“Oh, yes, up. Up. Yes, indeed. You are suggesting that I hold a particularly high point of aim, considering the precipitous drop that my .44 will take after fifty yards. A loss of not only altitude but of a good deal of penetration power.”
The teen nodded.
“My dear Jak, what a glorious team you and I make,” Doc said as he took aim well above the missile. “The incoherent matched with the incomprehensible.”
At the sound of J.B.’s shouted obscenity, Doc, Dean and Jak thumbed back their pistols’ hammers and steadied their aims.
As he straight-armed four pounds of blue steel, Doc said, “Anyway, past a dozen paces I am afraid these tired old eyes of mine will betray me. Even with your sage advice, I shall be blessed if one of my pistol balls comes within a yard of the target at this distance.”
“Shoot straight, Doc,” Dean said firmly, “for Dad.”
“Fear not, my boy. I have the goal well in mind. And even if my shots fall wide, you can be sure that nine bellows of this hoary old cannon will add considerably to the general tumult and confusion.”
HIS CHALLENGE ISSUED, J.B. opened fire with the Uzi, raking the street with a short full-auto burst. The slugs raised puffs of dirt all around the standing figures, but landed well away from the missile, as he intended.
He’d gotten their attention.
The black-armored quartet stopped what they were doing and turned toward him.
“We want our man back,” J.B. shouted as the clattering echoes faded away. “Give him back to us safe and we’ll leave. Otherwise, that missile is going to get shot up real good.”
“That would be a big mistake,” said a metallic, amplified voice. “We mean you no harm.”
J.B. couldn’t tell which of the figures was speaking, but it didn’t much matter. He didn’t intend to get into a debate. The speaker had just told him what he wanted to know, that the rocket was vulnerable to gunshot damage. It was time to push things to the wall.
“You got to the count of ten,” he shouted across the rubble field, “or I’m going to write my name along the side of your rocket with blaster slugs. I got a nice long name, too. You’ll want to remember it on your trip to hell. It’s John Barrymore Dix.”
“Mr. Dix,” came the response, “your demand is impossible. We can’t possibly produce your friend that quickly. You’ve got to give us time to work out the details.”
“How long?” he called back. “Until daybreak.”
The black-armored folk shifted position on the street, not far, but it was the move J.B. had been watching for. It told him they weren’t going to deal Ryan for the missile. The question was, could his threat keep them from going for their blasters? There was only one way to find out.
“Ten!” he cried. “Nine! Eight! Seven!” On the count of five, the black-armored folk dropped the pretense and lunged for their weapons. “Shit!” J.B. said, rising above the heap of rubble, pinning the Uzi’s trigger and spraying the area down-range with a line of 9 mm slugs.
Before he could walk the autofire to the missile, a green light winked at him from downtown Moonboy. In the same instant, a big chunk of concrete on the pile in front of him exploded like a gren. The thunder-crack shock wave made half his face go numb. As he hunkered back down, three more blocks of concrete on the heap blew up, sending rock shrapnel flying.
J.B.’s bluff had been called, and it didn’t take a whitecoat to figure he and the others were overmatched. None of them could help Ryan if they were chilled. The only thing left for them to do was retreat. If they still could.
As J.B. turned to run, he felt the wetness sliding down the side of his neck.
Chapter Sixteen
A second thermite explosion rocked the wag. When the vehicle crashed back down, the wheels on Ryan’s side dropped to the rims as the roasted tires blew out. Inside the passenger compartment it was pure chaos. Some of the sec men not harnessed in scrambled to regain their feet, while othersthose who had broken bones bouncing off the ceiling and walls writhed and moaned on the floor. Everything in the wag that could burnwire insulation, plastic pipe, duct tapewas burning. Dense smoke started pouring up from the floorboards between Ryan’s feet. He slapped his harness’s release buckle.