“So all that stuff you told Blade was to throw him off the track?” Loretta said.
“Of course.”
Loretta kissed the Minister on his right cheek. “I get all tingly when I think of how lucky I am to be your consort.”
“Tingly? Really?” The Minister glanced at Arthur. “Tell Wargo I will join him in two hours instead of one.”
“As you command.”
Chapter Ten
Two more days had elapsed.
Two whole days! It was the morning of the third day!
And she hadn’t done a damn thing!
Lieutenant Farrow was up early. She’d spent another sleepless night, tossing and turning on her cot in B Block. She rose before dawn, dressed in her uniform, and slipped from the building unnoticed. Listless, haunted by her dereliction of duty, she strolled to the north and eventually reached the inner moat. Standing on the bank, she idly watched the water flowing past and contemplated her fate. In all her years as a professional soldier, she’d never exhibited any degree of indecision. She’d always performed her duty as required.
Until now.
Starlings were chattering in a nearby pine tree.
Farrow gazed up at the northern rampart and spotted one of the Warriors on guard duty. It wasn’t Yama; he was still sleeping in B Block.
After a moment she recognized the figure—the lean physique, brown shirt, buckskin pants, and broadsword dangling from his hip—as that of Spartacus, the head of Gamma Triad.
Spartacus, his right hand resting on the hilt of his sword, saw her and waved.
Farrow returned the gesture. Why? she wondered. Why did these people have to be so friendly? Her job would have been much easier if they hadn’t welcomed her with open arms. She suspected Plato and the one called Rikki were leery of her, but the rest of the Family treated her as one of their own.
The dummies!
Didn’t they know it wasn’t smart to trust strangers? To trust anyone, for that matter.
Farrow sighed and sat down on the bank. She thought of the moonlit stroll she’d taken with Yama the night before, and smiled. His affection for her was becoming more obvious every day. He’d escorted her to an open-air concert between the Blocks, an evening of musical entertainment presented by six Family members with outstanding talent. The Family owned eighteen instruments in all, from drums to a miniature grand piano, and they took great pains to maintain the instruments. The Family’s best Musicians were an accomplished lot, and the six had played a diverse selection of masterful compositions, their own compositions.
Seated under the twinkling stars, with Yama by her side, she had been in seventh heaven.
Despite her apprehensions, Yama hadn’t pried into her unstable emotional state. He seemed to be waiting for her to make the first move, to tell him what was bothering her.
And she wanted to do it.
More than anything.
But each time she opened her mouth to reveal her part in the plot against the Family, she balked, concerned she would infuriate him and kill their budding romance.
The sky was much brighter, the sun beginning to clear the eastern horizon as the world awoke to a new day.
Farrow stood and hurried toward B Block. She’d finally made up her mind. She was going to ask Yama to join her for breakfast, then spill the beans. Tell him everything. And hang the consequences! She couldn’t take another night of stifling anxiety.
The Family was coming to life. Over a dozen members were clustered near B Block, some exercising, some praying, others conversing.
Farrow hurried toward B Block, afraid she would chicken out before she found Yama. Not this time! she told herself. This time she would see it through.
A flash of dark blue to her right caught her attention.
Yama was 40 yards from B Block, talking to a young woman.
Farrow stopped, frowning.
Who the hell was she?
The woman was a brunette, petite, wearing green pants and a yellow blouse. She was laughing, her right hand resting on Yama’s left forearm.
What were they talking about?
Farrow slowly advanced toward them. Yama had his back to her, and the brunette was concentrating on the Warrior, so neither would detect her approach if she was careful.
She had to know what they were talking about.
Farrow sidled to within 15 feet of the duo, staying to the rear of Yama, using his huge body to shield her from the brunette’s line of vision.
“—delighted,” Yama was saying.
The brunette squealed and clapped her hands together. “You will?
Honest?”
“I said I would,” Yama stated.
The brunette giggled and flung her arms around the Warrior’s neck. “I can never thank you enough!”
Yama’s reply was too low for Farrow to overhear.
The brunette giggled some more. “You’ve made me so happy!”
“I’d do anything for you. You know that,” Yama said.
The brunette’s expression became markedly serious. “You’re my favorite. You always have been.”
“I’ll bet you say that to all the men,” Yama commented.
“You know I don’t,” the brunette responded playfully. “The others can’t hold a candle to you.”
“You may change your mind when you mature,” Yama said.
“Mature?” The brunette scowled in feigned annoyance. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve matured quite nicely, thank you.”
“You have filled out,” Yama admitted.
Farrow edged a little closer. Her mind was in a daze.
What was this? Was the little bitch making time with Yama? Did Yama have another girlfriend, one he’d neglected to mention? Was he playing the field? Was that it?
“I’ve always loved you,” the brunette said sincerely.
“And I’ve always loved you,” Yama told her.
Farrow felt a lump forming in her throat as the brunette stretched on her toes and planted a kiss on Yama’s lips. Her mouth dropped open in shock as her darkest forebodings flooded her mind.
That had to be it!
Yama had another woman!
Farrow started to back away before she was discovered.
Yama kissed the brunette on the forehead.
He loved her! He’d always loved her! The words seemed to reverberate in Farrow’s brain. There was a sharp ache in her chest. She whirled and ran to the north, toward the moat. What else could it be? They must be lovers! Yama had been leading her on!
Farrow reached a solitary maple tree and leaned on the rough trunk for support, feeling dizzy. How could she have been so gullible? She’d fallen for the oldest ruse in the book! Yama was just like every other man! They all were after one thing, and they’d get it any way they could.
By hook or by crook.
She started forward, then hesitated. What if she were wrong? There might be a perfectly innocent explanation. She twisted, glancing over her left shoulder.
Yama and the brunette were hugging.
No!
No! No! No!
Farrow stumbled toward the moat, racked by despair. How could she give him the benefit of the doubt? What more proof did she need? She’d been played for a sucker. A dupe. A patsy. For all his idealistic talk, Yama wasn’t any better than a typical Technic.
He’d used her!
And nobody, but nobody, used Alicia Farrow.
She reached the moat and halted, struggling to suppress her welling anguish. No way! She wasn’t about to be weak a second time! Falling for Yama’s line was bad enough. She wasn’t about to cry over her gullibility.
She’d get even instead!
Farrow reached into her left rear pocket and extracted a small plastic object, square in shape, two inches by two inches, a powerful transistorized transmitter with a ten-mile signal radius. Without thinking of the consequences, motivated by her burning jealousy and shattering disappointment, she depressed a black button in the middle of the
transmitter.
There!
It was done!
The demolition team, if they were constantly monitoring her frequency as ordered, had received her signal. They would await the cover of darkness, then enter the compound and set their charges. By tomorrow morning, the Home would be a pile of rubble and the majority of the Family would be dead.
It served them right!
Farrow crammed the transmitter into her rear pocket, then scanned the vicinity to see if she’d been observed. No one else was nearby, but she detected a motion out of the corner of her left eye. She swung around.
Spartacus was patrolling the rampart, headed from west to east. He was 20 yards from her, his posture loose, at ease.
Apparently, he hadn’t seen her activate the transmitter.
Farrow forced a grin and waved at the Warrior.
Spartacus returned her wave, his blue eyes sweeping past the Technic officer to the compound beyond. He saw the Family members gathering in the area between the Blocks for their morning socializing. There was Plato and his wife Nadine, talking with Rikki. Ares was near A Block, working out with his shortsword. And there was Yama with his niece, Marian. She was the eldest daughter of Yama’s older brother. Marian was walking with Yama toward B Block, their arms linked, beaming with joy.
Spartacus grinned. He could deduce the cause for her happiness. He knew she’d been after Yama to sponsor her boyfriend for Warrior status when another opening developed. Yama had wavered, and he’d confided to Spartacus he wasn’t positive the boyfriend was Warrior material.
Evidently, he’d changed his mind.
Marian suddenly released Yama and dashed toward her boyfriend, who was just emerging from B Block.
Spartacus nodded with satisfaction at the accuracy of his deduction.
He glanced down and saw the Technic, Farrow, staring at Yama with a pained expression on her face.
Now what was that all about?
Spartacus shrugged. It was none of his business. He’d heard the rumor going around, linking Yama and Farrow. Perhaps they were having a lover’s spat. If so, he definitely wasn’t about to stick his big nose into it. He was a Warrior, not a Counselor.
Besides, Yama kept that scimitar of his real sharp.
Chapter Eleven
“Why are you slowing down?” Captain Wargo demanded.
“I’m going to wait until they leave the roadway,” Blade replied.
“No, you’re not,” Captain Wargo snapped. “You’re going to drive right through them.”
Blade’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. They were three days out of Technic City, bearing east toward New York City. So far, the going had been frustratingly slow. Most of the major highways were in deplorable condition, ruined as much by the war as 100 years of neglect and abandonment. Lengthy sections, miles at a stretch, had buckled or collapsed or were in scattered hits and pieces, necessitating countless detours. In addition to the wrecked roads, they’d encountered a surprising number of inhabited outposts, some large towns. Wargo knew where each was located; they were marked on a map he carried, along with the approximate boundary of the corridor the Soviets controlled to the south.
Wargo insured Blade stayed well north of the area under Soviet domination. But the innumerable detours, to bypass the demolished roads and avoid all occupied settlements as well as the Soviets, markedly delayed their progress. They had traveled for 12 hours both days, averaging approximately 45 miles an hour. Now, by Blade’s reckoning, they were within 20 miles of New York City, to the northwest of the metropolis.
Or what was left of it.
Wargo was seated in the other front bucket seat. Behind Blade and Wargo sat Geronimo and two Technic troopers, Geronimo sandwiched between them to prevent him from causing trouble. And reclining on top of the pile of supplies in the rear third of the transport was a fourth soldier, his automatic rifle in his arms.
“Well, what the hell are you waiting for?” Wargo said. “Mow them down!”
Blade surveyed the road ahead.
About 70 yards from the SEAL, walking down the middle of the highway, were two dozen men and women. They were armed with rifles and handguns, none of which posed a threat to the SEAL. Their attire was scarcely more than crudely stitched rags.
It was obvious what they were.
Scavengers.
Looters.
A motley mob preying on anyone and anything. Such marauding bands were the scourge of the post-war age, raiding established settlements and robbing and killing hapless wayfarers, like a scourge of destructive locusts.
Blade paused, not out of any sympathy for the scavengers, but because he disliked taking lives without ample justification. If the scavengers were assaulting the Home, he’d mow them down without another thought. But this was different. This would amount to nothing more than cold-blooded murder.
“Do it!” Captain Wargo barked.
Blade was about to tramp on the accelerator when the issue was resolved for him.
A mutant abruptly appeared from the trees lining the right side of the road and plowed into the scavengers.
Blade applied the brakes.
Two forms of genetic deviations had resulted from World War III. One form, designated as mutants by the Family, was the product of genetic dysfunction and aberration caused by excessive amounts of radiation unleashed on the environment. Mutants were deformed progeny of normal parents, whether human or animal. The second form, on the other hand, was the result of chemical warfare compounds distrupting ordinary organic growth, creating the creatures the Family called the mutates.
Mutates were former mammals, reptiles, or amphibians transformed into ravenous, pus-covered horrors by the synthetic toxins infesting their systems.
As Blade watched what might have once been a feral dog, but was now a slavering mutate, pounce on a female scavenger and tear her neck apart with a savage wrench of its yellow fangs, he thought of one more form of genetic deviation. The type intentionally developed by the scientists, the genetic engineers, in their quest to manufacture superior life forms.
Gene-splicing had been quite common before the Big Blast, and the nefarious Doktor, the Family’s one-time nemesis, had refined the technique into a precision procedure, breeding a personal army of deviate assassins.
But that was then, and this was now.
The mutated canine had dispatched four of the scavengers, and the rest had fled into the trees on the left side of the road without firing a shot.
The mutate pursued them.
The road ahead was clear, except for the bloody bodies.
“Get going,” Captain Wargo ordered.
Blade drove forward, weaving the transport around the forms on the highway. He saw one of them as he passed, an elderly bald man whose throat was ruptured, his blood pulsing onto the highway, his lifeless brown eyes open and gaping skyward.
“I suppose now is a bad time to mention I need to wee-wee?” Geronimo asked, grinning impishly.
Captain Wargo turned in his seat. “Are you serious?”
“When Mother Nature calls,” Geronimo said, “there’s not much you can do about it.”
“Well, it’s too bad, but you’ll have to hold it for a while,” Wargo told him. “We’re not stopping just because you need to take a leak.”
“I hope I can hold it,” Geronimo said. “If not, then I hope these two clowns next to me don’t mind yellow stains on their uniforms.”
“Just for that,” Captain Wargo retorted, “you can hold it until doomsday.”
“I thought that was the date of World War III,” Geronimo remarked.
Wargo turned toward Blade. “Sometimes I wonder if we would have been better off leaving Geronimo behind and bringing Hickok.”
“They’re two of a kind,” Blade mentioned.
“A kind I can do without,” Wargo said. He pointed at the windshield.
“Watch out for more of those scum.”
“Where exactly are we?” Blade inquired, steering
the SEAL around a gaping hole in the highway.
“Almost to our destination,” Captain Wargo revealed. “And it didn’t take us the five days you estimated it would.” He smiled. “The Minister will be pleased. We’ll make it back to Technic City in record time.”
“If we make it back,” Geronimo interjected.
“You still haven’t told us where we are,” Blade declared.
“That last big town we bypassed was once known as Newburgh,” Captain Wargo disclosed.
“Do we take this road all the way into the city?” Blade asked.
“No.” Wargo shook his head for emphasis. “The previous squads we sent in ran into a ton of trouble by using the roads. The lousy Zombies are all over the place. No. We’ll play it safe and use a new approach.”
“What approach?” Blade wanted to learn.
“The Hudson River,” Captain Wargo said.
“The Hudson River?” Blade repeated in surprise.
“Yes,” Captain Wargo affirmed. “Why do you look so shocked? We know the SEAL possesses amphibious capability. By taking the Hudson south into the heart of New York City, we reduce the number of Zombies we’ll have to face. Pretty clever, I think.”
“Except for one small detail,” Blade said.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“We’ve never operated the SEAL in its amphibious mode,” Blade told the Technic.
Wargo snickered in disbelief. “Yeah. Sure.”
Blade stared at the officer.
Captain Wargo did a double take, examining Blade’s features. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Would I lie to you?” Blade stated in mock earnestness.
“You’ve never operated the SEAL in the amphibious mode!” Captain Wargo reiterated, upset by the news.
“Is there an echo in here?” Geronimo queried.
Captain Wargo unexpectedly pounded the dashboard in anger. “Damn it all! We’ve come so close! We’re almost to our goal!” He glared at Blade.
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