But none of that interested the woman. Knowing that all Strasser’s forces were gathered by the engine house, she was able to take chances. She exited a side door, blinking in the bright morning sunlight, and cut across by the row of small shops and down an alley between a video rental store and a thrift shop.
She hesitated a moment as she emerged into a wider street, looking left and then right, finally recognizing where she was.
Mildred could see the house where the weapons were hidden, and she was already slowing from a jog when she heard the unmistakable crack of the Stechkin being fired again.
“Four,” she whispered, four of the original six that the lottery had selected.
She stooped and fumbled under the porch, feeling the chill as her hands only encountered rubbishold cans, amorphous paper, and cardboard and plastic. Mildred felt further, ignoring the booming voice of Cort Strasser through the speaker, warning Ryan that the deaths would continue.
“Ah, thank you Jesus,” she said, fingers touching the smooth heaviness of gunmetal. She pulled out her ZKR 551, tucking it into the back of her navy pants, finding the handful of ammo and slipping it into her pocket. She grabbed Doc’s massive Le Mat, filling her other pocket with his spare ammunition.
“Now,” she breathed.
“Think Skullface’ll really take the lives of all them good folk?” Major Ward asked. “Don’t seem right to me.”
“Doesn’t seem right to me, either,” Krysty agreed, “but that’s what he’ll do.”
“Won’t be long before he realizes that you’re not going to come out,” J.B. said. “Then what, Ryan?”
“Then he’ll use Doc. That’ll be the next step along.”
There were still two of the doomed hostages, standing together. One was visibly weeping, but the other was managing an outward display of bravery.
“Mildred?” Jak asked.
“She’ll be looking for us, I guess. Mebbe we should move to try to link up with her.”
They all heard Strasser again. “I’m getting tired of this, One-Eye! Let’s take out five and six together. Then I figure it’s time for our mutual friend, Theophilus Tanner, to do his stuff. Maybe he’ll be more persuasive than me.”
J.B. had the glass to his eye, his spectacles pushed up on his forehead, in the shade of the fedora’s brim.
“Making them kneel,” he reported. “Doc’s still got three blasters around him. They’re watching the killings. Everyone is.”
Ryan reached a decision. “That’s enough. I’m going to chill Strasser now. We’ll go in and take out who we can. Rest’ll have to look to their luck. It’s gone on long enough.” He brought the smooth shape of the G-12 to his shoulder.
“Strasser’s come down off his box.”
“I can still hit him. A head shot.”
J.B. was scanning the crowd. “They look like they’re all in shock. Don’t know how Dark night!”
Ryan took his finger off the trigger. “What is it?”
The Armorer turned to him. “It’s Mildred. She just came back.”
Mildred had heard Strasser’s booming voice, promising the double execution, and she hurried to rejoin the crowd of settlers. She’d hidden Doc’s old pistol in the top of her pants, pulling out her white blouse to cover it. Her own pistol was resting snugly in the small of her back.
The door she’d escaped through still stood a few inches ajar. Mildred slowed to a cautious walk, aware that there could easily be armed men waiting for her behind that door.
“If there are, then there are,” she said, drawing the Czech target revolver and feeling its reassuring weight in her hand. There would be real compensation if only she could take some of them with her, leave things a little cleaner.
Through the gap, she could see the backs of some of the settlers, none of them looking in her direction. Every one of them was staring fixedly toward the center of the square.
Mildred eased herself through the doorway, blinking as her eyes adjusted again to the bright morning sunlight. The corpses lay where they’d fallen, the pools of blood thick with gorging flies. Two men knelt before Strasser, one of them with his hands clasped together in prayer. The leader of the gang stood towering over them, the Stechkin held loosely in his right hand. Over to the right, near the entrance to one of the engine-house buildings, Doc Tanner stood with three armed men around him. The rest of the twenty or so guards stood in a loose circle, three or four of them near the locomotive.