The Magus favored him with a smile as thin and polished as a steel needle. “We are talking as many as a hundred stickies, and we believe they are attracting more numbers every day. And some other muties, perhaps.”
“And you think me and J.B. can regain control for you? On our own?”
Wolfram pushed back his chair, levering himself upright on the creaking table, glaring down at Ryan. “Let us be clear. What Trader did to us both cannot be forgiven. He is gone. You were his trusted, able lieutenants, and you now carry the blood price. My heart says to chill you and all your companions very slowly.” A faint froth of pink bubbles gathered on his fleshy lips, and his small eyes were wide with hatred. “It has been a very long time, this moment for us.”
“But you need us,” Ryan said.
“Yes,” the Magus said, kicking back his chair so that it tumbled on the thick carpet.
“And you will set aside the feud and let us go. Let us all go if we can destroy the uprising and return some of the stickies to you again?”
“Yes,” Wolfram replied. “We will give you seven clear days to get away from us afterward, then the feud will begin again, to the death.”
J.B. calmly poured himself some more coffee, took off his glasses and polished them on his discarded napkin. “Sounds fair, don’t it, Ryan?”
“It does.”
But he knew in his heart that he could never trust the Magus and Wolfram. They were deeply, inalienably corrupt and evil. But what he and J.B. needed was time. They wouldn’t chill Krysty and the others before the attempt had been made on the stickies. That would remove their overwhelmingly strong hand and would be grotesquely foolish. Neither the Magus nor Wolfram were stupid. The treachery would come after Ryan and J.B. had done what they could with the stickies. Failure would mean all six deaths.
And so would success. Unless they got their retaliation in first.
“Well?” Wolfram prompted. “Time is passing.”
“We will have you dropped off well before we reach the burned mill.” The Magus smiled. “So you won’t need to look out for it and make an escape. And we will return your weapons.”
“With plans of where the mine is. The farm. Our fortress. And where we believe the stickies have fled.”
Ryan glanced down the table to J.B., who pushed back the brim of his fedora and gave an almost imperceptible nod, sipping his coffee.
“Very well. We’ll do it. How long before we get put ashore off the boat?”
Wolfram looked at his golden chron, the numbers traced with tiny diamonds and rubies. “If we pick up speed, it will be in about three hours.”
Ryan checked his own chron. “That’ll be about ninety minutes from dusk. Sounds all right. We get the map and our blasters back before then?”
“Yes.”
Ryan stood, followed by J.B. “Then we’ll go and rest up in our cabin. See you later.”
The closing of the heavy door sounded uncannily like the lid dropping on an ornate coffin.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“They must know if they put us over the side a distance from their headquarters that we’ll try to get at them. Rescue the others. At least give it a go.” Ryan lay on the double bed in his cabin. J.B. stood by the open shutters at their window, looking out over the fog-shrouded river.
“But it’s part of their sicko game, isn’t it?” he said. “They know they’ve got the aces in their hands. But this is all about vengeance. What the bastards want is to see us struggle against them and lose. Eventually we might have to play their game. Go after the stickies and try to help Magus and Wolfram get their businesses back together again. Then they’ll waste us all. And the game’ll be done for them.”
Ryan nodded. “True. That’s the way I see it, as well. But I reckon we have to try it. They give us a chance on a plate, so we’ll recce it. How’s the weather?”
The Armorer turned and glanced behind him. “Clearing. I can catch glimpses of the far bank. Wooded. Small hills. All I can make out.” He checked his chron. “Must be close to time for them to put us ashore. Haven’t given us our blasters or the map yet, like they promised.”