Testing a bottle, J.B. found the beer on the card table was still cold, and each man took a refreshing swig. Then, stepping out of the office, they began a security sweep of the place. J.B. and Ryan encountered five more sec men who quickly surrendered to their ready blasters, and died anyway. The companions moved on with ugly expressions. Chilling somebody who had given up was a hard task, but there could be no prisoners or quarter given on this night. Their job was extermination; nothing less would do.
But each man looked a little older as he finished the security sweep, and neither spoke, their minds focused on the completion of the job at hand and nothing more.
Going around the blazing furnaces, the companions found a group of people shoveling chunks of coal from huge bins and tossing them directly into the open hearth of the furnaces. They were bare-chested and covered with soot and sweat. Ryan almost lowered his blaster to set them free when he noticed how well fed they were, and with no whip marks on their muscular shoulders.
“Blues!” J.B. cursed and cut loose with the Uzi submachine gun, sending a wreath of 9 mm lead into the workers. The chattering of his blaster was barely discernible over the noise of the boilers and the pistons.
Half the sec men died on the spot, while the rest dived for their weapons as Ryan emptied the Kalash-nikov at them. Most dropped, but a 7.62 mm round zinged off a thick shovel blade, and the snarling trooper managed to reach onto a shelf and grab a handcannon. Ryan aimed high, while J.B. swept the sec man’s legs with the Uzi, the mixed assault peppering the man and tearing him apart.
Freed from the necessity of silence, the companions strode through the building shooting freely, chilling everybody they saw until the power plant was a morgue full of the dead and the dying.
Returning to the first boiler, Ryan stood guard while J.B. extracted a huge plas charge and placed it directly under a main steam pipe and set the double pencils. He couldn’t place the plas directly on the pipe or the mounting heat would soften the stuff until it liquefied and dribbled off. But with this much explosives, a few feet of distance wouldn’t make any real difference. When it ignited, the whole building would be blown sky-high, hopefully taking the rest of the ville along for the ride.
He did the same with the other four boilers, and spent a precious few minutes barricading the doors to the power plant with heavy drums and placing a live Claymore mine attached to a trip wire. Exiting through the back door, J.B. rigged grens on both sides of the threshold. The two men tied the dark blue bandannas on their heads once again, then smeared fresh grease over their faces and melted into the night. The trap was set, the mission complete. All the companions had to do was to leave and the rest would take care of itself. Baron Sheffield and his triple-cursed sky machine were already dead and buried. They just didn’t know it yet.
FOLLOWING THE WALL, Jak moved from shadow to shadow, heading back for Mildred, when a door unexpectedly swung open in the slave quarters, catching him in a bright light. Instantly, he raced around a corner of the brick building, then paused and drew a knife. Maybe they hadn’t seen him. It could be only a single overseer checking the slaves. Then Jak heard the sounds of boots on gravel coming from both directions and knew he was caught. Sheathing the blade, he softly worked the bolt on the Kalashnikov, a spare clip already in his hand. Anything less than twenty and he could chill them all.
“I got him!” a sec man cried from above.
Lightning fast, Jak realized the danger and tried to dodge, but somebody fell on him from the roof and the Kalashnikov went flying.
Head butting his assailant, Jak drew a knife and slit the man’s throat from ear to ear. A hand grabbed him by the hair, but only got a fistful of blue cloth. Rolling free of the corpse, Jak stood and fired the Colt Python, the booming .357-Magnum round illuminating the alleyway between the two buildings. The heavy slug drove a blue shirt backward, with most of his face gone. Then another assailant tackled Jak around the ankles, and he hit the wall, losing the handcannon. A third sec man kicked the blaster away as a dozen more raced into the narrow passageway. The albino teenager was knocked to the ground and the blues piled on, driving the air from the teenager’s lungs.