On the other side of the path, Jak tensed. Only four sec men, with none behind? He knew that he had seen double that number. He raised the Colt Python, ready to use it.
“Don’t,” warned a voice behind him as he felt cold metal against his neck.
A whistle sounded from behind Ryan, and the sec men on the path whirled and hit the forest floor, ignoring the curling creepers as their blasters jumped to hand in ready positions, trained on the foliage in front of them—the area where the companions were hiding.
Ryan fell to one side, rolling as he hit the branches and plant stems, coming around with the SIG-Sauer in his hand.
He came face-to-face with a snub-nosed Colt Magnum Carry, the small-barreled blaster chambered for six rounds of .357 Magnum, despite its size.
The rangy man holding it in an outstretched hand smiled, his uneven yellow teeth showing in almost a snarl.
“I wouldn’t, my friend. You’re good, but this is our land.”
Chapter Seven
“Well now, let’s get you all out here in what passes for the open in this pesthole of a forest. Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
With this, the rangy sec man gestured with his blaster, ushering Ryan onto the path through the undergrowth. The one-eyed warrior tensed his muscles as he rose, his hand wavering toward the panga still on his thigh, judging if he could reach swiftly the SIG-Sauer that he had been forced to discard on the carpet of creeper vine.
The sec man grinned. It was a slow, lazy grin that started at the corners of his mouth and spread across his face without ever touching the eyes.
“You could try, my friend, but you’d only get another empty hole through the center of that thick skull,” he drawled.
Ryan judged the distances, then relaxed visibly. It would be volunteering for the farm, and he would wait for a better chance. He cursed his unwillingness on this journey to head straight into a firefight. His attempts to move stealthily and avoid wasting both time and ammo had led them into this.
Ryan stepped slowly backward, out into the center of the path. Jak, Dean, Mildred and Doc were already standing there, stripped of their weapons. As Ryan emerged, he saw from the corner of his eye that J.B. and Krysty were also emerging backward, their hands in the open.
“That was a fine job of ambush, friend,” he said slowly. “Never heard you coming. Did you, Jak?”
The albino nodded.
“You’re not so bad yourself, Cyclops,” the sec man replied. “We knew you were there, but not how you figured we were coming…unless it was that mutie scum,” he added, directing a venomous glare at Jak.
Jak’s blazing red eyes returned the look, not moving but saving it for a time when he could even the score.
The four sec men who had passed them were now on their feet, blasters raised but easy. There would be no nervous trigger fingers here, only carefully considered blasting.
The sec man who had his blaster trained on Ryan was one of four who had swept around behind the two groups as they waited in the undergrowth. His companion was a small, wizened man with nut-brown skin, and a 9 mm Walther PPK was trained steadily on J.B. and Krysty. Covering the others were two sec men who looked like twins, both with shoulder-length matted dreadlocks and coffee-colored skin, small glazed brown eyes unwavering. Both had beards to cover their pockmarked skin. They were intent on keeping their charges well covered.
“Don’t know shit ’bout whose these fuckers are, Harv, but they ain’t Sunchildren,” one of them said in a high-pitched voice. It sounded out of place in his burly frame.
“Shouldn’t say that, bro,” the other replied in an equally high voice. “That mutie shit can be all-fire clever, and this dude sure is mutie,” he added, indicating Jak.
The sec man covering Ryan, who was obviously the man called Harvey, and sec chief, laughed mirthlessly. “Don’t think they’re anything to do with the Sunchildren,” he replied.
Then he directed his attention to Ryan. “You’ll have to excuse the boys there, but Ant and Dee lost their balls to the mutie fuckers when they were just kids. Being twins, they would have been better for sacrifice. It’s only ’cause they’re such feisty fuckers that they escaped—nearly unscathed.”