"Red room?"
"Electronic defense control center. Red scopes, sound scoops, ground radar, heat sensors, tremblers, every bit of it is state of the art. They got some nasty stuff out on the perimeter too, remote Claymores, lasers, Bouncing Bettys, crossfire traps. This is no place to go taking an unscheduled stroll."
"Will I see this red room?"
Fenton nodded. "I'd imagine so. We all pull guard duty and all that means is that you sit in the red room and stare into the screens."
"They trust us with all that stuff!"
"We stand guard in threes. One of them and two of us."
"Who's them?"
Fenton treated Vickers to a look of scornful disbelief.
"You should have figured it for yourself by now or else you ain't as smart as I thought you were. You must have seen that Stretcher's got four of his boys and the rest of us are recruits. Guess they think it's safe to put two of us to their one because, as of now, we don't have too much to be in cahoots about."
"It's a pretty weird bunch of recruits."
"You noticed that?"
"I've been wondering what you could expect from a bunch like that. We're a very odd combination for any kind of mission."
"And?"
Vickers smiled. He knew that he was expected to give out with something. Fenton seemed to be making a kind of overture. Vickers wasn't sure what he wanted. Was it just an offer of mutual back-watching or was something deeper going on? It would have been handy to note the sex of Fenton's earlier bed companion. He was fresh out of jail. Vickers decided to play along.
"I can't see how we could have been assembled for any specific missions. We don't fit any project that I could imagine. We're not a conceivable team. With the exception of you, everyone's either a loner or a couple. We're all general issue, all-purpose killers. There are no specialists. Only you, and possibly the four girls, have a record of being team players. There's just one function that fits us all like a glove."
It was Fenton's turn to smile. "Yeah?"
"We're intimidating. If you wanted to put the fear of God into someone you'd only have to walk in with the whole bunch of us. There's an old western movie called The Magnificent Seven."
"The Magnificent Seven! You got to be putting me on. I thought you were supposed to be one of the best."
"You know the movie?"
"Of course I know the movie. I was brought up on it, wasn't I."
"So think it through."
"Okay, listen up. You all look like shit. You've all got these big, inflated reputations but the truth is you're soft and lazy. You've been sitting here with your thumbs up your asses for too long. A lot of money's been spent on you and it's now time to start justifying it. It's time to go back to work."
It was eight thirty in the bright desert morning of Vickers' fourth day at El Rancho Mars. It seemed that, with the arrival of Vickers, Streicher had his full complement of recruits and he was now ready to start whipping them into some sort of shape. They had already been at it for two hours. They'd run five laps on a track that completely circled the house and had followed that with a strenuous bout of calisthenics. Some took the punishing exercise in their stride while others were a little green and sweaty behind it. Vickers stood halfway between the two extremes. The sudden exertion hadn't hurt him but he knew, as he fought for breath after fifty sit-ups, that he could have survived without it. After this first taste of what Streicher considered work, they were given fifteen minues for breakfast, fifteen minutes for a shower and then were expected to reassemble by the heart-shaped pool wearing combat clothes and with their weapons.
As they straggled back from their quarters, Streicher was there waiting, positioned so that he cast a dramatically long shadow. There were now only two of his boys flanking him. There had been all four of them around for the first workout phase. Vickers wondered what the other two were doing now. Fenton fell into step beside him.
"You think Streicher's going to give us any idea of what we're training for?"
Vickers grunted and hefted his Yasha. "I doubt it."
Stretcher pointed out in the direction of the cult's abandoned ring of pillars.
"For a hundred meters, out to that last clump of trees, we've laid an electronic combat course. There are mines, traps and flip-ups of both good guys and bad guys. The idea is to get to the other side and back again as fast as you can without either being shot or blown up. There's nothing actually lethal in this system, but there is some stuff that can shake you up some. As the flip-ups and the holograms come at you, you'll find that some represent hostile opposition while others will be innocent bystanders. You are supposed to distinguish. You fucking psychopaths who can't tell one from the other, you'll do the course over until you can. Is all this clear to you?"
There were some growls among the general nodding. No professional ever wanted anything to do with combat simulators. Nobody actually protested, however, despite all the low grumbling. Streicher allowed himself a sardonic smile.
"One last thing, ladies and gentlemen, as you move into the combat run you'll find that the system has been tuned to the maximum degree of skill. Consider it a test of all these highly touted reputations."
Morse was the first one up. He was armed with a 12 guage Neilsen Autoshot with a police stock. As he loaded it, Streicher described the course.
"It's a two-way street. All the way to the end and back again. You'll find that we've laid out a complex of trenches, wire and sandbags. All real World War I. You can use them however you like. There's also a three-meter wall and a steel culvert. You go over the wall on the way in and through the culvert on the way out. That's mandatory. Move ahead, Mr. Morse."
Morse nodded and started toward the ring of pillars at a slow, careful walk. Streicher called after him.
"You're on the clock, Mr. Morse. If you don't complete the course in four minutes, you do it over."
Morse broke into a reluctant trot. The ground fell away quite steeply beyond the pillars and he was quickly lost from sight. There were a few seconds of silence and then all hell broke loose. There were explosions, the wump of sound shocks and the rapid-fire bark of Morse's shotgun. Multicolored smoke billowed up. Some of the recruits glanced at each other. There was a slight pause and then another eruption of noise.
"Two minutes. He's had half his time."
Streicher stopped his clock at 3:55 as Morse came trotting back through the ring of pillars. He looked out of breath and a little the worse for the wear.
"Just under the wire, Mr. Morse."
Morse flopped down onto the ground.
"Thank Christ; I wouldn't want to go through all that again."
Streicher grinned nastily. "Oh you will, Mr. Morse. You can count on that, but maybe not today. In the meantime, Miss Debbie, you're up next."
During the four days that Vickers had been at El Rancho Mars, he had learned to take Debbie and the three other girls a whole lot more seriously than first impressions had indicated. They were clearly hardened professionals and, since they were so exceptionally striking, he wondered how it was that he hadn't heard about them before. Debbie looked both practical and sexy in cut-off jungle greens. There was nothing frivolous about the lightweight M20 that she cradled on her left arm. One of Streicher's boys handed her a banana clip; she slapped it into the machine gun with the ease of long practice and then set off for the pillars at a purposeful lope.
Debbie was back in 3:12. She looked a good deal less ruffled than Morse.
"You're up next, Mr. Bronce."
Bronce flexed. A long-barrelled ultramag nestled in a brown leather shoulder holster next to his perfect pects. To Vickers it was a somewhat lightweight weapon for the kind of course it seemed to be. Bronce, on the other hand, was as struttingly confident as ever. He started down the course as if he were aiming to break a record. As soon as he was out of sight the firing started. When he was about a minute into the course, Streicher looked down sharply at a unit on his wrist. He tapped a button. The explosions stopped. Streicher signalled to his two boys.