He gazed up at Ryan. “How do you want to handle this?”
“We fall back in stages.” Ryan pulled the Steyr to his shoulder. At the top of the mountainside, a man crouched low and tried to navigate the expanse on foot. Ryan stroked the trigger once and sent a 7.62 mm round coring through the man’s head. All motor control gone, the corpse tumbled and fell, ending up thirty yards down, a foot caught in a tangle of brush that held it upside down.
“Cover the others as long as we can,” Ryan directed. He spaced two more shots across the fissure front, not hitting anything, but letting his targets know he could if they got out into the open long enough. “We should be able to keep them pinned for a while.”
The Armorer nodded.
“Fifty yards out and down,” Ryan said, “then set up a position while I fall back. Stay along the tree line so you’ll have a clear field of fire. If we get lucky, mebbe we can add another two or three hundred yards to what we’ve already got.”
J.B. touched his hat, then jogged back.
Ryan felt they had a chance, depending on what lay farther out. He tracked the scope across the precipice and managed to find a man’s kneecap with the cross hairs. He let out a half breath, then squeezed through. The rifle bucked against his shoulder.
A split second later the bullet shattered the man’s knee and drew him out into the open. Ryan put the next round through the wide, screaming mouth, blowing the dead man back over his cohorts.
“Ryan,” J.B. called, “come ahead.”
Staying within the shelter of the trees, Ryan turned and sprinted back. He spotted the Armorer fifty yards away, but couldn’t see the others. He was almost even with J.B. when he heard the sound of engines up ahead.
Chapter Fourteen
“They were here.”
Sergeant George Conte, once of the United States Army, gazed at his corporal’s findings.
Whittaker rubbed carbon build-up from the wall across his fingertips, spreading clumps of it in thick smears. He was a ratty-looking little man, even with the spit-and-polish appearance Burroughs insisted on for all the troops. “Maybe only a few hours gone.”
“That lantern could have been there for a long time, Corporal.”
Whittaker revealed a thin, mean grin and adjusted his thick glasses. “This stuff’s still soft, sir. If it’d been here as long as the rest of the materials around here appear to have been, it would be a hell of a lot harder.”
“Okay.” Conte nodded. He didn’t like the other man, and had surprised even himself by working past the hate over the past hundred years. On some days he was astonished that out of all of them, Whittaker was still alive. The man rubbed everybody wrong.
Except Burroughs. And maybe that was the answer in itself. Whenever the major had given a shit-duty detail, Whittaker had been there to handle it, especially the killing. Interrogation had been another skill that the little rat man had mastered. Whittaker hadn’t minded using the knife or getting bloody as he pried every secret Burroughs needed from reluctant captives.
“I’ll take a look around,” Whittaker offered.
“Do that,” Conte said. “Take Henderson and Aames with you. Set up a loose perimeter guard.”
Whittaker flipped him a nonchalant salute and went toward the other room, where they’d found the ladder leading up to the cave.
“Cruse,” Conte yelled.
“Sir?”
“I could’ve chewed a hole through the roof of this redoubt in the time it’s taken you to find and light a lantern, mister.”
“Got it, Sarge.” Cruse walked back into the room with a lighted lantern between his hands. The flame was weak and didn’t cast much light.
Conte took the lantern. “Forgot you were a city boy, soldier.” He removed the glass and made adjustments to the wick, then put the glass back on.
The room lit up appreciably.
“Put away the flashes, people,” Conte ordered. “Let’s save the batteries.”
All the flashlights winked out.
“Found some rechargers in the back,” Cruse said. “Also a vehicle.”
Conte handed the lantern to Turley, who was still working on the gateway unit. From the looks of things, according to Turley, the mat-trans station was pass-coded to make it proprietary and couldn’t be used to jump them to other gateways they knew to be in existence.