But they’d take the SIG, the LAPA, his grenades, the contents of his belt
pouches and the four sticks for the LAPA. All the obvious stuff. And although
they’d left him his belt, they’d checked it thoroughly.
But they had not checked his boots, his thick-soled combat boots, and they had
not checked his long fur-lined coat. Oh, sure, they’d gone through the pockets,
all of them, the obvious places, but once they’d finished that task, under Cort
Strasser’s gimlet gaze, they had handed it back to him.
“Where you’re going, Ryan, you might get cold. And we wouldn’t want that.”
Very funny.
And they had not checked his scarf, the white scarf of thick silk he’d found in
a trunk in an attic in an old abandoned house on the borders of the Swamplands
down south. It was a fine scarf, an elegant scarf, a scarf that had once surely
belonged to a man of substance who had used it for those very special occasions
in the old days. Those way back, pre-Nuke days. The silk was so smooth and so
thick and so heavy. Especially so heavy. Especially now.
But they had left him that, probably because it had no meaning to his searchers,
since the concept of “dressing up” for those very special occasions was utterly
alien to them, something that had no meaning whatsoever. The way they stank, it
was clear these guys hadn’t washed in years, let alone dressed up.
They had not taken J.B.’s hat, either, an error they might come to regret. While
they were being searched—upstairs, here in what once had been the Mocsin City
Bank and Loan Facility Corporation building—J.B. had obligingly taken off his
old, wide-brimmed fedora, held it upside down, the crown gripped in his left
hand, and inserted the fingers of his right hand to flick up the sweatband, just
to show there was nothing concealed behind it. The guy pulling weaponry off and
out of him, denuding his pouches, groping at the lining of his brown leather
jacket, now ran a finger around the inside of the hat suspiciously, peering
intently at it, staring up at J.B.’s impassive, bespectacled face, a face made
all the more funny looking because the specs had been salvaged from some
surviving product dump years ago and distorted J.B.’s features. And shrugged.
And watched J.B. press down the sweatband again and plop the hat back on his
head. And returned to the far more important business of searching him for
concealed cannon, bazookas, a howitzer stuffed down his pants. Shit like that.
Foolish man.
Strictly an amateur.
Even so, even allowing for the stupidity of Strasser’s goons, the blinkered
comprehension of Strasser himself, Ryan had to admit that this spot was a tight
one, and it would need more than merely a modicum of luck and a good stiff
breeze to get them out of it.
His ranks now were drastically depleted. That treacherous burst of fire from the
concealed marksman in the buggy had left him J.B,, Hunaker, Koll and Sam. And as
a wild card, Hovac, waiting at Charlie’s—though a pretty damned useless one, all
things considered, as Hovac had no means of knowing where they were, what had
occurred, and in any case was hardly in a position, even if he did discover
their whereabouts, to rescue them. All he would know was that they were late for
the rendezvous and time was ticking away.
Time.
Ryan had no intention of checking his watch because that would give Strasser the
idea that there was some kind of time factor here, some kind of cutoff Ryan knew
about that he didn’t. But at a rough calculation Ryan figured that maybe two
hours had passed since Hunaker had entered Charlie’s with the grim news.
And that in turn meant they had roughly two hours to get their shit together and
out. Say one and a half, in case of accidents. Not a lot. Not one hell of a lot.
Easing away from the wall he was lounging against, Ryan said, “You know, we can
still come to some kind of deal on all this.”
Cort Strasser laughed.
“You’re in no position to bargain, Ryan. You’re mine. So is your train. All