RYAN HAD LEFT two spare clips for the Steyr with the Armorer, as well as the full-ten rounds in the mag. J.B. squinted through the sight, aiming at the cluster of lamps on the farthest guard tower, close to where the gas-filled balloon swayed and curtsied at its mooring.
His combat-honed brain had been keeping a careful count on what he’d fired. There were three rounds left. After that he’d be down to the Uzi, which wasn’t ideal for closing down the lights, and the powerful scattergun, which was totally useless for that.
But once he got inside, the Smith amp; Wesson M-4000 12-gauge would come into its own.
All Ryan had to do now was to break open the gates for him, using the darkness as cover, and, hopefully, set the gas off in what would be a gigantic explosion of fire and noise.
“One left,” he breathed to himself, steadying the stock against his shoulder, his finger steady on the trigger. Only a handful of the searchlights remained lit, dappling the forest fortress with deep lakes of darkness and occasional puddles of brightness, ideal for a killing ground.
At the back of his mind J.B. had the itching worry that the bands of stickies they knew were around might be creeping up soundlessly behind him, that the first warning would be when the toothed suckers stripped circles of skin and bloody flesh from his face or throat.
He and Ryan had discussed timing, aware that if the plan worked, with its fireball of crudely refined gasoline, it would quickly bring in every stickie for miles.
J.B. fired the last round, feeling the kick of the recoil, just catching the sound of splintering glass and torn metal. He quickly slung the warm blaster across his shoulder, crouching, ready to move.
WOLFRAM WAS JIGGING from foot to foot, like a child desperate to go to the John. Sweat beaded his pallid face, and his tiny eyes flicked nervously from side to side, settling on the skeletal figure of the Magus standing motionless a few paces from him.
“Well?”
“What?”
“Stop them.”
“You got a magic wand, Gert?”
“You’re the Warlock. The fuckin’ Magus! Do something to stop them.”
“Dix is stuck in the woods. Cawdor is pinned down by the wag. Time’s running for us, Gert.”
“You say?”
The long, goatlike skull nodded slowly, the eyes with their sheen of cold pewter turning blankly toward him. “Right. That’s just what I do say.”
“Then we’re going to win?”
The Magus considered that, pausing as the shooting from the darkness among the trees finally ceased. “I would thinkprobably. Yes, probably.”
AS SOON AS the shooting stopped, Ryan took a deep breath, wiping his right hand down his pants. He drew the SIG-Sauer, readying himself for the next phase of the plan.
“Where is the driver of the wag?” The voice of the Magus rang out, unable to conceal a note of concern.
“Here.”
“Name?”
“Nate Ruell.”
“You got the keys?”
There was a long pause, and Ryan tensed himself. The driver was hiding with the half-dozen sec men only a few yards off, around the other side of the small building that held the gasoline, on the opposite flank of the silent wag.
“Asked where the keys are.”
“In the wag.” The three words dragged out like a fishhook that went clear down into the belly.
Time to move.
“Then go and” the Magus began in a shriek that sounded like a power saw going through a sheet of plate glass. But Ryan was already in motion.
To the cowering sec men, the sudden appearance of Ryan Cawdor, out of the flickering semidarkness, was like an ultimate demon from the fiery heart of the worst of nightmares.
Three of them pissed themselves and two, including Ruell, lost control of their bowels.
Within eight seconds, they were all dead.
Ryan stood, legs slightly parted, holding the automatic in both hands in front of him at chest height. He sighted along the barrel at point-blank range, firing into the mass of helpless bodies, planting the bullets in the upper chest, the full-metal-jacket rounds ripping into lungs, hearts, throats and spines. Arms and legs flailed, voices screamed and choked, blood splattering, hanging in the air, shadowed black.