cans of lager were shaken, turned upside down and sucked for the last bit of foam. Ryan wiped his mouth with the back of his fist. “Someone’s been here. A lot of them. And they’re going to be back. We’ll recce the rest of the redoubt and hopefully avoid a confrontation.”
Doc sighed. “A shame to have feasted so well, only to regurgitate our repast in some mat-trans only the Fates know where.”
Ryan admitted it was one bastard sad thought indeed, but there just wasn’t going to be much time for digestion. “Let’s do it.”
They scouted out the rest of the redoubt. More of the rooms upstairs had been raided. In the second dormitory the beds had been stripped down to the frames. A tool room and a machine shop were bare bones. They came to another room, and J.B. rocked on his heels. “Dark…night.”
Jak whistled.
Dark night was right. Ryan shook his head. The barrel-shaped vault looked like another add-on, quick and dirty as Mildred had said. It was an armory. Many of the racks were empty, but a shocking amount of weaponry was still in place. Ryan counted more than a dozen military blasters, the only difference being their plastic furniture was a dark green rather than the usual Deathlands black. Spare mags, bandoliers and crates of ammo were stacked along the walls.
“Nuke me!” J.B. ran to a rack. “Ryan! Ryan!”
The one-eyed man ran his hands over the racks of weapons as he walked over to where J.B. stood transfixed. Ryan looked at a little bolt-action rifle with a funny little scope that was set too far forward.
“Know what that is?” J.B. asked.
Ryan frowned. The Armorer wasn’t normally the gushing type. But his old friend was a gunsmith of the first order, and the weapon in front of them had detonated his passion. “A blaster?”
J.B. gave Ryan an offended look. “That is a Steyr Scout longblaster, Tactical version.”
“Yeah?”
“It was designed to be the ultimate do-it-all rifle— 7.62 mm, big enough for a good shot to take any game in North America. But look at it!” J.B. handled the rifle with almost erotic enthusiasm. “Unlike most bolts, this detachable mag has a ten rounder.” J.B. flipped the rifle over. “See here? It carries a spare mag in the stock. Here?” He pushed a button. “Cleaning kit in the butt. Here, sidesaddle on the stock holds five ready rounds in these clips. And here?” The fore end of the little rifle split and deployed forward like a praying mantis’s wings. “Bipod.” J.B. snapped the bipod back in place and handed the rifle to Ryan.
It was light, not much more than six pounds. Ryan eyed the short fluted barrel. “Going to kick some.”
“Recoil reducing stock,” J.B. said smugly. “And check the sling. Three swivel positions and two straps. One for carrying and one for wrapping your arm through to steady you.”
Ryan looked at the little scope. “Not much magnification.”
“It’s 2.5 power.” J.B. nodded. “It’s not a sniper rifle. It’s the weapon of a rifleman, of a scout.”
Ryan shook his head. The scope was completely forward of the action. “Scope’s too far forward.”
“It’s supposed to be. Shoulder it.”
Ryan shouldered the longblaster and instinctively wrapped his arm through the sling. He peered through the scope. It was about a foot from his face, but the image within was crystal clear, and he could still see everything else in front of him.
J.B. knew Ryan saw it. “You see! That’s what they call long eye relief. It allows you to see your target in the scope, but at the same time you can still see what is going on around you. When you shoot a Scout, you want to keep both eyes open, and that allows you to…” The Armorer trailed off as Ryan turned his single blue eye on him in vague amusement.
J.B. cleared his throat. “And if the scope ever breaks?” He reached over and flipped up front and rear iron sights. “Back in the day it they said it was one of the fastest, handiest rifles ever designed. Experienced men could bust clay pigeons out of the air with one.”
Ryan wasn’t sure what a clay pigeon was, but taking a bird in flight with a longblaster was something. He was a keep it simple kind of man. He had to admit everything about the little longblaster made absolute sense, and it felt absolutely right in his hands.
“One more thing.” J.B. was grinning uncharacteristically. “Look at the muzzle.”
Ryan looked. It was threaded.
J.B. reached into the rack and pulled out a factory-fresh black sound-suppressor tube. “I’ll work up some subsonic rounds for you. Keep them in the side carrier. Between that and the tube you got a silent shot whenever you want it.”
“Sold.” There were three Scouts in the rack. Whoever had been here had probably looked at them and dismissed them at first glance like Ryan had. “I want ten mags on a bandolier. Take the other suppressor tubes. Cannibalize the other scopes and any parts you can think of for spares.”
“Right. You’ll probably want a slightly longer length of pull. I’ll take a spacer from one of the spares and lengthen it for you.”
“Just grab it all. You can smith it after the next jump.”
J.B. festooned himself with rifles and gear.
They left the armory and followed the corridor, which opened up into a very large room. It was clearly another crude, last-second expansion. Ryan stopped short, and J.B. nearly dropped his load as he bumped into him.
Huge blast doors dominated the far wall. The most important thing was the vehicle bay off to the side. There were three bays, and two were empty. Ryan could smell gas and see fresh grease in the bays. The last bay was occupied by a Light Armored Vehicle. Ryan took in the 25 mm cannon and the eight giant road wheels.
The armored vehicle was painted a dark military green and looked like it had just rolled off the factory floor. “You remember, Ryan? When we wagged it up to Seattle in one?”
Ryan remembered. “LAV 25.”
“Nah, this is a LAV III.”
Ryan didn’t see much difference other than the red maple leaf painted on the prow.
J.B. was shaking his head, only he wasn’t smiling any more. “Ryan?”
Ryan was shaking his head, too.
It was too much. No one would leave this kind of wealth behind. There were only three explanations. One, it was a grotesquely well-baited trap. Two, something horrible was lurking in this Canadian redoubt that they just hadn’t run into yet. Three, and most likely, there was simply too much loot here for whoever had been visiting to carry or wag away, and they would be back. Though that did beg the question, why didn’t they leave anyone to guard it?
“Ryan?” J.B.’s eyes glittered behind his glasses in pure avarice. “Tell me we’re taking that wag.”
Jak looked around the Diefenbunker meaningfully and said what everyone was thinking. “Stuff it full,” Jak voted. “Run south.”
