Despite Ryan's great strength and the freezie's exhausted frailty, the man was still proving too much of a handful. His arms thrashed, catching Ryan a glancing blow on the side of the face, making his teeth ring. Another punch hit him on the upper arm, numbing the muscle.
Rick's eyes were wide open, seeming to float in blood-filled pits, staring up sightlessly at the damp-stained ceiling. He kept rolling his head, trying to dislodge the gag. Bubbling, muffled screams tried to burst from his throat.
Ryan clung to him, keeping him pinned, coughing as their struggle kicked up clouds of acrid dust. Krysty stood for a moment, looking down at the two thrashing, tangled figures, trying to work out how best to help Ryan.
"What can?.." she began.
"Put him out," Ryan panted. "Quick. Out!"
Krysty didn't hesitate. She balanced on her left foot and swung back the right, kicking with a careful aim and considered force at the freezie. The toe of her dark blue leather boot hit him just behind the ear with a soft, dull thud.
He immediately went limp, allowing Ryan to roll away from him. "Thanks." He eased the unconscious freezie onto his right side and removed the hunk of cotton from his mouth so that the man wouldn't choke. "Hope you haven't chilled him, lover."
"Little poke with my toe? He'll be fine. Well, I don't suppose he'll be fine." She bent down and began to run her hands along Rick's arms and legs, probing at the layers of sinew that coursed beneath his pale skin. Krysty shook her head as she straightened. "Tone's real bad. Seems like the muscles are plain giving up. I can feel fluttering under... kind of like everything going into spasm. Bad."
Rick blinked and his eyes twitched open. He looked from face to face, unfocused. A thin trickle of blood dripped out of a corner of his mouth. He blinked again.
"Oh, hi guys," he said. "What happened?" His fingers explored the lump behind his ear. "Ow! Did I fall?"
"I kicked you in the head," Krysty told him. "You went jolt-wild. Couldn't hold you, and you were making a lot of noise."
"I see. I recall the doctors saying that I might lose some control when it came to... you know. Sorry, guys. I'm fine now. Truly. We ready to rescue Old Glory?"
"Not 'we,' Rick," Ryan corrected. "I am and Krysty is. You pointed out the tools we have to get."
"But..." the freezie began, until Krysty stopped him with an angry stare.
"You got an excuse for being sick," she said. "Doesn't give you a reason for being double-stupe, does it?"
With an effort he managed to heave himself to his feet, sniffing and wiping away the blood with his sleeve. He finally met Krysty's eyes. "No. Guess it doesn't, does it? Gimp like me'd slow you and Ryan down."
"Yeah," Ryan agreed. "So you stay here. Keep outta sight and wait for us. If we don't make it back by sunset tomorrow, you're on your own. Try for the ruined house, southwest of here."
"Keep outta sight. Sure. Outta sight, man. Right on. Too much." He turned away, voice breaking. "Too fucking much."
The guard was an old man, closing in toward sixty, married with three children and eleven grandchildren. The youngest had been keeping him awake for the past week, and he was desperately tired.
Dmitri Olgarchev, the senior museum orderly, had passed by on his rounds an hour ago, with his usual admonition to keep a careful watch on everything, in case the Americans came in to thieve. Every night for the past twenty-three years he'd said that. Sometimes Sergei wanted to strangle him. But this particular night, with the whole ville a seething nest of rumors about American spies, Dmitri hadn't said it. He'd just nodded curtly and gone on his way.
Sergei didn't believe anyone would ever break in. Nobody had ever broken in, in all the years he'd worked there. As far as he knew, nobody in the history of the world had everbroken in.
Why should they?
He'd found his usual spot in the corner of the narrow gallery that had dummies hanging from sets of gallows-each was dressed like some hero revered by the Americans. There was an alcove beneath a window that opened onto a rusting iron flight of steps. Sergei had been told that it had been built to help people escape if there was a fire. Now it was so corroded and fragile that it would probably collapse if three men got on it at once. Under the window was a pile of material, drapes that had long fallen from the wooden poles.
Sergei curled up and fell instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The ladder had creaked alarmingly as Ryan led Krysty up the rungs, but the main securing bolts seemed solid enough under the red lace of thick rust. Heckler & Koch in hand, the one-eyed man had darted from shadow to shadow, around the back of the towering mausoleum to the place he'd spotted during their propaganda tour — a vulnerable window above a quiet alcove, filled with a bundle of material.
Ryan had figured it would provide them with a soft, quiet landing when they jumped down off the windowsill. He landed like a cat on the pile of discarded drapes, but his nostrils suddenly filled with the stink of sweat and stale tobacco. As he began to move down to the floor he tripped over the old man, and dropped his pistol.
It was too quick to be called a fight, more like a fumbling scuffle. Ryan knew immediately that he was up against a frail old man whose heart had leaped into his throat with terror, nearly choking him.
In some predark vids, Ryan and his friends had been amused to see the way that enemies were treated. Regardless of what kind of threat they might pose, they were generally left unconscious or tied up. Either way, they often escaped.
Things usually didn't happen that way in the Deathlands.
The old man was an enemy whose muffled yell could be enough to put a noose around Ryan's and Krysty's necks.
As Sergei fought for survival, breath rattling in his throat like water down a drain, Ryan clubbed him on the side of the head with his forearm, stunning him. He locked the scrawny throat into the angle of his arm and used his other hand to apply the strangling pressure. After thirty seconds he felt the body jerk to stillness, the pulse that fluttered against his wrist halting, starting again for a handful of beats, and stopping.
"Ryan? You all right, lover?"
"Yeah. Got us another Russkie."
"Can't hear anyone else," she whispered, picking her way through the darkness to stand beside Ryan. "You?"
He laughed quietly. "You know bastard well that if you can't hear anything I'm not going to hear anything either."
To their surprise, the glass cases that held the American equipment and tools weren't even locked. The simple handle and catch opened easily at a touch.
There'd been a number of discarded sacks and bags in the abandoned workshop where they'd left Rick. Ryan had brought one of the strongest, tucking it inside his long fur-trimmed coat. Now he loaded it with the various tools that the freezie had managed to point out to them. He placed them inside the bag one at a time, trying to avoid making any noise.
"Ready?" Krysty whispered.
"Nearly. Hear something?"
"Two of them. Don't think they're coming this way. Sounds like they're mebbe a floor above us."
"Done," he said, carefully snapping the case shut.
"The flag."
"Sure. Through here. Keep to the side of the halls, in the shadows."
"I know."
"I know you know." He grinned at her in the dim light, teeth gleaming.
Ryan had an almost perfect memory for places and directions. He could recall most of the villes he'd ever visited, and what the trails were like, in and out. Despite the twisting corridors and linked rooms and stairs, he led the way with unerring skill to the huge chamber where the flag was kept.