Cohn’s orders were simple and explicit.
“Keep in radio contact. Twenty-four-hour watch on the emergency frequency. Four
guards out, turn and turn about each hour. Full alert all the time. Keep her
locked up tighter than a Baron’s cred chest.”
And then the most important part of it.
“If we’re back, then we’ll be here in four days. Call it a flat hundred hours.
Unless you hear from us to abort this command, after one hundred hours precise,
you push the boot to the floor and give her the gas and get out. From then on
you’re on your own.”
“What about a relief party?” Cohn asked J.B. and Ryan.
“There won’t be one, you stupe bastard,” snarled Ryan. “Hundred hours and we’re
not back, you go.”
“Where?”
“Watch my lips, Cohn,” interjected J. B. Dix. “We go. You stay. We come back in
less’n a hundred hours, all fine. If not, then War Wag One is yours. And you’ll
be low on gas and supplies, so get out fast. Now just nod your head if you
understand.”
“Sure,” Cohn replied with a nod. “That’s fine. I’ll be here like you say. And if
there’s problems, call it in.”
Each member of the team carried a pistol and rifle of their own choice. Each
carried four grenades on the belts, a mix of incendiary, stun, implosion,
high-ex, shrap, nerve gas and smoke. Each of them had a knife or edged weapon of
his or her choosing, ranging from Krysty’s delicate throwing knives in her
bandolier to Finnegan’s butcher’s cleaver that would take the head off a horse
in one blow.
They carried enough food for five days, with a small supply of water-pure tabs.
Ammunition supplied most of the weight to their packs, along with a radio
operated by Henn. No spare clothes or sleeping gear. There was no room for that
kind of comfort.
They agreed that the best time to leave was around dawn the next day. Koll was
designated to take charge of Doc, whose mind still vacillated between extremes
of brief clarity and long spells of catatonic madness. His only response when
Ryan Cawdor told him that they were planning on going toward the hidden Redoubt
was to smile and bow, his hat nearly falling off. Krysty had managed to sew some
strong elasticized cord for him to use when they ventured outside into the
gales. He’d refused any helmet or goggles like the others, saying that a scarf
for his throat would suffice.
“Suffice” was the word he’d used. Now he just asked Ryan about the guard dog.
“What dog? You mean the fog, Doc?”
“No. I speak of the canine deterrent… Ah, what memories that word brings back to
me, Mr. Cawdor.”
“What memories?”
A look of pain flitted across the aquiline features of the old man. “Sadly, that
has escaped me, sir. But I believe there was something about a dog.”
That night Krysty came to Ryan in his bunk, and they managed, despite the
tightness of the accommodation, to make slow, tender love three times before
reveille finally woke them.
Farewells were short and formal. During the years that Ryan Cawdor had ridden
with the Trader he had seen literally dozens of relationships formed and broken
in the war wag. Many formed from loneliness and fear. Many broken by death.
Ryan noticed Hun taking a long time in quiet talk with a little girl called
Sukie who had only joined War Wag One from Three a day or so before the fall of
Mocsin as a relief gunner on the mortar.
For the rest it was mainly a quick shake of the hand and a muttered word. Ryan
had once seen a scratchy antique vid about some Westerners in a fort. Or had it
been a church? There they were taking last messages to families and loved ones.
That didn’t arise in the Deathlands. Either your family and loved ones were on
War Wag One or they weren’t anywhere.
“What’s the weather, Cohn?”
“Minus fifteen. Wind around fifty, from north, veering east. Some hail in it.”
Ryan rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Sounds a fine day for a short walk in