THEY WENT ALL the way around, stopping on every flank to study the fortress in more detail. The dazzling lights made it brighter than midday, allowing Ryan and J.B. to see every detail of the place, inside and out.
By the time they got back to their starting point, they’d been there nearly two hours, and they were both feeling pessimistic.
“We agree that they’re probably in those two adjacent huts,” Ryan said.
“With the barred windows and the sec men patrolling? Must be there.”
There was a long silence, broken by Ryan. “Not going to be easy.”
“No.”
“Best move back out of the fringe of the lights and do some combat thinking.”
J.B. was staring at the pair of buildings where they figured Mildred and the others were being held prisoner. “Yeah.”
THE MOON HAD DULY put in an appearance, pouring down irregular silver pools in among the patches of deep, black shadow under the trees.
Ryan took out his panga as they sat together in one of the small, bright clearings, using the point to sketch a detailed plan of everything they’d seen of the fortified camp the outer fence and the towers, the sec men’s barracks and the block of concrete buildings that they had guessed was where Wolfram and the Magus had their headquarters.
“How many men?” Ryan asked.
“Counting those in the towers, the walking dudes and those who are probably off shift at the moment, it has to be something like forty or fifty. Shit-lot of men, and they had a good mix of blasters. Revolvers and shotguns.”
“Remingtons, Colts and Smith amp; Wessons,” Ryan said thoughtfully. “And they all looked like they knew how to use them.”
“One of the best-trained sets of sec men I can remember. Did Wolfram have such good people back in the old days?”
Ryan grinned, his teeth white in the faint glare of the towered lights. “Funny thing, memory. Times I can’t hardly recall what I had for breakfast a couple of days ago. Yet I can remember that expression on the face of a gut-shot woman up in the Shens, fromtwenty-five years ago. Clear as a bell. Yet you ask me about the fat man’s sec forces when we rode with Trader, and it all seems lost in a fog. I reckon he must have been good, even all the way back then. How do you recall them?”
The Armorer sniffed. “Tough. Not as many men as he’s got now. And he and the Magus weren’t kind of officially together. Not going to be that easy, amigo.”
They decided to make a further circuit of the fortress camp, keeping well back in the screen of low bushes, ducking under the branches of the dense wall of spruce that ringed much of the forest ville.
They watched while the guards changed over, presumably ready for the night shift, and saw supper being taken on trays to the couple of barred huts where they were almost certain that Krysty and the others were being held captive.
“Don’t look too strong,” Ryan said. “Blow away the bars or go in through the doors.”
“Sec men everywhere.” J.B. borrowed Ryan’s rifle, using the Starlight nightscope to make out better what was going down. “Mebbe try and set up some sort of diversion.”
“Magus and Wolfram’ll be expecting us to try something like that,” Ryan replied.
“Then it’ll have to be good, won’t it?”
THE CAMP HAD a rear entrance, and the evening patrol that came out through the high gates took Ryan and J.B. by surprise. There were a dozen sec men, all in camouflage gear, faces darkened, moving out at a sudden, fast trot. They headed along a snaking trail that would lead them almost directly to the point where the two friends had been skulking.
“Fireblast!” Ryan hissed, tugging at J.B.’s sleeve, jerking him away from the track, heaving him deeper into the shadows of the endless pines.
It was almost pitch-dark, and they stumbled along by instinct, trying for silence, hearing the steady padding of the patrol, seeming to be closing in on them.
The Armorer had taken the lead as Ryan stopped a moment to glance behind them, peering through the undergrowth toward the lights, seeing that the sec men were barely fifty yards away, moving almost parallel to himself and J.B.