He’d used her!
And nobody, but nobody, used Alicia Farrow.
She reached the moat and halted, struggling to suppress her welling anguish. No way! She wasn’t about to be weak a second time! Falling for Yama’s line was bad enough. She wasn’t about to cry over her gullibility.
She’d get even instead!
Farrow reached into her left rear pocket and extracted a small plastic object, square in shape, two inches by two inches, a powerful transistorized transmitter with a ten-mile signal radius. Without thinking of the consequences, motivated by her burning jealousy and shattering disappointment, she depressed a black button in the middle of the transmitter.
There!
It was done!
The demolition team, if they were constantly monitoring her frequency as ordered, had received her signal. They would await the cover of darkness, then enter the compound and set their charges. By tomorrow morning, the Home would be a pile of rubble and the majority of the Family would be dead.
It served them right!
Farrow crammed the transmitter into her rear pocket, then scanned the vicinity to see if she’d been observed. No one else was nearby, but she detected a motion out of the corner of her left eye. She swung around.
Spartacus was patrolling the rampart, headed from west to east. He was 20 yards from her, his posture loose, at ease.
Apparently, he hadn’t seen her activate the transmitter.
Farrow forced a grin and waved at the Warrior.
Spartacus returned her wave, his blue eyes sweeping past the Technic officer to the compound beyond. He saw the Family members gathering in the area between the Blocks for their morning socializing. There was Plato and his wife Nadine, talking with Rikki. Ares was near A Block, working out with his shortsword. And there was Yama with his niece, Marian. She was the eldest daughter of Yama’s older brother. Marian was walking with Yama toward B Block, their arms linked, beaming with joy.
Spartacus grinned. He could deduce the cause for her happiness. He knew she’d been after Yama to sponsor her boyfriend for Warrior status when another opening developed. Yama had wavered, and he’d confided to Spartacus he wasn’t positive the boyfriend was Warrior material.
Evidently, he’d changed his mind.
Marian suddenly released Yama and dashed toward her boyfriend, who was just emerging from B Block.
Spartacus nodded with satisfaction at the accuracy of his deduction.
He glanced down and saw the Technic, Farrow, staring at Yama with a pained expression on her face.
Now what was that all about?
Spartacus shrugged. It was none of his business. He’d heard the rumor going around, linking Yama and Farrow. Perhaps they were having a lover’s spat. If so, he definitely wasn’t about to stick his big nose into it. He was a Warrior, not a Counselor.
Besides, Yama kept that scimitar of his real sharp.
Chapter Eleven
“Why are you slowing down?” Captain Wargo demanded.
“I’m going to wait until they leave the roadway,” Blade replied.
“No, you’re not,” Captain Wargo snapped. “You’re going to drive right through them.”
Blade’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. They were three days out of Technic City, bearing east toward New York City. So far, the going had been frustratingly slow. Most of the major highways were in deplorable condition, ruined as much by the war as 100 years of neglect and abandonment. Lengthy sections, miles at a stretch, had buckled or collapsed or were in scattered hits and pieces, necessitating countless detours. In addition to the wrecked roads, they’d encountered a surprising number of inhabited outposts, some large towns. Wargo knew where each was located; they were marked on a map he carried, along with the approximate boundary of the corridor the Soviets controlled to the south.
Wargo insured Blade stayed well north of the area under Soviet domination. But the innumerable detours, to bypass the demolished roads and avoid all occupied settlements as well as the Soviets, markedly delayed their progress. They had traveled for 12 hours both days, averaging approximately 45 miles an hour. Now, by Blade’s reckoning, they were within 20 miles of New York City, to the northwest of the metropolis.
Or what was left of it.
Wargo was seated in the other front bucket seat. Behind Blade and Wargo sat Geronimo and two Technic troopers, Geronimo sandwiched between them to prevent him from causing trouble. And reclining on top of the pile of supplies in the rear third of the transport was a fourth soldier, his automatic rifle in his arms.
“Well, what the hell are you waiting for?” Wargo said. “Mow them down!”
Blade surveyed the road ahead.
About 70 yards from the SEAL, walking down the middle of the highway, were two dozen men and women. They were armed with rifles and handguns, none of which posed a threat to the SEAL. Their attire was scarcely more than crudely stitched rags.
It was obvious what they were.
Scavengers.
Looters.
A motley mob preying on anyone and anything. Such marauding bands were the scourge of the post-war age, raiding established settlements and robbing and killing hapless wayfarers, like a scourge of destructive locusts.
Blade paused, not out of any sympathy for the scavengers, but because he disliked taking lives without ample justification. If the scavengers were assaulting the Home, he’d mow them down without another thought. But this was different. This would amount to nothing more than cold-blooded murder.
“Do it!” Captain Wargo barked.
Blade was about to tramp on the accelerator when the issue was resolved for him.
A mutant abruptly appeared from the trees lining the right side of the road and plowed into the scavengers.
Blade applied the brakes.
Two forms of genetic deviations had resulted from World War III. One form, designated as mutants by the Family, was the product of genetic dysfunction and aberration caused by excessive amounts of radiation unleashed on the environment. Mutants were deformed progeny of normal parents, whether human or animal. The second form, on the other hand, was the result of chemical warfare compounds distrupting ordinary organic growth, creating the creatures the Family called the mutates.
Mutates were former mammals, reptiles, or amphibians transformed into ravenous, pus-covered horrors by the synthetic toxins infesting their systems.
As Blade watched what might have once been a feral dog, but was now a slavering mutate, pounce on a female scavenger and tear her neck apart with a savage wrench of its yellow fangs, he thought of one more form of genetic deviation. The type intentionally developed by the scientists, the genetic engineers, in their quest to manufacture superior life forms.
Gene-splicing had been quite common before the Big Blast, and the nefarious Doktor, the Family’s one-time nemesis, had refined the technique into a precision procedure, breeding a personal army of deviate assassins.
But that was then, and this was now.
The mutated canine had dispatched four of the scavengers, and the rest had fled into the trees on the left side of the road without firing a shot.
The mutate pursued them.
The road ahead was clear, except for the bloody bodies.
“Get going,” Captain Wargo ordered.
Blade drove forward, weaving the transport around the forms on the highway. He saw one of them as he passed, an elderly bald man whose throat was ruptured, his blood pulsing onto the highway, his lifeless brown eyes open and gaping skyward.
“I suppose now is a bad time to mention I need to wee-wee?” Geronimo asked, grinning impishly.