“In!” he yelled, straining his lungs, suddenly finding himself in the lead, nearest the half-open metal door.
Ryan had watched the hesitant advance of the over-whelming force of sec men. Apart from a skeleton guard left behind to protect the ville, this was virtually the en-tire strength of the Front Royal garrison.
He whistled soundlessly between his teeth. A stupid little kids’ song came to him, sticking in his mind. It was something Doc had taught Lori a week or so ago, and the girl had kept singing it, laughing to herself at its absurd-ity.
“Wop bop a loobop, a wop bam boom,” was all it was, repeated over and over again. Now it clogged Ryan’s brain. His finger was still taut on the trigger of the M-16.
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“Wop bop a loobop…”
Baron Harvey Cawdor’s skull was awash with tranks so that he drifted in and out of reality. Now he was a teen-ager, chasing his little brother, Ryan, hunting him through the wilderness of the Oxbow Loop. When he caught him he’d kill him, tell their father it had been an accident. Harvey knew that to kill Ryan was to end his troubles. He smiled to himself, craning his neck to peer over the slope at the gray gas store, now with its entrance packed with dozens of his loyal, steadfast and true followers. Perhaps they would give three rousing cheers for Baron Harvey as they conquered.
“Hurrah, hurrah,” he said to himself.
The sergeant was first in, carbine at his hip, blinking in the darkness. Sec troopers crowded behind him, jostling and pushing.
“A wop bam boom,” Ryan hummed, the Sorrow overpowering his own voice.
The sergeant’s feet felt deathly cold. Wet and cold. He tried to look down to see what was wrong, but the crush around him was too great, men and dogs all tangled to-gether in the opening to the small building. The smell was overwhelming.
His eyes swiftly accustomed to the poor light, the ser-geant could see the interior of the building. He didn’t be-lieve what he saw. There was a blue jerkin draped over an opened can of gasoline, placed so that it would be just visible to men outside. A dozen of the metal drums had been opened and overturned, the liquid spilled onto the floor. Many of the other large cans had their tops un-screwed and dropped in the dirt.
Apart from that the place was empty. The fugitives weren’t there.
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The sec officer opened his mouth to scream out a warning for everyone to get away from the lethal trap.
Thirty yards away, hugging the steep bank of the Sor-row, hidden by its lip, Ryan Cawdor squeezed the trigger of the captured M-16, aiming the round so that it would ricochet and spark off the metal door of the gas store.
His lips moved. “Wop bop a loobop, a wop bam…boom!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
it was one of the biggest explosions since the world had suffered the megachill of January 2001.
The spark of the 5.56 mm bullet was enough to ignite the massive store of gasoline in the small stone building. The strength of the walls compounded the horror, con-taining the force of the explosion for a vital fraction of a second, giving it the chance to build to a dreadful pro-portion.
Ryan flattened his face against the steep bank of the Sorrow, eye closed, hands over his ears, mouth open, taking the classic precautions against an intense blast. Despite everything, he wasn’t prepared for the huge con-cussion as the store exploded. He was nearly plucked from his perch and dashed into the murderous current of the wide river. Krysty was lower down, as was Jak and J.B., and they were better protected.
None of them witnessed the result of their plan. They didn’t need to see it to know that it had worked.
Worked better than any expectation.
For Baron Harvey, it was like witnessing the hammer of the gods.
His pretty cap with its nodding feather was whisked from his head and disappeared forever in the maelstrom of torn air. Heat seared his face, scorching the straggling hair, blistering his scalp. A giant’s fist punched at the baron, striving to knock him from his saddle. But like his