"You fat double-crossing bastard," Ryan hissed. "I oughta take you apart."
Teague wheezed, "I ain't done nothin', Ryan."
"That," said Ryan icily, "as someone said to me not too damned long ago... someone who's now dead!"And he spat the word at Teague, who waddled back two steps at the violence of the sound, "is a double fucking negative."
"I... I dunno watcha mean, Ryan!" Teague squeaked.
"It means, fat man, you havedone something"
"Please, Ryan..." The man's voice was a pleading whisper, and there were tears rolling and bouncing down his cheeks. "Tell me."
"You had our train nerved out, and you've got the Trader. And now I have you!"
Teague's face shook, triple jowls quivering like a turkey's wattles. He muttered, "Uh... yeah. Cort did... say..." Then he croaked, "But I was against the idea, Ryan, against it. Ya gotta believe me."
"You wanted the train for nothing — you simply iced the whole..." A wildfire of fury boiled through him suddenly and he rammed the LAPA barrel into Teague's stomach, yanked it back, flipped it and smashed the butt into the throat of the tottering, gobbling figure. Teague fell back with a strangled shriek, sprawled ludicrously half on, half off the bottom step of his pyramid throne, clutching at his neck, his face scarlet. Ryan flipped the gun again and held it down at Teague, aiming at his gut, his finger tight on the trigger, his face squeezed into a frozen mask.
From across the room, though it seemed like much farther, he heard Hunaker say softly, "Ryan."
He breathed out slowly, lowered his piece. He said tightly, "When this is over, Teague, you and Strasser..." He sniffed air into his lungs, threw his head back, breathed again, this time gustily. He said, his voice less taut, "Who's the old man?"
"Old man?" Teague's voice was a broken gargle.
"Old man, old man!" snarled Ryan. "The old buzzard you called Doc."
Teague shook his head feebly.
"I dunno, Ryan. He just... appeared. One day. Came into town. Year back, maybe longer."
"Who is he, what's he do, where's he from?"
"Dunno. Dunno nothin'." The words came out fast, a panic-stricken stream. "I thought it'd be a laugh, you know, to have him around. Cort don't like him, makes him... do things. Said he was a doctor, acted real strange. Still does, goes off in a fuckin' dream, talks... I dunno, 'nother language. Long words. Some guys did somethin' to him, took him off from someplace. But he never said where, when, why. Can't understand the guy sometimes, talks to ya like he's talkin' to a buncha kids. Shit, I dunno, Ryan — that's it."
"What about this fog?"
"Oh, yeah. He's lookin' for a fog." Teague tried laughing, but then thought better of the idea. "Thass what he says, lookin' for a fog, special kind of fog. I dunno what the hell he means, Ryan. He says that on the other side life's better. He's burned out. Rads've eaten his brain away."
"Didn't look like he had the Plague to me, Teague."
"No, no. He's fit enough, yeah. Brain-fucked is all."
"Those two balls. Eggs."
"S'all he had with him, Ryan, when he came into town. Y'gotta believe me. Didn't have nothin’ else. Some kind of metal, goes crazy when you take 'em off him. Cort gets off on doin' that, takin' 'em away from him. Guy has a fuckin' fit."
Koll suddenly reappeared. His face was set.
"Nothing out back, but there are lights heading up this way."
Samantha the Panther came through the curtains.
"J.B. says..."
"Lights. Yeah." Ryan gestured at Teague. "Take him out front, where we came in."
He ran back to the entrance hallway, then up the stairs to the second story. Rintoul emerged from the shadows and pointed to a room. Ryan padded across to where J.B. was hunched against a window frame.
"Two trucks and a buggy. Could be Strasser."
Ryan peered out. The arcs were still flickering, but in their nervous illumination Ryan could see what J.B. had seen. The trucks had reached the front of the house below and were stopping, the buggy sweeping in from behind. A tall, gauntly built man, bareheaded and black garbed, emerged from the front of the buggy, followed by two sec men.
"Yeah."
Strasser was staring around, peering to the left and right as though looking for someone.
"And they don't know we're here. He's looking for the guards we iced."
Ryan rerigged the LAPA and brought out his SIG-Sauer. He sighted on the roof-mounted spotlight of the buggy and put a round into it. There was a crash of glass, a sharp metallic clang and the light went dead. Strasser jumped, his head jerking up as his hand reached at his coat.
Ryan shouted, "You're dead first, Strasser. Whatever happens."
Strasser stared upward, his skull-like face expressionless.
"Ryan. Might've guessed you'd still be loose. But what can you expect when you employ imbeciles."
J.B. muttered, "I'll go down. Get Henn and the rest. Get the door open."
Ryan called out, "You killed a lot of our people, Strasser."
The bony man shrugged but said nothing.
"Tell the trucks to beat it, and tell them not to mess up when we come out. Get your men out of the buggy."
"Why should I do that, Ryan?" Strasser's voice, like his face, was expressionless.
"We got Teague."
Strasser pursed his lips, then shrugged again and nodded slowly. He began to turn away.
"And don't move from that spot, shithead."
Strasser stood still, pointed at the trucks, began talking quickly to the two men with him. One of them went to the buggy, his voice a mutter of sound. Ryan watched as goons began climbing out of the buggy, five in all. The trucks revved up, backed off from the house and turned, disappearing down the driveway into the darkness beyond the arc lights' beams. Ryan could see their headlamps cutting into the blackness. The men who had come from the buggy began to back away from the vehicle onto the grass.
"J.B.!"
Below him he saw light spill out from the opening door and he turned and raced back across the room, into the corridor, down the stairs, the SIG still clutched in his right hand.
"Let's go."
He shoved the SIG at Teague's head, and Teague whimpered as they moved out of the house toward Strasser and the buggy.
"We go to where the Trader is, we go to where the train is, and then we go."
Strasser said, "Fortunes of war, Ryan," His hands came out in a wide-armed shrug. "So near, and yet so far. Ah, well..."
There was something wrong here, but Ryan couldn't figure out what it was. He knew Strasser. Strasser was too cool — far too cool. Then in the same moment that he saw muzzle-flash from the buggy interior, Teague's head exploded like an overripe fruit, spraying him with blood, brains and homogenized bone. The double crack of the shots came a microsecond later. Teague lurched, collapsed into him soundlessly, and the dead bulk of the man shoved him groundward, knocking the SIG from his grasp. There was another, longer, burst of fire and a crazed yell from behind, then Strasser was screaming, "Hold it!"
Ryan heaved at Teague, rolled him off, as icy phantom fingers insinuated themselves into his stomach. What a jerk-off, he thought disgustedly. Then Strasser was above him, a handgun gripped in his gloved hand, its barrel inches from Ryan Cawdor's good eye.
"Don't twitch. Shithead!"The gaunt man's voice was a crow of delight and malevolent triumph. "Thought you had an ace, hmm? Tough titty. Now you're going to be telling me about all those ingenious boobies you have." He laughed softly. Chillingly. "Jordan was redundant, Ryan. So are you."