"Why, yes...yes." The man on the floor swallowed a couple of times, licking his thin lips again, his brow corrugating into a frown. "Yes, I... I do believe you're right, Mr. Strasser. Curious that I should forget Longfellow's immortal lines. So stupid of me..."
"Pathetic."
"Indeed," the man replied, gulping. "Pathetic. Indeed, sir."
"We shall still have to put you in with the sows, Doc."
The man on the floor began swallowing hard. It was clear he was on the verge of tears.
"Please, not that again, don't make me do that again, I implore..." The words came out in a ghastly, whining torrent.
"We shall have to strip you, Doc, and throw you in with the sows. Only when you've done your duty will you be allowed to leave."
Suddenly tears were streaming down the man's face, and his body shuddered convulsively. He began to bang his head on the floor, great choking sobs racking him. He had released his knee and now started beating his clenched fists against the floor in time with his head. He began to howl.
Strasser turned from him, his gaunt face masklike. He snapped his fingers once and two men emerged from the shadows. They bent over the man called Doc and picked him up as though he were garbage.
Strasser said, "Take him to the pigpens. You know what to do."
They dragged him, screaming and howling and kicking, into the darkness.
Strasser watched them go, watched them disappear from sight, heard a door open, clang shut. He turned and stepped from the light into the gloom.
Chapter Seven
Junked cars lined the route into town: rotting, rusting, gutted hulks stripped of every mechanical and non-mechanical item that might be of the slightest use to anyone, fit for nothing but the scrapyard. To Ryan, driving his buggy, his one eye nervously scanning left to right as he lightly gripped the wheel with black-gloved hands, the whole ville seemed like a scrapyard. A gigantic, sprawling and malodorous scrapyard.
Piles of refuse edged into the road, narrowing the way. It would be difficult for two buggies to pass each other without hitting old crates and boxes and rotting garbage in and out of bags; it would be impossible for two land wags.
The buggy went slowly. It was necessary. They passed a narrow street that had clearly been abandoned forever. Garbage filled it from side to side to maybe second-story level and probably from end to end, as well. A street of garbage. Hunaker, who was manning the forward M-60, muttered, "This is nukehell." She stared at the street as they cruised by.
She said to Ryan, "There was a rumor Mocsin was sliding, but it looks to me like it's running out of control."
Ryan reached down with his left hand, felt the reassuring bullpup shape of the LAPA 5.56 mm he'd picked out of the war wag's armory before leaving the Trader and the rest of the convoy on the edge of town. It was thirty inches of compact firepower with a 55-capacity stick mag. They'd found four crates of these in a Stockpile they'd discovered in the foothills of the Ozarks. That had been a very hairy mission: the indigenous population had been distinctly unfriendly, kept to themselves, seemed to be not at all interested in trading of any kind but only in killing anyone who entered their enclave. They'd also found three more crates back in the Apps. The LAPA had excellent performance, and Ryan preferred it to any of the longer autorifles that because of their length were more unwieldy in an urban situation. He carried the LAPA in a looped rig inside his long coat and could pull it fast.
On his right hip was a SIG-Sauer P-226 9mm, the automatic he preferred even over the ubiquitous Browning Hi-Power that J.B. in particular swore by. Both had considerable punch over a long distance; both were immensely reliable. But in a hot situation Ryan had once had a Hi-Power MK-2 jam on him. That had not been the gun's fault as such, but to Ryan — a mild believer in signals, psychic hints — that was a distinct nudge in the ribs from whatever gods watched over him, and he forswore the Browning and took up the SIG, which had proved to be an eminently satisfactory man-, woman— and mutie-stopper right when it counted. It also, usefully, loaded two extra rounds over the Hi-Power, although J.B. argued that what you could do with fifteen slugs you could just as easily do with thirteen. The logic of this was by no means impeccable, but Ryan knew what the tense, wiry weapons master — a superb marksman — meant. Despite his criticism, Dix had machined one or two extra features on to Ryan's SIG, including a fully adjustable sight.
On his left hip was the panga scabbard, the panga itself now holstered within easy reach on the buggy's door. From his belt hung four grenades — frag — and three mag pouches for the SIG. Inside his long coat, two each side, were four sticks for the LAPA.
Behind the drive seat was an Ithaca 37 pump S-shot with pistol grip and stock and a Mossberg 12-gauge bullpup 8-shot with sights fore and aft and compacted stock. Canvas panniers on both doors sagged with cartridges.
The buggy itself, like all the buggies run by the Trader, bristled with external and internal weaponry: cannon at the front and a fixed mortar, and two M-60s, one poking out from behind an armored shield at the front, and the other rear-mounted through a roof blister with a wide traverse. Pierced steel planking, double thickness, had been fixed to the buggy's exterior.
In firepower at least Ryan felt reasonably safe, reasonably secure; that was the most you could feel in a hostile situation. And this was most definitely a hostile situation.
The fronts of most of the shops and bars here had been boarded over, glass clearly being in short supply. Where doors were left open, light from kerosene lamps and candles spilled out onto filthy sidewalks strewn with trash. Men stood in the open doorways, staring out at them, faces bleak and cold, uncompromising. He saw a couple of guys spit in their direction as the buggy edged its way along.
There was both tension and hatred here that he could feel even through the pierced steel planking. It was something palpable. He'd had no idea Mocsin had reached such a state, such a grim pitch. He'd been under the impression, if he'd thought about it at all, that Jordan Teague's grip on the town was steel strong, that any hint of opposition to his rule had been squashed flat over the years by Strasser's security force. Now, tooling along this garbage-and car-strewn street, he was not so damned sure.
Hovak, the kid who manned the mortar but who was now squatting behind Hunaker's seat, gazing over her shoulder, said, "Why d'you say that, Hun?"
"Say what?"
"Running out of control."
"Hell! All this crap on the road, on the sidewalks, dummy. Guy like Teague oughta know by now, after twenty years or whatever, you don't let all this shit pile up like this. Asking for trouble. Perfect sniping positions. You wanna hold a town, you have nice wide roads, nice clean thoroughfares so the opposition can't hide."
She reached inside her jump jacket and took out a pack of ready rolled. She offered one to Ryan who grunted and shook his head. She poked one in her mouth and lit it, then pushed a hand through her bright green hair. She said, "Am I right?"
Ryan said, "Yeah, as always."
He liked Hunaker — she was smart and she was tough and she was an excellent shot, especially with the MG — although there was nothing between them and never had been and never was likely to be. It was unnecessary. In any case Hunaker was bi, although she had a leaning toward her own sex. At the moment a particular favorite was a girl called Ange who held the radio op's chair in War Wag Three.
From the back of the buggy, where he was sitting with his feet up on an ammo box, J.B. said, "Oughta have a better intelligence net."