J.B.’s eyes shone with unabashed longing. “Dark night,” he said hoarsely. “I could stay here a year, just cataloging all this ordnance.”
“You’ve got about five minutes,” Krysty said in a quavering voice. She groped behind her and sat heavily on a box. A dew of perspiration had gathered at her temples, her eyes were glassy and her hands trembled.
“That’s all, folks,” she said weakly. “It’s all I can do to stay conscious.”
“When is the next guard change over?” Doc asked Fleur.
“Not for a couple of hours. At ten. But we can’t assume someone won’t pass by and notice the guards are gone.”
From behind them came Jak’s triumphant announcement of “Found’em.”
While they had followed J.B. through the death-dealing wonderland, Jak had dropped back and fulfilled the original purpose of breaching the armory. He handed everyone their personal weapons and belongings. J.B snatched a burlap bag from a wall hook and rushed deep into the storehouse, calling over his shoulder, “One minute. We can’t pass up this chance to stock up on ammo and a few other odds and ends.”
True to his word, J.B. emerged from the aisles a minute later, carrying a bulging sack. It clinked and jingled as he walked. “Everybody make sure they’ve got a full load before we move out.”
“What about me?” Fleur wanted to know.
“What about you?” Krysty asked. “Can you handle a blaster with the shape your hands are in?”
Fleur lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I’d like to help, as long as I’m sharing the risks.”
Eyeing her a bit haughtily, Doc remarked, “You’ve certainly undergone an extreme change in attitude. Perhaps a bit too extreme.”
J.B. rummaged around in his sack and came up with a paper wrapped cylinder about six inches long. He handed it to Fleur, saying, “Hold on to this. When I give the word, break it in half along the dotted line.”
Examining it suspiciously, she demanded, “Why?”
“You’ll see.”
Opposite the armory was a tin-walled prefabricated building. According to Fleur, it was a billet, the quarters if the sec men. It appeared unoccupied, though the dim light of a kerosene lamp shone through the window. If they weren’t home, then the sec men were patrolling the streets.
The five of them moved quickly through the streets, Krysty being helped along by Doc. She was nearly staggering from exhaustion.
They reached the shadowed rear of the saloon without being hailed by any passersby or seeing any sec men. Their Land Rover was still there, still sitting on flattened tires. The jukebox inside the saloon blared some discordant tune, full of wild guitars and heavy drums.
J.B. studied the wag compound across the dusty street. The chain-link gate was secured by a padlock, and beyond it two guards were loitering around the gasoline pumps. One carried a walkie-talkie slung over a shoulder by a strap.
“Now what?” Fleur whispered. “If we just stroll over, hey’ll recognize me, and the rest of you aren’t exactly forgettable.”
“Except for me,” J.B. replied. “I’m what you call inoculated.”
“Innocuous,” Krysty corrected, a note of weary humor in her voice.
J.B. handed his sack and hat to Jak. He folded his spectacles into a coat pocket before taking it off and wrapping it over his right arm, the Uzi in his fist.
Mussing up his hair, he said, “Everybody get ready to move. You’ll know when. Triple red.”
He contorted his face into a vacant-eyed, imbecilic mask and started shuffling drunkenly across the street. He weaved, waved, stumbled, mumbled and cackled. When he reached the gate of the compound, he hung on to the interlocking wire links with his left hand and stared at the ground, muttering to himself and kicking at the loose dirt.
One of the sec men sauntered toward him, leaving his companion with the walkie-talkie. When the shaven-headed man was less than a foot away, he asked, “What are you doing there, joltbrain?”
Slurring his speech, J.B. said, “Lost my ma’s locket.”
“What?”
“Lost my ma’s locket.”
“Where?”
J.B. jerked his shoulder in the direction of the saloon. “Back there.” He saw the sec man’s partner respond to a call on the comm unit, unslinging it and holding it up to the side of his head.