He felt two bullets skid along the Kevlar covering his hip, and he staggered. Something tugged at his collar, bit the heel of his right boot, but he kept running, waiting for either deliverance or death.
KANE FELT a twinge of guilt. It appeared as if the pair of blastermen was ignoring him completely and concentrating their pattern of fire on Grant. So far, not a single slug had buzzed his way.
Taking and holding a deep breath, Kane jammed the cigar between his teeth and rose up from behind his stone barrier. He pointed the Sin Eater in the general direction of the two buildings and held down the trigger, firing a continuous left-to-right burst. Grant was lurching toward him, running in a crouch.
“Move!” Kane yelled.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing!” Grant screamed, twisting his body from one side to the other, running broken-field style.
Smoke drifted in flat planes between the two structures. Kane doubted he would score any hits, but his fire spoiled the aims of the blastermen in the squats. The autofire from the windows stopped just as Grant angled his body in a dive that brought him up and over the top of the rock heap. Kane obligingly sidestepped. Grant hit the ground with a grunting curse, rolled to one knee and aimed his Sin Eater first at one window, then the other. His face glistened with perspiration, and he was panting.
“Where are they?” Grant demanded breathlessly. “Who are they?”
They heard the rapid crunch-crunch-crunch of boots on gravel behind them and whirled simultaneously. Boon was racing toward them, coattails flapping, Sin Eater in hand.
“Get down!” Grant shouted, waving at him.
The bullets caught Boon high up on the left side of the throat, just below the hinge of his jaw, spinning him around on his toes like a dancer. Fistfuls of flesh and bone sheared away in a semiliquid spray, and the severed carotid artery pumped out a bright jet of blood. Boon fell backward, and the bullets followed him down, kicking his body from side to side. The autofire ceased.
“Fireblast!” Grant bellowed, pounding a fist against the ground. “They were after me !”
Then his lips tightened in a thin line, allowing no more words to escape. Anger was unprofessional and dangerous.
“Yeah,” Kane grated, back against the rock pile. “They’re after you, not me. But why?”
“How the hell do I know?” Grant’s voice was pitched low to disguise the quaver of fury and grief.
“Then let’s by God find out.”
Nodding tersely, Grant reached inside his coat for the trans-comm unit, pulling the pin mike from his lapel. “I’ll call for backup.”
“Don’t. Not yet,” Kane said.
Grant stared at him incredulously. “Not yet? Then when? When all the jolt-walkers, blastermen and chop-mongers in the Pits decide they want to buy into a piece of this action?”
“We’ll call for backup after we nail these bastards. Not before.”
“Another one of your instincts ?”
“That’s right,” Kane replied. “This doesn’t add up, makes no sense at all. We’ve walked the Pits for years, on sweeps and on patrols. How many times have we been bushwhacked or shot at, let alone with autoblasters?”
Grant exhaled grimly. “Hardly ever.”
“Whoever these blastermen are, why choose you as the target?”
“I’ve made enemies down here, I guess.”
“No more than I have. This a contract chillon you, and if he got in the way, on Boon. For some reason, my ass is sanctified.”
“That’s just what Reeth said. Remember what happened to him?”
“Very clearly. But I have a plan.”
They shared a hasty, whispered conference, then Kane slowly stood up. He made a careful visual survey of the zone and deliberately walked around the pile of broken stones and into the open, hands at his sides.
DOS STARED in gape-mouthed astonishment as the Mag sauntered casually in his direction. The dumb bastard had his Sin Eater in hand, but he held it against his leg.
Reflexively his finger tightened on the trigger of the mini-Uzi, and it required a conscious effort to relax it. His target was hunkered down behind the heap of masonry and brick, safely sheltered from his and Uno’s fire. The man they had been ordered to spare strode single-mindedly forward, as if he were strolling along the promenade of a high-tower, still puffing on a cigar.
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