Aching all over, Ramm crawled onto his hands and knees. He craned up to see Buntz storming towards him, his feet nimbly skipping as he made to punt Ramm in the air like a football. Ramm reared back on his knees and Buntz’s foot missed him by inches. Ramm, who’d been saving his right fist, clenched his knuckles tight, his index finger protruding from the others and struck the collection of nerves on Buntz’s outer thigh. It would take more than that to give the giant a Charley Horse, but Ramm wasn’t finished. As Buntz fought for balance, to come at him from the front, Ramm swung an uppercut into the juncture of his thighs. Buntz groaned. Even giants weren’t immune to a punch in the balls. But he wasn’t finished either. He hammered down at Ramm, and it was as if two telephone poles had landed on Ramm’s shoulders. He was sure that the compression had concertinaed his ribs and that they were on the stress point of shattering. Time he halted the ongoing punishment before he was no use to man or beast, let alone Shelly Cannon.
Ramm dropped to one side, propped himself on his left palm and jacked his legs off the floor. He hooked the toe of his left boot around Buntz’s right ankle, his right boot heel jamming the man’s knee. As gravity pulled gainst him, he scissored his feet and Buntz’s lower leg buckled, the cartilage popping loose, the anterior cruciate ligament almost twanging like a plucked guitar. Buntz roared in agony and fell face down in the dirt. Ramm knew the big guy wouldn’t stay down. Neither did he wish to hurt the big guy too badly, but he axed his right heel in the air and brought it down between the giant’s shoulders. Buntz did an impression of a starfish.
‘Stay down,’ Ramm commanded. ‘Or the next kick’s to the nape of your neck.’
Buntz lay there stunned.
Ramm clawed himself up off the floor.
The Bishop was once again sitting in his throne on the back of the pickup.
‘Have I proved myself worthy enough to join the gang?’ Ramm asked.
The Bishop stared at him, eyes as emotionless as tarnished steel in their perusal. Then a faint smile played across his lips.
He rose up, and his arms went skyward. This time he did offer benediction. ‘Welcome, brother. My home is now your home. As long as you obey the rules you are allowed freedom to roam the communal areas and to share in our mutual bounty.’
Ramm wouldn’t be sharing in any of the proclaimed bounty. He liked women, but he’d never forced himself on any woman and wasn’t about to do so now. Plus, he wasn’t too good at obeying the rules.
By morning he’d found Shelly Cannon where she’d been all but locked in with the other sex slaves. But before he could release her, The Bishop’s men had discovered him sneaking through the harem – a crime punishable by death in The Bishop’s world. The manhunt had begun.
Well, the chase was over and now Ramm was back.
Now…
The Bishop’s compound was a reclaimed military base, defunct since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many of the buildings, the mess halls and the barracks still existed, though faded now and in need of some restoration. They were arranged around a parade ground, and on the extreme right were the hangars and sheds that once housed helicopters, jeeps and other military transporters and weapons. The fighting arena was at the centre of the parade ground, as it was at the centre of the way of life here. Right now it was deserted. The only people Ramm could see were a couple of sentries over by the hangars, but they were totally unaware of his presence. He’d no idea where The Bishop was, but he doubted he’d joined the search for Ramm when he’d fled the compound during the night.
Ramm had to get across the camp, and into one of the hangars currently guarded by the two sentries. The particular one he sought concealed an entrance to a tunnel in the earth, at the end of which he’d discovered the harem where the women were imprisoned. Shelly Cannon might have joined The Bishop’s band through her own choice, but she hadn’t banked on being put to work as a pleasure slave. He’d already confirmed that she was ready to go home, but had been forced to leave her behind when he was discovered by a patrol. The guy had got off a radio message to his pals before Ramm had killed the one who witnessed him speaking with Shelly, but no names had been mentioned. Ramm was confident that no one was aware of whom he’d come looking for. But he worried that The Bishop had moved all of the women out of precaution, should Ramm escape the manhunt and bring others back with him. The guards could have been set outside the hangar as a ruse, to make things look like they still had something to hide inside. Or The Bishop trusted that his dogs would bring down Ramm and bringing back other rescuers would no longer be an issue. There was lots of “what ifs” to consider, but they would only waste time. Ramm’s tiny window of opportunity was shortening. Once others discovered the dead men at the farm, they might conclude that Ramm had doubled back and hotfoot it back here.
He didn’t head directly across the parade ground. He used the buildings at its edge as cover, moving from structure to structure and staying in the shadows cast by the dawning sun. It took him a little over three minutes to make it to the far side, but at least he’d done so undetected. He hunkered down against a pile of rubble, evidence of a once collapsed shelter. From his waistband he took out the cleaver he’d liberated from the knifeman back at the farm. It was a cumbersome weapon, but he wasn’t complaining. He weighed it for balance in his palm, as he judged the distance to the first of the two sentries. Then he was up and sprinting at them.
Within twenty feet of the nearest guard he let loose the cleaver in an over arm throw. It somersaulted three times and sank deep into the man’s breastbone as he turned to the sound of running feet. The cleaver did what it promised and the man fell backwards, letting out a howl of agony. Ramm vaulted over him, powering in a jumping front kick to the second sentry. His kick forced the man back, and he made only a spirited but wholly ineffectual swipe with his baton at Ramm’s head. Ramm caught the man’s outstretched arm, ducked beneath it and locked it in an unnatural position alongside his body. An extra inch of twist would snap the man’s wrist and elbow.
‘Where are the women?’ Ramm demanded as he gave the tortured arm a subtle twist. ‘Are they still inside.’
The captured guard danced on his toes, trying to alleviate the pressure. ‘Aah, eeh, aaah!’
‘Where are they?’ Ramm asked again.
‘They’re still down in the tunnel,’ the man yelped.
‘Who else is down there?’
‘The Bi…Bishop!’
‘Good,’ Ramm said, and completed the Koppojutsu twist. The man’s arm splintered. He shrieked in pain. Ramm released the broken limb, but only so that he could slam a palm up under the man’s jaw to shut him up. The man fell, unconscious on the ground. Ramm looked at the man with the cleaver in his breastbone. The cleaver hadn’t sunk in far enough to kill, but the man was out of the fight. He was in ferocious pain, but Ramm had no pity for him. He yanked out the blade, and then used its flat edge to whack the man’s skull, putting him to sleep.
Holding the cleaver in his left hand, Ramm entered the hangar. The structure was large enough to hold upward of four helicopters, with space for a truck or two. It was empty now and it rang hollowly to his footsteps. Catwalks ran the length of the building on both sides, and Ramm visually checked them for observers. No one. At the far end was an observation deck with what amounted to a control room. It was in darkness, but he was happy that there was nobody watching him from the high aerie. Beneath the observation platform was a cuboid structure, fronted by double steel doors. It was the entrance to a tunnel that led to a bomb shelter buried beneath the very concrete over which he strode.