door had reached the wall, he had adjusted his balance and taken a flying leap into the darkened shower room, somersaulting in the air and making himself a hard target to hit.
The fact that there was no light within the room was of no hindrance to Jak. In dim or darkened conditions his pigmentless red eyes were better adjusted to the gloom. He had spent much of his early youth in the bayou hunting by night, and his instincts had evolved to the point where it was possible for him to become almost at one with the shadows.
The shower room itself resembled a locker room, where it was possible to dry off and change clothes, the towels and soap being kept in freestanding metal cabinets. Through a narrow channel was the tiled shower area, where the actual showers were a series of self-contained cubicles.
Plenty of places for an enemy to hide, but also plenty of places for Jak to take cover.
The .357 Magnum Colt Python blaster was in his fist as he emerged upright from the somersault, his trigger finger resting lightly on the guard. He adjusted it without thinking, so that he was ready to squeeze off a shot if necessary. In his other hand, which he held palm up, lay one of his razor-sharp leaf-bladed throwing knives. As he shifted, weight forward on the balls of his feet to facilitate rapid motion, a shaft of light from the corridor outside caught the blade, its edges glittering. Without even registering that he had noticed this, Jak shifted the angle of his hand so that the light no longer caught on the blade.
The room was silent, and Jak couldn’t detect any sign of an enemy, not even the merest whisper of breath. He scanned the room, his eyes taking in the shadows. They were constant; nothing was moving in here. Satisfied that the room was empty, but still keeping triple alert lest the opposition be as skillful in the art of hunting as himself, Jak moved lightly and quickly to the shower cubicles themselves.
Normally he would have taken each in turn, opening the doors and investigating each. But time was of the essence, and at this juncture he had to marry speed with stealth, a marriage that was not always satisfactory to the equal use of both.
With a yelping screech that he knew, from past experience, would both frighten and surprise anyone lurking in the shower cubicles, Jak threw himself forward into a series of rolls, straining every thigh and calf muscle on the upward thrust in order to propel himself forward without losing impetus, and also to throw out one combat-booted foot and crash open the door to each shower stall as he passed it. All the while his Colt Python stayed focused and aimed at the stalls and cubicles as he passed them, finger loose on the trigger to prevent accidents, but the tendons like coiled springs that would squeeze on instinct within a fraction of a second.
If intruders were hiding in any of the cubicles, the force of the door being kicked back in their face, and the sudden appearance and noise that Jak had caused, would have been enough to cause them to attack.
Jak came up against the wall, landing in a squatting position with his back to the wall, his blaster and knife swiveling toward any point of attack.
There was nothing. It would seem that the stalls were empty. Rising swiftly and easily to his feet, Jak skipped back past the stalls, turning to face each as he passed, the Colt Python trained on the empty space, lest there was a lurking enemy with the patience and cunning that he possessed. But there was nothing except empty space.
Jak ran from the cubicle, sidling up against the wall until he reached the concrete pillar that provided shelter for Ryan and Krysty.
“Clear,” he said simply.
Meanwhile, Dean had been tackling the dormitories.
The younger Cawdor didn’t have Jak’s speed and sharpened hunting instincts, but he did have the quickness of youth and a sense of battle that he had inherited from his father, which had been sharpened by the time he had spent with the companions.
Dean’s approach to the closed door was more subtle than Jak’s. He didn’t have the acrobatic skill to attempt a similar kind of entry, so he opted for a different approach. Flattening himself against the wall to one side of the door, Dean closed his hand around the chromium doorknob and twisted it, flicking his powerful wrist so that the door was also propelled backward. Before the lock had even clicked, his hand was back across his chest, safe from any fire that may have greeted the first movement of the door.
Nothing came forth, and the door opened on a darkened room—not that he was aware of this. He hadn’t, as yet, taken a look. Instead, he took three deep breaths, concentrating his attention on the task ahead. He knew the layouts of these dorm rooms from previous redoubts. If the room had been changed by the inhabitants, then he had a problem. That was just a chance he would have to take.
Dean swooped low, turning and throwing himself into the room at an angle, his body crouched low. The trajectory would make him difficult to hit, and he knew where he was headed.
Luck was with him. Whoever inhabited the redoubt either hadn’t moved anything in the dorms, or never used them. Because the metal storage locker—in which spare bedding was usually stored—was exactly where he had guessed it would be, offering him some degree of cover as it rested almost snug to two walls. Almost. The gap was enough for him to squeeze into, covering him on three sides and enabling him to take in the rest of the room.
The dormitory was a large space with beds running in rows, small lockers between each bed. The beds themselves were high, with narrow metal shafts for legs that gave plenty of room underneath for any enemy to use as a crawl space. The room was rectangular, with no other nooks or crannies for anyone to secrete themselves.
From his position, Dean was able to take in the room at a glance. It seemed to be empty, and where the open door let a shaft of light pour into the room, there was an illumination that aided him immensely, casting a light over any enemy position while keeping him still in shadow.
Though it seemed empty, there were still a few pools of shadow where the light had failed to penetrate. These would have to be dealt with.
Dean left his position and dropped to his belly, the Browning Hi-Power blaster held in front of him. Using his feet, he pushed off from the wall and started to crawl under the beds, using his shadow cover to surprise anyone he might come across. Despite every sense telling him that the dorm was empty, he had to make certain.
It was a swift process. Dean moved through the shadows and light with ease, encountering no obstacles. The dorm, like the shower room, was empty.
As Dean reached the last of the beds, he rose fluidly to his feet and slipped out of the room, staying close to the wall as he moved back to where J.B., Doc and Mildred were waiting.
“It’s empty,” he breathed as he moved back into cover behind the pillar and indicated the same to his father, standing opposite, with a gesture.
The one-eyed man nodded curtly. It was time to put his plan into action. Gesturing to J.B., he indicated that they should move out from behind the pillar and take the empty rooms to establish a base of operations. And there was little time. The approaching enemy was now audible to all the companions, not just Jak. The advancing force seemed to be small, and was moving slowly. It wasn’t hard to guess that they were taking the corridor section by section, as well, not underestimating how difficult and smart their enemy may be. This gave the companions enough time to move, but suggested to them that they may be in for a small war of attrition rather than a straightforward firefight.
Looking ahead, both Ryan and J.B. could see that the corridor was clear at present, but about a hundred yards ahead of the sec door was a sharp bend that presented them with a blind spot. The sec door itself was about twenty yards distant, giving them a total of about 120 yards between
