Vickers (Corp.s.e.)

"Do you even know?"

Debbie put down her bottle. "Tell me something, Streicher, why are you so all-fired keen to make one of us a traitor?"

Vickers noted the phrase "one of us." Debbie and maybe more had moved on from looking for reasons to hang Mort Vickers to searching for real answers. The suspicious glances were now directed at Streicher. Answers were something he didn't seem to have.

"I just have a feeling. I can't explain it. There's a great deal that I'm not permitted to talk about."

Vickers let the gun dangle by his side. He advanced on Streicher and nobody made a move to stop him.

"That's the trouble with guys like you. You're like trained dogs. You are fine just as long as someone's telling you what to do but if you ever start to lose faith in your master, everybody watch out, you go to pieces."

"I don't have to take your shit, Vickers."

Debbie made an impatient gesture. "Forget about Vickers, what we want to know is what you intend to do."

"I have to get instructions on this. Nothing I've been told covers what's happened here."

Parkwood yawned. Up to that point he'd kept out of the discussion.

"If that's the best you can do, Streicher, I think I'll go and get some sleep. You can wake me if there are developments."

There were noises of agreement and assent. Eggy stood up with a rattle of chrome chains.

"He's right. I've listened to enough of this garbage. I'm fucking off to bed."

Eggy had killed four of the intruders, apparently in a silent, berserk rage, but after they'd come back inside he'd become withdrawn and silent with a strange, heavy-lidded satiation that seemed to indicate that, for Eggy, bloodletting was a deep, profound, even awesome end in itself.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Streicher. Real disappointed. You know what I mean?"

Streicher's look was cold and hard but in the hardness there was a precise defeat. He'd lost control. Eggy looked him up and down and then stomped out. The lynching party rapidly disintegrated. Vickers glanced at Fenton, who was on his way to the door.

"I should thank you for backing me up tonight."

"You should, but later."

Vickers suddenly realized that Linda was waiting for Fenton. He gri

"Sure. Later."

The living room quickly emptied. Albert's helper had fallen asleep in the conversation pit. Streicher seemed about to say something to Vickers, then he thought better of it and left. Suddenly Vickers was alone to ask his own question as to why Ilsa van Doren should have been sent on what proved to be a suicide mission. At least he thought that he was alone. Then he saw Debbie. She was smiling wearily and holding out the bottle of Jack Daniels.

"It's been one long bastard of a night."

"That's true enough."

"You want to come back to my room for a nightcap?"

Vickers blinked. Debbie? It was the final twist in a very twisted day.

Once the passion had burned itself out, they slept together with the ill-fitting awkwardness of two people who are totally exhausted but also totally unfamiliar with each other. The sheets were bunched and bundled and Vickers drifted through fragmenting dreams of lights, explosions and tracer shells in the night. The knock on the door around two thirty in the afternoon came as something of a relief.

"What is it?"

The voice belonged to Gomez. "Streicher wants you down in the living room in twenty minutes. Both of you."

Vickers blinked. "How did you know I was in here?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

His boots moved away down the corridor. Debbie sat up. "Do I look as bad as you do?"

"Probably."

"That's not very complimentary after all I did for you."

"I didn't mean it that way. You ever been in a firefight before? It has its own unique hangover."

"I feel kind of numb."

"That's a part of it."

Debbie got out of bed and headed for the bathroom, Vickers was so numb that her legs caused no reaction. The hiss of the shower caused him to wonder about his own cleanliness. He was dirty and unshaven but what the hell. He rolled from the bed and started pulling on his pants. "Are you going to shower?"

"No. I need some clean clothes out of my room. I'll see what Streicher wants first."

Before going to the living room, they stopped by the kitchen to see if Albert had any coffee. Fenton was already there with Linda.

"Streicher want to see you too?"

"Both of us."

Linda mock pouted. "He didn't ask for me."

"You might be the lucky one."

"That's always possible."

Parkwood was already in the living room as was Streicher, who was standing staring out of the picture window with his hands locked behind his back. He not only looked as though he hadn't slept but as if he'd been through a hard morning as well. Even so, Vickers didn't bother with courtesy.

"What do you want?"

"We'll wait until everyone's here."

Eggy crashed through the door. "What the fuck do you want, Streicher? I was spark out. You had your money's worth out of me last night."

"Close the door."

Parkwood looked slowly around with quizically raised eyebrows.

"Just the five of us?"

"I've been told to ship you out."

"Why us? What did we do?"

"Around here we just follow orders."

Parkwood pursed his lips. "Could it be anything to do with us having the highest scores on that ridiculous combat range of yours?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Streicher's face had already given him away, however. Parkwood smiled.

"You don't take enough care of your computer."

"You shouldn't have done that."

Streicher didn't sound as though he had anything to back up the threat. Parkwood continued to smile.

"What was it? Some kind of selection process? Somebody playing Darwin?"

Eggy glared at everyone in turn, finishing up with Streicher.

"So where the fuck are we going now? I've had a gutfull of this place, I can tell you."

"You'll find out when you get there."

Vickers shook his head.

"Sweet Jesus Christ, this is ridiculous. This secrecy is obsessive."

Eggy snarled. "Can you manage to tell your asshole when to shit?"

"Transport is already here."

"What?"

"The transport is already here. You have fifteen minutes to gather up your stuff. I won't say it's been nice knowing you."

Debbie moved to protest. "Wait just a minute. What about the others? What's going to happen to them?"

"I don't have any instructions. I imagine they'll be transferred too. It seems that this place is going to be shut down."

"And we never filled the heart-shaped pool."

"Fuck you, Fenton."

Streicher stalked out of the room. Eggy spat after him.

"Fuck!" He again looked around. He still disliked the other four but he seemed to accept they were in the same circumstances and therefore had some common interests. "Shit!"

Vickers yawned and rubbed his eyes. He could have done with a couple more hours' sleep.

"That's the truth."

Debbie started for the door.

"I'm going to get my stuff together and say good-bye to the girls."

Apart from the wire mesh over the windows, the heavy duty, rough country tires and the lack of license plates, it was a regular, yellow school bus, the current year's model. The two men who came with it were less conventional. They were two of the most exquisitely turned out soldiers that Vickers had ever seen. The army-style steel helmets, the kind with the communicator in the side blister, were finished in polished chrome and the visors were mirrored to match. Their jump-boots were shined to a parade ground polish and their lightweight combat suits had knife-edge creases. Instead of the normal olive green they were a rather attractive mushroom gray. Of the five transportees, Eggy was the most disbelieving. He seemed to take their stylishness extremely personally. He bore down on them with a stiff-legged lurch.