“Shit” the cajun whispered.
Ryan powered up from his shadowy hiding place, using the panga like a sword, needle-point first, lunging past the stock of the M-16, thrusting it into the sec man’s belly with all of his strength.
He twisted his wrist as he felt the steel slice through soft tissues, cutting open the wall of hard muscle, grating on the bones of the lower spine. The wide blade tore open Davichaux’s guts, spilling a gout of blood over Ryan’s hand and arm, pattering in the damp earth beneath his boots.
The sec boss’s nerveless fingers opened, allowing the blaster to fall. Ryan neatly plucked it from the air with his left hand while simultaneously wrenching out the panga with his bloodied right hand.
Davichaux took a couple of staggering steps backward, out of sight of his colleagues and Wolfram and the Magus. The lines were down, his spinal cord severed, his life gushing from him as the coils of bluish intestines tumbled around his feet.
“God’s plenty,” Ryan breathed, not even sure where the thought came from.
The man slumped down, hands pressed to the gaping wound in his guts, as though he were trying to reassemble himself. He fell from his knees flat on his face, nose breaking with a pulping sound like a crushed apple, booted feet moving for several seconds before he was still.
Ryan took a slow breath, keeping his self-control, aware of the section of sec men less than ten yards away from him. There was no sign that they, or anyone else, had seen the sec boss go down. But it would be only seconds.
“Lights!” he yelled, using the carbine to open fire on the powerful lamps that were strung around the fence and the main guard towers.
He heard an instant response from the Armorer, the sharp crack from the Steyr SSG-70 he’d left behind with some spare ammo. Ten fast, measured rounds were fired from the hunting rifle, from a range of less than sixty yards, maximum, with the aid of the laser image enhancer and the Starlight nightscope. It was like shooting carp in a barrel with a 16-gauge scatter-gun.
The carbine he’d taken from the hands of the dying man was sighted-in a touch high, but Ryan was able to put out a big sec light with every round.
At the first shot he heard the Magus’s lightning response. The steel-eyed freak had instantly worked out what had happened, calling out to the slower-witted sec men.
“Cawdor’s inside, by the wag. Warn Davichaux that” He stopped as his rapier-sharp brain made the necessary leap, guessing that the sec boss was already down and done for. “Move in on the wag. Stop Cawdor getting at the gas!”
Ryan smiled grimly as he heard the metallic voice rising up the scale, cracking with the strain.
Meanwhile he dropped the empty carbine, hearing J.B. still shooting steadily, with a remorseless accuracy, at the lights. Already two-thirds of them were shattered, and the whole compound was much more dim and gloomy.
He glimpsed a face peering from the barred windows of the hut where he believed Krysty was being held. But Ryan was way too busy to think about that step, further down the line.
“GOT TO BE.”
Mildred was at Krysty’s shoulder, staring into the open space, able to see the parked wag by the fuel container. From their side the women could also see the huddle of cowering sec men, none of them wanting to follow their boss. Krysty had spotted Davichaux as he jumped off the bed of the truck and disappeared behind it.
“I’m sure it’s Ryan inside and J.B. shooting the lights from outside the fence,” she said. “Can’t see the corpse of the cajun sec man.”
“The gates were bolted.” Mildred shook the locked shutters across the windows. “If only we could get out there and give some help.”
“Best just wait and keep our heads down.”
Mildred pointed. “There’s the fat man and iron eyes, by their quarters.”
“Could be they’ll try and use us as hostages,” Krysty said. “Be ready to do what we can.”
“Getting real dark out there.”
“Yeah,” Krysty whispered, closing her emerald eyes tight, lips moving in a silent prayer. “Gaia, help him!”