More stairs were beyond the wood block, linking the room to the street-level floor above. There were five sec men by the stairs. The man who had spoken was one of these: a squat, barrel-chested guy with fingers like sausages, a bulbous nose that contained more than its fair share of destroyed blood vessels and heavy-lidded eyes. He was licking his lips, looking at the two girls. That one gets off on agony, Ryan thought bleakly.
But Strasser flicked a hand at him, an irritable motion. He turned to Ryan.
"So what is this deal? It seems to me, Ryan, you've lost your bargaining position."
"You don't have the train," Ryan repeated calmly. "I have the train. Sure it won't nuke up, but she'll blow. Nice firework display and you're gonna have your work cut out sifting through the wreckage for anything worthwhile."
"But you I have, and the Trader I have." Strasser showed his teeth in a wolfish grin.
"No," said Ryan. "You don't have the Trader, either. You put 'em all to sleep, right? When are they gonna wake up?"
Strasser opened his mouth, shut it again. He rubbed his nose gently with a bony finger.
Ryan said, "What are you gonna do when they dowake up? Keep putting 'em back to sleep again? How are you gonna know when they wake up, anyway? You got guys peering through the windows at them, waiting for the first twitch? Listen, when those guys wake up they're gonna be mad, they're gonna start doing bad things. How many men do you have out there, Strasser? Not a regiment, I'd guess." He added, "Maybe you have too many guys out at the mines."
"You've been busy," said Strasser softly.
"Shit, you can't keep something like that under wraps," scoffed Ryan.
"It's nothing that can't be coped with. A minor disturbance."
"Crap! This place is falling apart, Strasser. Too many years under one owner. The longer I'm here, the more the smell of rot and decay is stinking up my nostrils. Teague's been pushing stuff out east, hasn't he?"
It was not in fact a question. Strasser knew exactly what Ryan was saying, and his eyes darted nervously to his men at the bottom of the stairs.
He muttered through his teeth, "You're digging yourself deep, Ryan. Way deep. Deeper by the second."
To Ryan everything had become crystal clear. Strasser was getting out. The revolt at the mines had been the final straw. He'd probably been waiting to get rid of Jordan Teague for months, maybe years.
Strasser was standing beside the blood-soaked block. He was running a hand thoughtfully across its surface, backward and forward, staring down at the motion of his hand, his thin lips pursed. An altar, thought Ryan suddenly. An altar devoted to Strasser's own particular god of pain and torment.
He doubted that many of Strasser's sec men knew their leader's plans. An inner circle, perhaps, but not these suckers here. Maybe the guy with the red nose and the sausage fingers. He looked to be a kindred spirit.
Ryan said, "No deeper than I have to. I told you we can still deal."
The squat guy said, "Lemme have him. I tell ya..."
Strasser swung around on him, face contorted.
"Silence!"
Ryan leaned back against the whitewashed wall, folding his arms.
Suddenly Strasser pointed at two of the guards. "Downstairs. Go fetch..." He didn't finish the sentence but just jabbed a finger at the steps that led downward. The two guards grinned at each other as they clumped across the room and disappeared, their boots echoing off bare concrete.
J.B. glanced at Ryan, raising an eyebrow. Ryan shrugged. He looked at the two girls and Koll. All three expressionless, waiting, biding their time. He was glad that these three were left. He knew their worth.
He said, more to keep the pot boiling than for any other reason, "How long you been waiting to give Teague the heave-off?"
Strasser chuckled.
"Ever since he did the same to Dolfo Kaler. Did you ever hear of Dolfo Kaler?"
"Doesn't ring a bell."
"Before your time, Ryan." Suddenly Strasser was almost chatty. He had the air of one who was prepared to chew the fat for a while. Ryan wasn't sure he liked that. The guy was pleased about something. "Kaler had a stake in Mocsin. He wasn't as big as Jordan, but he had power, contacts with the East. In the early days. But he had this thing about the Darks. He thought there was something up there." Strasser lifted his arms in a shrug. "Maybe there is. A lot of people seem to believe so. Maybe one of these fine days I should take a look around. Kaler didn't find it, whatever it was. Crawled back with nothing and got his head blown off for his pains. Jordan Teague made out that Kaler had the Plague and just blew him out. That's when Jordan took over completely. It's long been in my mind to..."
But what was in Cort Strasser's mind was lost as the sound of booted feet once more rang out, metal studs thudding on concrete out of view below. Strasser had half turned as the noise started up. Now he swung around again on Ryan, fingering the black silk stock at his scrawny throat.
He said, "It has already occurred to me, Ryan, that it will take time to squeeze you dry, and I'm aware that your close colleague Dix doesn't gab much. Therefore I thought of turning my attention to your three companions, the ladies especially." His voice had become syrupy. "And then I thought, no, you're all the same. Closemouthed. Stupidly loyal. Stupidly stubborn. The women might well take less time to crack, but even so I'm not in the mood to linger. And then I set to wondering how, uh..." He frowned slightly, tapping the tabletop with his fingers. "Well, let me see — how detached you were, Ryan, how, uh... indifferent you could be to the sufferings of an entirely neutral party. The thought fascinated me, Ryan. After all..." his tone was now pensive, even mildly quizzical, as though he were pondering some minor domestic problem that still needed handling with a certain amount of care "...we live in violent and selfish times. Every man for himself and the hell with the rest. That surely is the philosophy of anyone faced with an unpleasant and painful situation. Even so, it did occur to me to wonder if the age of, uh... of — what's the word I'm seeking?" He snapped his fingers a couple of times, frowning down at the tabletop, then glanced up at Ryan, his eyebrows raised. "Gallantry? Yeah, that'll do. Gallantry. Excellent word. Nicely old-fashioned. Yes, I did wonder if the age of gallantry was not entirely buried beneath the ashes of the Nuke. It seemed a good opportunity to try a small experiment."
He glanced to his right, toward the doorway that led to the vaults. When he looked back at Ryan, his expression and tone of voice were almost apologetic. "It won't take long. Ten minutes at the most, I should imagine, once we're under way. And of course I may be making a stupid mistake, a wild error of judgment. I may well be wasting your time and mine. We shall see."
The two guards appeared, hustling a third person up to the top of the stairs and out into the room, each holding an arm.
The shock of recognition was for Ryan far greater than the panic burn that had flared through him when Strasser had glibly talked of taking his good eye out. But the jolt he felt inside him only made itself manifest by a slight quiver of his eyes, plus the freezing into stunned immobility of his features for maybe a half-second.