nephew had answered some arcane riddle.
“He tells me that there is a place of great wealth southeast of here, called
stoppile, near a place called Ank Ridge.” Uchitel consulted the book again to
make sure he’d understood the boy. “Yes, the boy is right. Tell the others we
will go at dawn.”
“And what of him?”
“The boy?”
“Da,” replied Pechal in his gentle voice. “What of him?”
“Kill him.” It was a matter of supreme indifference to Uchitel now.
The boy died in appalling agony at the hands of Pyeka, the Baker, their
incendiary expert. Pyeka found a novel way of introducing elongated pyro-tabs
into the youth’s body, then lighting them. Pyeka had always thrived on the
laughter and praise of his comrades for his cleverness with fire.
The next morning, having forgotten the threat of the cavalry at his back,
Uchitel led his group toward Stoppile near Ank Ridge.
South and east toward the stockpile not far from where Anchorage had once stood.
Chapter Eleven
LEAD STREAMED OUT of the silenced MP-5 SD-2s held by Quint and Rachel. The
silenced Heckler & Koch blasters fired subsonic rounds, with little more noise
than a man coughing. But their effect was devastating in the long, forty-bed
dormitory.
When Lori made her move, screaming out a warning, the room became a bedlam of
noise and movement. For an instant, Ryan was frozen by the cry from a girl
everyone had thought totally dumb. Then he dived for cover, hitting the floor
and crawling toward his bed and weaponry; knowing, as he did, that he was likely
to be too slow.
He glimpsed feet. They were scrabbling and running everywhere. As he rose,
squinting around the bottom of his bed, he took in at a glance what was
happening.
Quint and Rachel still stood near the doorway, firing their blasters from the
hip. Quint was cackling with maniacal laughter, and Rachel’s face was frozen in
a rictus of savage hatred. Bullets skittered off the wall, striking sparks from
the row of lockers.
“Ice ’em!” J. B. Dix shouted from across the room.
“Talk’s fuckin’ cheap,” muttered Ryan, trying to reach the hem of his long coat;
he wanted to drag it from his bed and get at the SIG-Sauer P-226. Another burst
of fire exploded along the floor, only inches from his outstretched hand, making
him retreat. Then he had the coat and then the pistol, knowing immediately from
its weight that it held the full complement of fifteen 9-mm rounds in the mag.
As he maneuvered into position for a clear shot, he heard a piercing scream and
saw Lori fall in a tangle of flying red clothes, crimson smearing her face.
“Fireblast!” he cursed, seeing that Quint had moved behind the lockers, only the
heavy muzzle of the submachine gun protruding. Rachel had also taken cover
behind a bed, cackling her delight at having shot her own great-niece.
He could see only a couple of his own group. Finnegan was crawling toward his
bed, after his new model 92 Beretta, hanging in its holster from the bedframe.
And Hunaker.
Her cropped green stubble of hair gleamed in the overhead lights. Hun was
marvelously athletic, with exceptional strength and agility. Her own Ingram 9 mm
was on the floor, resting against the television. Ryan’s eye was caught for a
moment by the picture on the screen of a naked couple in bed—a thin-faced man
and a beautiful woman with long dark hair.
Making her move, Hun dived into a forward roll, then reached for the blaster.
She was straightening when Rachel saw her. The crone hobbled a step sideways,
screeched a warning to her husband-brother, then opened up with a burst of
continuous fire that ripped into the crouching girl.
Hunaker was hit across the chest, the bullets unzipping her clothes and skin and
flesh. She was thrown sideways onto her back. The gun fell from her fingers. She
tried to get up again but fell forward in a crouch, her head between her knees,
coughing up blood.
“Fuckin’ bastard!” screamed Okie, moving toward the dying woman.
“Get back!” ordered Ryan, seeing that Okie would be cold meat for Rachel. But