It took only a few minutes to check the perimeter of the parking lot before the men returned, giving the all-clear signal.

"Great! Let's check for loot, boys." Benson beamed happily.

"But what about the muties?" a nervous private asked. "Shouldn't we be inside?"

"Not going back to the ville before we find Harold," the sergeant admonished. "Besides, between the searchlights and our lanterns, no mutie is coming anywhere near this spot."

That sounded acceptable, and the men spread out, hunting for anything usable.

"Hey, Sarge!" the private called out from near the smoking cha.s.sis of a destroyed Mack truck. "Some of this stuff isn't burned much."

"Anything good?" the sergeant asked, walking closer, his boots crunching on the packed sand. With the lanterns behind him, his legs cast long shadows across the parking lot.

"Don't know. What's an MRE?" The sec man tried to open the foil pack and started to turn red from the effort. There were directions clearly printed on the package, but the squiggles were meaningless to the man.

Keeping a careful watch on the sky, the two sec men proceeded to the library while the driver kicked over the white-haired corpse in a weird coat. The man's shirt was covered with so much blood it was impossible to tell if it was his or came from the other fellow. "These must be the last of those jolt dealers the muties aced," the driver theorized. "They came out of hiding to reclaim their stuff and kilt each other."

"Good." A toothless sec man laughed happily, rattling the library doors. There was no sound from inside. "More for us."

The foil finally ripped apart, spilling out an a.s.sortment of smaller packs and pouches. "Hey!" the man cried in delight. "These are food packs!"

"h.e.l.l, no wonder they fought," the driver commented. "Let's see what else they got on them."

Fred rubbed his chin. "Mebbe a little jolt?" "Could be." The driver grinned, bending over the old man when there was a sharp metallic click. The driver recoiled just before his chest exploded, and he flew backward to slam into the pickup with a hole the size of a dinner plate in his torso.

"Sumb.i.t.c.h!" Benson cursed, clawing for his blaster.

But the other corpse rolled over, firing a squat machine gun from a p.r.o.ne position. The sec men near the library died on the spot. The sergeant drew his pistol and got off a wild shot before the LeMat removed his head in a grisly spray of bones, brains and blood.

The last sec man jumped over the low stone wall and took off for his life. Stumbling after him, J.B. and Doc both fired their blasters, but the nimble man disappeared into the ruins.

"Bed.a.m.ned, we are shaky," Doc rumbled, clumsily reloading his blaster.

"Just be glad we're still alive," J.B. panted, leaning against the library wall. He was exhausted from the minor exertion. "When I saw those stupes going for the library, I almost shot them right there."

"They were not a good pattern yet."

"I know. That's why I waited."

Finished reloading, Doc holstered his piece and took a lantern from the pickup. Hurrying over to the library, he lifted it to a window. Instantly, there was a rustling of bodies and the snapping of wings. He ducked quickly and a juicy gob flew across the lot.

"Our guests seem most perturbed by imprisonment," Doc stated, closing his eyes until a wave of dizziness pa.s.sed. "Perhaps we should amend the terms of their captivity."

"Too dangerous to shoot them through the windows," J.B. said claiming his rumpled hat from where it had dropped. He winced from the pain in his pulsating arm as he beat the dust off the fedora, then reset the crown and brim. "That bat venom is bad news, and they spit way too accurately for my taste."

"And mine, sir." Moving about, Doc found his sword and ebony cane. "Think there is enough fuel in the-well, let's be polite and call it a vehicle-to burn them to death?"

Forcing himself to keep standing, J.B. donned the hat, then tilted it an inch to the proper angle. Dressed again, the man felt more like his old self. "No way, even if the tank was full."

"How inconvenient," Doc commented, glancing at the skysc.r.a.per rising about the ruins. The upper levels were lost in the distance of the nighttime sky. "And I can only postulate that we did indeed capture them all, or else we would be long dead and eaten while we were unconscious."

"Screw them. Let's blow," J.B. said, shivering slightly. "It's colder than a baron's witch out here, and I'm starving."

Doc slid off his frock coat and it was gratefully accepted. "I shall fix the flat tire on the Hummer while you shop among the trucks for undamaged MRE packs. It will be warmer than the exposed street."

"Okay, by me," J.B. chattered, b.u.t.toning the garment shut. Lying on the sand, he had been warmed bythe stored heat from the day. Standing, the desert winds took it away, chilling him to the bone. Hadn't been this cold since the Zarks. "Just hurry, okay?"

"I shall endeavor to do so, sir," Doc replied. As he rounded the corner, he leaned heavily on his cane, the lantern held high to light the way.

Watching where he stepped, J.B. poked though the glowing rubble, gathering items and stuffing them into the voluminous pockets of the coat. Actually, Doc had been correct; it was a lot warmer here amid the twisted metal, and the Armorer felt better with each pa.s.sing minute. Whatever the toxin was the bats made, it clearly wasn't lethal. Maybe just knocked a victim out so the muties could feed at their leisure.

Grisly thought.

Several minutes later, Doc drove the Hummer alongside the ruined trucks, and J.B. stumbled inside, the frock coat bulging.

"Ah, thanks." He sighed, rubbing his hands before the vent. The military heater was turned on full force, sending out waves of h.e.l.lishly hot air. "Feels wonderful."

"My own pleasure," Doc said, starting to drive, both hands streaked with grease, a knuckle bleeding slightly. "If I owned a bra.s.s monkey, it would now be singing soprano."

J.B. laughed. "Good one."

"Find anything?"

Feeling the numbness leave his cheeks, J.B. patted the bulging coat. "A few souvenirs, and enough food to keep us going for a week."

"Excellent. Now our top priority is to get inside and get you outside something hot."

"Sounds good." With fumbling fingers, the Armorer snapped the window shut just as there came the faint sound of blasterfire.

Immediately, Doc killed the lights and slowed the Hummer. "That was close by. Could it be our escaped sec man?"

"Wrong caliber. He had a .38, those were smoothbore muzzle-loaders."

"Perhaps additional people being herded into the tunnel by wolves," Doc suggested, as if not believing the notion himself. He sucked on the cracked knuckle and flexed his hand.

"Or Krysty and Ryan leaving in a hurry," J.B. countered. "We better go check, just in case."

The noises came again. A machine gun chattered, the dull thud of a gren, and one of the searchlight beams disappeared.

"That's them," J.B. said, hauling the Uzi into view. "Go!"

Shifting gears, Doc stomped on the gas, and the Hummer peeled away from the curb, leaving billowing dust clouds in its wake.

Chapter Eighteen

A hand reached around the sagging door frame of the wooden barrier closing off the front of the tunnel and blindly fired a blaster three times. The shots zinged off the tiled ceiling and into the distance.

"Now," Ryan snapped, kneeling behind some garbage and carefully aiming the Steyr SSG-70.

Krysty cried out in pain and fell to the tunnel floor. After a few moments, a sec man peeked around the door and Ryan blew away a chunk of his temple. The body collapsed onto the sandy ground, his rusty blaster rolling out of sight. Unseen hands dragged the corpse out of the doorway. Once again, all that could be seen through the sagging door in the barrier was a waist-high sandbag wall and the ruins beyond.

"That's two down," the woman said, getting back up. "How many were there to start, four or six?"

"Don't recall," Ryan growled, firing at the left side of the barrier. The 7.62 mm round slammed into the wood, but didn't penetrate.

"Fireblast," he cursed. "d.a.m.n thing is made out of different kinds of planks. Sometimes I get through- most often I don't."

Glancing over a shoulder, Krysty noted the tiny specks of lantern light were a lot closer. She sprayed a few bursts at them, but got no answering cry of pain. d.a.m.n sec men had to have the lanterns hanging from the ends of sticks or something. No way she could target the guards.

"Range?" Ryan asked, the Steyr held loosely in his grip, his single eye wide for any indication of the guards.

"Too d.a.m.n close," she replied, trying the MAC-11. The hissing autofire hosed a full clip down the tunnel with no results.

High up on the frame, a shiny square edged past the door, and Ryan shattered the mirror, a finger dropping to the ground. A stream of curses sounded and again several revolvers popped into view, firing wildly.

Ryan shot a blaster out of its owner's grip, the weapon spinning away over the sandbags. Then Krysty gave a spray from the noisy Skorpion. Lacking a suppressor, its bullets. .h.i.t harder, blowing chunks of wood from the frame, leaving cl.u.s.ters of splinters sticking out.

Shifting the med kit on her back, Krysty mentally wished she hadn't thrown away the dead gren. It would have bought them seconds of shock when they were forced to rush the doorway. Caught between an unknown number of armed sec men behind, and only a few ahead of them, a frontal charge was the logical way out. At least the ville guards were on foot. None of their wags had gotten past the burning APC. Yet.

Easing a fresh clip into the Steyr, Ryan fired randomly at the barrier, but only two holes showed daylight and n.o.body shouted in pain.

Just then, shots boomed from down the tunnel, and a miniball impacted on the ground between them.

"s.h.i.t, they can see our silhouettes," Krysty spit, crouching lower and firing back. This time, she got a hit,but it was only a single voice.

"And they have our range. This is it. We got to chance a charge," Ryan said, rising and drawing his SIG-Sauer. "You ready?"

Standing, Krysty worked the bolts on both of her weapons. "See you in h.e.l.l, lover."

For a precious second, the man and woman exchanged private glances, then started to creep forward, but froze motionless when a long sharp whistle sounded from outside, closely followed by two more.

Separating to the opposite sides of the tunnel, Krysty crossed her arms at the wrists and aimed her blasters in both directions as Ryan chanced an answering whistle. A guttural voice on the other side of the barrier asked a question to somebody in the negative just as the wooden slats furiously shook from a barrage of machine-gun fire and the telltale discharge of the predark LeMat. Men screamed, handblasters discharging from their death convulsions. Bodies fell into view. The Uzi chattered once more, followed by another thundering round from the LeMat, then silence.

Whistling again, Ryan got an answer. Exiting the tunnel, the companions relaxed a notch as J.B. and Doc walked from the idling Hummer parked near a curb. But the smiles on the two men quickly faded when they saw the serious expressions on the man and woman.

"You folks okay?" J.B. asked in concern, cradling the Uzi.

"Gaia, no," Krysty replied, scrambling over the sandbag wall. "We have an army on our tail."

"Then we must leave, posthaste!" Doc said, waving away the tendrils of smoke from the muzzle of his black-powder hog-leg.

Shouldering his rifle, Ryan snarled, "f.u.c.k that. Got any grens, or plas-ex?"

"Not a thing. Used it all killing the muties," J.B. said. "Even our one LAW is gone."

"How about spare fuel?"

Seeing where the man was going, J.B. got the idea. "No, but we have two alcohol lanterns we took from some sec men. That should do the job."

"Get them. You two, block the doorway," Ryan ordered, going for the Hummer.

Moving fast, Krysty and Doc holstered their weapons and started tossing sandbags from the wall in front of the open doorway until the stack was chest high. J.B. and Ryan returned at a run, lit the wicks on the lanterns and threw them onto the barrier. The lanterns crashed high on the wooden half circle of the tunnel's mouth, the flaming alcohol flowing down the planks and spreading until the entire front was crackling and smoking.

"That won't hold the baron's men for very long," J.B. stated.

"Not supposed to," Ryan said, blinking in the pale daylight. Rumbling with thunder, the dirty clouds were low in the sky and a lot darker in color. Lightning flashed, and the winds increased slightly. The storm that had been threatening to break ever since they first arrived was now only hours away. Acid rain or a sandstorm, either could be an advantage if handled correctly. "Please elucidate, sir," Doc asked, confused.

"I only wanted the fire to get rid of the wood," Ryan said, heading for the Hummer and climbing behind the wheel. The engine caught the first time. "Now let's get the h.e.l.l out of here, so we can come back and finish this."

"To fight an army?" Krysty asked, dropping the med kit on the floorboards as she took the pa.s.senger seat.

Making room for Doc in the back, J.B. was smiling, as if he already knew the answer and highly approved.

"h.e.l.l no," Ryan stated, driving away. "We're going to stop the baron's army. With one shot."

THE BURNING BARRIER smashed apart, the smoking timbers tumbling to the ground as a bulldozer effortlessly plowed through. Right behind the rattling predark machine were a hundred sec men with blasters, then a dozen carts full of supplies. The dozer plowed the front of the tunnel clear of planks, sandbags and corpses as the sec force spread out, immediately setting up defensive posts and starting a perimeter sweep for enemies. A few carried muzzle-loaders, but the rest sported autofires, loot from the baron's private armory mixed with the fancy blasters recovered from the dead jolt dealers.

Cradling M-16 submachine guns, the Wolf Pack marched into view followed by a sky-blue Cadillac convertible with the top down. Leonard was standing in the pa.s.senger's seat holding on to the windshield. His longish hair was now a crew cut, and the teenager was dressed in a black jumpsuit, with leather bandoliers full of ammo crisscrossing his chest. A silver Desert Eagle rode at his right hip, and a Navy flare gun rested in a shoulder holster.

The driver was a grizzled man with an unhealed gash across his face from the destruction of the greenhouses. A sawed-off shotgun lay on top of the dashboard before him, his shirt pocket jammed with homemade sh.e.l.ls.

The crowd of sec men moved out of the way for the Caddy, and it stopped in the middle of the access ramp for the tunnel.

"Sergeant," Leonard yelled, indicating a soldier, "have the men establish a perimeter, then recce the local buildings for snipers. I want a safety zone of two full blocks. A storm is coming, and I want that b.i.t.c.h and her friend found before it hits."

"Sir!"

Leonard watched the activity bustling around him as more wags rolled out of the tunnel. The trap with the APC had been extremely clever, but failed. The tunnel was severely weakened there, and the river was steadily trickling in, but the predark storm drains easily handled the flow and diverted the water...well, someplace else. He didn't know or care where as long as the underground pa.s.sageway stayed clear for his sec men. Timbers hoisted by car jacks reinforced the ceiling, making a maze for the wags to carefully maneuver through. But it worked. They were here and ready for a fight.

"Establish camp here, Captain," Leonard commanded. "We can retire at night inside the tunnel in case of muties." "Or a storm," the driver added, listening to the angry sky.

"Is that a good idea, Lieuten-? Baron?" Captain Zanders asked, running an uncomfortable finger along the interior of the collar of his new uniform. Anton Zanders an officer-his mother would have died with pride. "Shouldn't we make camp inside the sports arena or the high school? They're both in good shape.

Gives us lots of room to maneuver."

The young baron stared hard at the grizzled veteran until he felt flush with unease.

"Safety first, Captain. But thank you for the opinion," Leonard said with surprising gentleness. "My father had favorites among the troops whom he would promote out of friendship. I do not. That idiot officer in charge of tunnel defense was the first man I sent to the farmers."

"Sent to till the farms, you mean, sir," the captain offered as a correction.

Looking over the men, the youth said nothing in reply.