The track and engine noise peaked in volume. Ryan thought he could see a faint, moving glow in the middle of the tunnel. Perhaps from headlights. Perhaps it was just his imagination. There was no question in his mind that he had to throw in with Nara and Damm. They had saved his life twice in the past five minutes, and from the looks of things, they were about to do it a third time.
Not ten feet from the wall against which Ryan stood pressed, the first APC lumbered past, a phantom in the fog. When the moment came, he was going to have to find the second one by touch. When he’d last seen them, the men in battlesuits were standing on the long, flat fenders that stretched the length of the wag, and covered the tops of each of the twin tracks.
As the lead APC moved on up the ramp, and the second vehicle entered the mist, Ryan heard Damm’s hoarse whisper to Nara through the wall of white.
He said, “Buy or Die!”
Ryan remembered seeing the same words tattooed on the now-dead female mercie’s forearm. A war cry, he thought. For his own part, Ryan was tired of being pushed around, held prisoner, chased, poisoned andthreatened with horrible death. It was time for more than a return of threats. It was time for a little serious payback.
Ryan put one of the flat disks between his teeth; the other he held ready in his left hand. As the clanking rumble peaked, Damm gave Ryan a shove toward the middle of the tunnel.
Right hand outstretched like a blind man, Ryan lunged into the cottony mist. His fingertips brushed a hard, greasy surface. Above him, he could make out the dimmest of black shapes gliding past him. He stopped and let the edge of the APC’s fender slide under his hand, keeping his palm in contact with it until the fender curved away and bent around the back of the vehicle.
Blinking the moisture out of his eye, Ryan saw a black boot about eight inches from the tip of his nose. He lunged up and grabbed. His fingers slipped over the smooth armor plates, then dug in under the edge of a belt or harness. With a mighty heave, he jerked the stunned man off his perch and crashed him down hard on the concrete. Ryan maintained hand contact until after he’d stuck the charge in the middle of the man’s back, then he turned and ran through the fog for the rear of the APC.
From the other side of the tunnel there came another crash.
Two down, Ryan thought as his outstretched hand touched something flat and solid, something decorated with rows of rivet heads. His searching fingers found a handhold on the frame beside the right rear door. Grabbing it, he pulled himself onto the fender and stood. He leaned forward, looking for the shape of a helmet, but seeing only more vague shadows of black mixed with the swirling mist.
Twin explosions came from behind, one after the other. Muffled and sloppy wet.
The shadow he was staring at moved slightly to the right.
Ryan jerked back involuntarily, not having expected to come nose to nose with the enemy. Recovering at once, he snapkicked the man’s outside shoulder, feeling the solid impact, then the give under his boot sole. As the man turned, Ryan hurled himself on his back and drove him facedown on the fender. He took the shaped charge from between his teeth, slapped it in place and rolled the man off the fender and into the mist. Ryan didn’t see him hit the concrete, but he heard the clatter.
Seconds passed, then two more explosions rattled off in quick succession, again muffled and wet. There were no flashes in the mist behind, but Ryan felt the wind as fragments whistled by.
The APC suddenly swerved under him, and he had to hang on or be thrown clear. It was hard to tell for sure in the fog, but the wag seemed to be angling for the left-hand wall.
As Ryan reached the rear doors, they banged back and he got the briefest glimpse of a black figure hurtling out of the compartment, over the bumper and onto the ramp. As he piled into the APC, there was another explosion from behind and a spray of shrapnel peppered the outside of the doors.