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"What the fuck are you supposed to be?"
The nearest of the pair raised his M90 and pointed uncompromisingly at Eggy's chest.
"Sir. You will surrender your weapon and board the bus." Eggy looked down at his worn MT and back to the soldier with a look of brute incomprehension.
"Run that by me again."
"Sir. You will surrender your weapon and board the bus. Your weapon will be stored in the luggage compartent and returned to you when we reach our destination."
The soldier had the robot voice of the hardcore corporate warrior. They might be prettied up but they were cold bastards who'd put a bullet through Eggy as easy as blinking. Debbie must have reached exactly that conclusion. She put down her bag and put a hand on Eggy's arm.
"Why don't you relax and go with the program until we get where we're going. He's got you cold anyway."
Eggy looked down at his gun again. He spun it on his finger and pushed it butt-end first toward the soldier.
"Here, cutie, stash it with the bags."
He climbed on board the bus. One by one the others followed him. Vickers paused before handing over his bag and his guns.
"I suppose it's no use in asking you where we're going."
"No sir."
"I thought not."
The bus was empty except for two more uniformed men. One was acting as a third guard, the other as driver. The five passengers spread out as far as possible, as though each one of them needed his or her privacy. Parkwood went all the way to the back and opened a dog-eared copy of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Debbie pulled her knees up to her chin and, almost immediately, appeared to go into a trance. Fenton flopped into a middle seat and stared out the window. Vickers did the same. Eggy, on the other hand, moved up to the front and stared through the windshield with the dumb rapt interest of a dog on a car ride. This rather discomfited the guard at the front. He'd positioned himself at the front of the bus with his back to the windshield. His M90 was slung across his chest. He tensed a little and his hand gripped the butt as Eggy lurched toward him. Eggy, however, simply looked him up and down and then ignored him. He took up position right beside him, only facing in the other direction. The other two guards boarded, the door closed with a hiss of air pressure, the air conditioner came on and the driver eased the bus into gear. They took up position in the back seat, one on each side of Parkwood. Parkwood apparently took exception to this as he immediately moved two seats forward and went back to his book.
The bus rolled and wallowed on the uneven desert road. The passengers hung onto the seats in front of them and, on a number of occasions, Eggy was jolted against the guard. On the third collision, he broke into a fiendishly vacant grin. Among the totems and geegaws festooned to his neck and chest was an old fashioned .45 caliber brass and lead bullet. It was clutched in an ornate silver eagle's claw that was in turn attached to a silver chain. Eggy dangled it in front of the guard's face.
"You know what's inside this?"
The guard was doing his best to keep his balance. For a brief instant he looked quite horrified. Beside Eggy he was just a callow boy. He swallowed and shook his head as the bus lurched again. Eggy laughed.
"Cyanide, cutie. Enough cyanide to kill four or five people. They ain't never going to touch me."
Fenton glanced at Vickers. He smiled ruefully and shook his head. Eggy was from some dangerous galaxy. Fenton seemed about to say something but, before he could, the bus was shaken by the boom of a not too distant explosion. The ground shook. Everyone in the bus hit the floor. They stayed down, counting the seconds. When there were no further explosions they gingerly moved to the back of the bus and looked out the window. Where El Rancho Mars had been there was now just a column of black smoke. The smoke from the first fireball was high in the air and starting to dissipate. A fresh black cloud was roiling up to replace it from what was obviously a raging inferno. Fenton looked at Vickers with narrowed eyes.
"They blew the house? Why in hell would they do that? It doesn't make any sense."
"Maybe it was another attack."
"Immediately after we left? It seems like too much of a coincidence."
Debbie was ru
"Hold it! For Christ's sakes hold it!"
Parkwood and Fenton hurried to the front and dragged the snarling Eggy off the guard and then helped the guard and Debbie disentangle themselves one from the other.
"Everyone just calm down now."
Eggy reluctantly relaxed but Debbie was still furious.
"I had friends in that place!"
The front guard had retrieved his gun and was wondering who to point it at. Fenton leaned toward the driver.
"It might be a good idea if you pulled over while we sort this thing out."
The driver had a voice like a robot.
"I have orders not to stop under any circumstance."
For a moment Fenton looked as though he was going to hit him. He clearly thought better of it and turned on the front guard.
"Do you know anything about this?"
"We were warned there might be an explosion. We were supposed to stop you becoming alarmed."
Vickers looked at the two rear guards.
"Is this what they told you?"
They both nodded. "We all had the same briefing."
Debbie continued to smoulder. "Why should they blow the place up? What happened to the people?"
One of the rear guards softened just the slightest fraction.
"They told us the others would be evacuated to another destination and then the place would be destroyed as a security precaution."
Neither Debbie nor Eggy seemed convinced. They both looked around belligerently.
"Does anyone believe this crap?"
The bus lurched, and Parkwood sat down.
"We may have been the cream of the crop, but the others who remained were valuable operatives and it would make no economic sense simply to destroy them. It goes against all corporate logic to wantonly waste money. On the other hand, though, the house itself was a moderately valuable installation and it also seems a great waste if they just blew it to cover our tracks. Of course, if we knew where our tracks were going, we'd have an idea how much they might be worth covering."
"But these bastards aren't going to tell us a fucking thing."
Eggy growled at the guards. They looked a little nervous but none of them volunteered any further information. Fenton and Vickers both sat down, but Debbie still stood, clutching the overhead rail with a white-knuckled hand.
"I think we should go back and find out exactly what happened. I want to know what became of Zoe, Bobbie and Linda."
Parkwood eyed the guards. "I don't think our friends are going to let us do that."
"Screw these assholes. We can take them."
Parkwood twitched his shoulder in the faintest of shrugs.
"Sure we could take them except we'd probably lose one, if not two of us in the process and the status of those of us left could become decidedly strange."
"You're a cold son of a bitch."
"Don't you think there's enough emotion flying around here?"