Chapter Twenty-One

Jak Lauren wasn't keen on their going out so soon before the attack. His hair flowed about his shoulders as he gesticulated, waving his hands.

"What the fuck you want to do this? We got maps. You know where the ville is. We'll be with you. Fucking stay here."

Ryan shook his head. "No. IfТn you fear us going to tray you to Tourment, we're leaving Finn and Doc here with you. If we go to fight with you, we want to see what we can first. Be back in good time. It's only seven now. Our plans are to leave here at eleven, so we'll be back by then, three hours from now. I want to go and look at what we're tackling."

"Too late to change plans," said the boy, almost reproachfully.

"Why change 'em?" asked J.B. "Fine as they are. Just fine."

Ryan and J.B. each carried one of the hand-torches from the Holiday Inn on their belts, as well as their usual armaments. The weather was calm, the air still. Jak opened the maps one more time, showing them where and where not to walk. He pointed out swamps that had risen over old highways or trails that were patrolled by the Baron's sec men. Both men listened carefully, committing the information to memory.

"Come back safe," said the boy, patting them both on the shoulder as they left the lobby of the old vid-house. Ryan half grinned, still finding it hard to believe that this war-leader was a lad of just fourteen.

In some ways the recce was abortive. They found their way along the abandoned suburban streets, past the entrance to a massive shopping mall, taking the route that the albino kid had shown them. A couple of times they were startled by animals Ч once by a massive armadillo, with its family in tow, crossing the blacktop in front of them. Another time they never saw the creature, but they heard it moving through high brush at the back of some houses. They stopped where they were and waited for it to pass.

Eventually they managed to get within sight of the Best Western Snowy Egret, but the area was crawling with sec patrols, moving in groups of five or six, using generator-powered searchlights that cut through the night, making it impossible to approach within a hundred yards.

"Have to take them out first thing," said J.B. as they crouched in a grove of whitebeams on the edges of a large derelict mansion.

"Easy with this." Ryan patted the butt of the G-12 with its bulky night sight. "Soon as we open up, they'll know what's going down."

"If the plan works, they won't have time to do nothing 'bout it."

Ryan peered at the front of the big building. "No gates." He was about to crawl back when his eye was caught by something. "Fireblast!"

"What?"

"There. That pole."

J.B. followed his pointing finger, finally, making out the tall metal bar rising vertically in front of the motel. The lights were dazzling, and it was some seconds before his eyes adjusted to lake in what it was that dangled from a rope some thirty feet in the air. "Man or woman?" he whispered.

Ryan had brought a small, powerful pair of night glasses with him, and be reached from them, his heart sinking. It was undeniably a naked corpse. The rope was knotted around its neck, but the lamps threw it into a sharp contrast of brightness and shadow, making it hard to see it clearly.

He focused the glasses, taking a deep breath to hold them steady. "Bastard," he breathed.

"Not one of the women?"

"No, J.B., it's not Krysty or Lori. It's a man up there."

"But it looks like there's no..."

"Yeah. That's right, friend. It's been castrated. And there's no hands neither. And no feet."

"The bastards! Like some dirt-crazies, that shrink heads or take hair."

"The eyes, nose and ears are gone, as well."

"Who do?.."

"Looks like an old man. Could be past fifty. I reckon it's the lad's father."

"Whitey's old man?" This was the nickname that Ryan had given him. "Yeah. That would, figure what we know of this baron."

Ryan pocketed the binoculars. "Let's go. Tell the kid what we've seen."

He wriggled away, with J.B. at his heels, ready to return to the old cinema.

They were about halfway back when they heard boot-heels ringing on the overgrown, gravel road. Ryan hesitated only a second before pointing to the left, then dived over a rotting picket fence and moved quickly along the side of a trim little house. He felt J.B. at his back and stopped once they were both safely around the corner.

"Wait," he whispered, peering toward the street. Six men, making up the sec patrol, were marching toward their base. Most of them were smoking and carried M-16s slung across their chests. Ryan's keen nostrils caught the unmistakable aroma of maryjane drifting over the weed-infested garden. The sound of their footsteps vanished away down the road, and Ryan and J.B. were able to relax again.

"Could have took them," said the Armorer, easing his finger off the trigger of his Mini-Uzi. "Hit 'em all in one burst."

"They'd have heard it and figured it was the start of the attack. This Tourment may be the meanest fucker in the land, but he can't be a total stupe. He'll know we might come after the women. No point giving him any warning."

J.B. nodded. "Guess so. Let's move."

"Wait."

"What now, Ryan? You don't want to take a leak, do you? Trader always said when you first joined you was always sneaking off to take a piss before the shooting started. That it?"

"No. What the fuck's that there? In the middle of the garden, by that dead rosebush?"

It was a metallic dome that rose about three feet above the matted surface of what had once been a neatly trimmed lawn, now overrun with crabgrass. Ryan picked his way through the knee-high weeds, then bent over the strange protuberance.

"What's your guess? We could do with Doc here. That old bastard knows more about the times before the long winters than any man does. Or should."

"Small redoubt?" guessed J.B., tapping on the top with the butt of his blaster.

"Private one. Wait. Didn't you once tell me 'bout the last years, when folks installed their own nuke shelters. This could be one, still here."

The Armorer set his weight against a large wheel set in the top, but it didn't budge. "Bolted."

"Yeah. But look at the rust round it. Might go if'n we both give it a try together. Come on. Heave on three. One, two, three!"

There was a brittle snap as corroded metal gave up its resistance. The wheel then turned fairly easily, with a thin grating sound that made Ryan look behind him. "Check the road. I'll come get you when it's open."

It took thirty or more turns before Ryan heard a latch disengage, and he was able to lift the trap. It was enormously thick, obviously counterbalanced by weights; it opened with a clunk. There was a faint hissing, and a waft of overpoweringly stale air, so dry and sour that it almost seemed to Ryan to clutch at his throat, like a hundred-year-old wraith.

J.B. joined him as he flashed his torch into the entrance. They saw a tunnel that dropped vertically about thirty feet, with a white-painted set of ladders, its rungs throwing sharp shadows.

"Going in, Ryan?"

"We got time. I'd kind of like to see inside one of these places."

He went first, slinging his H&K caseless over his shoulder. It was obvious that the shelter hadn't been opened for a century. It was probably one of the few totally safe places in all of Deathlands.

There was a door at the bottom, with a simple catch on it. Stuck to it with contact adhesive was a flowery notice. It said: "Don 'n' Peggy's place. If you got no beer, you can't come in."

A smaller card said: "This is the golden door that has a silver lining."