“Shit,” Ryan whispered. “Convoy!”
The distant rumble of engines became louder, until around the corner lumbered an old WWII jeep jammed full of men. Behind it was a flatbed truck piled with mattresses, and lastly a battered U.S. Mail truck, the driver wearing a gas mask.
“Exhaust-pipe leak?” Krysty guessed.
Scowling, Ryan said nothing, and Jak continued to unwrap the electrical tape from the handle of the gren.
The convoy of predark vehicles pulled to a ragged stop in front of the tunnel, and the drivers got out. The tunnel guards walked over to greet the newcomers, and soon the two groups were smoking pipes and swapping canteens. From the reactions, some of the containers didn’t contain water. The desert breezes carried away most of the conversation, with only scraps audible to the companions.
“…bodies slashed to ribbons…”
“…blasters…”
“…muties had a real party last night…”
“…enough for a new greenhouse…”
His ruby eyes going wide, Jak curled a lip in disgust. Krysty turned slightly pale, and Ryan felt sick to his stomach. The local baron was using people as fertilizer in greenhouses? Part of him acknowledged the intelligence of the notion, turning liabilities into assets, but the whole thing was a bit too close to cannibalism for him.
Ryan motioned for a retreat, and the companions crawled back to the river some fifty yards away, where they could converse in private.
“Gaia, eating their own dead,” Krysty said.
With a curt hand motion, Ryan interrupted. “Doesn’t matter. This is even better than questioning the guards. This is our way in and out of the ville. Everybody agrees the thief must have sold the kit to the baron, right?” Brisk nods answered the question. “Okay, then, so do we. Here’s the plan.”
“HEY, HARRY,” a driver called out, leaning his long-blaster against a truck, the hot engine under the battered hood ticking loudly as it cooled. “You gotta see this!”
Puffing on his corncob pipe, Harry started over as Trevor began to unfold a glossy sheet of paper. “What-cha got, Trevor?”
“Found this on the wall of a brake shop. Not bad, eh?”
A smile growing wide, Harry gazed at the naked woman, dressed in lace and bound in leather. He whistled in appreciation. “Goddamn, that’s hot!”
” ‘Darla Crane,’ ” the driver read off the back. “Gotta love them redheads.”
“Nyah, blondes do it for me,” George said.
“Long as they don’t carry knives,” Phil added, leaning against the tiled wall and tapping his pipe out in a palm. “Pass her over, boys, give me a gander.”
“Just don’t drool.” Harry laughed, ambling closer.
“And give it back!” Trevor added angrily.
Just then, the sound of a roaring engine broke the silence of the predark ruins.
“Another one of ours coming in?” George asked.
Dropping the poster, Phil grabbed his blaster and cocked the hammer. Only the Wolf Pack got bolt-action blasters, and nobody had autofires anymore. But these muzzle-loaders still killed at a hundred paces, even if they did make enough smoke to blind a man.
“Ours?” Trevor asked, drawing his revolver. As a driver, he got special considerations from the baron. “Hell, no. We’re lucky to have these three rolling at the same time. Damn rust buckets are always breaking down.”
The noise drastically increased, and a huge vehicle erupted around the corner, sand and dust spraying off the tires as it spun in a circle in the intersection. The driver seemed to be lost, confused or insane.
“This way!” George called out, buttoning his fatigues while waving a hand. “Run for the tunnel. We’ll hold off the wolves!”
Obediently, the wag started forward and they caught sight of the driver, an albino with snow-white hair and eyes like rubies.
“Mutie!” Henry screamed fearfully.
Now the driver spun the vehicle in a figure-eight pattern, kicking up a tremendous dust cloud. The sec men covered their faces with neckerchiefs as the desert wind blew the choking cloud over the tunnel opening.
Then the driver slammed on the brakes, the nose of the wag dipping toward the ground and the wheels squealing in protest. As it bounced to a halt, the albino drew his mammoth blaster, the long barrel gleaming in the dim daylight. The driver fired twice, the sounds echoing down the tunnel. Oddly, the slugs hit the tunnel wall, cracking the tiles but nothing more. The pale stranger stomped on the accelerator, the big wag spinning its tires in the sand, raising an even bigger cloud than before as it sped away, zigzagging wildly back and forth down the road.