Ray scanned them quickly, but they said nothing about the Black Trump. He tried the desk's center drawer. Locked. He pulled at the drawer and it came loose with a screech of tearing metal. Among the miscellaneous crap that you find in most desk drawers, locked or not, Ray found a journal. He smiled.
He opened to the last page. "Last vial to Casaday," the note read. "Johnson and I will divide the remaining culture and head for our targets tonight. God help them then!"
Ray looked up, frowning at the sound of the door swooshing shut. Poynter had snuck out of the room. He tucked the journal into the deep thigh pocket of his appropriated fatigues and went after her.
She was in the lab ahead of him, but she'd stopped and turned to look back as he skidded to a halt. There were a dozen well-armed Sharks in the room with her.
"Shoot him!" she screeched, pointing at Ray. "Shoot him!"
"We will, but not just yet." The man who spoke stood behind the security men. He was tall, muscular, and black. He wore the fatigues of the Shark security forces. He was their leader, General MacArthur Johnson. "Billy Ray, isn't it?"
Ray's fury had burnt so deep that he appeared relaxed, almost casual as he leaned against a lab bench that had a mess of glassware on it. There was no hint of anger in his voice as he calmly answered. "That's right."
Johnson shook his head, "How'd you find us?"
"Your comrades are singing their butts off," Ray said, "hoping to avoid serious time in the federal pen - though that's not too likely."
"We should have killed those motherfuckers," Johnson said. His voice was an angry bass growl, "We can still have it done."
"Too late," Ray was almost smiling. "You're under arrest. All of you."
"You're nuts," Johnson said. "You know, it'd be a real pleasure to see if you're as tough as they say, Ray." He flexed his hands, his smile feral.
"I'm tougher, Johnson. You're just a fucking nat. I'm an ace. Take me about a second to rip your head off and stuff it up your ass."
Johnson twitched, took half a step forward, then controlled himself. "No ... no. Much as I want to, I'm not going to dick around with you, you mutant diseased scum." He stepped back behind his men. "Hose him down."
Fingers twitched on triggers. Poynter was standing out of the line of fire, but the Sharks had released a firestorm of death. Bullets whanged off the stainless steel benches and sinks, caromed off the white-painted walls. Ricochets buzzed like angry bees and Poynter gasped as a couple of rounds cut through her. She went down.
Ray had moved before Johnson gave the command to fire. His head was full of white noise. The only thing he knew was that this was payback time for those poor fucking jokers. He vaulted over the lab bench as the fusillade began. One bullet punched through his left calf, but it missed the bone and the wound was already starting to close when his feet hit the ground. Not that it didn't hurt. It hurt like a motherfucker.
Ray grunted with pain. He squatted behind the bench as the fusillade continued, ignoring the ricochets that whined around him. For once Ray was lucky. None hit him. He put his arms out, against the bench. He pushed, and it scraped along the floor.
"Yaaaaahhhhh!"
He pushed harder, screaming, and he and the bench picked up speed.
"Holy shit!" he heard, then he felt the shock of impact as the lab bench slammed into the gunmen crowded around the door. There were screams and groans. The bench bucked like it was going over a speed bump, then the shooting mostly stopped and Ray was in the middle of the gunmen.
Only half of them were standing. The others were under the bench or smashed like flies swatted against the wall. Johnson was standing in the doorway, undecided.
"Come on!" Ray shouted.
Johnson and Ray locked eyes.
"I'll eat you up," Johnson promised, "and spit you out!"
"Eat this," Ray said as he grabbed one of Johnson's men by collar and crotch, heaved him off the ground and threw him.
Johnson ducked. The Shark slammed against the wall. There was a loud cracking as bones snapped and the man slumped to the floor.
"Hold as long as you can," Johnson ordered the remaining Sharks, and ducked into the hall.
The two standing security men looked at each other. One shook his head and dropped his rifle. He put his hands up. The other did the same. Then they saw the look on Ray's face and they ran, too.
Ray hurtled down the hall after them, grinning like a madman. He had them on the run. It was only a matter of time - what was that smell? he thought as he blundered around a corner and ran into a man-sized heap of stuff that smelled like shit and garbage.
Ray had momentum on his side, but it didn't help any. He hit and bounced, sputtering and spitting unmentionable filth. He was back on his feet almost before he hit the floor, but he stopped, stunned, when he realized whom he was facing.
It was a shambling mockery of a man and it smelled like it was long dead - which it was. Its stench was awful, its appearance hardly less so. It wore a sagging uniform that once fit tautly across its broad chest and wide shoulders. Now the cloth hung loose on a battered body that was sunken, twisted, broken, and charred. It couldn't possibly look that bad and still be alive - and it wasn't - but the one eye that was exposed by its full hood was open and tracking blearily on Ray as it stood and blocked his path.
"Bobby Joe?" Ray said unbelievingly. "How the hell are you still getting around?"
The dead ace called Crypt Kicker wasn't fast in his best moments. The accumulated wear and tear of his previous few adventures, some of which he'd shared with Ray, had taken even more of a toll. When he spoke it was in an agonizingly slow, barely understandable drawl.
"The Lord isn't ready to receive me yet. There's still more for me to do here on Earth."
Ray felt like screaming in what was left of Crypt Kicker's face (thankfully hidden by the hood he wore), but restrained himself.
"Well, Jesus, Bobby Joe, get the hell out of my way and let me do what I'm supposed to do."
Ray went to step around Crypt Kicker, but the huge ace snaked out a hand and grabbed Ray around the upper arm in a grip that even Rays strength couldn't break. "I can't let you do that, Billy."
"You fucking moron," Ray blazed. "You're working with the Sharks?"
Crypt Kicker nodded ponderously. "Yes. They have a serum to cure the wild card. It's the Lord's work, to bring an end to the pain and suffering."
Jesus, Ray thought. "Let me go, Bobby Joe," he said in a low, tight voice.
"Can't ..." Bobby Joe Puckett said, and Ray struck him in the forearm hard enough to snap the bones of most men.
But Crypt Kicker clung on doggedly. Ray swung again and again as the massive ace wound up to retaliate. Puckett's blow came with all the force of a diesel locomotive and all the speed of a sleeping sloth. Ray ducked and Puckett's fist slammed into the wall. The wall buckled, Puckett turned his attention to pulling his fist out of the hole it'd made in the wall and Ray yanked free. He turned, grabbed the back of Puckett's hood, and slammed his head as hard as he could into the wall.
The wall gave before the onslaught of Puckett's head. Ray took a deep breath of thanks, but before he could get away Puckett bellowed like a wounded elephant and tore out a huge chunk of plasterboard as he pulled himself free of the wall.
"Shit," Ray said, and Crypt Kicker, flailing around blindly, caught Ray across the chest with a blow powerful enough to knock him off his feet and send him skidding down the hall on his backside. By the time Ray got up Puckett had managed to extricate himself from the piece of wall framing him like an especially ugly Picasso.
Ray charged and Puckett lifted his hands and let fly with the toxic wastes and poisons that had accumulated in his body. Ray tried to twist away from the streams of venomous chemicals, but some splashed against his side, sizzling through his borrowed fatigues and eating skin and flesh.