[ Pobierz caĹoĹÄ w formacie PDF ]
Finally, with a sluggish squawk of protest, the ele-vator doors slid apart a
few inches. Replacing his panga in its sheath, Ryan now had enough room to
wedge his fingers in the newly created gap. He felt a fingernail on his right
hand peel back as he strained to pull the doors open wide enough to squeeze
his body through.
Inch by inch, the doors pulled apart, finally creating a space just wide
enough for a man to slip through.
Page 19
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Balancing his feet on the top rung of the emergency ladder, Ryan used the
upper part of the now open door for a handhold. He took a deep breath and
stepped through to what he hoped was safety.
The area outside the elevator was as dim as the darkness in the shaft. The
electricity was apparently out up here, as well. Ryan paused, straining his
eye and scanning for any signs of movement.
Nothing. He took one step forward, and a piece of stray plastic snapped
underfoot, the cracking sound leaping forward as swiftly and surely as a
broken twig in a silent forest.
In immediate response, the wall next to the elevator doors erupted in an
answering barrage of sound, small indentations rattling down from floor to
ceiling in a sloping pattern of gunfire.
Ryan dived away from the doors for cover, hoping the noise would keep Krysty
and J.B. in place on the ladder and not drive them into doing anything heroic.
An empty plastiform-and-steel cargo container was lying open on one side. Ryan
took cover behind it, knowing from past experience any military redoubt's
storage pods were made of sturdy stuff.
Since he was still alive, Ryan figured the shooter didn't have infrared. His
guess was that the assailant had been forced to aim by sound, using noises to
track as
Ryan slipped out the doors from the elevator shaft. He crouched on his hands
and knees behind the con-tainer and waited, but the shooter kept firing random
bursts.
That was reassuring. Ryan now knew for a fact he could safely discount a night
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...%20-%20Deathlands%2039%20-%20Wa
tersleep.html (35 of 275) [12/29/2004 9:10:15 PM]
Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_39_-_Watersleep scope by the way the bullets kept
ineptly chewing up the scenery.
The sniper was firing blind.
Ryan kept his head low, listening, attempting to pinpoint the exact location
of the gunman over the rapid drumming of what sounded to him like an M-16
assault rifle. Obviously the shooter was firing from a vantage point located
around a corner of the walkway across from the elevator. While this was a safe
place to hide for an ambush, it also meant the sniper's aim was compromised.
In one practiced move, Ryan unleathered the SIG-Sauer and waited until the
M-16
stopped stuttering. The way his hidden assailant had been spraying ammo, Ryan
deduced the shooter had to be reloading.
He reached down and as before, carefully, quietly picked up a handful of the
scattered bits of discarded rock and metal on the floor; gracefully
overhanding them toward a mass of empty storage pods to his right. The thrown
debris hit the plastic, clattering a warning to the person with the assault
rifle.
The hidden M-16 responded by spreading an un-even skittering pattern of
destruction away from Ryan's hiding place and in the direction of where the
new noise had come from.
Sloppy, but Ryan was used to stupes who let weap-ons do their thinking in a
combat situation.
In fact, he counted on it. Such foolishness had kept him alive many times
during his long career, if one wanted to call riding back and forth in war
wags and traveling by mat-trans across Deathlands a career. Not that Ryan
relied on luck.
Going into any situation, anytime, anywhere, he was ready for the unexpected,
for that was the only kind of luck Deathlands ever seemed to offer.
Surviving was what Ryan and his friends did best, and if their opponents were
sloppy, so much the better for them.
There was a pause in the barrage of steel-jacketed death. Ryan had easily
placed
Page 20
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...%20-%20Deathlands%2039%20-%20Wa
tersleep.html (36 of 275) [12/29/2004 9:10:15 PM]
Axler,_James_-_Deathlands_39_-_Watersleep the shooter by ear, now all he
wanted was a final visual confirmation, which came soon enough as the M-16
spit a fresh hail of bullets. This time Ryan clearly saw the white flash from
the barrel of the weapon.
Ryan brought his own weapon to bear. Aiming by instinct, he squeezed off three
bullets, one of which wormed high into the front of the sniper's left
collar-bone and out his back. A second bullet punched into the already
critically wounded man's cranium and through in a mass of grue. The final slug
punched through what remained of the man's forehead. As the sniper's body grew
slack, the M-16
fell silent. The next thing Ryan heard was the clatter of the assault rifle
hitting the floor, followed by a series of gargling sounds from the dying man
as he followed the weapon.
The interior of the hall outside the elevator shaft became loud with silence.
"Ryan?" came a subtle whisper from Krysty.
"Shh! Not yet." Ryan stood and walked warily to the fallen body. As he had
hoped, the sniper had been alone. He looked down impassively on the slain
killer, striking a self-light while kneeling for a close inspec-tion. The
tight circle of light revealed a thin man of about thirty, with dirty long
blond hair and a ratty goatee.
The upper left of his forehead was missing where the slugs from the SIG-Sauer
had struck.
The dead man wore a powder blue dress shirt that had already turned dark with
blood from his wounds. A pair of combat boots had the cuffs of baggy, dirty
trousers stuffed into their high tops. On the pocket of the shirt was a
black-and-
white skull patch identical to the ones on the sleeves and pockets of the
[ Pobierz caĹoĹÄ w formacie PDF ]