“What do we do if this storm blows up?” Tulk asked.
Hutter gave him another chilling look. “We hope it doesn’t,” he replied.
INSIDE THE WAG containing the women who were the trade for Summerfield, Claudette kept her Uzi trained on the driver and shotgun sec, while Ayesha watched the women.
“How near are we?” Ayesha said shortly.
“How the fuck should I know?” the driver replied testily. “I can’t see squat for all the dust in front of me. I’m just following the wag in front.”
“Won’t your daddy use the radio when we get near?” Claudette asked with a sneer.
“Don’t give me shit with the attitude,” Ayesha snapped. “You think if I had any feelings left for that cock sucking son of a gaudy whore I’d be doing this? No, I’d be going forth like the dutiful daughter and getting screwed by every man in Summerfield.”
“Okay, I get it,” Claudette replied reluctantly, “so I’ll say it again without the sarcasm. Won’t Baron Al have orders to give over the radio when we get near?”
“I’d guess so,” Ayesha replied thoughtfully. “Is that what he’s told you?” she directed toward the driver.
The two sec men stayed silent for a moment, considering whether they should answer, before the man riding shotgun said reluctantly, “He told us that we’d get a call from him when we were within ten minutes’ drive. That way we’d be prepared when we get there.”
“And you know what ‘there’ looks like?” Ayesha pressed.
“Yeah,” the sec man replied without elaborating.
Claudette spared a glance at Ayesha; it was a glance filled with surprise: “You’re shitting me,” she whispered. “He never told you what was going to happen?”
Ayesha turned on Claudette angrily. “In case it’s escaped your notice, I’m a piece of meat just like you, babe. I didn’t get fuck all of a say in what happened to me, and I’m damn sure that under the circumstances there was no way my lovely father was going to tell me anything that was going on. You understand that now?”
“Yeah, I think I do,” Claudette said quietly,
“Good, well, let’s just get it together here, because we really need to get some kind of a plan together. You,” she snapped at the sec man who was riding shotgun, and who had been turned uncomfortably toward them for some time, frightened to move in case he got blown to pieces, “what happens when we get to the rendezvous?”
“You get exchanged for the seed crops and the food supplies,” the man replied simply.
Ayesha sighed heavily. “Don’t be a stupe, or else I’ll just get Claudette to blow you away, okay? I mean tell me exactly what happens, and mebbe you’ll get out of here in one piece.”
The sec man paused for a second, unsure as to whether he should say anything.
“Okay, I’ll tell you. The plan is that we rendezvous at a bunch of rocks that form an enclosure, kinda like the field where we primed the wags. That means that we’re covered on all sides, and there’s only us and the guys from Summerfield in the middle, with no way of anyone sneaking around from the sides, ’cause there’s only one exit at each end. So when we’re there, we wait for them and then we get ourselves into the middle of the space, and we make the trade. If all goes well, and we get to do it, then you get led out in those shackles—” he inclined his head to the chains and cuffs that were spread on the floor of the wag “—and then we exchange you. They load you up, we load up the trade and we both back out slowly, keeping an eye on each other.”
“You’re not just handing over the wag?” Ayesha asked, a sudden wave of nausea riding up her throat.
“Hell, no,” the sec man replied, “you think we’d hand over something as good as this? Anyway, they might think that it’s booby-trapped. We’d suspect it of them, right?”
“Oh, shit,” Ayesha said softly.
“What do you mean, ‘oh shit’ ?” Claudette asked. Ayesha looked at her. “I thought they’d just swap wags. I told the others that we’d hold this wag and stop these bastards blasting them as long as they left us alone. But what the fuck are we going to do if we have to leave the wag? Especially if we have to wear those stupe things,” she added, indicating the shackles.