Rintoul emerged from the shadows and pointed to a room. Ryan padded across to
where J.B. was hunched against a window frame.
“Two trucks and a buggy. Could be Strasser.”
Ryan peered out. The arcs were still flickering, but in their nervous
illumination Ryan could see what J.B. had seen. The trucks had reached the front
of the house below and were stopping, the buggy sweeping in from behind. A tall,
gauntly built man, bareheaded and black garbed, emerged from the front of the
buggy, followed by two sec men.
“Yeah.”
Strasser was staring around, peering to the left and right as though looking for
someone.
“And they don’t know we’re here. He’s looking for the guards we iced.”
Ryan rerigged the LAPA and brought out his SIG-Sauer. He sighted on the
roof-mounted spotlight of the buggy and put a round into it. There was a crash
of glass, a sharp metallic clang and the light went dead. Strasser jumped, his
head jerking up as his hand reached at his coat.
Ryan shouted, “You’re dead first, Strasser. Whatever happens.”
Strasser stared upward, his skull-like face expressionless.
“Ryan. Might’ve guessed you’d still be loose. But what can you expect when you
employ imbeciles.”
J.B. muttered, “I’ll go down. Get Henn and the rest. Get the door open.”
Ryan called out, “You killed a lot of our people, Strasser.”
The bony man shrugged but said nothing.
“Tell the trucks to beat it, and tell them not to mess up when we come out. Get
your men out of the buggy.”
“Why should I do that, Ryan?” Strasser’s voice, like his face, was
expressionless.
“We got Teague.”
Strasser pursed his lips, then shrugged again and nodded slowly. He began to
turn away.
“And don’t move from that spot, shithead.”
Strasser stood still, pointed at the trucks, began talking quickly to the two
men with him. One of them went to the buggy, his voice a mutter of sound. Ryan
watched as goons began climbing out of the buggy, five in all. The trucks revved
up, backed off from the house and turned, disappearing down the driveway into
the darkness beyond the arc lights’ beams. Ryan could see their headlamps
cutting into the blackness. The men who had come from the buggy began to back
away from the vehicle onto the grass.
“J.B.!”
Below him he saw light spill out from the opening door and he turned and raced
back across the room, into the corridor, down the stairs, the SIG still clutched
in his right hand.
“Let’s go.”
He shoved the SIG at Teague’s head, and Teague whimpered as they moved out of
the house toward Strasser and the buggy.
“We go to where the Trader is, we go to where the train is, and then we go.”
Strasser said, “Fortunes of war, Ryan,” His hands came out in a wide-armed
shrug. “So near, and yet so far. Ah, well…”
There was something wrong here, but Ryan couldn’t figure out what it was. He
knew Strasser. Strasser was too cool—far too cool. Then in the same moment that
he saw muzzle-flash from the buggy interior, Teague’s head exploded like an
overripe fruit, spraying him with blood, brains and homogenized bone. The double
crack of the shots came a microsecond later. Teague lurched, collapsed into him
soundlessly, and the dead bulk of the man shoved him groundward, knocking the
SIG from his grasp. There was another, longer, burst of fire and a crazed yell
from behind, then Strasser was screaming, “Hold it!”
Ryan heaved at Teague, rolled him off, as icy phantom fingers insinuated
themselves into his stomach. What a jerk-off, he thought disgustedly. Then
Strasser was above him, a handgun gripped in his gloved hand, its barrel inches
from Ryan Cawdor’s good eye.
“Don’t twitch. Shithead!” The gaunt man’s voice was a crow of delight and
malevolent triumph. “Thought you had an ace, hmm? Tough titty. Now you’re going
to be telling me about all those ingenious boobies you have.” He laughed softly.
Chillingly. “Jordan was redundant, Ryan. So are you.”
Chapter Nine
THEY HADN’T BOTHERED to take his watch, and the thought pounded his brain like
hammer blows that time was running out… running out… running out.