Strichland laughed as she slumped to the cinder-block wall, gathering the chains around her for protection.
“I’ll return in a week, my dear bride,” he said, sneering, and turned to leave, the sec men smartly holding the door open for him.
Craning her neck to see, Krysty got only a brief glimpse of the corridor outside. More cinder-block walls and lots more guards. Hopefully, they were only an escort for the baron and not a permanent detail to guard the prisoners.
Strichland turned to speak, when the window shattered and the man’s shoulder exploded blood as he spun wildly, dropping to the floor.
The sec men had only a split second to register the fact, when a black dot appeared on the forehead of the private with a beard and he toppled over, exhaling deeply. The second man dived for the door, but spewed a geyser of red as his throat was removed. He landed sprawling, twitched once and went still.
Stretching out her boot, Krysty snagged the baron’s cloak and carefully dragged the body closer. Kicking him over, she grabbed a blaster, then searched his clothing. A ring of keys was found in his pants, and in seconds she was free.
First checking the corridor, she then closed the door and went to the window. A tiny figure waved on top of the building across the market square, then pointed to the north. Knowing Ryan could see her clearly through the scope of his Steyr rifle, she mouthed, “Med kit here.”
The figure nodded and moved into the shadows once more.
Grabbing the baron by his frilly collar, Krysty hauled him to his feet and slapped him twice before he responded with a moan.
“Where is the med kit?” she demanded, pressing the barrel of the blaster into the ghastly wound.
The baron writhed in pain, and she eased the pressure.
“Don’t die yet, cousin. Where’s the med kit?” she repeated, clicking back the hammer.
“My…office,” he gasped. “Down…hall…”
“Let’s go,” she said, throwing him toward the door.
In the hallway, some sec men were walking their way, so Krysty ducked behind the baron and shot them both dead. A third stepped into view from around the corner, blaster in hand, when the hallway window shattered and the man crashed against the wall, then sagged to the floor in a bloody heap.
“Any more around?” Krysty demanded harshly.
“That’s all…” he gasped, reaching for his wound. “I wanted…privacy with you…”
“Now you got it,” she stated, slapping his hand away with the blaster while tightening her grip on the collar. Get him in submission and confused. He was a danger like none ever faced, and her only hope was intimidation through pain.
Jerking the baron about, she slammed him against the wall, then forced the bleeding man down the hallway until reaching an ordinary-looking door.
“Here…” he wheezed, his face deathly pale.
Twisting the blaster into his side, Krysty made the man open the door himself, then shoved him through in case there was a reception committee of sec men.
The office was empty.
Kicking the door shut, Krysty slammed the pistol against his temple, and the baron crumpled to the floor. Quickly searching the office, she found the med kit on a glass shelf of a mirrored wall. The rest of the shelves were filled with assorted weapons, including her own .38 revolver. She checked the load and tucked the dead sec man’s blaster into her belt as a spare. The weight on her hip was reassuring. A teakwood box was filled with grisly trophies, and she tossed it aside. But from the rest of the armory, Krysty took a boxy MAC-11 submachine gun with an acoustical sound suppressor, and a sleek 9 mm Skorpion rapid-fire blaster. She had no preference among the weapons. These were simply the blasters with the most ammo clips stacked alongside. Krysty checked the clip on the Ingram MAC-11 and worked the bolt, when a dark shape rose into view reflected in the mirror.
Spinning, she fired the MAC-11 as the baron charged past her, crashing into the glass shelves. Incredibly, the man rose again, brandishing a sliver of glass as a dagger. He lunged again, and Krysty stitched him from crotch to crown, emptying the entire clip. The force of the bullets drove him back, but the baron thrust for her one last time before slumping to the floor pumping out his life onto the white carpets. Taking no chances, Krysty reloaded and fired again until there wasn’t enough left of his head to identify the corpse as human.