He reached out a trembling hand, and she took it, holding it gently. “You and I have had many a falling-out over the long months together, Doctor. But I want you to know that it was all in jest.” He paused. “Well, I would say that at least ninety percent of it was in jest.” Another pause, and a leer showed that the old Doc was already making his comeback. “Eighty percent.”
Mildred grinned broadly, shaking his hand. “Hell, Doc, I knew that.”
DOC SLEPT MUCH of the time, as the natural healing processes took over.
“He all right?” Ryan asked.
“Tough old mountain goat,” Mildred replied. “Another day and he’ll be up and about. Couple of days and he should be ready to move. How’s your leg?”
“Much better. Hardly notice it now.”
They both turned as the door eased silently open, and the bald head of Straub appeared. “Countess is ready,” he said softly. “All hands to witness punishment.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The mansion was totally silent, though they could hear the soft, rhythmic beating of a slack-skinned drum floating in through some of the open windows. There was no sign of any of the armed sec men patrolling the corridors.
“What’s on, Straub?” Ryan asked.
“Traitor. Found out that one of the older sec sergeants had been stealing from the armory. Started with a fistful of ammo, then moved on to taking out submachine guns and LMGs in bits and pieces. One part at a time.”
“Who’d he sell them to? Is there an antiville resistance?” J.B. asked.
Straub sniggered, playing with his silver pendant. “You ever know a ville in all Deathlands where there wasn’t any resistance, John Barrymore Dix?”
“Guess not. But it seems like the countess has her heel on the neck of the region.”
Straub clutched at his groin in a sudden wave of ecstasy. “Well put, Armorer. She has her heel on every part of the body corporate of the land around. And it can give supreme, exhilarating pain, as well as delicious pleasure.”
“This resistance?”
“Young bloods in some of the outlying settlements. A little poaching of deer. Salmon from the ponds. Even prime carp. Nothing too serious. Ambushed a wag train last year and killed a couple of sec men. Countess sent out a raiding party and hung a few hostages. Quieted them.”
“What going to happen this afternoon?” Jak asked as they reached the enormous armored sec doors at the front of the rambling house.
“Sergeant Gummer gets to pay the price for his treachery and his stupidity.”
“Formal execution?” Krysty asked. “I don’t really want to watch this.”
Straub turned, and for a moment his habitual mask of slack semi-idiocy slipped and he glared at her, the silver flecks whirling in his black eyes. “Do you think there’s a choice, you stupe red-haired bitch?”
“Hey, back off,” Ryan said, stepping in close to the man, hand gripping the butt of the SIG-Sauer. “If we don’t want to watch, then we can all turn right around and go back to our rooms. You going to chill us all?”
” ‘Course not. And I apologize most humbly for losing control of my temper.” He glanced to his right. “We must hurry. The countess will be here soon.”
IT WAS AN ODD SIGHT.
Straub led them across the formal gardens, down into the bottom of the steep-sided valley they’d viewed the previous day, past the tinkling stream and toward a wilderness that looked as if it had once been used as a quarry.
The beating of the drum was louder, echoing all around them, muffled a little by the stark conifers that lined the stream. And then they saw the ranks of the sec men, lined up on three sides of a square beneath the high cliff that terminated the quarry, the ground covered with rocks of all sizes.
They were all in dress uniforms, with Rugers bolstered at their hips.
“You will not have to participate in the execution,” Straub said. “You can watch from here.”
Ryan looked for a gallows or a headsman’s block or some sign of a firing squad.
But there was nothing.
“How’s he going to be sent off to buy the farm?” he asked Straub.