Looking over LeMarck’s shoulder, Ryan saw J.B. on his horse in the shadows, his shotgun raised to his shoulder.
“Your friend with the hat?” LeMarck asked. He didn’t move the rifle’s sights from Ryan’s head.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll tell you something,” the sec boss said, raising his voice, “if you thought you could have taken me without getting your friend chilled, you’d have already done it.”
“True enough,” J.B. admitted.
“But you don’t think you can shoot me and keep me from shooting your buddy.”
“Got a better than average chance,” J.B. replied, “shotgun’s loaded with twenty razor-edged flechettes. The impact of them shredding flesh from bone is going to stagger you some.”
“But will it be enough?” LeMarck was smiling.
“I guess that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” Ryan asked. “One thing’s for certainwe can’t hang around here to think about it much.”
“Agreed,” LeMarck said. “I get myself chilled, I figure Hardcoe’s going to have an even harder time hanging on to the seven villes. How do you want to handle this?”
“Start walking backward,” Ryan said, “toward the wag. You can keep the rifle on me. Before you get behind it, you throw out the rifle or my friend takes your head off with the shotgun. Sound fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” LeMarck said. “But I’d rather see you dead. Don’t want to have to get sleepless at night wondering when you’re going to be coming back our way.”
“Revenge isn’t all that high on my list,” Ryan told him truthfully. “I see a chance to get it, walk away clean, I’ll do it. I’m more interested in a whole skin. Cut my losses here. But I will tell you one thingif I see you anywhere around me again, I’ll chill you on the spot. No questions asked, no warning given.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” LeMarck started to back up, reaching the corner of the wrecked wag.
“Far enough,” J.B. called. “Throw out the rifle.”
After only a moment of hesitation, the sec boss did as he’d been told, moving swiftly behind the wag.
Ryan ran toward J.B. The Armorer kicked a foot out of the stirrup on Ryan’s side. Hooking his boot in the stirrup, Ryan hauled himself up behind his friend. The horse jostled around, adjusting to the weight.
Pulling on the reins, J.B. backed the horse to the trail leading into the forest. Ryan rammed a fresh magazine into the SIG-Sauer, then pointed it at LeMarck’s position.
“Okay,” Ryan said. “I’ve got him covered.”
J.B. wheeled the horse and kicked it into a full gallop.
LeMarck moved at once, coming up over the edge of the wag with a blaster in his fist.
Ryan fired, scattering bullets all around the sec boss and sending the man to cover again. In a heartbeat the wag and the convention center were out of sight.
Less than two hundred yards farther on, with the horse giving out beneath their combined weight, Ryan saw the clearing up ahead where an armawag sat like a mythical beast, its ugly cannon snout pointed toward the ruins of the ville.
Remains of Vegas’s former glory still thrust above the trees and grass around and behind the wag, letting Ryan know they hadn’t yet cleared the area where the ville had once stood. Most of the buildings were smaller now, mainly private dwellings and scaled-down shops. A lot of the area hadn’t had much in the way of development. A sign nearly hidden by a blackberry bush read Las Vegas Country Club.
Saddles and bridles littered the ground in front of the armawag.
“What the hell?” J.B. said, pulling the horse up short and guiding it behind a stand of trees.
Ryan slid down, refilling the hand blaster and holstering it so he could take up the Steyr.
Abruptly the armawag’s hatch opened, and a man pushed himself into view.
Ryan recognized the weathered features of Jake, one of Nicholas Brody’s chief sec men.
Jake touched the brim of his hat. “Cawdor, you know me?”
“I know you,” Ryan replied. “Just don’t know what you’re doing here.” He put the telescopic sights over the man’s heart.
“Brody sent me for the missing boys,” Jake replied. “Took me a while to round up some able-bodied men and come running, but we’re here now. Dean told me him, Conor and Perry are all that’s left.”