Vickers (Corp.s.e.)

For almost an hour, Ralph had moved backward and forward from the edge of hysteria. It had taken that long for Streicher's boys to bring in the bodies. The Contec co

Streicher seemed more shaken than he ought to be by the attack. This puzzled Vickers. He'd imagined the man was far more experienced. He had the jumpy preoccupation of someone who knows that hell will fall upon him the moment that he reports to his superiors. His authority seemed to be slipping and he had to openly restrain himself from leading the move to make a scapegoat out of Vickers.

"Somebody had to tell them where we are."

Vickers was calm and patient. It wasn't so much Streicher that worried him. With Streicher, discipline would always win out in the end. It was Ralph that bothered him the most. Ralph's lover, partner, companion or whatever, was wounded. Vickers couldn't trust that his alternate ranting and brooding might not explode into a full-scale flash of get even. Nobody had yet asked Vickers to hand over his weapon and he continued to hold onto it.

"How could I have told anyone where we are? I didn't know, and if they'd planted some gizmo on me, you would have found it. You ran tests on me for twenty-seven hours."

When the dead had been brought in, Streicher had insisted that everyone follow them down to the cold-room in the cellar. The thirteen bodies had been laid side by side on the concrete floor. They looked like wax figures under the harsh, white refrigerator neon, with as little relationship to life as the sides of beef and bacon that were hung along the wall on steel hooks. The Rancho was also prepared for a siege as well as an attack. There were a pair of plain wooden coffins stacked in a corner. These somehow disturbed Vickers more than the dead on display.

Streicher paced up and down the row of bodies. Everyone else waited, chilling down in the bone-cold, metallic air and listening to the ring of his boots. After the warm desert night the freeze came fast. Ralph was the first to crack.

"What I want to know is what are we going to do about this?"

The remark was thrown directly at Vickers. Ralph, however, wasn't the only one who was cold and angry. Debbie was squatting on the floor, massaging her legs.

"This is getting ridiculous, Streicher. We're professionals and we coped with the situation. Why are you keeping us down here freezing our collective ass off? We were just in genuine combat and we don't need this shit. If you think you're going to get Vickers to confess to something, you've got to be crazy."

Vickers gave her a half smile. Ralph immediately swung at one of the side of beef. There was a hollow thud. The meat swung backwards and forwards.

"Let me have a try at him. He'll tell everything he knows."

Streicher was glowering. Vickers was trying not to shiver with the cold. He was getting tired of all this nonsense. When people started punching meat, it was time to take the offensive. His delivery was slow, fairly soft but very distinct.

"If you people didn't have shit for brains you'd realize that I couldn't-in any way-have brought this team down on us."

Ralph was advancing on Vickers.

"Don't tell me I have shit for brains, motherfucker."

Vickers took a pace back and raised the Yasha.

"One more step and I'll cut your ass in half. I swear to God."

For too many seconds it was a frozen tableau. Ralph snarling, Vickers pointing the machine pistol at his stomach while the onlookers tried not to think about what was going to come next. Then Fenton, one hand in his pocket and the other tapping his own gun against his shoulder, sauntered into the picture.

"For so-called professionals, you really aren't thinking too seriously. Vickers is right when he says you've got shit for brains. Consider this…"

Debbie interrupted. "Could we consider it somewhere else? I'm going to get sick if I stay down here any longer."

Vickers and Fenton both looked at Streicher.

"Well?"

Streicher nodded. He seemed to be more in control of himself. Fenton turned to Ralph.

"How about you? Ready to discuss this upstairs?"

Ralph let go a little. Fenton put a hand on his shoulder.

"Let's go upstairs, shall we?"

There was collective relief as everyone filed out. Finally there were only Vickers and Streicher left. Vickers took a final look at the bodies and then motioned with his gun.

"I'd be happier if you went first."

Streicher continued to scowl.

"I'm not convinced of anything."

"Neither am I; that's why I don't want you behind me."

They reassembled in the living room. The curtains were drawn back and it was like a glass box. There was a hint of dawn in the eastern sky. Someone had helped himself to drinks and most had put down their weapons. The mood was now one of discussion rather than retaliatory kill. Vickers and Fenton still clutched their guns. Vickers noted that, for a second time, Fenton had slipped easily into the role of watching his back.

Again he wondered what it was that Fenton ultimately wanted. In the living room, he went even further. He seemed to be acting as Vickers' attorney.

"It's like he told you downstairs. If you think it through, you'd realize that neither he nor any of the rest of us could have guided that team in here."

Ralph was still clenching and unclenching his jaw and fists.

"Some motherfucker did."

"That's a fact, but it wasn't Vickers."

"Maybe you're just hot for his ass."

"Now you're really being stupid."

"I don't like to be called stupid."

Streicher was halfway out of his chair with a parade ground bellow.

"Just shut the fuck up, Ralph!" He turned to Fenton. "You go on, but you'd better make it good."

Fenton sca

"What everyone's forgetting is that we took those suckers with ease. If anyone in this room had managed to get out the location of this place and precise details of the defense set-up including the actual position of the landlines, they would also have reported on how many of us were staying here. How many are we?" He looked around questioningly. "Two dozen? Right? If they'd known that there were two dozen of us in here, would they have sent in a little bitty team of just ten?"

Vickers nodded. "They'd have either sent in a full-blown assault force of fifty or, much more likely, wouldn't have bothered in the first place."

Debbie reached for a bottle of Jack Daniels. "So who did tell Contec we were here?"

Fenton shrugged. "It must have been a leak on the outside."

"Why should an outside leak be any more likely to give out the wrong information?"

Fenton frowned; for the first time he looked uncertain.

"I don't know. Maybe they had bad information, maybe they had old information, maybe it was all part of some weird setup. What can I tell you? Whatever the answer, it makes more sense than trying to work out an impossible theory so we can pin the blame on somebody here."

Neither Streicher nor Ralph appeared to be any closer to being convinced.

"It's all too easy to place the responsibility back in Las Vegas."

"How many people knew we were all out here, Streicher?"

"I can't tell you that."