rose behind him and his fingers thrust through all the mud and muck and filth
that had accumulated there, on the vehicle’s underside, and finally caught hold
of the casing, hearing, as he did so, bursts of fire from Krysty battling it out
with the sec men. Keep it up, he thought in anguish, his fingers tearing at hard
gobs of dried mud. He unlatched the casing, felt inside every nerve in him
screaming, his head to the right, expecting any second to see some kill-crazy
guy storming around from the war wag’s front, auto-rifle flaming. Instead, all
he saw through the now bucketing rain was the sky still flaring up in bursts of
shocking light, his ears taking in the almost continual rumble of distant
detonations.
He shoved the switch, cursing fiercely until he grunted in triumph as he felt it
smoothly slot into Off. It was a system that worked outside or inside—it didn’t
matter. That was the simple beauty of it.
But there was still the problem of getting into the war wag. Still one last
switch to be thrown inside… that had to be thrown within minutes. Within five
minutes, or maybe less than five—gotta be. Two minutes? Three? No more than
three, he thought, and I can fall into all kinds of crap in three lousy minutes.
Already he was staggering back the way he’d come, toward the front. Again he
bent over, eyes still glued to his right, and again his fingers felt for the
switch housing. Damned thing wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t fall open. He wrenched it,
his heart pounding, his breathing tortured into ugly grunts. He knew his fingers
were by now slick with blood, though he could feel no pain. He could feel almost
nothing in them at all. The casing suddenly flicked down and he jabbed at the
switch inside…
And reeled sideways, a hoarse racking howl ripped from him as something solid
smashed into the side of his skull. His arms scraped along rough metal as he
crashed to the ground.
Shit, he thought, they came around the back.
He lay in the mud, breathing hoarsely, his body twisted, grimacing with the pain
that was daggering through his head, slowly opening his one eye and making out
two figures looming over him in the downpour. Strasser. Kelber.
Both had pieces, handguns jabbed down at him, at his face. He spat mud and water
out and thought, Finis.
Strasser was screaming at him, shrieking insanely, beside himself with rage.
Ryan got up, he couldn’t make out what he was saying, and probably Strasser
didn’t know himself. Then Kelber was dragging him to his feet, smashing a hand
repeatedly across his face.
Strasser howled, “You think you’re smart, Ryan, but you’re shit, you’re shit,
and you’re going to die like shit!”
Kelber kicked his legs and Ryan staggered, toppled, collapsed to the ground,
spraying mud and slop into the air. He lashed out, too, savagely, but there was
no target and Strasser lunged at him, falling across one of his legs, jamming an
outspread hand into his face. Ryan kept kicking, flailing around with his other
foot, but it was difficult to do anything destructive with his hands still tied.
Strasser was yelling, “The box, the box! Get it out, you cretin!” He glared down
at Ryan, and to Ryan the scene took on a nightmarish quality as water sluiced
across the gaunt man’s skull-like battered face, a bucketing deluge of hot rain
hammering down on him with punishing force.
Ryan saw Kelber with the box in his hands, his fat sausage fingers ripped at the
lid and not getting it right, the box becoming a live thing in his hands so that
he was suddenly juggling with it, Strasser yelling frenziedly.
Strasser caught it and opened it. And Strasser thrust a fist down into Ryan’s
mouth, uncaring whether Ryan bit him or not, both hands now brought into play,
fingers gripping his jaw, clenching his teeth, yanking Ryan’s mouth open. Kelber
leaned over, suddenly laughing like a madman, the box in his hands starting to
tip up.
With an almost superhuman strength jolting through him like an electric charge,
Ryan heaved himself from under Strasser’s knees in a desperate scrabbling roll,