Chill Factor

by James Axler

  "I know who you are. I know your father. We have… met socially. I will kill him when I see him next. I want to rip out your heart and devour it, so bitter is my hatred for you, little Master Cawdor. But, you will be good, Master Goode."

  "How?"

  "By remaining here alive."

  "My father'll kill you first."

  "Bravely spoken. You have never hunted the white Siberian tiger, have you? No, I believe that the reply will not be in the affirmative."

  "No."

  "A cunning beast. But it can be trapped by offering it something that it wants. Perhaps a tender young goat."

  Dean looked at the man. "You think my father'll come to save me, then you can catch him?"

  The large head nodded slowly, the eyes hooded and blank. "It is not beyond the realms of possibility, Master Cawdor."

  "I'll cut my own throat first."

  Zimyanin smiled. "Bravely spoken, tovarich. If I had a son, I would wish that he showed such bravery in adversity. But I had thought of that. A sec man will watch over you as tender as an apple-cheeked babushka. When the trap is sprung I will have the tiger flayed alive and hang its skin upon my wall. And you may watch, Master Cawdor."

  "Go fuck a dead rat, shiftface."

  But the Russian was already halfway out of the door and the insult was wasted.

  THE TIGER WAS LESS than a quarter of a mile away from his hunter, squatting with Kate in a low-roofed concrete hut that had once provided primitive shelter for the workers when blasting was taking place. It had no door, and the snow was already filling the rectangular opening.

  On their way to the hiding place they'd heard something of the sec alarm. Ryan guessed from some of the yelling that Zimyanin might finally have figured who Dean was, and that Ryan was there to spring him.

  Ryan had his arms about the young woman, trying to minimize the extent that they were exposed to the elements.

  "We goin' to try and hide up again in the mines?" she said, having to raise her voice to ride over the screaming of the blizzard.

  "No. Russkie'll figure we're going to free the boy. But we're not." He paused. "We're going to free everyone else."

  Chapter Forty-Two

  JESSCO SHANNON LAY ON the floor of the hut, hands clasped to his stomach. The 9 mm round that had put him down didn't hurt very much. There was a numbness across his lower abdomen, and he could feel warmth around his groin.

  The powerful blaster hadn't made the thunderous roar that he'd expected, more like the sound of someone farting after a good meal of beer and chili. That made him grin.

  But it was still a puzzle. He and everyone in the hut had been awakened by the tall man with the bloodied face, who'd stood there with snow matting his long black hair.

  Jessco couldn't remember all of the talk, something about them going outside into some blizzard and running away into the mountains. But everyone knew that was just about the same as putting a 10-gauge into your mouth and pulling the trigger.

  The man had pointed at Jessco and told him to get out and start running.

  "I said he was crazy as a shithouse rat," he muttered to himself, noticing that he seemed to be the only one left in the dormitory.

  Then there'd been that farting noise and the next second Jessco was flat on his back, staring up at the damp ceiling with its big loops of colored electric wiring.

  The warmth was turning into fire and he moaned, wishing he was back up in the Shens in the isolated holler with his sixteen brothers and sisters, minding their own business before the sec men had come and lifted them to this icy, godforsaken wilderness.

  "My daddy knew more tap steps than anyone in the whole of Deathlands," he whispered.

  Jessco then became involved in the dark mystery of his own passing.

  RYAN MOVED QUICKLY from hut to hut, repeating the same performance.

  Kate stood by the door, holding her own blaster, while the one-eyed man tugged everyone awake. He talked fast and hard, not giving anyone a chance to even think about what he was saying, intent on simply pressuring them out of their huts.

  The mass escape of most of his workers would cause Zimyanin some serious problems. He'd have to send his sec men out into the storm to herd them all back again, which, would mean fewer guards watching over Dean.

  A couple of the huts proved stubborn, and Ryan had to gut-shoot men to persuade the rest that he wasn't joking.

  It wasn't something that Ryan particularly liked doing, but the Trader used to say that you couldn't make a stew without having to cut some meat.

  ZIMYANIN HAD ONLY JUST returned to his own rooms, intending to have a hot shower and a change of clothes, when the sec guard knocked and brought him the unwelcome news.

  "All?"

  "Most all. Not the workers already on the night shift, Major-Commissar."

  "But… You are informing me that one man has released everyone!" He had stripped off to the waist. His muscles stood out like bars across his shoulders as he fought to prevent himself from ripping the messenger's face off his skull. "Where were the…" But he was almost choking in rage and he couldn't go on.

  "The sentries?" Seeing he wasn't about to get an answer, the man stumbled on. "They was most about here, them not in the shafts. You said they was to guard the boy in…" Zimyanin turned around and the sec man fell silent.

  The Russian nodded slowly, again and again like a child's toy. "I had ordered this. The son of Ryan Cawdor. He will raise a revolution among the workers, I think. They cannot hope to live in this weather out in the… No. Rebellion. Put extra men on the armory and send all that can be spared to hunt down these ragged fools as quickly as possible. Before they can become organized."

  "What about the boy, Major-Commissar?"

  "Two in the room. Watch for the child seeking to harm himself. And two more—no, make that four more—outside. I will come myself as soon as my ablutions are completed."

  The man saluted and left the room, pausing in the narrow corridor to wipe the beads of sweat that were streaming over his forehead and cheeks.

  IN LESS THAN AN HOUR, most of the escapers had been recaptured and returned to their huts. One or two had been shot by frustrated and frozen guards, and one sec man had put a bullet through the throat of one of his comrades, mistaking the looming shape in the white-out conditions.

  But there were still at least fifty of them somewhere out in the blackness.

  Zimyanin was in a vicious mood. The disturbance was worse than he'd hoped, with sec men rushing around like headless gophers. There was a temptation to simply let the fleeing slave workers go, in the certain knowledge that most would be dead within twenty-four hours. To have to send off hunting parties through the gateway to replenish the labor force by fifty or more was also going to be time-consuming.

  And where was Ryan Cawdor?

  If he'd managed to lead the fifty absentees to a good hiding place, they could represent a serious threat to the security of the whole mining complex.

  The Russian stalked around the admin compound, resisting the urge to go out himself into the valley beyond and try to hunt down the one-eyed man.

  The other nagging worry was of Cawdor going into the tunnels with these missing fifty and, perhaps, linking up with the trackies.

  Zimyanin glanced up at the sky. The wind seemed to be easing a little, veering to a more westerly direction. It meant that the shape of the bowl of mountains that gripped the river and the valley gave more protection from the blizzard.

  And the snow was easing.

  DEAN HAD THE COMFORT of feeling his beloved turquoise-hilted knife, still hidden in the small of his back. If the Russian had left him with only one guard, the boy would have tried to butcher him.

  But with the two poker-faced sec men standing on either side of the locked door, each holding his carbine ready for action, the chances were down to zero.

  The bruising was still coming out, but Dean kept trying to move, flexing and tensing muscles beneath the blankets, doing everything he co
uld to stay ready for the moment.

  He didn't know what Ryan would do, when he'd do it or how he'd do it.

  But he felt a diamond certainty in his heart that his father would try.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  RYAN STOPPED IN MIDSTRIDE, hand going to his forehead.

  "What?" Kate whispered.

  "I just got a sort of flash of… of Krysty and the others, kind of a 'seeing,' like she gets."

  "What was it? What'd you see?"

  He shook his head. "There was flames, blood and thick black smoke. The smoke came down like a heavy curtain and I couldn't see no more. I mean any more. Nothing."

  "So, what does that mean, Ryan?"

  "Don't know. Fireblast! It was kind of bad, but it could…" He looked at her, puzzled. "Might mean nothing at all. Let's go get the boy saved. That'll mean something."

  IT WAS PITCH-DARK, with the sec lights glinting off the hard white ground. Shadows were knife-edged, and the air was so cold that Ryan and Kate had to keep holding their breath as they moved to avoid betraying themselves.

  Guards scampered by, heads down against the wind, ignoring the two figures that lurked in the darkness.

  Twice Ryan saw escaped prisoners being recaptured, bludgeoned to the snow by rifle butts, blood spilling, black on white.

  There was no problem identifying the building where Dean was being held.

  A quartet of sec men huddled together by the main door, nervously looking around them. A tiny ruby light glowed as they passed around a cigarette.

  Ryan considered the chances of taking them all out with the silenced P-226. The range from where he and the young woman were hiding was less than fifty yards, and the light wasn't bad. But the men all wore dark clothes, only the silver uniform circles glittering against the coats. It was hard to identify individual targets with any certainty.

  He could definitely send them all off on the last train to the coast, but not without short odds on one of them being able to yell a warning to the rest of the camp.

  "Most these buildings got a side or a rear door?" he asked.

  Kate nodded. "We could circle behind the power plant."

  He hesitated. One of the guards had moved apart from the others to stub out the cigarette in a flurry of orange sparks. For a second or two all four made separate targets, but the moment passed.

  "Let's try it," he said.

  Behind them, in the lee of the tallest of the surrounding mountains, was the huddled bulk of a massive building. Its windows were long broken, doors ripped off hinges.

  "What's that?"

  "Think it's where all the old machines for the mines are kept, from before sky-dark. Cody went in there once. Said it was a death trap of rusting platforms and rotting ladders."

  Ryan stared at it, a plan half forming in his mind.

  FOR THE PAST HOUR there'd been shouting, with the occasional burst of gunfire. At first the two sec men in the room with Dean had been uneasy, going to the side window to peer warily out.

  But they'd gradually relaxed, deciding that looking after a ten-year-old boy wasn't such a bad chore compared with being out in the postmidnight chill.

  Dean had got into the bed, using the blankets as cover to draw his own slim knife, readying himself for whatever might happen.

  The rap of a pebble against the glass made all three of them start.

  "Put out the light."

  "Could be the one-eyed bastard the Russkie warned us all about."

  Another small stone tinkled on the window, the sound barely audible. The taller of the sec men flattened himself against the wall and sidled around until he could squint into the darkness.

  "Woman."

  "What?"

  "Young slut. Think I know her. Got black hair and tiny tits. Standin' there like she wants some help from us."

  The other man moved to join him. "I'll fuckin' give her some help." He grabbed at his own groin in case his friend hadn't understood him.

  "You and me both." He looked behind, pointing a warning finger at Dean. "Stay there." He eased the window up a few inches, biting air pushing its way into the room.

  "Could be a trick."

  "Russkie didn't say shit about a woman. She just ran like the others and now she's gotten cold feet and wants in."

  "More'n her feet cold."

  "Warm her."

  He slid the window wider, leaning head and shoulders out, eyes fixed on the slight figure of the girl.

  "Hey, you come here," he called quietly in case the other four sec men heard him and came around wanting to cut themselves a piece of the buttered bread.

  Ryan erupted from the blackness like an avenging angel of bloody death, grabbing at the man's lank hair, holding him steady for the fraction of a second it took to slit through the pulsing carotid artery at the side of his throat. He heaved at him with all his strength, so that the dying man slid unresistingly out of the open window.

  The other guard stared in total disbelief, his rifle held in slack fingers. He was standing by the window, his legs apart, back to Dean.

  Ryan had expected the other sec man, who he'd been watching through the window, to come to see what had happened. Or to move to the door. Either way, Ryan was ready to take him. He hadn't planned on the guard standing stricken, rooted to the spot, out of the line of fire for a clean shot at him.

  "How did…" the guard muttered, his mind slipping into clinical shock.

  The blow from behind tipped him into the abyss of dark madness. It had come from below, something striking him with unbelievable force between the legs, driving into his genitals, a hideous metallic grating against the point of his pubic bone.

  The breath fled his lungs and his cry of shock wasn't even audible to Dean, who crouched behind him, the turquoise-hilted knife firm in his right hand. Warm blood ran over his fingers, across the back of his hand and up his lower arm.

  "Come in, quick," the boy whispered.

  Ryan's head appeared over the sill, peering into the room, seeing a macabre tableau.

  Dean's blade was still buried high in the sec man's groin, pressing him up onto the tips of his toes. He'd dropped the M-16 on the floor, and his arms were spread wide, fingers bent into tortured claws.

  The guard's eyes were staring wide and blank, his tongue protruding from his bloodless lips. Poised in helpless agony, he was frozen into immobility by the vicious attack.

  Ryan pushed the muzzle of the SIG-Sauer under the man's throat, angling it upward, and squeezed the trigger once.

  The sound of the explosion was muffled by the silencer, and by the man's flesh.

  A chunk of skull, scalp and hair exploded against the ceiling, followed by a gout of pale blood and gray-pink brains.

  "Let him go," Ryan said, and Dean withdrew the knife, wiping it quickly on the blankets before quickly resheathing it.

  The body dropped like a sack of watery meat.

  "There's more at the front."

  "I know. Four of them." Ryan beckoned for the young woman to join them, helping her to climb in through the window and sliding it shut behind her.

  "You got me out the earth fall?"

  Ryan grinned. "Thought you might have changed. But you still ask too many questions. Yeah, I did. You okay to move?"

  "Try me."

  "He got a handgun?" He pointed at the sec man's corpse.

  "Yeah. Browning Hi-Power, 9 mm. Can I take it?"

  "Too much for you. Still, better than nothing. Make sure you—"

  The boy grinned. "Brace my wrist. I know that."

  "We could go out the same way we came in," Kate suggested.

  It looked like nobody had heard them butchering the two guards. Ryan glanced outside, seeing the way was clear. "Yeah, why not?" he said, starting to open it.

  Then they all heard the outside door open and boots clatter along the passage toward them.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  "COMING IN!"

  "Sure," Ryan said, steadying the pistol at the center of the d
oor.

  "It's colder than a Nogales gaudy and—"

  The bullet hit the new arrival just below the breastbone and a little to the left. The hollowpoint round spread and tumbled, ripping his heart to rags.

  The sec man's feet flew out from under him, and he crashed down on his back in the narrow corridor. His blaster skidded away and rattled against the half-open front door of the hut.

  "Fireblast!" Ryan motioned for Kate and his son to get out of the window, while he dropped to one knee, steadying his right wrist in the classic shootist's position.

  He shot the first sec man through the lower stomach as he rushed in, deliberately avoiding knocking him into the others. If he didn't take out all three then he'd failed.

  The second man managed to snap off a single round at Ryan, but the bullet struck the door frame and angled away into the wall.

  Five out of the six sec men were down, either dead or dying. Once the last one was chilled, then they could have a clear run to hiding without the dogs baying at their heels.

  The final guard charged in after his colleagues. His combat boots slipped on the gray ice and he fell sideways.

  Ryan snapped off two quick rounds, one of which nipped a slice of flesh from the back of the man's left calf. The other missed completely.

  Then he was off and running, ignoring the blood that was soaking through the leg of his pants, filling his boot. He'd dropped his M-16, but he was screaming at the top of his voice, like a stallion under the gelding knife.

  Ryan couldn't get to the door for another shot over the dead and dying. He bolstered his warm blaster and climbed quickly through the open window at the rear of the hut. Kate and Dean were waiting for him.

  "Head for that big building over there," he said. "Zimyanin'll be here in less than five minutes. With moonlight on this fresh snow he could pick us off at a half mile with that sniper's rifle he used to carry. Got to hide up."