'But you are going to tell me how to render your clever traps useless, Ryan.'
'Not me, pal.'
Strasser said, 'Pain can make a man change his mind.'
'Some men. But with me you're gonna have to work at it. And there comes a point with some guys where pain suddenly doesn't matter.'
Strasser's skull-like face twisted up into a rictus of anger so swiftly and so suddenly that it almost seemed his dry, parchmentlike skin might tear. He thrust his head toward Ryan.
'Bravado, Ryan! Sheer fucking bravado! You're no different from anyone else.'
Ryan said, 'Suck it and see.'
Strasser was probably correct. Maybe he was no different from anyone else. But in his past, the memory of it always kept deep in the lower layers of his consciousness, only surfacing rarely these days — always at night's end, when he would sometimes erupt out of his bunk yelling at the black horror of it — was an experience of pain and betrayal so terrible, so soaked in blood and despair that it had seared both his body and his soul. And in the searing — like red-hot steel thrust into the ironsmith's water-barrel — it had tempered him, hardened him maybe beyond the normal human limit.
'Perhaps,' said Strasser silkily, 'we ought to take your other eye out.'
For a second, skeletal fingers of fear enclosed Ryan's heart in a steel-strong grip, clutching, squeezing tight, sending ice through his veins. It was the ultimate terror, maybe his one single most vulnerable spot, the one threat that mocked all his courage and turned cool objectivity into gut-churning panic.
Fighting to keep his face swept of all but the most neutral of expressions, he thought, can he patch into my psyche? Is he some kind of weirdo mutie precog, a mind reader?
He rejected the thought almost at the same instant as it flared up in his mind. Strasser was as superficial in his thought processes as his men were in their search for concealed weaponry. Inside trial skull was a warped and twisted brain that simply homed in on and struck at the most obvious chink in a man's or woman's armor.
A guy had one eye? Threaten to rip out the other.
It was as simple as that.
Ryan said in a voice stripped of emotion, 'That won't do you a hell of a lot of good, Strasser. Frankly, once you'd achieved that you've achieved all.'
'Give the sucker to me. Let me work on him. He'll squeal.'
Ryan's glance flicked to his right. The room they were in was, he guessed, the lower-level annex, a part of the old bank vault system, although little remained to show it. The concrete walls had been stripped and were untidily whitewashed. In the center of the room was a block of wood, coffin-sized. Straps attached to rings set into it hung down almost to the concrete floor. Ryan could not tell what kind of wood the block was made of because of the discoloration, the reddish brown staining that was a crusted veneer on the flat surface, a rusty seepage down the sides. So much blood had drenched that block over the years that it had soaked deep into the wood's heart.
On metal hooks around the walls hung an assortment of implements: knives, saws, meat spikes, a number of what looked like old cattle prods. In one corner, near where stairs disappeared down to what was almost certainly the main vault itself, stood a small generator, a jumble of wires piled near it. Ryan saw there were electric wall sockets at intervals around the lower part of the walls; hence the hand-cranked generator, he supposed: if the mains were acting up, they could always switch to that.
More stairs were beyond the wood block, linking the room to the street-level floor above. There were five sec men by the stairs. The man who had spoken was one of these: a squat, barrel-chested guy with fingers like sausages, a bulbous nose that contained more than its fair share of destroyed blood vessels and heavy-lidded eyes. He was licking his lips, looking at the two girls. That one gets off on agony, Ryan thought bleakly.
But Strasser flicked a hand at him, an irritable motion. He turned to Ryan.
'So what is this deal? It seems to me, Ryan, you've lost your bargaining position.'
'You don't have the train,' Ryan repeated calmly. 'I have the train. Sure it won't nuke up, but she'll blow. Nice firework display and you're gonna have your work cut out sifting through the wreckage for anything worthwhile.'
'But you I have, and the Trader I have.' Strasser showed his teeth in a wolfish grin.
'No,' said Ryan. 'You don't have the Trader, either. You put 'em all to sleep, right? When are they gonna wake up?'
Strasser opened his mouth, shut it again. He rubbed his nose gently with a bony finger.
Ryan said, 'What are you gonna do when they
'You've been busy,' said Strasser softly.
'Shit, you can't keep something like that under wraps,' scoffed Ryan.
'It's nothing that can't be coped with. A minor disturbance.'
'Crap! This place is falling apart, Strasser. Too many years under one owner. The longer I'm here, the more the smell of rot and decay is stinking up my nostrils. Teague's been pushing stuff out east, hasn't he?'
It was not in fact a question. Strasser knew exactly what Ryan was saying, and his eyes darted nervously to his men at the bottom of the stairs.
He muttered through his teeth, 'You're digging yourself deep, Ryan. Way deep. Deeper by the second.'
To Ryan everything had become crystal clear. Strasser was getting out. The revolt at the mines had been the final straw. He'd probably been waiting to get rid of Jordan Teague for months, maybe years.
Strasser was standing beside the blood-soaked block. He was running a hand thoughtfully across its surface, backward and forward, staring down at the motion of his hand, his thin lips pursed. An altar, thought Ryan suddenly. An altar devoted to Strasser's own particular god of pain and torment.
He doubted that many of Strasser's sec men knew their leader's plans. An inner circle, perhaps, but not these suckers here. Maybe the guy with the red nose and the sausage fingers. He looked to be a kindred spirit.
Ryan said, 'No deeper than I have to. I told you we can still deal.'
The squat guy said, 'Lemme have him. I tell ya...'
Strasser swung around on him, face contorted.
Ryan leaned back against the whitewashed wall, folding his arms.
Suddenly Strasser pointed at two of the guards. 'Downstairs. Go fetch...' He didn't finish the sentence but just jabbed a finger at the steps that led downward. The two guards grinned at each other as they clumped across the room and disappeared, their boots echoing off bare concrete.
J.B. glanced at Ryan, raising an eyebrow. Ryan shrugged. He looked at the two girls and Koll. All three expressionless, waiting, biding their time. He was glad that these three were left. He knew their worth.
He said, more to keep the pot boiling than for any other reason, 'How long you been waiting to give Teague the heave-off?'
Strasser chuckled.
'Ever since he did the same to Dolfo Kaler. Did you ever hear of Dolfo Kaler?'
'Doesn't ring a bell.'
'Before your time, Ryan.' Suddenly Strasser was almost chatty. He had the air of one who was prepared to chew the fat for a while. Ryan wasn't sure he liked that. The guy was pleased about something. 'Kaler had a stake in Mocsin. He wasn't as big as Jordan, but he had power, contacts with the East. In the early days. But he had this thing about the Darks. He thought there was something up there.' Strasser lifted his arms in a shrug. 'Maybe there is. A lot of people seem to believe so. Maybe one of these fine days I should take a look around. Kaler didn't find it, whatever it was. Crawled back with nothing and got his head blown off for his pains. Jordan Teague made out that Kaler had the Plague and just blew him out. That's when Jordan took over completely. It's long been in my mind
