Riddler, bulging over both sides of his saddle, roared ahead of the others, doing a spectacular wheelie, bellowing to the hidden Ryan Cawdor.
"Where's Zombie? You seen him?"
J.B. answered. "Seen him and chilled him."
The fat biker throttled back his bike and stopped very close to the main gates, lowering his voice. "You got no chance, Ryan. Lemme talk to the Motes and try to work something out."
"Thanks, Riddler. But no thanks. Gotta be this way."
The rear wheel spit out a spray of dirt as the Hero rejoined the others.
Ryan and his companions waited.
It was full light.
The wind had eased, but it had also veered and was now blowing briskly, parallel to the mountains where the redoubt was concealed.
Mote, taking charge of the operation himself, remained safely hidden behind his own sec wag. Ryan had glimpsed Marianne Mote, teetering on her high heels, holding the arm of her brutish son.
John Dern appeared to be in control of the main body of the attackers. Twice Ryan had a chance at a long shot at him with the G-12, but he elected to hold his fire, not wanting to reveal the effective range of his weapon.
Only five Last Heroes remained alive. As Ryan peered around the edge of the main gate, it seemed as though they were now without any sort of leadership.
Ryan knelt behind the wall, looking behind him at the thudding machinery and storage tanks of the gas plant and back down the hill to where the vehicles were grouped tightly together. Nobody wanted to make the first move. If Mote chose to play the softly-softly game he could probably drive them out of hiding with starvation. Or thirst. In another hour or so the desert would begin to heat up.
"Down the hill," Ryan muttered to himself.
"What?" Krysty said, just to his left.
"Down the hill! Fireblast! Why didn't I see that as the way?"
"You skull-flipped, lover?"
"No."
"Then?.." Krysty prompted, turning suddenly to look at the looming gas tanks behind them. "You're not?.."
"Yeah, lover. I am."
And he did, calling Jak over to quickly give him orders. The albino boy, hair gleaming in the new day's light, scampered off like an eager hound, keeping low to avoid being spotted by the attackers down the highway.
While Krysty kept watch at the front, Ryan moved to warn the others about what he was going to do.
Lori simply nodded and J.B. grinned.
Rick looked blankly up into Ryan's face, struggling to understand what he was saving. "It could..." The words trailed off.
"That's it, Rick. It could."
Doc considered the news for several long seconds. "It has a pleasantly Biblical ring to it, my dear Ryan. I believe that I approve of it."
Krysty called from the main gate. "Here they come, Ryan!"
Mote was encouraging the first wave of attackers with John Dern at their head. They were advancing in a skirmishing line, bunching on the road, filtering off into the light brush on either side. The Heroes were revving their two-wheel wags, all on the right. Ryan's guess was that they'd head for their base in the old park and come through into the adjacent gas plant.
It was time for the one big play.
"Now, Jak! Now!"
The assault party heard the shout and several hesitated, but Norman Mote, standing behind his own personalized wag, bellowed at them to keep moving.
"We got 'em outnumbered twenty to one. They'll give in, friends. By hollow tooth and black poison, I swear it!"
At Ryan's call, Doc, Lori, Rick and J.B. joined Lori by the main frontage to the processing unit, blasters at the ready. All except for Rick, who knelt behind the low stone wall, eyes closed and muttering to himself.
The sickly smell of gas grew stronger.
Much stronger.
Ryan, glancing over his shoulder, cautioned the others as he saw the glint of sunlight off a ribbon of liquid, the air above it shimmering like a desert mirage. Jak appeared around the side of one of the tanks, waving a clenched fist.
"Get out of the way," Ryan called. "It's spreading."
The stream of refined gasoline was gaining speed. Jak had opened the main valves on all the huge containers, and thousands of gallons of fuel were flooding through the complex, along the roadway, toward Mote and his people.
J.B. fished a burner gren from one of his pockets. "Best we get out 'fore I throw this," he suggested quietly.
"Wait till it reaches the first of them. Here come the bikers! It'll blow clear back to the tanks. Let's move."
There was a cheer from the attackers and a handful of ill-aimed, harmless shots as they saw the one-eyed man leading his ragged group away from the gas plant, apparently running in panic — running hopelessly, helplessly, toward the same draw that cut behind the ville.
"Go get 'em!" Marianne screeched, waving a red-nailed fist.
The stream of gas had become a torrent, bubbling its way down the slope. Some of it foamed off the sides into the thirsty earth, but most of it remained on the blacktop.
Ryan judged the moment, giving the nod to the Armorer. "Now, J.B., now!"
The gren was pitched into the air, catching the sun at its highest point, and dropped to the gasoline river. J.B.'s aim was perfect and the burner landed smack in the middle of the road, bouncing and rolling a couple of times.
And failing to ignite!
"Black dust!" J.B. cursed, watching as the bikers roared toward them.
There wasn't enough time to try another gren to fire the gasoline. Thanks to razor-gloved Kruger, it wasn't necessary.
Rat yelped a warning, waving his scarred arm to the right, managing to get the powerful hog off the blacktop before he splashed into the fuel. Freewheeler, Harlekin and Riddler saw the sign and followed him. But Kruger had his grizzled head down, concentrating on gunning his bike's engine for full power. He had a moment of extreme bewilderment as liquid sprayed all around his bike and over him.
"Rain?" he muttered.
The hot exhaust did the trick.
"Hell's bloody bells," Rick breathed, overcome with an almost religious awe.
The explosion was cataclysmic, beginning with a spark of infinitely bright white light that centered on Kruger's two-wheel wag. The flames engulfed the rider and his machine and spread with a breathless speed, racing along the surface of the gushing gasoline. The inferno barreled down the hill toward the paralyzed attackers, off the sides of the road and into the dry brush, quickly backtracking to the refinery and the spilling tanks.
"Get down!" Ryan shouted, grabbing Krysty and dragging her flat in the dirt behind a slight rise in the ground. He pressed his face to the earth, one arm around her shoulders.
The ground shook as the tanks blew, one after the other. The explosion was deafening. Chunks of metal erupted into the air, two hundred feet or more, then rained back to earth, deadly molten missiles of death.
Ryan leaped to his feet, blaster ready at the hip, eye raking the surrounding area, appraising what had happened.
Thick black smoke billowed everywhere, making it difficult for Ryan to see. His nostrils caught the familiar stench of roasting flesh. At the epicenter of the holocaust Kruger had fallen from his bike. He'd risen to his feet and then dropped to his knees like a monk at his morning devotions.
And so died. Flames continued to dance from his charred and blackened flesh, like the stump of a tree at the end of a forest fire.
The river of gas, as it caught, had devoured dozens of the men from the ville, swallowing them hungrily and moving on toward the center of Snakefish itself. The Motes' wag had gone, reversing in hasty panic, just avoiding the onrushing inferno of death and destruction.
Those who hadn't fallen to the flames were running into the brush in wide-eyed panic. Many were screaming, and threw down their blasters as they ran. But at the edges of the highway, the dust-dry mesquite and creosote bushes had ignited, crackling brightly, passing the small flames from branch to branch. The veering wind carried them as fast as a man could hope to run.