Chapter Twenty

 

"Removethat," Poseidon said, wiping his brow with an immaculate white handkerchief.

 

The Admiral was once again seated behind his majestic desk. He watched impassively as the sec man summoned two assistants, who arrived almost instantly and carried Shauna's lifeless body out of the office.

 

 

"I do what it takes. My enjoyment of such actions is an occasional rare bonus. That bitch had been plotting against me for far too long," Poseidon said. "The female mind is unfathomable."

 

"Well, I'm always impressed when a guy strangles a helpless woman to death. That's three I owe you for, now."

 

"Three?"

 

"Three," Ryan said, but didn't elaborate.

 

Poseidon leaned back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. "As I was saying earlier, my reputation is marred with innuendo and lies, but so is your own."

 

"What do you mean?" Ryan said.

 

"I've heard of you and your little mercenary group."

 

"Don't believe everything you hear," Ryan said.

 

"Oh, I never do. Besides, as they used to say back in wartime, loose lips sink ships," Poseidon replied, miming the closing of a lock on his upper lip and throwing away the key. "Still, just between you and me"

 

"And the tree trunk," Ryan added, glancing at the grim sec man who continued to hold position behind him.

 

"Never mind Jonesy. He hears what I tell him to, right, Jonesy?"

 

"Hear what, sir?" the sec man asked on cue.

 

"Good man," Poseidon said brightly, as if talking to a beloved pet. "Now, back to our discussion. There's change in the wind, Cawdor. Wild cards such as yourself are due to be eliminated. The more powerful of the barons are starting to communicate for the first time in decades. They speak on a regular basis by radio and through intermediaries via traveling caravans, and do you know why?"

 

"They were getting lonely?"

 

Poseidon looked at Ryan with a pitying expression. "Scuttle the sarcasm, Cawdor. You don't have the timing for it. No, they're starting to align themselves for protection from murderous thugs like you, self-serving renegades who roam Deathlands in packs, like mangy wolves, slinking into law-abiding villes and stealing food and supplies."

 

Ryan couldn't help it. Even if it meant another blow from the rifle butt, he had to laugh aloud. "You're crazier than I thought."

 

"Don't mock civilization, Cawdor. It's what makes man rise above the animals."

 

"Civilization is also what destroyed the world. As I understand it, the barons in power back then didn't bother to ask anybody's permission when they wanted to do something, and it's still the same today. Once a baron gets some food in his stomach and some property and the jack to hire a sec squad, he stops listening to anyone but himself."

 

"But the ones in power will listen to their peers," Poseidon replied.

 

"I doubt it. Most of the villes I've been in have been hotbeds of hatred, closed-off parcels full of hatred and inbreeding. There's no way in hell there's going to be any sort of alliance."

 

"You're not thinking, Cawdorthat, or you're just being thick to annoy me. As many barons and villes as you and your merry band of outlaws have brought down, how could you expect otherwise? You aren't alone in spreading the seed of destruction, nor are you the first. There have always been the fringe elements who refuse to conform."

 

Ryan leaned back farther in the chair slowly, so as not to give any indication of an attack, then swung up one of his long legs, placing his boot heel on the top of Poseidon's desk. "Those arrogant bastards in charge of their pissant baronies and villes couldn't stop shouting and posing long enough to make a group decision on what kind of meat to serve at their first communal meal, much less come to any kind of agreement."

 

"I shall be a part of a grand new alliance, where a council of baronies shall rule," Poseidon said confidently. "I am at the forefront of the new wave to help reconnect the world."

 

"How?"

 

Poseidon spread open his arms. "The sea, Cawdor, the sea! No air travel! No safe and efficient way to crawl across the radiation pits scarring the landscape! What does that leave?"

 

"Let me guess. The sea."

 

"Correct! From the day man crawled up from the muck and the slime onto dry land, the control of the seas from whence he sprang has meant dominance. All the great generals from all the great wars have been forced to take possession of the waters surrounding their territories, their lands. And once they lost the sea, they lost the war, and they lost their command."

 

Poseidon paused. "I have no intention of losing my power, Cawdor. Only increasing it."

 

"With a bunch of hired mercs who would just as soon chill you as follow an order? I don't think so," Ryan said with a sneer. "And I wouldn't count on any villes backing up your master plan, either. People always look out for number one, Poseidon. You're living proof of that."

 

"Fear has a way of creating strange bunk mates," Poseidon replied. "And I wonder how my standing in their eyes will increase once I present you for their entertainment."

 

"Bring it on."

 

"However, I indeed do tend to look out for myself, as you pointed out. That's why I collect reportsoral tales of a one-eyed man bringing retribution across the scarred lands of what's left of this great country of ours, and I have to dismiss much of it as fictions created beside a warm fire to amuse. Or do I?"

 

"You tell me," Ryan replied, not sure in what direction the Admiral was taking the conversation.

 

"The primary reason the reports are not to be believed is due to sheer logistics. You appear one day in West Virginia, and then a week later you're spotted in New Mexico. Reports have you in Maine, then you show up within days in Snakefish, California. And I think, How? How is this possible?" Poseidon said, walking past Ryan's chair. "I think to myself, Could there be more than one man claiming to be Ryan Cawdor?"

 

"Looks like you caught me. I'm twins," Ryan said with as much hate and venom as he could muster up. "You can tell us apart by the eye patches. My brother wears his on the right eye. Says it's his best side"

 

Poseidon's hand cracked out like it was spring-loaded, catching Ryan in his good eye. He grunted, but didn't move from the force of the blow, even as a multicolored explosion of pain blossomed in his right temple.

 

"You'll shut up, or I'll finish blinding you myself," the big man said, returning to his desk, where he composed himself and again steepled his large hands beneath his bearded chin.

 

"Then it occurs to me. Why not combine one tall tale with a second? There have been rumors of a futuristic method of traveling, a teleportation device ripped from the pages of old science-fiction novels. None of my contacts have ever seen or encountered anyone with firsthand knowledge, so all I have is theory, rumor, innuendo. Now I have someone with that firsthand knowledge."

 

"I'm afraid I'm going to be one colossal disappointment," Ryan said with a dry laugh.

 

"My plan to master the seas is one thing, but if I can control any who would challenge me with the forbidden secrets of instantaneous land travel, then I shall be master of the entire world, both surface and underwater."

 

"Good fucking luck."

 

"You're the luck I needed, Cawdor. You are the key to the gateways."

 

Ryan felt his bravado sink down into his boots. The son of a bitch knew.

 

"Take your best shot, Admiral. I have nothing to say to you."

 

"Then perhaps I have another way of convincing you," Poseidon said. He sat back down and pressed a button on a desk intercom. "Bring in our guest."

 

"Going to kill another woman to try and show me the error of my ways?" Ryan asked.

 

Poseidon ignored him. "There's an interesting fact about the sea, Cawdor. Things can be thrown into the depths and never seen again, or things can be thrown into the depths only to be found by those who know what to look for. In fact, life in Deathlands is much like life at seayou scavenge and try and live off the remains of the past, am I right?"

 

"If I say yes, will you spare me another lecture?" Ryan asked bitterly.

 

There was a knock from outside the thick office door.

 

"Come."

 

A man, also in a naval dress uniform, stepped into the room. He snapped off a quick salute to the Admiral, which was returned. "Ah, Commander Bronan. Glad you could join us. Mr. Cawdor isn't being cooperative. I need a persuader. Do you have it?"

 

"Outside, Admiral."

 

"Then bring in the lady, please."

 

The door opened, and as Ryan turned his face for a look, he discovered for once in his life he was struck totally speechless. A mix that was equal parts joy and anger swept across his soul as he stared in joyful disbelief at the woman standing between a pair of frowning, armed sec guards.

 

"I believe you know Miss Wroth," Poseidon murmured.

 

"We'vemet," Ryan rasped, seeing the same expression on Krysty's face that he knew had to be on his own craggy visage.

 

"I thought you were dead," she said softly, tears welling in her luminous green eyes.

 

"I was," Ryan replied, fighting to keep himself seated and calm as he battled the urge to race over and take her in his arms. "Not now. Not anymore."

 

"Take her back to the brigthe secure cell. You may leave the albino where he is," Poseidon snapped. "See that she gets anything she wants. Food, drink, vids. Keep her happy and safe. However, double the watch, just in case Mr. Cawdor gets any foolish notions."

 

"Yes sir, Admiral." The commander gestured with a curled thumb, and the two armed escorts backed Krysty out of the room. Brosnan turned to close the door behind their departure, and the room fell silent.

 

"Yes, you never know what's going to turn up in the sea," Poseidon mused, getting up once more from his leather chair. The polished wood squeaked in protest as his enormous weight left the seat.

 

"You were there," Ryan said flatly, "the night the mine blew up our boat."

 

"Yes and no. I was there after the explosion, beneath the ocean and the storm in a minisub, a routine cruise interrupted by your stumbling into my domain."

 

"You're scum," Ryan snapped.

 

Poseidon smacked the top of Ryan's skull. "Don't go all sanctimonious on me! You're the one who rode in here, destroying my property and killing my men! That whore from upstate? No loss! Her husband? He's the one who came in here making demands of me! Me! So I keelhauled his whiny ass and gave him fifty lashes and he couldn't take it!"

 

The large man straggled to contain his anger. Ryan knew then and there he was peering at madness in human form. He was certainly familiar enough with it to know the signs.

 

"I saved her, Cawdor, along with that white freak," the Admiral said. "You owe me."

 

"I owe you dick."

 

"Then perhaps I'll take her back where I found herhalf-drowned, unconscious and dying." Poseidon reached over and grabbed Ryan by the hair of the head, bending the one-eyed man's shoulder back over the top of the chair. "Don't try and bluff me, you snot-nosed punk. I'll break you like a glass bottle if you keep sassing me. That raspy voice and eye patch may frighten the ignorant and the stupid, but they hold no truck with me."

 

"Just what in the fuck do you want from me?" Ryan asked tightly.

 

"Information."

 

"Such as?"

 

Poseidon let Ryan's hair go and strode back to his desk, as calmly as if he'd never shown even the slightest glimpse of anger as opposed to the fullblown performance he'd given since killing Shauna. "Numerals. Symbols. The arcane scripture from the world when mankind was still in command of his manifest destiny."

 

"Could you be a little more specific?"

 

"Certainly. I want you to tell me everything, Cawdor," Poseidon said, his black eyes gleaming bright. "But first, what do you know about the access codes needed to get into a military redoubt?"