“Always has,” Ryan said.
Chapter Seventeen
“Outlanders!”
Ryan roused himself from the semisleeping state he’d allowed himself to drift into during the past hour. He and J.B. had spent two and a half hours setting the plas ex around the hotel, tying all the remote-control detonators into the broadcast unit J.B. had. All of them would detonate at prearranged times, only seconds apart.
Ryan trusted the Armorer’s skills in the demolitions area. J.B. had brought down several structures when they’d been back with the Trader on War Wag One.
“Outlanders!”
Peering over the rooftop’s edge, Ryan picked up the Steyr.
Kirkland was out in the middle of the street, standing there in what looked like a glass box that sat in the back of a horse-drawn wag. A dozen gunners stood around the wag, protecting it.
Ryan couldn’t believe it. He shouldered the rifle, keeping the barrel back far enough that none of the sec team could see it. He put the crosshairs over Kirkland’s broad face. Taking up trigger slack, he breathed out, then squeezed through.
The bullet slammed into the glass box, sending fracture lines running across one of the flat surfaces. But it didn’t penetrate. Ryan studied the bullet hanging in midair above Kirkland at an angle that would have taken the man through the face if it had gone through.
Inside the glass box, Kirkland had flinched, but stopped short of throwing himself flat. The sec men surrounding him weren’t as cool about getting shot at. They went to ground and started to fire back at the hotel.
“Stop firing, you stupe bastards!” Kirkland roared. It took a couple minutes for the blasterfire to subside.
“Okay,” Ryan called back, “you got my attention.”
Scrambling noises sounded beside him, then Krysty joined him. “He’s built himself a bulletproof box of armaglass, lover.”
“Putting on his own private show,” Ryan agreed.
“You people are in a coffin,” Kirkland yelled.
“And still got plenty of room for company,” Ryan called back. “How many of you want to be chilled trying to nail the lid on?”
“There’s another way we could work this,” Kirkland said.
“Tell me.”
Ryan turned to Krysty and spoke in a lower voice. “Get the others. We’re going to get out of here.”
“I know you chilled Liberty and his people,” Kirkland said. “Proves you’re harder to deal with than he was. The position of outer-perimeter sec chief is open.”
“Don’t see how we could trust each other,” Ryan, responded.
“We’ve got to start somewhere.”
“Sure. I trust you and I end up with a back full of bullets. You trust me, how are you going to know I won’t take up that outer-perimeter position and just keep on riding?”
“Have you heard about the plague?” Kirkland asked.
“Yeah,” Ryan replied. “I also heard it’s a fake.”
Kirkland glanced around the street. Shopkeepers hadn’t opened their buildings that morning, but they were around.
“You tried to kill two of our people last night,” Ryan went on. “Only they killed your men instead. They found those air rifles and the darts you use to administer the bacterial injection you refer to as the plague.”
“You’re lying!”
“Got no reason to at this point,” Ryan said.
“Jak!”
Below, the albino teenager threw the captured air rifle and darts into the street.
“We didn’t have those when we rode into Hazard yesterday,” Ryan called out. “People that saw us know that. Word’s going to spread, Kirkland, that your plague is just a big fake. Then you’re going to be flat out of power in this ville, if they don’t string you up.”
“You’re lying,” Kirkland said. “You’re just trying to get these people to throw their lives away in an attempt to save your own ass.”
Ryan watched the storefronts. People of the ville had gathered within the shops, not wanting to be caught out on the streets. But they were drawn to the approaching storm of violence all the same.
And they were hearing his words.
“You chose how it was going to be when you made an attempt on my people last night,” Ryan said. “And when you kidnapped one of them to use against us. Today all bets are off, and devil scrog the hindmost.”