All yours, lover, she thought as she closed in on the two saboteurs, who were set to their task with more speed than previously.
The saboteur with the lamp and the Heckler & Koch had no idea what hit him. Although Krysty wasn’t an accurate shot to the degree that either Mildred or Jak were, she was still the possessor of a keen eye. The bullet took the tall and muscular saboteur straight between the eyes, shattering his skull and the bones of his nose, driving splinters into those frontal lobes that weren’t eviscerated by the hot lead of the slug. He fell backward, dropping both lamp and blaster, not knowing that he was even chilled.
The fatter saboteur was momentarily stunned into shocked stillness. Then something in his brain clicked into gear, knowing that he would be chilled unless he acted. He went for his blaster, trying to turn…
Too late. Krysty’s second shot took him at the top of the cheekbone, in the area between the ear and the eye socket. He screamed as the bone acted as a shock absorber for the slug before shattering under the impact. It was the merest fraction of a second longer that he lived, but a fraction of a second that was of the acutest agony.
Knowing they were dead, Krysty emerged from the hut, keeping low in case Hunter should have turned back. She checked the chilled saboteurs to be sure, then turned to the derrick.
What she saw made her blood run cold.
RYAN HAD LOST TRACK of the baron when the first shot was fired. Somewhere in the shadow, Hunter had disappeared. He couldn’t have gone far, but knowing he had to have realized what had happened, and that he knew the wellhead better than anyone, Ryan knew he’d have to be on triple red.
Even so, Hunter’s voice from behind still shocked him and made his blood run cold.
“Drop those blasters and turn around slowly, or else I’ll chill you where you stand,” the baron said softly.
Ryan had no doubt that Hunter had his blaster leveled at him, and so he complied, making sure to be triple slow and buy some time. The baron had to know that there was someone else at the wellhead, but he couldn’t keep his attention perfectly divided. Ryan just hoped that Krysty would be able to do something before the baron decided it was time for him to buy the farm.
“So tell me,” Ryan said calmly as he turned. “Was Crow involved?”
“No. Shame he had to tumble to what was going on, as he was an okay guy and a damn fine worker. That I do regret, if I’m honest.”
“I regret that, too,” Ryan said. He wanted to keep the conversation going as long as possible, to buy time for himself, and for Krysty to try to attack the baron. He’d be less likely to hear her approach if he was busy talking. Ryan continued. “I don’t get it. Why do you want to destroy the well?”
“Want? Hell, the last thing I want is to destroy it.” Hunter laughed bitterly.
“Then why are you doing that very thing?” Ryan asked.
A tinge of genuine sadness entered Hunter’s voice.
“I don’t have any choice. I spent years searching for a well. Years. And it was part of my father, too. When I found this one, I couldn’t believe that it was still operable. The test drilling found that there were sizable deposits—or that’s how it seemed.”
“How it seemed?” Ryan interjected, trying desperately to see if Krysty was in view anywhere, trying desperately to keep Hunter talking.
“I guess that some old deposits had been trapped by rock shifts, making big enough pools to drill into. But soon after we started work here it became clear that there wasn’t anything really left in the well, and those deposits soon dried up.”
“Shit, that’s one beauty to explain to the other barons,” Ryan said.
“Explain? After all the jack and supplies they’ve pumped into this? They figure that they own me, and they’d take it out on my ass. So I had to delay the project somehow, until I had enough jack and an escape route to make a run for it.”