"h.e.l.l, Ron," said Sammy, "it's urgent. Just let me use the phone, and I'll be able to pay off what I owe, and buy a drink, and then some."

"The horse won't win, Sammy," said Geronimo patiently. "They never do."

"The horse is sittin' in its freakin' stable takin' a freakin' nap," said Sammy. "I gotta make the freakin' call before the freakin' thing wakes up. Let me use the phone, Rona"please!"

Geronimo seemed to be considering it, but he never had to come to a decision. Sammy became suddenly aware of the fact that the guy with the mirrorshades was standing at his elbow, though he hadn't heard him cross the floor. The oddball laid a bill down on the counter, where Sammy and Geronimo could both see it. It wasn't a very big bill, but the guy in the shades, now he was in close-up, didn't look like a very generous man.

"You don't have to call anyone, Sammy," he said, softly. "Today, we're buying information right here. Cash on the nail."

Sammy looked hard at his own distorted reflection, and said: "What I got is worth more than that, a.s.shole. Don't waste my time."

Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth he regretted having said thema"the reason being that just as he reached the period at the end of the sentence he found himself looking down the barrel of a forty-five Magnum. He had to concede that the guy was very slick as well as very quiet.

"That's the trouble with information," said the gunman softly. "It's market price fluctuates so quickly. What you knew was worth money until ten seconds ago, but now you've told me exactly what information you have, it isn't worth a dime. Life and death, yes, but not money. Not any more. We're going to take a hike, Sammy, and you're going to show me exactly where this horse of yours is stabled."

Sammy looked away from the gun barrel, first at Geronimo and then at the other customers. His arithmetic wasn't too good but he made the count six. He knew them all, and they knew him, but he didn't know whether that was an advantage or not.

"I'll cut you in, Ron," he said, with sudden desperation. "I'll cut you all in, if you'll get this freakin a.s.shole off my back."

"No way," said Geronimo, just before the man with the mirrorshades shot him right between the eyes.

n.o.body moved a muscle.

"He wasn't going to help you," said the man in mirrorshades amiably. "I didn't have anything against him whatsoever, and I'm not a violent man by nature. Now, if that's how a non-violent man can be driven by these kinds of circ.u.mstances to treat guys about whom he is utterly indifferent, what do you think said same circ.u.mstances might lead him to do to a guy like you if you p.i.s.s him off, a.s.shole?"

Sammy opened his mouth, but no words came out.

"Of course," said the man in the white suit evenly, "it's just possible that the information which you have isn't the information I happen to be looking for. But you'd better pray that it is, Sammy, because if it isn't, I could become very annoyed with you. You wouldn't like that."

Sammy managed a faint cough. The little guy grinned, and lifted up the bar-hatch in order to let himself through. He stepped over Geronimo's body and took hold of the phone, wrenching the connection from the wall. Then he threw the instrument hard against the wall. Sammy watched it come apart, and coughed again.

"That's a fair comment, Sammy," said the man in mirrorshades. "You're absolutely righta"it's a very hot day, even without taking the unusual circ.u.mstances into account. Now, start walking. Go swiftly, and go silently to where you left the party whose whereabouts you were just about to disclose to certain other partiesa"possibly even including mine."

Sammy looked around again, but the five guys who were lefta"if five was the right numbera"were concentrating very hard on being un.o.btrusive. Sammy knew that as soon as the guy in the dark suit was gone they'd start arguing about which one of them should inherit the diner, but for the moment they were being as good as gold.

"This ain't fair," said Sammy, very faintly.

"All's fair in love and war," said the other, mildly. "And I love my work. Move ."

Sammy moved. He suspected, deep down, that there wasn't much point in moving, but he moved anyway. It was funny, in a way. He'd more than once been watching TV in this very diner, with some of those very guys who were watching him now, when some stupid old cop show would come on, and you'd see some shark taking a sap for a ride, and the shark would tell the sap to move and the sap would move; and Sammy had always thoughta"and often said out louda"what a freakin' stupid thing it was for the guy who'd been told to move actually to move, when he had to know, deep down, that he was going to get it anyway. He'd never understood why the stupes did what they were told, when they knew they were going to get it anyway.

Funnily enough, he still didn't.

It did cross his mind to stop again, and to say: "You're going to kill me anyhow, so it might as well be now." But cross his mind was all it did. Somehow, he couldn't hold on to the thought long enough to turn it into an intention. The only thought he could actually cling on to was the ridiculously hopeful one that somewhere between the diner that was under new management and the place where Kid Zero had holed out in order to catch up on his beauty sleep, some miracle would occur which would turn things right around. He knew how stupid it was to think that, but he just couldn't kill the hope, and while he couldn't kill the hope he couldn't do the brave and n.o.ble thing which his intelligencea"such as it wasa"told him he might as well do anyway.

So he walked, as quickly and as quietly as he could, towards the place where he'd made the mistake of thinking he'd got lucky, when in fact he'd got very, very unlucky.

He wondered whether he might pa.s.s the time by suggesting to his captor that Kid Zero was one h.e.l.l of a fighter, and would kill him as sure as eggs were eggs, but he didn't think the guy in the mirrorshades would take this advice very seriously. He had become very wary of upsetting the guy in the mirrorshades any more than he had already upset him, although he knew that matters of degree were unlikely to be important.

Had he been a philosopher, or even a psychologist, Sammy Ulinski might have been very interested by the peculiar state of mind in which he found himself, now that he was staring death in the face, but he wasn't. He was only a guy who couldn't count to six with any certainty, and he was scared s.h.i.tless.

On the way in, the distance between Kid Zero's hideout and the diner hadn't seemed so very far. It was way out on the edge of town, but Melendez wasn't a very big town. On the way back, though, the trek seemed endless, exhausting and extremely stressful. The night was dark but it was still hot, and to Sammy it seemed that it was hotter by far than the place which lay at the further end of the road paved with good intentions. When he glanced behind him he saw that the little guy's mirrorshades were now glowing green, like a cat's eyesa"which told him that they weren't really shades at all, but some kind of gizmo.

Sammy didn't even know why the Kid was wanted; he was going to die without even knowing why. Absurdly, he couldn't even remember where he'd heard the buzz that the Kid was wanted. It had gone out on the wind, taking wing the way rumours always did. Melendez was the back end of nowhere, but rumours had no trouble getting there. If there was a sandrat between Amarillo and Albuquerque who hadn't heard that the Kid was in the territory and was wanted bad, he was probably deaf.

"As a matter of interest," said the gunman softly, as they walked through the empty streets, "Who were you going to phone?"

"I got contacts," said Sammy. "Honest brokers, who'd have seen me right."

"Some two-bit Op," said the guy in mirrorshades. "Not the heroic kind, I presumea"he'd just run the message on, to anybody and everybody."

"He'll get it anyhow," Sammy pointed out "Those guys in the diner can put two and two together just like you can."

"Yeah," said the gunman, with a throaty chuckle, "but they can't mend a cable as easily as I can break one. Anyway, my friend will keep an eye on them, to make sure they don't get hurt by running around in the dark."

"What friend?" asked Sammy. "I never saw no friend."

"You think I came out here without a driver, Sammy? You think I'm some kind of comedian? The family is strung out all over the freakin' plains, but we don't spread out that thin. You saw nothing because your eyes were still bugged out by the sight of Kid Zero's bike homing in on one of his little rest stops. What a freakin' hole this is, hey? Now I understand why we gave Nevada back to the aborigines and retired east of the Mississippi."

It was Sammy's homeland that the guy in mirrorshades was insulting, but Sammy wasn't patriotic enough to leap to its defence. Privately, he thought that it was a bit of a dump himself, and he'd have moved out long ago if he'd had anywhere to go.

"It better be the Kid," muttered the sweating gunman, when they'd gone a couple of blocks further. "If you've dragged me out here for some punk biker who's lost his gang I'll be annoyed with you."

"I know what Kid Zero looks like," Sammy a.s.sured him. "I watch Homer Hegarty all the time."

"A real public servant, Mr Hegarty," said the man in mirrorshades. "If I ever find his freakin' cameras zooming in on my face I'll blow the sucker away. But it's nice that everyone can recognize the Kid. Even in the desert, he can't hide."

Sammy realized that the Kid must know that. He must know that everybody was on his tail, and that he couldn't hide. He must know that his hours were numbered and there was no way in the world he could get away.

You and me both, Kid, thought Sammy. You and me both.

He came to a junction, and stopped. He pointed down a street which went all the way to the wilderness.

"Number thirty-three," he muttered. "The Kid is hiding out in number thirty-three. I saw him. You can see the numbers, can't you? Those trick gla.s.sesa"

"Keep going," said the gunman, impatiently interrupting him. "Quick and quiet."

"If you shoot me now," Sammy pointed out, having suffered a sudden and highly unusual attack of rationality, "you'll wake the Kid. Let me go, and you have a clear run at him."

"Keep going," said the gunman, raising the Magnum in order to stick it in Sammy's face. "Or else I'll have to take time out to be very unpleasant to you."

"From here," Sammy said, in a stubbornly logical way that was altogether foreign to his nature, "the Kid can hear my screams."

The little man in the mirrorshades kneed Sammy in the groin and smacked him just below the diaphragm with the stiffened fingers of his free hand.

As Sammy went down he tried as hard as he could to scream, but there was no breath left in his lungsa"and when he finally felt able to suck in a little more air he found that there was already a hand at his throat, squeezing gently. The whole world turned upside-down, so that when he fell he seemed to be falling up rather than downa"but he hit the ground just as hard.

While Sammy was writhing on the ground, somewhat disoriented by his many discomforts, the guy stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth, and then sealed it in with thick black tape. This made it very difficult for Sammy to sob while he wept, but he did the best he could.

Several minutes pa.s.sed before Sammy could stand up again, and the man in green-glowing mirrorshades seemed to feel that his patience was being unjustly tried. Sammy couldn't muster the least hint of resistance when he was finally hauled up out of the dirt.

"Number thirty-three," said the man in mirrorshades. "You'd better be telling me the truth, Sammy, because you are right out of moral credit with this particular bank. Move!"

Sammy moved. Even though it made no sense to do so, he moved. Even though he knew full well that he was going to get it anyway, he moved. He moved to the door of number thirty-three, and he went inside. The man in the funny looking mirrorshades came in behind him.

As they went in, Sammy founda"much to his own amazementa"that his thoughts were still chock-a-block with hope. He could find room in his tiny mind for only one ideaa"the idea that the Kid might somehow be up and about, ready to ambush the man who had come to get him.

He knew, even while he retained this brief and temporary obsession, how absurd that hope must bea"but even so, he was mortally offended by the appalling injustice of it all when the Kid's pet rattler sank its teeth into his leg.

4.

When the last of the pattern mines had been laid down and the smoke-cylinders were empty, Carl did a quick count of their remaining pursuers. He made it forty-three. With the sneaker in its current beat-up condition that was about thirty too many. Most of them were still running beside the road rather than on it, just in case he'd cleverly saved a little surprise package for them, but they were being too complimentary. "How long?" he asked Pasco.

"Thirty minutes," Pasco told him. That was the ETA of the monoplanea"the whirlybirds carrying the heavy artillery would be a further twenty minutes behind.

Something under the hood was making ominous noises, as though the engine were grinding its teeth in chagrin. Carl couldn't blame it; his own jaws were set very tightly.

"We got enough guts for one pa.s.s," said Carl grimly, "but with the shield out we're going to have to duck down real low, and we're going to have to shoot off everything we can from the remaining fixtures. Then we have to make a run with the portable four-point-twos and all the ammo we can carry. But we have to find a hidey-hole, or they'll ride us down."

"It's as flat as a freakin' pancake out there," muttered Pasco. "We should have brought a freakin' tank."

Neither observation was particularly helpful. They had brought a vehicle built for speed rather than siege because they wanted to move quickly; they hadn't antic.i.p.ated that they would have to fight a running war. Carl refrained from pointing out that they might still be okay if Pasco hadn't taken it into his head to drive the Atlas Boys into a frenzy.

Carl screwed up his eyes, trying to see some place that might be defensible, but the darkness was too deep. The absence of a windshield made it a little easier to see, and the stars were as bright and clear as they always were out here on the desert's edge, but the moon was as thin as a cutting from a fingernail, and it wasn't easy to guess what might be set back from the road. The sim was a better guide, though it wasn't easy to read its off-road signals while they were travelling at speed.

"Near side," said Pasco suddenly. "Abandoned gas-station."

Carl looked across as swiftly as he could, and saw the headlights sweep past the edge of the old forecourt. There was no way to know whether the shadowed buildings were wood or stone, but the engine was telling him loudly mid clearly that they had to take the chance. He went past and started counting off the distance.

He checked the radar and saw to his relief that the bikers were beginning to bunch again, and had come back on to the blacktop in order to make up distance. He steadied himself, knowing that he mustn't turn too soon, and switched off the lights.

"Coming up," he said to Pasco, when the moment approached. "Hang on tight."

They were both tightly-belted but Carl saw Pasco put out a hand lo brace himself against the dashboard. He hauled the wheel over to the left as hard as it would go, and stamped the brake-pedal. He knew that if the U was too tight the sneaker might turn over, but if it was too shallow they would be off the road and maybe skidding in dust. He gritted his teeth as the vehicle lurched, the engine's sullen mutter of pain becoming a screech of agonya"but then they were round, and heading back towards the pursuing shoal of bikes.

Without the evidence of his headlights the bikers couldn't know for sure that he'd turned, but the seasoned fighters among them weren't fools. The shoal was already thinning again, spreading out across a much broader front. Carl punched the b.u.t.tons controlling the unfired missile-pods as fast as he could, then brought both hands back to the wheel while Pasco started the last of the functional machine-guns firing. There was no time for aiminga"the objective was simply to loose off as much ammunition as possible during the pa.s.s, hoping to take out as many of the bikes and riders as chance might permit.

The enemy four-point-twos opened up too, but their fire was far from being concentrated, and Carl didn't duck so low that he couldn't look over the jagged rim which the imploded windshield had left in its slot.

Carl went off the road long before they were due to hit the gas-station again, and switched his lights back on momentarily to check the position of the buildings. The lights showed him a couple of dark-riding bikes; he managed to side-swipe one of them, though the other sent half a dozen bullets into the cab which embedded themselves in the doors of the storage-lockers.

A glance at the simulator showed him that all was confusion. He was through the shoal again, and the bikers were scattereda"only half were turning as yet, and it would take several minutes for their general to get them organized into any sort of attack-force.

Carl brought the sneaker to a halt in front of the gas-station's main building, unclipped his belt, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the light machine-gun which Pasco was holding out to him. He kicked the door and dived out, keeping low as he scuttled around the car, then through the empty doorway and into the dark interior of the abandoned building. Pasco, who had been on the more convenient side, had paused to hurl some other objects into the darkness, and Carl was inside ahead of him.

"Cover the door," said the ex-Op tersely, as he followed. "I'll check the place out." One of the objects Pasco had salvaged was a big flashlight, which he now took up and played around the room. The place was a mess, having long ago been pulverized by vandals, but the walls were brick.

Carl remained by the doorway, peering out over the roof of the sneaker, looking northwards. That was the direction from which the bikes would come, if they came precipitately. But they didn't come; indeed, the distant roar of their engines became gradually more muted as they rallied to their point man, who was still showing his lights. The Atlas Boys sure as h.e.l.l weren't intellectual giants, but they knew enough to take a break when they had their enemy cornered.

Carl checked his watch; the illuminated display told him that they had twenty minutes and more to hold out before the monoplane arrived. Even then, the siege wouldn't be lifted. The plane's guns might take some of the heat off, but the fight wouldn't be winnable until the birds arrived with their chainguns and heavy lasers, and their cargo of mercy boys.

There was a sudden chatter of machine-gun firea"not from outside but from the back of the building. Carl tensed anxiously, knowing that it was almost certainly Pasco who had fired, but knowing that almost wasn't quite good enough. As soon as the gun was quiet he yelled: "Ray!"

"Okay, Carl," shouted Pasco. "Just a couple of sandrats making free with the facilities. Better get out herea"downstairs is too full of holes, but there's a way up to the roof. Once we're up we're in Fort Apache."

Carl immediately did as he was told. He'd already observed that there were too many empty windows, and too much darkness outsidea"but the station had a flat roof and might also have a parapet. That was the place to be, in order to fight off bikers.

Pasco's way up wasn't exactly a staircase, but that was all to the good. He crouched down so the big man could stand on his back and batter a way through the trapdoor; it only took a few seconds, but Pasco's weight left him sore anyhow. Pasco had no difficulty pulling himself up and through once the breach was made, and then Carl began handing up to him the weapons and other equipment he'd brought from the sneaker. Apart from the flashlights and the cases of ammunition there was a radio with which he could talk to the pilots when help finally arrived.

The most difficult bit was getting Carl up once everything else had been pa.s.sed through, but Pasco lay down flat and lowered his long arms. Not many men could have lifted a person of Carl's size that waya"not even the lousy eighteen inches which separated the extremity of Carl's reach from the edge of the trapa"but Pasco was strong enough to do it. Once Carl had a secure grip, though, the Sec Div man left him to scramble up as best he could. Once Carl was through he looked around for something he could use to plug up the hole, but there was nothing solid enough to make a real barricade. It was just one more potential source of danger.

But the flat roof did have a low parapet, at least on three sides, and there was no easy way up the outside of the building.

The bikes were silent now, and there was not a single headlight to be seen. Carl checked his watch again. There was still more than fifteen minutes to go before the plane arrived.

"Must be thirty or thirty-five of them," said Carl, "unless we got very lucky. They'll surround us, I guess. Some of the bikes will have twenty millimetre grenade-throwersa"a few will have RAGs. We don't want them to get too close."

"You take the front and the north side," said Pasco hoa.r.s.ely. "I'll take the back and the south. Shoot at anything that moves. Even in this light they can't get too close without being heard or seen."

Carl didn't dispute the posting. It would mean that he'd be facing the direction from which the enemy would initially be coming, but that was offset by the fact that Pasco had to defend the rear edge of the roof, which had no parapet at all to hide behind. He took up his machine-gun, and Pasco divided up the ammunition. Carl's share was more than could be comfortably carried, but he knew that it wouldn't last long once he started blazing away. The four-point-two was a very greedy beast indeed.

He took up a position in the corner, lying p.r.o.ne and resting on his elbows. That allowed him to peep over the parapet readily enough, but he knew that he couldn't fire properly from that position. He hoped that the bikers would take their time, thinking that they had all night to plan their action, but this hope was quickly dashed. Charlie Atlas knew the score, and knew that Pasco had enough seniority to call out a full squadron of gangbusters.

It was next to impossible to see anything out in the darkness, but the dismounted bikers were wearing heavy boots, and were unable to tread too carefully while carrying the weapons they'd unbolted from their bikes. The sounds of their approach were confusing, but Carl was able to judge that they were already too close for comfort. He came up into a crouch and began firing, drawing the barrel of the gun in a slow, wide arc. The moment he began shooting the muzzle-flashes from his gun gave his position away, so he moved quickly to the right, then jinked back to the left. He would have ducked back down again, but the returning fire gave him the same opportunity to spot his enemies and aim at their positions. He compromised, trying to fix their positions in his memory as he dived for cover, then coming up to the edge of the parapet very briefly to squeeze off a few hopeful bullets before scrambling to a new position and trying again.

He repeated this manoeuvre half a dozen times before the first grenade landed on the roof seven feet away, giving him just time to flatten out before it discharged. He heard Pasco cursing volubly just before the explosion, but the bang was loud enough to leave his ears numb and ringing, so that he heard no more for several secondsa"and when his hearing cleared again, Pasco had stopped swearing and was shouting urgent demands into the radio. Carl didn't dare look at his watch, but he knew that there were still ten minutes to go until the plane could sow a little panic among the enemy ranks.

He moved well away from the corner before popping up again, and this time was able to see the sparking of a machine-gun quite clearly before he aimed his own weapon. He knew that the bikers had little or no cover, and was sure that he had hit the mana"but it wasn't the machine-gunners who were the dangerous ones. More grenades were hitting the roof now, and though the launchers were almost as unreliable when firing from the ground as they were when firing from a bike there really wasn't much of a problem for the firers to solve. Anything which landed on the roof was a hit of sorts, and it was only a matter of time before Carl or Pasco was hurt. The grenades weren't very big, and the bikers probably had no more than four of five each, but they posed one h.e.l.l of a problem while the minutes were laboriously ticking away.

Carl knew that he had to take a risk. He got as close to the parapet as he could, then came up into a squat and launched off a long, sustained burst of fire, raking the area wherea"according to logica"the grenadiers should have positioned themselves. Even when the returning fire began to rattle off the parapet he stayed up, and he didn't flatten himself until the clip ran out. He had to wriggle along snakewise then, in order to get a replacement clip, and it was lucky that he did, because the next grenade had perfect direction even if it didn't have the rangea"it landed no more than three feet away from where he'd been only seconds before, and he felt the shockwave plucking at his jacket while he pressed himself into the comforting fabric of the roof. Mercifully, the grenades were designed to send most of their fire and force upwards, on the a.s.sumption that they'd be lying in the road and spitting death at enemies riding over them; had they spread their shrapnel out sideways Carl and Pasco would have been more imperilled than they were.

Carl came up again as soon as he had the new clip fitted, and again he took the risk of sending forth a long, sustained burst of fire, only ducking down again when he felt a bullet pluck at his sleeve. The wound bled and stung, but it wasn't deep and it didn't stop him holding the juddering gun steady. He'd almost exhausted the clip in the one burst, and he took up another before popping up to empty it. Again he had to wriggle away, and again the grenade which might have killed him arrived a couple of seconds too late to catch him on the spot.

Then it went quiet.

Carl hoped desperately, but couldn't bring himself to believe, that they'd run out of grenades, or confidence, or both. What he and Pasco needed was for Charlie Atlasa"or, even better, some newly-elevated stand-ina"to call a long council-of-war, during which there would be much careful argument as to what to do next.

He checked his watch. Seven minutes to go. He couldn't believe it. It was as if time had decided to put in an extra second in every five, just to prolong his agony.

He looked across the roof, trying to see where Pasco was. It was too dark, and the big man was lying too close to the parapet on the south-facing wall.

"I think their lead men are inside," he said, keeping his voice as low as he could while still being certain that he was audible. "We have to cover the trapdoor as well as the sand."