CROW WATCHED THEM come across the sand from his position, and turned to his sec men. Petey, Bronson and Coburn had their Uzis in hand, and were positioned across the entrance to the shelter.
“Remember what I said. Baron Silas wants them alive, so if you have to chill every last muthafucker of these scum, then you do it.”
“But they’re our people,” Coburn protested.
Crow fixed the white-haired sec man with a steely glare that seemed to eat through him. “If they don’t get back in one piece, then you won’t be man enough to call anyone your people.”
Coburn winced, recalling the rumors in the sec force about the torturous fates of those who had crossed the baron of Salvation in his single-minded pursuit.
“Exactly,” Crow said simply.
THE TIME BETWEEN the arrival of the companions in the tent shelter and the arrival of the wag to take them back to Salvation was tense, and seemed to drag on forever. The workers muttered among themselves, avoiding the subject of the strangers and contenting themselves merely with a few sideways glances at the companions, always aware of the cold eyes of Crow and the Uzis of the sec men who stood facing them. For their part, the companions sat in silence, all straining their ears for the first sign of the wag.
It was Jak who heard it first, his acute sense of hearing much more finely tuned than possibly anyone else’s except Crow. “Wag coming,” he murmured.
Ryan nodded. “Okay, people, let’s keep it triple red while we load up.”
It took another five minutes by Ryan’s wrist chron before the ramble of the wag on the old blacktop became audible. It started as a distant buzz, then became a fuller, deeper roar as the empty desert became suffused with sound.
The roar of the engine as it pulled into the old wag stop space in front of the cinder-block building made speech impossible, but the attention of everyone in the tent camp was drawn by the click of three Uzis, the higher-frequency sound cutting across the rumble.
The engine cut out, and the silent camp heard two wag doors open and three men get out to exchange small talk.
One of the voices came closer, and the owner of the lazy drawl pushed his head through the gap in the sheltering material.
“Hey, Crow, y’all ready to rumble?” He cast a curious eye over the companions. “And these are the people the baron wants to see so bad, eh?”
“The answer to both is yes. Now let’s go,” the Native American answered, rising to his feet and sweeping past the lanky driver.
The workers followed, and as Ryan and his companions rose to join them, they were halted by Bronson, who stopped them with a raised palm, being careful not use his Uzi in a threatening manner.
“No, Crow said as how you were to wait until everything was loaded and the others were already secured.”
They sat once more, a feeling of frustration sweeping over all of them at the manner in which they were kept virtual prisoners. It would be easy to overpower the sec man and use his Uzi to even the odds in a surprise attack, but to what end? So they continued to sit while outside the camp was deconstructed, and what little had not already been cleared was loaded onto the wags that had contained the construction equipment.
They still sat while the tent-style shelter was taken down around them, the sheeting rolled and stored in one of the wags, the remaining stores of water and food loaded up to be returned to the ville.
Finally they were left sitting in the open glare of the sun, with everything secured for the journey back to Salvation. Bronson watched carefully while the work party, having finished its final tasks, climbed into the back of the wag that had brought the drivers there and was designed to carry them home.
While the wags containing the construction equipment were rust edged and dust smeared, showing signs of heavy work and a low level of maintenance, the transport wag was another matter. It was like some of the wags that Ryan and J.B. had seen as sec wags during their days on the convoys of Trader. A low, six-wheeled wag with reinforced armored sides and blaster ports on each side, it would be a tight squeeze to take the work party and the companions together, but as a vehicle purely for an eight-man group of workers it would be perfect.