This had run through the one-eyed man’s head in the space of a few moments, during which time he had taken that step into cover and flicked the safety on the SIG-Sauer so that it was ready to fire. At the same time, his free hand snaked to the panga strapped to his thigh, the finely honed blade glinting even in this dull tight when he slipped it free.
“Show yourself,” Ryan yelled.
“Show myself and get chilled by some bastard that wants our jack bonuses? You think I’m as thick as you say we all are?”
Ryan’s brow furrowed at the man’s words. What the hell was he talking about? “You mean you’re not here to wreck the pipeline?” he asked.
The hidden man laughed. “You think I’m going to fall for that? Go ‘Oh no, of course not,’ step out and get myself blown to hell? Mister, I knew that the fire downtown was caused by you people, and when everyone else went like a herd across the plain I was damned if I was going to let that happen again. That’s why I’m waiting for you.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong man, friend, but there’s no way you’ll believe that unless I make a gesture. If I throw down my blaster—”
“You’ll have another behind your back,” the hidden man retorted. “You think I’m some kind of simpleminded stickie or something?”
With which he decided to stop talking and start firing. Stepping out from his cover, he fired two rapid shots from a blaster that looked like a small but powerful handblaster—maybe a Smith & Wesson remake. But Ryan didn’t intend to investigate too closely. Right now it didn’t matter what the blaster was, only that it could rip holes on him and buy the farm.
The one-eyed man slammed himself up against the pipes on the angle of the turn, sideways on so that he made a smaller target. The ricochets from the two shells cannoned around him, but he ignored them, steeling himself. If they hit him, there was nothing he could do about that, as there was no point giving into his reactions there. Instead, he focused his entire attention on the man who was now standing out in the open.
Stupe. He was an open target, his fury and desire to chill Ryan making him forget the most basic ideas of keeping cover. That was always assuming that he had ever known them in the first place.
It would have been good to have just wounded him, perhaps keep him alive so that they could question him about what had been going on. It was highly unlikely that he had anything to do with the sabotage, especially as his avowed aim had been the same as that for which Ryan and his companions had been hired. But that was immaterial. Right now he was an enemy, a danger, and like a mad dog on the loose. There was only one thing to do with him.
The one-eyed man raised his blaster and leveled it, aiming at the man’s head. While the stupe stood in full view, trying to sight the partially concealed Ryan for another shot, the one-eyed warrior squeezed the trigger, loosing a 9 mm shell from the P-226, the blast muffled through the built-in baffle silencer.
There was a sudden silence, the muffled blast fading quickly and leaving no ricochet as the bullet hit home. The man stood for a moment, an expression of surprise crossing his face and then fixing there as life drained from him, freezing his features. The entry hole was small, but the exit wound at the back of his head was larger, part of the skull detaching and splattering on the earth behind, blood and brain bringing a small measure of moisture to the dry soil.
The blaster dropped from nerveless fingers, followed shortly after by the crumbling figure of the blaster’s owner, now a lifeless husk.
Ryan bolstered his SIG-Sauer and sheathed the panga before stepping out of the scant cover and taking the few strides covering the short distance between him and the corpse. One thing for sure—the man was no fighter, as he had left himself open to attack and had missed a man in little cover from a short range.