Trader had used to say, in that sort of situation, that a man who pulled the trigger too hastily could reckon on chilling some of his friends with the bullet.
RYAN CHECKED his wrist chron, knowing that J.B. would be doing the same, somewhere in the surrounding blackness, taking up the agreed positions in a loose circle around the LAV-25.
Ryan had the only night sight and had handed over the Steyr rifle to Mildred as the finest shot among them, a move that attracted some surprised looks from the Navaho at the idea of a woman having skill with a blaster.
She should be able to pick off some of their enemies as they scrambled from the turret on the wag, while Ryan, with Man Sees Behind Sun and Jak, should be close enough to take out the others.
That was the idea.
DESPITE THE RECENT RAINS, it wasn’t hard to find sun-dried branches of sagebrush and mesquite and, best of all, a cluster of creosote bushes.
Moving with infinite care, Ryan and his companions dragged the clumps of vegetation along with them, closing in on the stalled vehicle. As they got near, Ryan sniffed the air. Jak was right at his side.
“Gas?” the teenager whispered.
“Yeah. Must have a small leak. Could help us.”
It was only a dribble of crude gasoline, running into the sand between the rear wheels, but it would be helpful to get their fire going.
They’d all been out in the night long enough for their eyes to have become reasonably accustomed to the darkness. When they got within a dozen yards of the bulk of the wag, they all kept still, watching intently, trying to decide if the General’s people had anyone on watch. But there was no sign of movement around the turret.
Ryan had figured that their chances were good, even if someone was watching from inside the wag. The big 25 mm Bushmaster cannon would be far too clumsy to hit them at close range. And they would hear if anyone started to move the M-240 coaxial machine gun to open fire on them. The only serious risk that he considered was someone with a small-caliber handblaster firing from one of the ports on the side.
But there was nothing.
“Asleep,” the young Navaho whispered.
Ryan knew that there were two exits available on the LAV-25one directly from the turret, and the other nearer the front. If the plan worked, then those inside were likely to come out either or both.
“Probably both,” Ryan muttered.
“Who lights fire?” the young Indian asked.
“You. I’ll take the top of the wag, and Jak can cover the front. But nobody does any chilling until we think everyone’s out. That way we should get them all. Don’t want anyone left safe and snug inside, able to start firing the cannon and warning the General that he’s under attack.”
“I have ignites to begin the flames,” the Navaho said. “Take all of the brush to near gas leak.”
Ryan nodded. “Sure. Let’s get everything in place for the fire. Others should be where they should be by now.”
THE ARMAMETAL WAS COOL to the touch. Ryan climbed up, using the foot- and handholds, taking the greatest care not to let his combat boots scrape on the hull of the wag. He knew from years of personal experience that any slight sound would be magnified to those inside.
He stood for a moment, steadying himself on the top of the turret, looking out toward the horizon and seeing the pale glow of the false dawn. Time was moving too fast. Ryan gently tested the handle on the hatch, but wasn’t surprised to find it bolted shut from within.
There was a flicker of movement ahead of him as the albino swung himself up over the protruding front of the wag.
Everything was ready.
Time seemed to stop as Ryan sat down and waited for the action to begin. He’d readied himself mentally, steadying his breathing and slowing his heartbeat. There would be blood on his hands in the next five minutes, as there had been a hundred times before.
Perhaps his own blood.
His sensitive hearing caught the tiny scratching sound of a self-light. Almost instantly his nostrils detected the scent of fire, the arid bitterness of desert smoke, overlaid with gasoline and the odor of the sagebrush.
“Now,” Jak breathed, a scant eight feet ahead of him.
A tiny flame became visible between the tops of the bogged-down tires, under the vehicle, growing stronger, the smoke now visible in the darkness.
Ryan saw the Navaho move out from the fire that he’d lighted, jogging a few yards and crouching behind a boulder, becoming instantly invisible.
Now the tension was rising.
Fifteen years ago he’d sat with Trader, both men leaning against a tree near the crest of a hill, the older man with his Armalite while Ryan had been holding a pump-action Remington 870 scattergun.
They’d been hunting somewhere up around the Cascades when they realized that they had become trapped between two bunches of stickies. They didn’t know how many there were in either party, but they knew the muties were closing in on them like the jaws of a nutcracker.
So all they could do was sit and wait.
Trader had picked a daisy from a clump near his boots and was gently plucking it apart, petal by petal, peering at it, as though he were admiring the wonders of Nature.
Ryan had never forgotten that moment.
Now, with the wisdom of age, he realized that Trader had been doing it partly for his benefit, demonstrating just how calm and unworried he was by the imminent threat from the wolf’s-head bands of muties.
As the first of the stickies breasted the rise, unaware of the presence of the two norms, Trader had dropped what remained of the flower and dusted his hands clean before ripping the muties apart with a burst from the Armalite. Ryan had never even touched the trigger on his shotgun.
Now he was waiting once more to spill the lifeblood of enemies.
The fire was growing, the flames crackling and the smoke thickening around the stranded wag. It could only be a matter of seconds before someone inside smelled the danger through the vent ports.
“What de fuck!”
The voice was thick with sleep, puzzled.
“Hey, there’s a fucking fire someplace.”
“Outside or in here?”
” Quien es ? ” a woman asked.
“Get your foot outta my fuckin’ face, will ya!”
Ryan had the SIG-Sauer cocked in his right hand, balancing himself and waiting.
Jak wore his satin-finish Colt Python in its holster, but Ryan guessed that he might choose to rely on the assortment of leaf-bladed throwing knives that he kept concealed on his person.
Man Sees Behind Sun had been carrying a sawed-down shotgun of indeterminate age and make.
The smoke was thicker, wreathing up, almost white in the darkness of early morning.
Now the voices that Ryan could hear from inside the trapped war wag were rising, overlapping, showing the first signs of serious panic. It had become almost impossible to catch what was being said, or shouted, just an occasional word. “Burned! Indians! Alive. Hatches.”
Ryan stifled a cough. He heard the sound of a sec bolt snapping back and readied the powerful hand-blaster, flattening himself down behind the turret where a quick glance wouldn’t be likely to spot him in the smoke and blackness. He figured the General’s troops weren’t likely to take too much time and care looking around before getting out of what must seem like a death trap.
The main hatch to the wag crashed open.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The only person, out of more than twenty involved in the brief skirmish, who was able to see what was happening was Dr. Mildred Wyeth.
She had found a good prone shooting position, and rested the barrel of the Steyr between two large sandstone boulders, the polished walnut stock cradled against her shoulder. A 7.62 mm round was already under the pin, and her right eye was pressed to the rubber-edged sight.
She’d seen Ryan climb slowly onto the rectangular bulk of the war wag and hunker behind the turret, in back of the big gun.
Jak moved into her range of vision like a snake, his white hair as bright as a magnesium flare with the Starlite enhancer, sitting cross-legged, just at the back of the forward hatch. As far as Mildred could make out, the teenager wasn’t holding any sort of weapon.
And the Navaho was crouched near the bundles of brush that all three men had dragged to the wag. The scope didn’t give anything like full daylight clarity, with the figures slightly fogged and blurred, but it was still a hundred times better than the darkness that Mildred saw every time she removed her eyes from the sight.
The flame was extremely bright, making her blink, the fire spreading quickly, bands of smoke uncoiling like clouds of white chiffon.