Leather fixed his one good eye on Bart.
"What?"
"I came to tell you, sir, that me and my patrol were jumped up in the gap and wiped out."
"Whose patrol?" Leather spoke very softly, his voice was deep and gravelly.
"Drexy's. He's dead."
Leather raised a bushy eyebrow. "No shit?" He sounded completely uninterested.
"Tell him who sliced you," prompted Jojo.
"His name was Bonner."
A very slow smile spread over Leather's chopped-up face. "Bonner, huh?"
"Yessir."
"He took you all?"
Bart knew he had to lie. "No way, sir. He was leading a big band of raiders."
"Don't lie to me, asshole. Bonner doesn't work with raiders."
Bart paled. "He had one guy with him." "One fucking guy. Against how many Stormers?"
"Seven." Bart knew he was a dead man. His throat had gone very dry. Just then Bart realized there was another person in the room. Behind, next to the fireplace, Marx, the captain of the Radleps, sat on the floor cleaning a gun. Marxie was allowed to sit when Leather was there.
"What do you think of that, Marxie? Seven to two."
Marx shrugged. He was the worst burn victim Bart had seen. The skin on his face was mottled and blistered. A piece of his cheek was missing and Bart could see the broken yellow teeth in his jaw. The Radlep drooled a little. Bart turned away in disgust.
Marx shrugged again. "Bad," he said, through his cracked lips.
"How long ago was this?"
"Six days."
"He coming this way?"
"Dunno, sir."
"He is," said Leather matter of factly. "Thanks for the information, it's nice to know where the man is."
Bart heaved a sigh of relief. It looked like he was going to make it out of there alive. All he wanted to do was get back out into the air. He was never, ever, going to get himself in a mess like this.
"Wait," said Leather, "what's your name?"
"Bart," said Bart.
"Bye, Bart."
"Thank you, sir." Bart made for the door. Leather looked at the guns on his desk, like a kid trying to decide which candy to choose. He picked up a Ruger Redhawk Double Action revolver and levelled it at Bart's head.
"Bye, Bart," he said, and pulled the trigger. The report of the shot filled the room. Marx didn't look up, Jojo winced at the sound and out in the hall, people glanced idly at Leather's door. No big deal. It happened all the time.
Chapter 14
Bonner, Starling, Cooker and Harvey made it back to their hidden vehicles just as a pale, watery sun rose over the broken Jersey landscape. Harvey was still hopped up, acting as if the rescue had pumped him full of speed. The exhilaration of the raid and the escape made him even more voluble than usual.
"Oh man, it was great, I mean fan-fucking-tastic. Man, when I heard the first blow I could tell things were going to-get fuckin', I mean fuckin' hot. Unbelievable, unbelievable, un-fuckin'-believable..."
"It was fun," said Starling.
"I'll bet. When I saw Bonner there with that grease gun. Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam, you know, them scumy Stormers never knew what hit 'em."
"How many prisoners you figure got away?" asked Bonner quietly.
"Not many," said Starling, "and most that went will be rounded up again. This neighborhood is going to get hot." "Not as hot as it is now," giggled Cooker. Over his shoulder a faint glow could be seen as the island, torched singlehanded by the little gas-hound, burned furiously.
"How much farther?" asked Starling.
"Not far," said Bonner.
The cars were as they had left them, hidden in the heavy underbrush and Bonner could see at a glance that they were undisturbed. Cooker peered anxiously into the well of his tanker to see if any gas was missing.
Harvey settled himself under the gun in Bonner's car.
"So, where we going?"
"The Cap."
"Fantastic!" That was it. He wasn't interested in why. He didn't care. Bonner slid into his seat, smiling to himself. Harvey was about as strange as you could get in this new strange world. He was pretty strange-looking too. Numerous explosive devices gone wrong had robbed him of several fingers, one hand was half blown away. It looked like a flipper. His face was scarred and pitted with black powder that peppered his skin. The line of his jaw was marked with a livid pink burn mark where he had managed to set himself on fire.
He wore his hair shoulder-length and he kept his greasy tresses in some kind of order with an old bandana. He always wore a three-piece suit, shiny with age, but he never wore a shirt. His thin little body was lost in the gray folds of the suit, but someone had told him that it was the old uniform of the movers and shakers in the dead world, so he adopted it. He thought it gave him class. The picture was completed by a pair of split old wing tip shoes worn without socks. Harvey's ankles were gray with grime. He looked, overall, ridiculous.
He wriggled down next to Bonner's gas tank and began to sing:
"I don't want to set the world on fire I'd much rather start A flame in your heart..." "What the hell is that?" asked Starling. "A song," said Harvey. "The Stormers on the island had a crank Victrola. This was one of the songs it played." He continued singing. "In this world I have but one desire..." "Pretty strange," said Starling. "I do," said Cooker. "You do what?" "I want to set the world on fire." "That's even stranger," said Bonner. Just as he was about to lead his little party out of the hiding place, Bonner slammed on the brakes, killed his engine and picked up the Steyr. He remained behind the wheel, his eyes focused on a thicket of bushes that still lay in the morning shadows. The others killed their engines and the sudden silence seemed to close over them.
"Bonner," hissed Starling, "what is it?" Bonner stared fixedly at the bushes, like a pointer. After a moment, the branches began to rustle slightly and the gun twitched in Bonner's hands. Starling too covered the thicket with his little semi-automatic.
"Whoever it is," said Harvey laconically, "waste 'em. And let's get going."
Just then the bushes parted and into the clearing stepped the two largest men Bonner had ever seen. They were close to seven feet and as broad as tree trunks. They wore only shorts and rough leather sandals; the rest of their bodies were covered with reddish brown hair as thick and as matted as fur. Muscles snaked around their wide chests, making their torsos look as if they were held together with strong iron bands. Each man was identical, a perfect copy of the other. The effect of the sudden appearance of these grave-looking giants was at once frightening and funny. Bonner stared. They stared back.
Harvey spoke: "Hey! Look at that! It's the Mean Brothers. How ya doin', Meanies? These are the guys what sprung you from the island."
The two men looked interestedly at Bonner, Starling and Cooker. Then they smiled at Harvey. They loped over to their friend and embraced him.
"Yeah," said Harvey, "thanks. Lemme go." The Mean Brothers stood back, as if waiting for instructions.
"Harvey," asked Bonner, "who are these guys?"
"Well, no one knows their names, on account they can't speak. So I just call them the Mean Brothers. And believe me, they are mean. I saw this one, no, it was that one, no, maybe it was that one... anyway, it was one of 'em, tore a fucking Stormer apart. I mean literally tore him apart with his bare hands, like he was tearing up a piece of paper... Bonner, man, these guys are mean and I ain't kidding."
The two men smiled happily at Harvey's introduction.
"I got to be friendly with them in stir," Harvey continued; "they ain't bad guys, really, but they don't like Stormers."
"Then they aren't all bad," observed Starling.
"Hey," said Harvey, "you Mean Brothers want to come with us? We're going for a little ride to see Leather. Wouldn't you like to meet the famous Leatherman?"
The two giants exchanged glances, as if communicating telepathically. They nodded vigorously, smiling.
"They want to come," said Harvey.
"I can see that," said Bonner.
"They won't let you down in a fight."
"I can see that too."
"Say hello to Mr. Bonner. If it wasn't for him your gigantic asses would still be in prison."
The first Mean Brother crushed Bonner in a bear hug, released him and turned him over to his brother, who did the same.
Bonner was not a weak man, but as the massive arms slid around his ribcage he could tell that he could pound these two behemoths with a hammer and they wouldn't notice.
"Nice to meet you," he mumbled. The Mean Brothers nodded and smiled.
"That there's Starling," said Bonner.
"How do?" said Starling. "And that's Cooker."
"Man," said Cooker, "these guys are enormous."
"What kind of weapons do you use?" asked Bonner.
As one, the two Mean Brothers held out their vast hands.
"They don't have much need for weapons, Bonner," said Harvey.
"No," said Bonner slowly, "I guess not."
Slowly, one of the Mean Brothers raised his huge arm and pointed at Bonner's car.
"What's he saying?" said Harvey. The Mean Brother continued to point.
Bonner followed the line of his gaze. "Oh, I get it. They've chosen their weapons." Bonner reached up and undipped the axe from the roll bar. "Here," he said, "take it."
The giant accepted the gift as if he was receiving some kind of blessing. "You want the shovel?" asked Bonner.
The other man nodded vigorously. Bonner took it down and handed it to him. He received it with gratitude.
"Well," said Harvey, "I can see we're all going to get along fine."
"You coming with us?" asked Bonner.
The Mean Brothers nodded again.
"Okay. You can ride up on Cooker's tank. Is that okay with you?"
The Mean Brothers nodded again and climbed up behind Cooker's perch. They towered over the little gas hound, casting him in the long shadows caused by the early morning sun.
"Let's go," said Bonner and hit his starter. Harvey sang over the roar of the engine: "Just a gigolo, everywhere I go, people know the part I'm playing..."
What a freak show, thought Bonner, as he led his little party into the breaking dawn.
Chapter 15
If you wanted to live a long life in the Slavestates you followed one rule to the letter: don't mess with a Radlep. When the tax convoys went out they looked for the usual stuff-gas, girls and guns-but the convoy leader always carried a special commission, that of Radlep recruiter. No one knows who first called them radleps-"radiation lepers"-but the name was a good one and it stuck.
It wasn't that unusual for the convoys to come upon, out in the hinterlands, some kid who had strayed too close to "hot" water or had been caught in a radiation storm or had eaten contaminated meat. Eventually, the boy would die, slowly, painfully, of radiation sickness. It was a terrible decline to watch:
their hair fell out, their skin flaked, the creeping heat of the disease ate out their voice boxes. But they could walk and they could fight.
If the convoy commander spotted a likely candidate he made the kid an offer: come to the Cap and join the Radleps. It was a tempting prospect. In return for absolute loyalty and complete fearlessness Leather would give them anything they wanted, for life. All the guns, food, alcohol, girls, gas, ammo, -anything-they could consume was theirs for the asking. The catch was that they had to be prepared to die. Most accepted the offer. After all, they were dying anyway, why not make the most of it?
They were Leather's praetorian guard, his SS. Leather's enemies were their enemies. They killed those he told them to kill. When he told his Radleps to die, they died. The Stormers, even the best of them, could never be as effective as the Radleps because no matter how courageous or stupid one of them might be, deep in every Stormer heart was planted the simple desire to stay alive, to keep his head down, to cover his ass. Radleps didn't give a damn one way or another. They waded into heavy fire the way kids played in a stream. Where a normal man would avoid a fight, a Radlep sought it out.
They killed, they got killed, but as one fell another jumped to take his place. There were raiders and smugglers hard as nails and tough as sharks, mean as hungry wolves that would run like jack rabbits if they heard there were Radleps ahead on the road.
More than just being prepared to die the Radleps had another quality that drove them. Every single one of them burned with a white hot hate of every normal man, woman and child on the continent. The Radleps hated because they had been dealt the dirtiest hand in a dirty world. Leather could give them everything, but he couldn't give them life. Their future, no matter how you cut it, was death.
People said that the only good thing about Radleps was that they all died eventually.
Marxie had been Radlep captain for about a year- the longest a commanding captain had ever lived- but he could feel his time drawing near. The disease was weakening him, he couldn't get out of bed in the morning without leaving behind a sheet of matted skin on the covers. But it didn't bother him that much-he had long ago accepted his fate. He had gotten used to the looks of revulsion when he passed, the shivers of disgust in the cool, white, perfect bodies of the women Leather gave him-but he did have pride. He wanted to go out in style. He wanted to get Bonner. He wanted to get him alive.
Marxie left the big house and wandered noncha-lantly to the Radlep headquarters, an old ornate building that looked like a castle. It sat right on the green slash that cut through the center of the Cap. Here his force of maniacs ate and drank, took their women and generally lazed around when they weren't on patrol or on duty.
When Marxie entered a few of the Radleps straightened up and tossed off something that passed for a salute. Discipline was a little tighter in the Radleps than in the Stormers.
"Okay," rasped Marxie, "I want fifty men now."
"We going on a job?"
"Yeah. A big one."
There were few sights to be seen in the Slavestates or anywhere else in the continent that were quite as frightening as a battalion of Radleps on the move. Leather saw to it that his elite troops had, along with the best in firearms, the finest in transport. Radleps rode motorcycles exclusively and they weren't the homemade hybrids that virtually everyone rode-these ùwere the real thing. There were genuine unmodified Harleys, as shiny and as powerful as the day they left the showroom floor. Those big engines throbbed in unison with the other big bikes: Hondas and BMWs, Kawasakis, Yamahas, Nortons, Moto Guzzi, Suzuki, their engines whining in a loud, ear-splitting chorus.
Marxie alone rode in a four-wheeled vehicle, but his was the real thing too: a shiny Jeep C-J circa 1990 with its tough roll bar and a specially fitted eight-cylinder engine that would outrun almost everything on the road.
The beauty of the machines they rode underscored the grotesqueness of their riders. The Radleps sat athwart their mounts looking as ugly and evil as sin itself. Almost all the Radlep soldiers had the crusty mottled skin of the burn victim, hands were scaly and cracked with deep fissures, faces were blistered, tongues swollen and thrust through cracked lips; the radiation had played havoc with cell growth and some of the Radleps were marked with odd tufts of hair, partially grown teeth and eyes and weird twisted extra limbs that flapped ineffectually at their sides like the thin white wings of birds unable to achieve flight.
The Radleps were festooned with weapons. Not one of them had fewer than three. Every chest was crisscrossed with bandoleers of ammunition for every type of weapon. Their status allowed them the finest in firearms. They carried efficient little 9mm automatics, Ingrams, Uzis,.45 M-3Als, weighty Dan Wesson revolvers, Browning automatic shotguns... These men weren't overequipped; just dying of radiation sickness wasn't enough to make you a Radlep. Before you could call yourself one, Marxie, or someone like him, made sure that you could handle each weapon like an expert.
Marxie, mounted in the passenger seat of his jeep, looked over his squad and smiled his hideous smile of pride. Bonner was b
rought down already. With a flick of a gloved hand Marxie gave the signal: move out.
Like a steel symphony, the engines of his soldiers' bikes answered his order. Fifty bikes roared into the late afternoon sun. People watched them roar down Constitution and shook their heads. Some poor bastards were going to catch it-and it would be hot.
Chapter 16
There was no Stormer outpost in Philadelphia-in fact there was no one there at all. Bonner figured it was the perfect place to stop off before he and his crew made their descent on Washington.
Richard Harding - Outrider 1, Premier Volume Page 10