Major-Commissar Zimyanin watched his protege with a pleased, far-off smile. Comrade Marshal Josef Siraksi would have mixed feelings at the news of the massacre. The descriptions of the one-eyed man and his unique blaster, combined with the theft of the American flag, couldn't possibly be ignored now. Nor could Gregori's suspicions be derided.
"I trust that you are now convinced of my probity in this matter," he whispered to himself. It wouldn't be long now before he could practice his hard-learned English.
Aliev looked up at the officer, rubbing his hands together in a gesture that meant he had found the trail. Despite the numbers of people who had been around the bottom of the Isenstien Steps, the track of the one-eyed man wasn't that difficult to locate. And once Aliev had the spoor, nothing would turn him from it.
Zimyanin glanced at the cheap and unreliable chron on his left wrist. It told him that the time was closing in on the middle of the night. However far and fast his prey might have run, he would still be caught and taken. Perhaps by the morning.
"By the dawn's early light." Zimyanin smiled.
Ryan touched his tongue to the socket where the troublesome tooth had been, finding it still felt tender. But that dreadful nagging soreness had gone.
"Gotta rest," Rick panted. "Sorry, Ryan, sorry."
"Don't keep saying 'sorry.' It's getting to be like a rad sore you have to pick at."
The freezie looked at J.B. "I don't mean to keep... I'm sorry... I mean. I guess I should never apologize. It's a sign of weakness." For some reason that brought a weak grin to his parchment-pale face.
"Jak's been gone a long while," J.B. said to Ryan.
"Yeah. Quarter hour. Mebbe you or me should have gone with him."
"Only two sec men, he said."
"Could be more."
"Three. Four. Still back the kid to take 'em easy."
Ryan leaned against the tumbled wall of the long-ruined house and looked up at the sky. The low clouds that had dominated the night an hour or so back had cleared. The temperature had dropped, and he could see uncounted stars glittering with a ferociously cold gleam.
"Guess so. Give him another five then I'll go see what's up."
Less than a minute later the teenager appeared out of the darkness, waving the others to move forward.
As they each put an arm around Rick's waist to help him up, they saw Jak — holding his knife — gesture toward his own throat. He repeated the motion twice more.
"Three sec men," Ryan said.
"Where?" Rick asked worriedly.
"Dead," Ryan replied, "of course."
The wag was perfect. It was impossible to tell what it might have been when it started out its life. It had been modified, customized, and chopped and altered so many times that only a few inches of metal might have been original.
The tires were worn almost down to the canvas, but the engine looked sound. Homemade armor plating had been fixed to the front and sides of the cab. The seat was wide enough to take all four of them.
And the tank was three-quarters full of gas.
"Who drives?" Jak asked.
"Can you handle it?" Ryan asked. "Don't fuck around if you can't, Jak. There isn't time. Can you manage?"
"Sure. Four front and one back gear. Easy. Where you and J.B. ride?"
Ryan considered the question. No use having them all jammed in the cab for the breakout from the dangerous center of the ville.
"We'll take the back. Watch over the sides for any sort of trap."
"What if road's blocked?"
"Over, under, around... or through," Ryan replied, amending one of the Trader's sayings. "In this case it'll be around or through."
"Wish I had a gun," Rick said, surprising everyone. "Could pull my weight. Even a dying man can squeeze a trigger."
Ryan looked at him. "You stupe! We could've brought the blasters from the chills in the workshop! Why didn't you say?"
"Didn't think at the time. Sorry. Just didn't think."
"Too late now," J.B, said. "We gotta get moving."
When they helped the freezie up into the cab, his foot slipped on the wheel hub and he nearly fell back into the dirt. Jak swung into the driver's seat, glancing once over the controls. He gestured with his thumb for J.B. and Ryan to clamber into the open bed of the armored wag.
"Ready?" he called.
Ryan tapped on the metal plate at the rear of the cab. "Let's go."
Gregori Zimyanin didn't waste any time with the two corpses in the abandoned workshop. He tugged Aliev by the arm to attract his attention. "How many?"
The tracker considered, finally fluttering his fingers at lightning speed in the code that Zimyanin had taught him.
"Five? Four? No, slower. I don't understand what you're... There were three. Then two. Then four? Is that it?"
The Mongolian nodded then slid a finger behind the dripping mask covering his nose and mouth to remove a stubborn lump of blood-flecked phlegm.
"The three? Two men and a woman? One man sick? Yes?"
Aliev again used the sign language, telling Zimyanin that the woman had gone a couple of days ago. The sick man and the other had stayed, and they'd now been joined by two more men. One young and light on his feet, the other older. Aliev used his hand to indicate their heights. Around five-foot-four for the young one, four or five inches taller for the other man. Now all had gone.
"I can see that for myself, you whore-spawn mutie mongrel," Zimyanin snarled. "How long ago? How long? A half hour. Then we are closing. Outside." He called to the corporal in charge of the sec detail, "Keep your blundering imbeciles away from any prints out there. We're going to get them."
Jak kept the headlights dim and picked his way through the rubble of the most deserted back streets. Ryan guided him as best he could, trying to maintain a rough course to the southwest of the enormous ville.
They glimpsed sec patrols, both on foot and motorized, but none came close enough to cause any serious worries for them. Until they were well into the suburb called Nikulino.
Now the roads were better maintained, busier. As the buildings began to thin out toward the country, there were fewer options to keep the wag from being spotted.
Around two-thirty in the morning, with a steady rain beginning to fall, the inevitable happened.
Chapter Thirty
The wag shuddered to a stop, the engine ticking over quietly. Jak opened the door on the driver's side and leaned half out, looking back at Ryan and J.B., who were peering around the armor plate.
"Yeah," Ryan told him. "I see it."
The road, lined with plane trees, stretched ahead for a quarter of a mile, houses scattered at intervals on either side. Just where the pavement began to bend to the right, with the silvery gleam of water visible, was a roadblock.
Two small four-wheel wags were angled across the center of the road, with a gap between them of less than a dozen feet. Twenty or thirty heavily armed sec men had ranged themselves around the two vehicles.
"Haven't seen yet," Jak said. "Moment pull out from trees, spot us. Fucking lot."
The teenager was correct. Their wag was parked under an overhanging bushy tree, and the driving rain had already reduced visibility. But as soon as they began to drive at the roadblock, the guards would have about thirty seconds of clear shooting at them. It was much too long.
J.B. pointed to where the old houses stood a little closer together. "Good chance we could work our way down there. You and me. Hit those stupes from the side. Moment we start shooting, Jak revs up the wag and hits that gap in the middle."