“You might get chilled in here,” the woman replied, a touch of anger distorting her words. “It’s just a question of my blasters, or the nuking rain. I got no reason to ace you, but then, I also got no reason to trust you. But tell you what. We’ll shoot you if you like, and save getting melted from the chems.”
There came a bitter laugh. “Okay, here’s a new deal. We know where Gaza is. Fair trade. A ride for the info.”
“Mutie crap. The baron is chilled,” Jake said, but there was a trace of doubt in his face. “Gotta be. Look at that fucking wag!”
“If he was inside,” Kate said, then raised the hand comm to her mouth and pressed the transmit switch. “Deal sounds okay, but too many riding along. I only need one of you to talk.”
“Nobody talks unless we all go,” he stated firmly, the rain audible in the background. Somebody was coughing hard from the stink of the polluted water. “The deal is everybody rides, or nobody.”
“You a family?”
“Close enough,” Ryan stated.
Part of her ability to trade with barons and civies was the talent to tell a fucking lie from a masked truth. Kate could hear in his voice that he considered this the truth. That didn’t mean it was—he could be insane—but she wasn’t getting that read off the man, and made her decision.
“Okay, drop your blasters and come in, one at a time,” Kate said. “Anybody gets fancy and my troops will cut you down.”
“The dog has no teeth,” he countered. “We keep the blasters and come in together.”
“Then you don’t come in!”
“Then you don’t get Gaza!”
There was a long pause as the rain water slowly rose, the salty mix a murky white like pus flowing from an infected wound.
“Okay, final chance,” Kate growled into the hand comm. “You come in with the iron, but take it off once inside. But keep your knives. That’s as good as it gets. Take it or leave it.”
“And how do I know we can trust you?”
About time he asked that. “Fair enough,” she said, and released the transmit switch. “Jake, give them the lights.”
The driver adjusted the controls and on the outside hull of the war wag brilliant electric lights came on illuminating the sides of the huge rig. Covered by several layers of clear acrylic paint salvaged from an auto body shop, was the carefully painted symbol of a lightning bolt slashing across a star.
“If you know anything, that says everything,” she stated. “The word of the Trader is jack in every ville for a thousand miles along the New Mex and Panhandle.”
“Yes, it is,” Ryan said. “Deal. We’re coming in.”
“Use the back door,” Kate added, and turned the radio off.
“Think we can trust them, Chief?” Blackjack asked, turning from the machine gun blister.
“I don’t trust anybody,” she said, tucking the hand comm away and pulling out the Ingram to check the ammo clip. “Have armed guards meet them in the washroom, and if they cause us any trouble, blow them to hell.”
Chapter Twenty
Sloshing through the foul water, the companions walked to the aft end of the imposing war wag. A door was already open there, bright lights showing from inside. The last to trundle into a small steel lined room, Ryan closed the door and the companions drew in their first deep breath since the deluge had started.
“Now what?” Dean asked, the foggy plastic sheets dripping yellow water onto the stainless steel floor.
“Use the hose,” a voice said gruffly through a grille in the only other door. The stubby barrel of a rapidfire showed through the opening, pointing their way. “Then hang the ponchos on the wall and dump your blasters in the iron box in the corner.”
Dutifully, the companions rinsed themselves, the faint yellow water swirling into a drain in the middle of the floor. The original Trader had used something similar for folks set on fire from Molotov cocktails and the like.
When they were clean, the air smelled even better and it was much easier to breathe. Shaking out the plastic shower curtains, they hung them on the steel hooks welded to the wall and let them drip directly onto the floor.