Dale looked at the man in buckskins, perplexed. “Like what?”
“Like the fact you turned traitor,” Hickok responded, his tone hardening. “Like the fact you were responsible for the ambush.”
Dale halted and raised his left fist. “What the hell are you babbling about?”
Everyone halted.
“You betrayed your pards,” Hickok told the youth.
Dale reached for a knife on his left hip. “I’ll make you eat those words!”
The gunman’s Uzi suddenly pointed at the youth’s stomach. “I don’t cotton to folks callin’ me a liar.”
“What is this?” Locklin demanded, glancing from Hickok to Dale in confusion. “Are you serious?” he asked the Warrior.
Hickok nodded. “Dale set you up.”
“I did not!” Dale protested, flushing with fury.
“Do you have proof?” Locklin inquired.
“He’ll tell you himself,” Hickok said.
“You’re crazy!” Dale declared.
“So everybody says,” Hickok agreed. “And this crazy hombre is pointin’ a machine gun at your innards. I’ll count to three. If you haven’t spilled the beans by then, you’re dead.”
The band of Freedom Fighters was watching in fascination, and none displayed the slightest inclination to interfere.
“Did you betray us?” Locklin asked the youth.
“How can you take his word over mine?” Dale snapped.
“One,” Hickok said.
“I resent the accusation,” Dale said. “We’ve lived and fought side by side. And this is the thanks I get?”
“Two.”
Dale scanned the dim features of his companions for support, then looked at Locklin. “You’re not going to let him shoot me in cold blood, are you? I’m one of your men.” A hint of desperation made his voice quaver.
“Thr—” Hickok began.
“Don’t shoot!” Dale cried, releasing his bow and elevating his arms.
“Don’t shoot!”
“Tell them the truth,” Hickok ordered.
Dale’s chin slumped to his chest. “I did it,” he mumbled.
“What?” Locklin asked in disbelief.
“I gave our plans away,” Dale said. “I told the Storm Police which drain we intended to use. I helped them set the trap.”
There was a murmuring among the band.
Locklin stepped up to the youth and grabbed the front of Dale’s shirt.
“You did what?”
“I didn’t have any choice!” Dale wailed, his lips trembling, his voice breaking. “They forced me!”
“Who?” Locklin asked the young rebel.
“The Storm Police,” Dale said.
Locklin placed his hands on the youth’s shoulder. “How could they coerce you into becoming a traitor? What could they possibly do?”
Dale stared into Locklin’s accusing eyes, his own filling with tears.
“They have my mother!” he said, and sobbed.
An awkward silence descended on the drain.
“Your mother?” Locklin repeated after a moment.
Dale hung his head, embarrassed by his tears. “Yes,” he confirmed weakly.
“Tell us,” Locklin urged softly.
The youth took a deep breath. “Do you remember last night, when my younger brother showed up at our camp?”
“Of course,” Locklin said.
“My brother claimed our mother wanted to see me right away,” Dale disclosed. “He told me that she was sick, real sick.” He paused. “I went with him to our house.”
“How did you get into the city?” Locklin interrupted.
“Through the usual route,” Dale answered. “The sewer outlet under the southeast wall. My brother used the same way to leave. I followed your procedure to the letter.”
Locklin gazed at the Warriors. “We’ve utilized certain sewer outlets frequently since the Storm Police barred the drains. Our families use them when they need to contact us,” he explained. “The Storm Police didn’t bar all the sewer outlets, probably because the outlets are so small only one person can slip through at a time and the sewers reek. They must figure only an absolute lunatic would use them.”
“What happened when you got home?” Big John asked Dale.
“The Storm Police were waiting for me,” Dale revealed. “They had discovered I was one of the Freedom Fighters, and they offered me a deal.”
“Let me guess,” Locklin said. “They promised to let your family live if you betrayed us?”
Dale sobbed. “God help me. Yes.”
“You knew we intended to enter Atlanta tonight through this drain,” Locklin mentioned.
“I sold you out,” Dale declared forlornly.
“You had a tough choice to make,” Hickok said, sympathizing.
“We all have one to make right now,” Rikki-Tikki-Tavi mentioned.
“Listen.” He let the lighter go out.
Boot heels were pounding in the storm drain, approaching from the direction of the outer wall.
“The Storm Police!” Locklin exclaimed.
“And look!” Big John said, pointing directly ahead.
Far off, their flashlight beams fingers of lights in the gloomy darkness, advancing at the double, were more troopers.
“We’re cornered!” one of the Freedom Fighters cried.
Hickok looked both ways. “This is gettin’ serious.”
Chapter Nineteen
The room dissolved into bedlam.
Blade crammed the sheaths under his belt as he started to turn. He whipped the big knives out, the blades gleaming in the fluorescent light, and the first to feel his wrath was Eldred Morley. The Peer stood and foolishly lunged at the Warrior. Blade countered with a left elbow to the nose, feeling Morley’s nostrils flatten with a pronounced crunch. The Peer was slammed backwards and toppled over his chair.
“Stop the bastard!” Lilith Friekan barked.
A trio of Storm Police tried. They were the nearest to the giant, their blackjacks out and ready, when he waded into them with his knives flashing.
Blade planted his left Bowie in the throat of a lean trooper. Even as he wrenched the left knife free, he stabbed the right blade into the chest of a second policeman, then spun and imbedded both Bowies in the third, one knife on each side of the hapless man’s neck.
“Get him!” Sol Diekrick thundered, moving toward the giant.
Other than an enraged Lilith, the other Peers were too stunned to intervene.
The Storm Police were surging forward.
Blade jerked his Bowies clear, blood spurting from the third trooper’s severed veins and arteries, and kicked, ramming his right boot into the man’s chest and sending the body sailing into the charging police. As the lead troopers tumbled to the floor in a mass of thrashing arms and legs, he spun, sliding the Bowies into their sheaths, and bounded toward Sol Diekrick.
Sol attempted to land a right cross on the giant’s chin.
With the speed and precision of a seasoned professional, Blade ducked under the wild swing and drove his right fist into Diekrick’s abdomen, doubling the Peer over. He clamped his right hand on Sol’s throat and seized his foe’s groin in his left, then easily hoisted the struggling, gasping Peer overhead.
Stupefied by this display of monumental strength, the Storm Police, involved in untangling themselves from their pileup, momentarily froze, gawking.
“Kill the son of a bitch!” Lilith commanded.
Sol Diekrick’s face was beet red, and he was gurgling and sputtering.
“Do you want your precious Peer?” Blade demanded, glaring defiantly at the troopers. “Then take him!” So saying, he whirled toward the Polyperv pane, took two lengthy strides, and hurled Sol at the window with all the power in his awesome physique.
Diekrick screamed as he impacted the pane. There was a rending crash as the Polyperv fractured and shattered, and both Peer and window plunged from sight.