Chapter Eight

From the rooftop of the MCP, Trader surveyed the deployment of his force. The knoll of the hill fairly bristled with armored wags and weapons, in a display of cannon and rocket, of machine gun and autoblaster that made his lips curl around the soggy stump of his cheroot in a fierce grin. In the center of the defensive circle, the cargo bays of a pair of his largest transport wags stood open; ten of his crew were just finished up the shifting of contents between them in order to make room for all the drums of Virtue Lake gasoline.

“Look okay?” J.B. shouted up to him from the ground.

Trader stepped to the edge of the roof. “Did you mine the blaster crates yet?”

By way of answer, the Armorer tossed up a small black plastic device. Trader caught it between his hands. It was a remote detonator. “What’s the range on this?” he asked.

“In the terrain around here,” J.B. replied, “I’d say you’ve got about four miles to make up your mind, one way or another.”

“I like it,” Trader said. “Let Zeal get all the way back to the ville with his goods and then boom! No more Zeal. Be well worth the price of ten unfired longblasters.”

“Folks down in Virtue Lake would probably put up a statue in your honor,” J.B. commented.

Samantha, who was standing by War Wag One’s starboard door, added, “They’d probably name their squinty-eyed brats after you, too.”

“Now, there’s a fucking scary thought,” Trader muttered as he slipped the detonator into the side pocket of his desert-camouflage BDU pants.

Shielding his eyes from the sun, and the bits of dust driven by the hot afternoon breeze, he looked downslope, to the area where he’d sent Hun, Ryan and Poet. He’d avoided pairing the two men on a recce of late because the friction between them had escalated. Today’s decision had been a hard one; he knew he could lose both men if they couldn’t straighten things out, head to head. But he trusted Poet’s instincts. He trusted him to look into the younger man and find a way to get past their troubles.

What he really wanted was for Ryan to start listening to and learning from the senior crewman. Poet had much to teach, much of real value to Ryan, and it was different stuff than what he had managed to teach himself. A man with Ryan’s grade of reflexes didn’t have to rely on his smarts; he ran on autopilot. Acting. Reacting. Which was fine for a second officer, but not a first. What Trader hoped to end up with, somewhere a year or two down the line, was a war captain with Poet’s vision and Ryan’s strength. An unbeatable combination. But there was only one way for that to happen: both men had to survive and come to an understanding.

Was it worth taking the risk of throwing them together? And chucking a hell-raiser like Hunaker into the mix for good measure, just to stir up the pot a bit more?

Radblast if Trader knew.

But things had to change, or sooner or later the conflict between them would infect the rest of the crew. Not that the two of them would start choosing up sides, calling on this one or that one to back them up, but in the end it would be the same as if they had. It was the natural course of things. And once that happened, the smoothly functioning team Trader had worked so hard to assemble would be destroyed.

He had only heard the one shot so far, a scattergun blast,which had to be from Hun, as Poet was carrying his trusty CAR-15 and Ryan had a scoped Remington bolt gun in .308 caliber.

Trader took this for a positive sign.

Off in the distance, he caught the whine of an over revving wag engine. The road below was clear. Whoever it was, was going the other way.

CRISSCROSSING BELTS across his bearlike chest strapped Levi Shabazz into the rampaging wag’s driver’s seat. He drove overland, up a fifteen-foot-wide streambed, all four huge knobby tires spinning as he worked his way through the soft spots, throwing up towering plumes of dirt. He used the stream-side bushes for traction, trammeling them and half climbing up the banks when he thought it would give him some advantage.

As there was no front windshield in the off-road vehicle, he wore goggles to protect his eyes. Except where he’d drawn a clean spot with the ball of his thumb, the lenses of his goggles were caked with powder-fine, ochre-colored dust; the wag’s interior—dashboard, seats, floor—was adrift in it. He carried three passengers with him—three of his very best gren chuckers. The objects they were about to chuck lay in a pair of low wooden crates between their boots: dark green canisters with yellow writing, stainless-steel safety rings on the fuse pins, fluorescent yellow bio-hazard symbols spray-painted on sides, top and bottom. The two crates represented about twenty percent of Shabazz’s cache of predark nerve agent.

The other men in the wag hung on to roof straps and roll cage with both hands. Like Shabazz, their goggles were caked over. Like Shabazz, their beards and hair were well dusted. They kept their mouths shut behind the strips of rag they had tied over their mouths and noses.

Shabazz disdained such niceties, showing his great, horse-like teeth as he drove, occasionally hawking a gob of spit that was near mud out his side window. He was thinking only about one thing: what the nerve gas was going to do to Trader and his crew. He hadn’t actually used it on humans yet. He hadn’t had a reason to. Shabazz remembered all those sheep and pigs in the Byrum ville pens, dropping like they’d been brained with three feet of lead pipe. Maybe it was too quick a death for a bastard like Trader, he thought, too merciful. Nah.

He had looked into the eyes of those dying beasts. He knew they had felt not only terrible pain, but wild panic at their sudden and complete helplessness. He wanted to see that desperate, on-the-verge-of-death look on Trader’s face. To see him crapping himself while his arms thrashed and his legs kicked and he fought to keep from eating his own tongue.

The buggy took an unanticipated five-foot drop that, despite the safety belts, slammed the top of Shabazz’s head against the metal roof. The impact made him see stars, but he recovered in a fraction of a second. Laughing, he looked over at the man sitting in the bucket seat next to his. And then he laughed some more. The guy had his mouth rag pulled aside and was spitting bright blood into the palm of his hand.

Shabazz followed the streambed around the back side of the ridge, then broke away from the channel, climbing the slope at a shallow angle. He couldn’t drive in a straight line; it was too risky. He had to swerve to miss the big rocks or they would tip over the wag and send it rolling down the hill. When he’d circled around behind the hilltop that Trader’s convoy sat upon, he stopped the wag and shut off the engine.

“Everybody out!” he ordered.

Three very dusty men lugged the gren crates out of the wag and set them on the ground.

“We going to use all of them?” the man with the split lip asked.

Shabazz looked over his supply. “Better take the lot with us. That way if we need more grens, we got them. Pack them real careful. Make sure you’re rattle proof.”

The chuckers loaded down their pockets and knapsacks with the dark green cans. Shabazz didn’t carry anything except his side arm, a matte finish .44 Magnum Desert Eagle that was holstered under his left armpit, and a long black commando dagger in a forearm sheath.

Shabazz took the lead and started to work his way up to the summit. A hot wind from the plains behind him was blowing across the slope. He wasn’t concerned about being seen by the sentries on the back side of the hill. For one thing, four men on foot wouldn’t be considered a threat to the convoy. For another, they weren’t even carrying any longblasters. They looked more like a bunch of locals out scavenging, maybe for snake meat or cactus fruit. If Trader was worried about anything, he would be worried about the road, about a fleet of wags and sec men coming up it.

Shabazz caught a glimpse of-a man standing on a big smooth boulder above. He had an autoblaster slung over his left shoulder, and he raised his hands to his face. He was looking down at them through binoculars.

Shabazz waved.

After a pause, the sentry waved back.

Shabazz got a kick out of that. “See that dim-fuck up there,” he said to his men, “he’s asking himself, what are those fools doing wandering around down there in this heat?”

“We going to have to chill him?” one of the crew said. “Could be a problem if we do. Others up there might see it.”

The trader knew his men were feeling vulnerable, and they had every right to be antsy. They were approaching a vastly superior force from downhill, with scant cover and no long-range weapons.

“No problem. Wave at him. Everybody! Ha! See, there, he waves back.”

They advanced up the slope until they were close enough to make out the sentry’s clothing: a leather vest, no shirt under it, baggy olive-drab pants, a web belt with extra mags around his hips. As the man lowered his binoculars, they could see the twisted rag headband that kept his shoulder-length brown hair out of his eyes.

Shabazz bent and pretended to examine something on the ground, turning over some small rocks.

“Just do what I do,” he told his men, “and keep your heads down.”

Thus occupied, the four worked their way to just below the sentry’s position. As they approached, he unslung his longblaster and held it at the ready. After a few minutes of watching them grub around in the dirt, he took a seat on the boulder.

Shabazz moved to the foot of the big rock and mopped his forehead with the back of his hand.

“What’re you hunting for?” the sentry asked. His longblaster lay across his lap; his finger no longer rested on the trigger guard.

“After these little white bug eggs,” Shabazz told him, “Taste real sugary sweet.”

“Eat bug eggs, huh?”

Shabazz reached up and caught hold of the man’s ankle, and before he could make a sound, jerked him down over the smooth boulder face. As the sentry came down, Shabazz’s right fist came up. In it was clenched the ten-inch-long killing dagger. The man’s own weight drove the triangular point up through his stomach and into the middle of his heart.

Shabazz left the dagger in him and let the twitching body slump to the ground.

“Quick now!” he said to the other three.

They scrambled the last twenty yards to the hilltop and peered over the edge. In a ring on the barren summit were all of Trader’s beautiful wags. A few men and women were walking around inside the perimeter.

The chuckers quickly set out their grens on the slope, then picked one up in either hand.

“Watch the wind,” Shabazz warned them. “Throw the grens way upwind, and let the gas drift down over the convoy.”

The men did exactly as he ordered, pulling the safeties with their teeth, cocking their arms and tossing the bombs in unison. Nobody from the convoy even noticed when the first three cans hit the ground, or when the second three landed. Only when all six exploded in a string of dull whumps and the gray smoke boiled out of them did Trader’s astonished crew realize they were under attack.

Way too late.

Those caught standing outside the wags were swept up in the deadly mist. They staggered a step or two, then pitched onto the ground, clutching at their throats. The gas was so potent they didn’t even get out a scream. There were many more crew inside the vehicles, Shabazz knew.

“Give them another round!” he said. “Drop them closer to the wags this time.”

The chuckers adjusted their aim. Seconds later, six more green cans exploded, this time at the heart of the encampment. The resulting clouds of gray death partially obscured the vehicles for a moment, then the steady breeze pushed the roiling mass downslope, thinning it rapidly, first into wisps of sparkling vapor, then into nothingness.