“I don’t see him,” Geronimo said apprehensively.
They came to the spot where the woman had slipped and fallen. There, prominently defined in the muck, were her footprints and those of the gunman and Blade.
Geronimo crouched and examined the prints.
“Is this where you left her?” Marlon inquired, catching up to them.
“This is the spot,” Blade said, watching Geronimo examine the ground diligently.
“Then where is she?” Marlon asked.
“You tell us.”
Marlon gazed at the mounds of refuse. “You could have killed her and dumped her body in the garbage.”
Pivoting on his right heel, Blade swung the M60 around and pointed the barrel at Marlon’s chest. “Drop your guns,” he commanded softly.
“What?” Marlon blurted out, flabbergasted.
“You heard me.”
Breath hissed out of Marlon and he clenched his hands until the knuckles paled. “You lying, double-crossing scum!”
“Use your thumb and little finger on each hand, and only your thumb and little finger, and lift out each revolver,” Blade directed, ignoring the insult. “Set the guns down on the ground very, very slowly.”
“If you shoot me, turkey, the Chains will be on you like dogs on a bone,” Marlon predicted.
“Let them come.”
“You’re bluffing,” Marlon asserted.
“It’s obvious Melanie and you were made for each other,” Blade remarked.
“Huh?”
Blade tensed his arms. “Never mind. Drop your guns! Now!”
Fury contorted Marlon’s face, and for the space of five seconds he gave the impression he was about to go for his guns. Scarlet infused his cheeks and his mouth worked noiselessly. Finally he obeyed, his hands shaking so badly from suppressed rage he could barely hold the revolvers as he lowered them. “If it’s the last thing I ever do,” he vowed when both handguns were on the ground, “I’m taking you out.”
“No thanks. I’m married.”
Marlon’s brow knit in utter confusion.
“Pick up his guns,” Blade told Lieutenant Garter. “Stick them under your belt, then cover him. He’s not to get them back until I give the word.”
“Get them back?” both Garber and Marlon said simultaneously.
“There must be an echo in here,” Blade said.
“Do you really intend to give this bastard his guns back?” Lieutenant Garber asked as he squatted and retrieved the revolvers.
“In due course.”
Garber straightened and stepped a yard away from the head of the Chains. He tucked the Taurus Model 66’s under his belt and aimed his M-16 at Marlon’s chest. “He’s responsible for the deaths of McGonical and Griffonetti. He deserves to be shot.”
“He wasn’t the one who killed them,” Blade noted.
“But I heard him say he’s their leader. He might as well have fired the shot,” Lieutenant Garber complained.
“You’re not to shoot him unless he tries to grab his guns. Is that understood?” Blade queried.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, sir.”
Marlon looked at the Warrior quizzically and shook his head. “I don’t get you, man. One minute you say one thing, and the next something else.”
“Do I?”
“You’re a space cadet,” Marlon stated.
“Am I?” Blade responded, and turned toward Geronimo.
Bent over at the waist, his keen eyes riveted on the tracks, the stocky Warrior was reading the spoor as unerringly as he would the freshly imprinted trail of a bear or a doe. He had moved close to a shoulder-high stack of moldy, sagging cardboard boxes piled in the northwest corner.
“Hey! Wait a minute!” Marlon declared, snapping his fingers. “Maybe I do get you. You’ve been playing mind games with me.”
“Have I?”
Geronimo stepped almost to the rear wall and gazed to his right.
“Blade.”
“What did you find?” Blade inquired, walking over.
“See for yourself,” Geronimo said.
Blade did, and he resisted an urge to kick the cardboard boxes to vent his supreme vexation. For there, in the corner, concealed by the stack of boxes, was an open metal door leading into a gloomy corridor.
Chapter Ten
Hickok instinctively rotated toward the street as the gunfire boomed, raising the Henry, and he heard Blade yell for him to bring the girl. He watched his friend race off, then turned to hurry the girl along.
Only she wasn’t there.
He spotted her ducking behind a pile of cardboard boxes and smirked.
“Hidin’ back there won’t do you any good, Melanie. Come on out.”
A metallic grating noise issued from the other side of the cartons.
“What the blazes!” Hickok exclaimed, and dashed past the boxes to discover an open door and a dark hallway. He stepped inside and glanced both ways. To his left he detected movement, so he started in pursuit, moving at a brisk walk, wary of blundering into a trap. He realized that Melanie must know this section of Dallas like the back of her hand, and he would be at a disadvantage unless he could force her into the open. Faintly to his ears came the sound of her footfalls.
What kind of building were they in? he wondered. A business establishment of some kind. The dim lighting enabled him to perceive the vague outline of the corridor walls, and that was all. He came to a junction, and far down the branch to his right a scarecrow form fled. He debated whether to continue or go aid his buddies. Since Blade had maintained they needed the girl to lead them to the Chosen and left him in charge of her, he jogged after the scarecrow.
The light became brighter the farther he went. In 40 yards the hallway veered sharply to the left, and he spied a partially open door 20 feet distant. Enroute to the exit he passed a number of other doors, all closed.
His intuition told him Melanie wasn’t hiding inside, and he sprinted to the exit and shoved the door open.
A wide, deserted street stretched to the north and the south. Directly across the street reared a squat, long structure, outside of which, littering the sidewalk and the asphalt, were 25 or 30 peculiar rusted carts lying on their sides or overturned with their four small wheels jutting into the air.
Atop the building, its southern third missing, was a sign. Eight faded black letters were legible.
What the dickens was that?
Hickok moved to the middle of the street.
The front of the ERMARKET had once consisted of a series of glass panes, and busted pieces of glass dotted the ground. At the north corner a shattered glass door provided a means of entering. From within the structure there arose a loud crash, the clatter of objects falling, and then a muffled curse.
That girl must be the biggest klutz on the planet! Hickok thought, and went in pursuit of her. He walked into the rundown building warily. To his left was a row of counters, and on each one there rested a mechanical or electronic contrivance, a square affair bearing buttons imprinted with numbers and figures. Beyond the counters were 12 wide aisles.
Thanks to the sunlight streaming in the front of the store, Hickok could perceive details clearly. Trash covered the white tile floor in spots; torn cartons and packages and open tin cans were especially numerous. Flies swarmed above certain aisles. He crinkled his nose when he detected a subtle, putrid scent.
Despite the light, the place gave him the creeps.
Hickok stepped to the first aisle, noting the barren shelves and the litter. He decided the place had once been a thriving food store.
Something clicked way in the back.
Klutzy again? he wondered, and moved to the second aisle, then the third, going from one to the other. He paused at the head of the sixth aisle, intrigued by a pair of black doors located at the rear of the store.