Hickok tensed, clutching the Commando. He must ignore the odds against him. So what if he was alone and outnumbered millions to one? So what if the entire Technic Army and Police Force would be after him? He was a Warrior, and Warriors never quit. Never. Ever.
The elevator reached the ground floor and the doors whisked open.
The lobby was crammed with people: soldiers, police in their blue uniforms, government officials, and civilians. Waiting outside the elevator was a Technic officer and one other, a man in a brown uniform with gray hair, blue eyes, and a hefty build. The gunman recognized him as the man from the interrogation room.
Not the one who’d showed up with the Minister!
“Howdy! Guess who?” Hickok said.
The Technic officer was completely confounded, frozen, but the man in brown reacted; his blue eyes widened fearfully and his mouth sagged.
“You!” he exclaimed.
“Bingo! You get the prize!” Hickok declared, and fired.
The Commando cut them in two, their chests exploding in a spray of crimson flesh.
Hickok burst from the elevator, heading for the gold doors visible on the other side of the spacious lobby.
A Technic policeman loomed ahead, blocking the gunman’s path, clawing at an automatic pistol in the holster on his left hip.
Hickok cut loose, ripping the Technic from his crotch to his sternum.
A woman nearby was screaming her lungs out.
Another woman, with a young girl at her side, stood five yards in front of the racing Warrior, gaping.
Blasted bystanders!
Hickok skirted the pair, weaving and twisting as he ran, the crowd parting to allow his passage.
But not all of them.
Another Technic policeman was standing before the gold doors, pistol in his right hand.
Hickok leaped behind a potted fern as the policeman fired. A high-pitched shriek added to the general din. Hickok rolled to the left, and as he did he saw the little girl he’d bypassed falling to the floor with a hole in her forehead.
The rotten bastard!
Hickok came up on his knees, the Commando pressed to his right shoulder, and pulled the trigger.
The Technic in front of the gold doors was slammed backward by the impact, crunching into the doors and slipping to the floor, leaving a red swath in his wake.
Hickok sprinted to the doors. He paused, kicking the dead Technic in the face, crushing his nose. “I can’t abide a lousy shot!” he growled, and pushed on the nearest door.
Nothing happened.
What the blazes! Hickok tried one more time with the same result.
What the heck was going on? Why wouldn’t the door open? He suddenly recalled Wargo using a button to the left of the doors when they entered the Central Core.
There!
Hickok was to the bank of buttons in an instant.
They weren’t marked!
The gunman stabbed the first button on the right.
The doors remained closed.
Blast!
A bullet whined off the doors not six inches away.
Hickok punched the button on the far left.
The gold doors slid open.
Move it! his mind thundered, as he scurried outside. The doors slid closed again as he spun, the Commando bucking, the bullets striking the outside button bank and destroying it in a shower of plastic, metal, and fiery sparks.
Let ’em try and get those doors open now!
Hickok crouched and turned to face the parking lot, shocked by the sight he beheld.
Two dozen Technic police were lined up 15 yards away, at attention, their stunned faces focused on the Warrior. Between the formation of police and the gunman was a solitary jeep, and sitting in the rear of the topless vehicle, his features frozen in horrified shock, evidently paralyzed by the abrupt advent of the Warrior, was the Minister.
For the space of a heartbeat it was as if the tableau were in suspended animation. Hickok was hardly aware of a green truck parked alongside the yellow curb not ten feet to his right, or the squad of Technic commandos 40 yards off and approaching on the run. All he saw, the only object of his concentration, the sum total of his world, was the man responsible for subjecting him to the most acute humiliation he’d ever felt, the callous, egotistical tyrant who’d degraded him, who’d caused him to lose face, as Rikki would say, who’d made him eat crow and reveled in the gunman’s debasement: the Minister.
For the space of a heartbeat no one moved.
And then the Minister opened his mouth to shout orders to his assembled men, his personal guard, and all hell broke loose.
Hickok fired, the Commando chattering, and the Minister’s eyes and nose dissolved as his face was torn to gruesome shreds.
The Technic police went for their weapons.
The Technic commandos were now 30 yards distant.
Hickok raced toward the parked truck, bent over, presenting as difficult a target as possible, shooting as he ran.
Three of the Technic police hit the pavement, blood gushing from their riddled uniforms.
Hickok reached the truck with bullets chipping at the sidewalk and striking the Central Core. He passed a wide picture window and saw a female civilian on the other side, screaming in terror at the demise of the Minister. At least, he assumed she was screaming. Her mouth was open but no sound was audible.
How could this be?
The gunman could scarcely afford a moment’s idle speculation. A trooper appeared around the tailgate of the truck, one of those fancy automatic rifles in his hands.
Hickok dived for the sidewalk as the soldier fired. His knees and elbows’
were lanced by excruciating agony, pain he ignored as he aimed the Commando and squeezed the trigger.
A distinct click greeted his efforts.
The Commando was empty!
There was no time to reload! Hickok rolled to his left, nearer the truck, his right hand flashing to his holster and the right Colt clearing leather even as the trooper sent a few rounds into the sidewalk to the gunman’s right, concrete chips flying in every direction. The warrior fired as the commando sighted for another shot, fired as the commando staggered backward with a hole where his left eye had been, and fired as the commando crashed to the ground with both eyes gone.
Hickok surged erect, his balance unsteady because of all the extra weapons he was carrying, and he lunged for the only available cover, the cab of the green truck.
A red dot appeared on the door of the truck, inches from his left hand.
A red dot?
The Commando clasped between his thumb and first finger, the gunman grasped at the truck handle as the door was hit, flying metal shards zinging every which way. A sharp piece burned a furrow in his left cheek. He instinctively ducked and whirled, cocking the Python.
A soldier was standing near the jammed gold doors, rifle to his shoulder.
Where the blazes had he come from?
Hickok snapped a shot as a red dot materialized on his chest, and the trooper toppled backwards.
Move!
Hickok wrenched the door open as a female member of the Technic police rounded the front fender with her pistol already out. He fired and she stumbled and crashed into the truck, her pistol clattering on the pavement.
This was no place for Momma Hickok’s pride and joy!
The gunman scrambled into the truck, letting the Commando drop to the floor, his anxious gaze roving over the dashboard and locking on a set of keys, one of which was already inserted to the right of the steering column.
Eureka!
Hickok grabbed the keys as the windshield was splintered by a fusillade of gunfire.
The Technics were pouring everything they had at the cab.
Hunched over behind the steering wheel, the gunman turned the key and pumped the accelerator. He recollected the last time he’d driven a truck, from Wyoming to Minnesota, and he tried to remember the proper procedure. He recalled the ignition and the gas pedal, but overlooked one crucial component.