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There'd been a flurry of snow about a half hour ago, and the frozen ground was
dusted white, shimmering in the silver light of the sailing moon.
The noise wasn't repeated, and the man leaned back again, pressing himself
into the doorway for some protection from the slicing wind.
Ryan was still holding a second stone, but he replaced it quietly on the
ground.
The throwing of the first one had told him all he needed to know about the
watch on the armory a single man, nervous, possibly drunk.
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Who could ask for anything more?
XAVIER FELT another cough coming on, and he grabbed a length of rag from his
pants pocket to try to muffle it. The sensation always seemed to start just at
the back of his throat, then slide down into his lungs.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and he spun, nearly pissing himself in shock.
There was a tall man standing there, real close, half smiling. He wore a dark
coat, and
Xavier noticed that there was something wrong with his left eye.
"Shit! I never "
"Just wanted to ask something."
It was all very ordinary and Xavier didn't feel in the least threatened,
though part of his mind was beginning to wonder just who the fuck the stranger
was.
"Sure. What?"
There was a fearsome, jarring blow to his genitals, so savage that it actually
lifted him clear off his feet. Pain lanced through the sec man, burning into
his throat, the shock almost stopping his heart. The carbine slipped from his
hands, but he didn't register the sound of it clattering on the rocks.
Ryan took the blaster and laid it gently to one side.
The guard was on his knees, thighs spread, mouth open as though he were trying
to shout a warning. Nothing was further from the truth. The only thing
happening in Xavier Hutson's brain was a total preoccupation with a
suffocating agony. Bile surged up, gouting between his lips, mixed with bright
arterial blood from his ruined lungs.
Ryan stood back, watching the man fall slowly forward onto his face, surprised
to see him hemorrhaging as a result of the knee to his groin. He stooped down
and pressed his index finger to the side of the sentry's throat, feeling for
the pulse and
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"Have to tell J.B. about that," he said quietly to himself, dragging the
corpse out of sight around a corner of the hut.
The door to the armory was held secure by a single padlock. Ryan quickly found
a rock of suitable size and shape, and sprang the lock open. The windows were
all shuttered from the outside, so he closed the door behind himself and
switched on the flickering overhead lights.
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He breathed in the familiar scent of gun oil and grease.
There was a triple row of carbines, all held in place with a long chain
running through the trigger guards, locked at either end. Half a dozen
assorted scatter-guns were bolted into a steel cabinet on the far wall.
Ryan was surprised at the low level of security that Zimyanin maintained in
his armory. With his sec men clearly outnumbered by fifteen or twenty to one,
any rebellion among the slave workers could threaten the hut filled with
weapons.
But he guessed Zimyanin knew what he was doing. From everything that Ryan had
seen, the captives were so cowed and exhausted that a rising wasn't very
likely to happen.
In a drawer, there was a jumble of handguns, thrown untidily together. On an
impulse he picked out one for Kate, quickly dry-firing it, listening intently
to the sound of the action.
It was the Charter Arms Undercover Model, which held five rounds of
.38-caliber ammunition. The steel-framed revolver was one of the lightest ever
made, weighing in, Ryan recalled, at about seventeen ounces. Its small size
made it the perfect hideaway gun for the young woman to carry.
Shelves on the long wall of the hut held boxes of all sizes of ammo. Ryan took
a handful of .38s for the Undercover, and filled three 15-round clips with 9
mm rounds for his own SIG-Sauer. He also slotted bullets into the half-empty
clip on
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