The sec man nodded and limped away.
Ryan leaped into the crate and knelt next to the dying man. “Where did you get that number?” he demanded in barely controlled fury.
Overton raggedly coughed, blood trickling from his mouth.
“Who told you? Do you know about the?” Ryan started to say mat-trans unit and cut himself off. “The special room with six walls and only one door?”
“The jump room.” Overton smiled dreamily. “Oh, surehow we got herelots of blasters, you know. Going to save America, kill all the muties from above.”
From above. What did that mean? Ryan ground his teeth in frustration. This news turned their victory into a complete disaster. The secret of the redoubts was out, as was the access code to enter the predark installations. But it seemed that Overton kept the code a secret from his own men. They might know the redoubts existed, but not how to get inside. That was something. But how had he learned the code? Where and from whom?
“Mildred, save him,” Ryan ordered, clenching his fists. “We have to know where he got this information!”
She shook her head. “Nothing can save him at this point.”
Ryan started to grab the man by the throat, and Mildred blocked his hands, shaking her head.
“That wouldn’t do any good,” she snapped. “He doesn’t even know where he is.”
“Where?” Overton repeated in a whisper. He worked his mouth as if speaking, but no sound came out. The physician leaned closer, holding her ear only inches away from his blue lips.
“Shiloh” Overton exhaled and went terribly still.
“He’s dead,” Mildred said, sitting erect and closing his eyelids with her fingertips.
Knuckles white, Ryan could only shake with repressed fury. “He knew. Redoubts, the codes, everything!”
“So what do we do?” Krysty asked, frowning.
“First, burn that number off his skin,” Ryan ordered, starting to leave, then he paused to glance at the dead man. “After that, we’re going to Shiloh.”
A CRISP, CLEAN DAWN was breaking over Front Royal as a tall man in loose clothing wandered over the drawbridge. Busy sec men armed with fancy blasters gave him a cursory inspection before returning to their work.
Inside the walls of the ville, the dead and the dying lay everywhere, and a dank haze hung over the streets, a mixture of morning mist and smoke from a burning building. A whitehair was sweeping colored bits of glass off the cobblestones. More were dragging the corpses of horses into the rear of a wag. A child cried somewhere, and a woman wailed in heartbroken grief.
Shuffling along, a very tired-looking sec man with his arms full of bandages hurried by the newcomer, and the man stayed the trooper with a grip of iron.
“Hey!” the brown shirt cried out. “Watch it, asshole! I almost dropped these, and we need them for the wounded!”
“I’m truly sorry, sir,” the tall man apologized, removing a hat showing his strangely bald head. “But my name is Lissman, Daniel Lissman, a trained healer. Can I be of service here?”