. "You 'n' me both, Doc," he said. There was a grotesque smile on his face. "Hear Cort had you down in the pens again, ha?"

"Th-that is so."

"Get it up, did ya?"

The old man shuddered but did not answer.

"I said, get it up did ya?" said Teague dangerously.

The lank hair shook slightly as the old guy nodded.

"Well, more'n I can do, Doc," Teague said affably. "Fuck knows when I last got it up. Just lost the inclination. Too much like hard work, know what I mean?"

The old man did not reply.

Teague suddenly barked, "Hey you, bitch!"

Neither of the women took a blind bit of notice.

Teague, grunting and gasping, gripped the chair arms, heaved himself forward. He screamed, "Bitch!"

The younger of the two women got up unconcernedly and mounted the pyramid toward him. At the top she stood beside the chair, gazing blankly out across the room as Teague reached out a flabby hand and fondled her buttocks, his fingers disappearing from sight. Grunting, he heaved himself around and thrust the fingers of his other hand up inside her top, began groping at her hidden breasts. Still the woman said nothing, did nothing, her face expressionless. Teague suddenly sank back into the chair with an angry croak, flapped a hand irritably at her. She turned, descended the steps, pulling her top down. She sat on the bottom step and took up the conversation again with her companion.

"Y'know, Cort's gonna kill ya one of these days, Doc."

The old man's hands rose, palms up.

"I am dead already, sir. It is the only explanation."

"He don't like ya, Doc. S'why he likes to humiliate ya. Wasn't for me, you'd be stiff."

"I was taught, sir, that theories must always fit the facts, not facts theories. It is a basic tenet of any academic discipline. And the facts are simple. This is Hell. Therefore, quod erat demonstrandum,I am dead. I have been dead, sir, since... since, ah... ah, dead... since..."

His voice had become hoarse and he began to tremble again, a terrible feverish shiver that took hold of his entire bony frame, as though invisible hands had gripped him and were shaking him violently. Slowly he sank to his knees, his head held in his hands, his shoulders quaking. Gusty sobs erupted from him.

Teague sucked at his cigar, as though oblivious of what was happening below.

He said, "No way out for ya, Doc. Cort ain't just gonna put ya to the hogs one of these days, he's gonna feed ya to them."

"No. That is where you are wrong," The voice had suddenly become crisper in tone. His head jerked up, dropped to one side, like a bird's. "The locational progressions are simple. There is no problem there. From A to B to C and onward. Or from P to Q and then back to, let us say, G. So you see, there is indeed a way out. Or I should say, many ways out. But finding them, my dear sir, that is altogether a different matter. The Redoubts are there, in situ. Many of them. But — and I put it to you — where is 'there'?"

"Shit," muttered Teague.

"This is the point. And I fear I have to say the answer is for the moment lost." He was talking more quickly now, the words spilling out, a curious excitement in his voice, in his whole bearing. His right hand was raised, the forefinger wagging up at Jordan Teague as though in admonishment. As though the losing of the "answer" was all the gross man's fault. "No doubt it will reveal itself. No doubt theywill reveal themselves. At times the fog clears..."

He stood up suddenly, began to prowl in front of the pyramid, his hands clasped behind him. Backward and forward, backward and forward. His voice dropped to a dreamy murmur that Ryan could only just make out.

"The fog. Sometimes, if let loose, it's quite powerful. Feedback effect, as I recall, though difficult to explain. And quite arbitrary. Of course, they had no real conception of its power. They said they had, but they lied. They lied much of the time." He thumped his right fist into the palm of his left hand, his voice rising to an outraged cry. "They treated me like an animal! It was disgraceful! As though I were a puppet! They had no right to do what they did and I informed them of that fact. And for all their honeyed words I was nothing to them, less then nothing. A subject. An interesting experiment. It was wicked, wicked! God should have struck them dead!" He swung around on Teague, pointed up at him, laughing, his voice cracked, pitching up to a falsetto. "But through the fog, my dear sir! From A to B! And then to R or M or anywhere! Findthe fog, sir! There is your solution! Your way out! So many possibilities!"

Hunaker whispered, "Shit, Ryan, we're wasting time. Let's doit!"

Ryan said "Wait, dammit. There's something..." Then he said, "Lucky we didn't!" as Teague bawled, "Jauncy! Hackutt!" and one of the mirrors on the other side of the pyramid swung open and two goons came through at the run. They had slung M-16s and they went separate ways around the pyramid, right and left, and converged on the wild-eyed old man. They were both grinning death's-head grins.

The old man stopped pacing, seemed to shrivel into himself, his face gray.

Teague said, "Fucker's off again. Take his toys from him."

"No!"

The man called Doc screamed the word. His hands went up toward Teague in an imploratory gesture, silently entreating him not to do what was to be done, and what had been done, probably, on many occasions in the past.

"C'mon, c'mon!" snapped one of the goons. "Take 'em out. Hand 'em over."

Doc stared wildly around, as though looking for some means of escape. Then he swallowed hard, his shoulders slumping. He reached slowly into a pocket of his filthy black coat, then held out his hand. Ryan peered up at the ceiling, the only way he could see what was there: two gray spheroids.

He muttered, "All right, but don't hit the old guy."

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure, but don't. I want him."

"You're the boss."

They slammed through the curtain, Ryan to the left, Hunaker on his right, one target apiece. Simple.

Except that the two women shrieked and bolted. Their ideal course of escape would be off to the side, out of any line of fire. Instead blind panic turned them both into something akin to chickens with their heads lopped off. They dived in front of the two sec men, yelling in a frenzy. One tripped on a rug, the other tumbled over her. Ryan swore and dived to one side as a sec man, quick off the mark, unslung his piece and fired what must have been half a mag in his direction, the rounds flaying the thick curtains behind into wildly flapping cloth shreds. Ryan was firing the LAPA, its butt smacking into his pelvis, but his aim was wild and rounds hammered into the mirrors behind the pyramid, the glass exploding into a million flying shards.

Hunaker hadn't fired at all. She was rolling across the floor toward the wall in a desperate scramble as bullets from the second guy tore air above her head. She was now regretting that she hadn't jumped into this one with a piece — engineered, as this particular piece was, so it fired only in the fully automatic mode — that did not have the ferocious blast power of the MAC, which was fine for blazing out whole groups of targets with a light squeeze of the trigger but lousy when it came to the one-man job, and especially lousy when that one man was surrounded by others you did not want to hit. Sometimes, she thought as she let the machine-pistol go and dragged an H&K P-7 from inside her jacket, you could be over overconfident.

She rolled fast and scrambled around onto her stomach, fast-sighting as her head rose from the rug, and the compact snug-gripped P-7 barked twice, the first round missing her man by mere centimeters, the second, because of hand quiver on the roll, whipping at his coat. He yelped, jumped to his left, stumbled and fell, a third bullet from the P-7 tearing air where he'd just been. He rolled, too, and took a dive like a sprinter off the block into the comparatively calmer waters on the other side of the pyramid, joined a half second later by his companion, who'd had the same idea.

That idea was not to face up to Ryan and Hunaker at all but get the hell out of the room in one piece by diving through the still-open mirror door through which they'd arrived.

Except Ryan was ahead of them. Where he was he could not hit them, either of them, but the door itself was another matter. He sent three rounds into it, smashing the glass into a wild kaleidoscope of candle-reflected glitter and punching the door into its frame.

It was a standoff. Neither Ryan nor Hunaker had a direct bead on the two goons, who were now crouched behind the pyramid. On the other hand Ryan, from where he was positioned, could destroy anyone who tried to make for that doorway. The two goons were in a slightly better state, although only very slightly. They at least could snipe if they'd a mind to, or poke their pieces up and over the nearest step treads and blaze off in the general direction of their targets. And by doing that they could at least stop Ryan and Hunaker rushing them from the other side.

Ryan bared his teeth in an icy grin as he stared at the reflection of the two men, one of whom was staring back. Their eyes met. The goon wasn't grinning. He looked as though his bowels were about ready to go. That did not, however, make him any less dangerous.

Ryan's gaze roved. The two women were now trying to burrow under the rugs, shrieking and yelling in total-flap hysteria. The old guy called Doc seemed to have disappeared. Ryan couldn't see him anywhere, had not caught his bolt route. Probably he'd managed to flee through that door. Pity. Ryan would like to have talked to him. He'd seemed a wreck — not surprising if, as it appeared, he was some kind of... well, court jester or scapegoat for Teague and Strasser — but he had not seemed completely off his head, which made all that stuff he'd been gabbling about mildly attention grabbing. Or perhaps rather more than mildly attention grabbing. Where had Teague picked him up? He'd not been around two years back. He talked funny, and what was all that shit about "the fog"? The guy called Kurt, back at Charlie's, had — from what Charlie herself had said — rambled on about fog. Ryan didn't trust coincidences, even in this random, arbitrary and seemingly totally haphazard life. His psyche nudged him, whispered that there might be something odd here, something worth following up. The old coot hadn't just been talking about any old fog, and if Charlie was to be believed neither had the guy called Kurt. Common sense, however, informed him that there were ten thousand natural fogs in the Deathlands per week, somewhere or other, and probably this Kurt bird was vision-ridden from fever — a fog with claws? Come on! — and probably this old coot here was crazed from having been forced into performing grisly and unnatural acts for the delight of that sadistic bastard Strasser. Still, from A to B to C, his mind mused — and what werethe "possibilities"... and who were "they" and what had "they" done to him and what was a "Redoubt" and why did he talk so weird?

The explanation for all this was probably worth much less than a half pinch of nukeshit, thought Ryan, and right now there were other problems on the agenda, which needed to be solved urgently.

He stared up at Jordan Teague, atop his pyramid, cringing into the wingback chair with a mad and pop-eyed look about him.

"R-Ryan...?"

The word came out as a hoarse raven's croak.

"Teague, you fat bastard! You're the best target I've seen in years! Even a blind man could take you out!"

"Ryan! Jesus! What're ya doin? What is this? W-we gotta talk, fer Chrissake!" The bulk blubber of him was quaking like a jelly in a high wind. "Th-this ain't 'the way to do business!"

"You're in deep shit, Teague. I swear I'm gonna give you to the cannies. Bunch of them could live off you for a month."

"M-my God, Ryan! Ya gotta tell me... I'll do anything...gotta tell me what ya want! I'll do it... I'll do it!"

Ryan was disgusted. However many faults Teague had — about a zillion, if one were to count — however many monstrous deeds could be laid at his door, at least there'd been a time when he'd been in control, at least there'd been a time when he'd commanded a certain amount of respect as a hard man who'd carved himself a niche in the Deathlands and stayed put where others had fallen. This abject caterwauling and cringing in ludicrous terror was appalling, made him simply a bladder of lard worth nothing. Less then nothing.

Ryan put up the LAPA and pumped three rounds into the top step of the pyramid, just below Teague's twitching boots. Teague yelled, tried to turn himself into a fat ball, as the bullets smashed straight through the construction, bursting more glass the other side.

Ryan laughed as he realized the pyramid wasn't solid.

"Hun! The base! Flay it!"

Hunaker caught on. She reached for the MAC-11, rolled onto her stomach again, aimed for the second-from-bottom step and squeezed off a withering blast of rounds that turned her immediate target into an explosive spray of blown-out wood chips before powering subsonically through the hollow interior and ripping out the other side, only slowing marginally as they zip-drilled the flesh, sinew and bones of the man crouched there. The guy was shoved over bodily by the punishing impact, most of the MAC's mag transforming him into a mere torso from which blood sprayed.

The second man, yelling in panic as he, too, cottoned on, jumped from cover, M-16 hammering wildly in Ryan's direction. But Ryan was on full-auto now, and his fire line caught the man and followed him, slamming him back against the mirror wall in a twisted body tangle, unstitching him, opening him up as he smashed into the glass, soft pointed bullets and glass shards erupting him into a red rag doll.

There was a microsecond's silence and then Ryan was on his feet and sprinting back to the curtain, throwing it aside and bawling for Roll. Koll came running, his own LAPA held out.

Pointing, Ryan snapped, "There's a door back there — check it out. Look for an old guy. Long hair, black gear. Nail any goons, but don't nail him."

He turned, brandishing his piece at Teague.

"Down, and make it snappy, fat man." He said to Hunaker, "And for fuck's sake do something about those goddamned women. Anything!"

He watched as Jordan Teague clambered down the steps of the pyramid. As he reached the floor he pulled the blue robe around him defensively. It didn't meet in the middle. Ryan went close, poked at the sagging gut with the LAPA's barrel. Teague's beady little eyes shone with fear.

"You fat double-crossing bastard," Ryan hissed. "I oughta take you apart."

Teague wheezed, "I ain't done nothin', Ryan."

"That," said Ryan icily, "as someone said to me not too damned long ago... someone who's now dead!"And he spat the word at Teague, who waddled back two steps at the violence of the sound, "is a double fucking negative."

"I... I dunno watcha mean, Ryan!" Teague squeaked.

"It means, fat man, you havedone something"

"Please, Ryan..." The man's voice was a pleading whisper, and there were tears rolling and bouncing down his cheeks. "Tell me."

"You had our train nerved out, and you've got the Trader. And now I have you!"

Teague's face shook, triple jowls quivering like a turkey's wattles. He muttered, "Uh... yeah. Cort did... say..." Then he croaked, "But I was against the idea, Ryan, against it. Ya gotta believe me."

"You wanted the train for nothing — you simply iced the whole..." A wildfire of fury boiled through him suddenly and he rammed the LAPA barrel into Teague's stomach, yanked it back, flipped it and smashed the butt into the throat of the tottering, gobbling figure. Teague fell back with a strangled shriek, sprawled ludicrously half on, half off the bottom step of his pyramid throne, clutching at his neck, his face scarlet. Ryan flipped the gun again and held it down at Teague, aiming at his gut, his finger tight on the trigger, his face squeezed into a frozen mask.

From across the room, though it seemed like much farther, he heard Hunaker say softly, "Ryan."

He breathed out slowly, lowered his piece. He said tightly, "When this is over, Teague, you and Strasser..." He sniffed air into his lungs, threw his head back, breathed again, this time gustily. He said, his voice less taut, "Who's the old man?"

"Old man?" Teague's voice was a broken gargle.

"Old man, old man!" snarled Ryan. "The old buzzard you called Doc."

Teague shook his head feebly.

"I dunno, Ryan. He just... appeared. One day. Came into town. Year back, maybe longer."

"Who is he, what's he do, where's he from?"

"Dunno. Dunno nothin'." The words came out fast, a panic-stricken stream. "I thought it'd be a laugh, you know, to have him around. Cort don't like him, makes him... do things. Said he was a doctor, acted real strange. Still does, goes off in a fuckin' dream, talks... I dunno, 'nother language. Long words. Some guys did somethin' to him, took him off from someplace. But he never said where, when, why. Can't understand the guy sometimes, talks to ya like he's talkin' to a buncha kids. Shit, I dunno, Ryan — that's it."

"What about this fog?"

"Oh, yeah. He's lookin' for a fog." Teague tried laughing, but then thought better of the idea. "Thass what he says, lookin' for a fog, special kind of fog. I dunno what the hell he means, Ryan. He says that on the other side life's better. He's burned out. Rads've eaten his brain away."

"Didn't look like he had the Plague to me, Teague."

"No, no. He's fit enough, yeah. Brain-fucked is all."

"Those two balls. Eggs."

"S'all he had with him, Ryan, when he came into town. Y'gotta believe me. Didn't have nothin’ else. Some kind of metal, goes crazy when you take 'em off him. Cort gets off on doin' that, takin' 'em away from him. Guy has a fuckin' fit."

Koll suddenly reappeared. His face was set.

"Nothing out back, but there are lights heading up this way."

Samantha the Panther came through the curtains.

"J.B. says..."

"Lights. Yeah." Ryan gestured at Teague. "Take him out front, where we came in."

He ran back to the entrance hallway, then up the stairs to the second story. Rintoul emerged from the shadows and pointed to a room. Ryan padded across to where J.B. was hunched against a window frame.

"Two trucks and a buggy. Could be Strasser."

Ryan peered out. The arcs were still flickering, but in their nervous illumination Ryan could see what J.B. had seen. The trucks had reached the front of the house below and were stopping, the buggy sweeping in from behind. A tall, gauntly built man, bareheaded and black garbed, emerged from the front of the buggy, followed by two sec men.

"Yeah."

Strasser was staring around, peering to the left and right as though looking for someone.

"And they don't know we're here. He's looking for the guards we iced."

Ryan rerigged the LAPA and brought out his SIG-Sauer. He sighted on the roof-mounted spotlight of the buggy and put a round into it. There was a crash of glass, a sharp metallic clang and the light went dead. Strasser jumped, his head jerking up as his hand reached at his coat.

Ryan shouted, "You're dead first, Strasser. Whatever happens."

Strasser stared upward, his skull-like face expressionless.

"Ryan. Might've guessed you'd still be loose. But what can you expect when you employ imbeciles."

J.B. muttered, "I'll go down. Get Henn and the rest. Get the door open."

Ryan called out, "You killed a lot of our people, Strasser."

The bony man shrugged but said nothing.

"Tell the trucks to beat it, and tell them not to mess up when we come out. Get your men out of the buggy."

"Why should I do that, Ryan?" Strasser's voice, like his face, was expressionless.

"We got Teague."

Strasser pursed his lips, then shrugged again and nodded slowly. He began to turn away.

"And don't move from that spot, shithead."

Strasser stood still, pointed at the trucks, began talking quickly to the two men with him. One of them went to the buggy, his voice a mutter of sound. Ryan watched as goons began climbing out of the buggy, five in all. The trucks revved up, backed off from the house and turned, disappearing down the driveway into the darkness beyond the arc lights' beams. Ryan could see their headlamps cutting into the blackness. The men who had come from the buggy began to back away from the vehicle onto the grass.

"J.B.!"

Below him he saw light spill out from the opening door and he turned and raced back across the room, into the corridor, down the stairs, the SIG still clutched in his right hand.

"Let's go."

He shoved the SIG at Teague's head, and Teague whimpered as they moved out of the house toward Strasser and the buggy.

"We go to where the Trader is, we go to where the train is, and then we go."

Strasser said, "Fortunes of war, Ryan," His hands came out in a wide-armed shrug. "So near, and yet so far. Ah, well..."

There was something wrong here, but Ryan couldn't figure out what it was. He knew Strasser. Strasser was too cool — far too cool. Then in the same moment that he saw muzzle-flash from the buggy interior, Teague's head exploded like an overripe fruit, spraying him with blood, brains and homogenized bone. The double crack of the shots came a microsecond later. Teague lurched, collapsed into him soundlessly, and the dead bulk of the man shoved him groundward, knocking the SIG from his grasp. There was another, longer, burst of fire and a crazed yell from behind, then Strasser was screaming, "Hold it!"

Ryan heaved at Teague, rolled him off, as icy phantom fingers insinuated themselves into his stomach. What a jerk-off, he thought disgustedly. Then Strasser was above him, a handgun gripped in his gloved hand, its barrel inches from Ryan Cawdor's good eye.

"Don't twitch. Shithead!"The gaunt man's voice was a crow of delight and malevolent triumph. "Thought you had an ace, hmm? Tough titty. Now you're going to be telling me about all those ingenious boobies you have." He laughed softly. Chillingly. "Jordan was redundant, Ryan. So are you."