Mack Reynolds - Rolltown

Sam scowled. “According to what kind you have. The military have some real doozies, blanket a wide, wide area.”

“But would our pals out there be apt to have anything like that?”

Sam looked up into the sky, scowling still. “Well, no, now that you mention it. And they don’t even have a helicopter.”

“Why would they need a helicopter?”

“It’d give them more range. As it is, they’ve probably got it mounted on some high spot out there.”

Bat took a deep breath. “Aren’t they portable? Can’t they be moving it around?”

“I wouldn’t think so. They’re pretty delicate mechanisms, Bat. They’d have to get it all set up. If they had to move it, it would be off for the time of moving and until they got it rigged up again.”

Bat Hardin hissed between his teeth. Then, “Do I understand you that’s it’s got to be within sight of the area that it is blanketing?”

“Well, more or less. Part of it has to be. The antenna.”

“So out there, somewhere, within sight, is our scrambler?”

“It’s got to be.”

Bat got up. The firing was growing slowly more intense from the other side, falling off on the part of the defenders who were becoming increasingly conscious of their depleted store of ammunition. New Woodstock had not been proceeding with any idea at all of a need for large stocks of cartridges and shells. Some weapons had only a score or so rounds available which was the reason that Bat had pooled their supply. It was now being doled out grudgingly to the best shots.

Bat Hardin, again bent almost double as he scurried across the open space between the outer ring of vehicles and the inner, sought out Jeff Smith, who was busy supervising the digging of the trench that was to be their last stand, if it came to that.

Bat said, “Sergeant.”

The Southerner came over and looked at him questioningly.

Bat pointed with his finger, swept it around the horizon. He said, “According to Sam Prager, the scrambler is somewhere out there in an elevated position. Probably on one of those knolls. We could make a sortie and destroy it.”

“Yeah,” the other said disgustedly. “But which knoll?”

Bat called over to Luke Robertson, “Luke, locate us a couple of pair of the strongest binoculars in town.” Then he turned back to Jeff Smith.

“It seems that it takes a bit of time to set a scrambler up. Very delicate. And if you want to keep it in action, you can’t move it. It’s got to just sit there. Now our friend, Don Caesar, is no fool. He’s figured out this raid to the last detail. He knows that our only chance is to get that scrambler and wreck it. He also knows that we have some four hundred armed and desperate men on hand for a sortie. So what does he do?”

Smith’s forehead was wrinkled. “I’m not following you, Lieutenant.”

“If one of those knolls out there was more strongly defended than any other, what would you suspect?”

“That’s where the scrambler was.”

“And if one knoll had no men around it all…”

Smith got it. “You mean the old bastard is trying to fox us by having that damn thing stuck up somewhere with nobody at all in the vicinity?”

“It’s worth thinking about.”

Luke came up with the glasses and handed them to Smith and Bat. They began to scan the vicinity slowly, carefully.

Bat murmured, “It would probably be one of the higher knolls, and one not too very far away. They planned this down to the last detail. They maneuvered us out into this field, as though we were sheep. They knew exactly where we’d have to go. And that scrambler was all set up and waiting for us when we arrived.”

Jeff Smith said, “There it is, Lieutenant.” He pointed. “I can just barely make out an antenna, or whatever it is.”

Bat Hardin directed his glasses. “You’re right. Okay, Sergeant. It’s you and me.”

Smith looked at him. “Just the two of us? Wouldn’t it make more sense if we took a hundred of the best men and headed for that knoll on the double?”

Bat shook his head. “My converted police car is the only armored vehicle in town and it’s a two-seater. We have, in short, the equivalent of a tank. Can you operate an Am-8?”

“The Chinese automatic? Sure, why not?”

“Get Art Clarke’s from him and both clips of ammo. I’ll meet you at my car.”

Jeff Smith took off and Bat Hardin called to Al Castro, “Al, let me have your Gyro-jet pistol.”

Al handed it over. Bat Hardin checked the magazine, jacked a 9mm rocket cartridge into the barrel. He stuck the gun in his belt, then brought forth his own identical weapon and checked and loaded it. Then he went over to his car, located spare 9mm rocket shells and dropped them into his side pocket. He took up his carbine and filled the magazine to capacity.

“Jesus,” Al said. “You look like Billy the Kid with all that artillery.”

Bat said, “Al, get together our best half dozen marksmen. That knoll out there looks as though nobody at all is around. There’s nobody firing from the top or anything. However, I’ll bet my left arm that they’ve got a sizable defending force behind it, keeping hidden. Jeff and I are going to need all the covering fire we can get.”

“Got you,” Al said, moving off.

A dozen of the men who had been digging now stood around, popeyed at what Bat was planning.

Manuel Chauvez, shovel in hand, said, “Mr. Hardin, for sure, you are not going out there into all that fire?”

“Somebody’s got to go, or we’ll unlikely see tomorrow,” Bat growled to the Armanruder’s servant. “Come on, Sergeant. The delta was never like this.”

“Thank the good Lord,” Jeff Smith muttered. “It was bad enough.” He had Art Clarke’s automatic rifle under his arm and was stuffing the spare magazine into a side pocket. He climbed into the seat next to Bat’s driver position.

Smith looked out over the terrain unhappily and said, “You think you can make it over that? You’d need at least a four-wheel drive.”

Bat grinned. “I’ve got secrets in this buggy.” He dropped the conversion lever, activated the air cushion and the vehicle rose a foot off the ground. He recessed the wheels and yelled out the window, “Luke, get that crate of yours out of the way.”

“I’ll be damned; a little old hover-car,” Smith said.

Bat nodded while Luke hurried to get his electro-steamer and mobile home out of the way so that the two volunteers could leave the perimeter.

Bat was saying, “They’ve got a lot of shortcomings but for certain specialized uses you can’t beat the air cushion. Ordinarily they aren’t practical for a vehicle of this size. Too small. Consume power like crazy. Can’t propel them very fast, either, or your vehicle will over-run your air cushion. It’s got to have time to get out in front of the skirt, or the whole shebang starts nosing in.”

Luke yelled, “Okay, Bat!”

The police car, now air-cushion borne, flowed ahead. Immediately, slugs began to bounce off in screaming ricochet.

“Holy smokes,” Bat bit out. “You’d think they were waiting for us. Keep your window up until we get on the scene. Bulletproof glass. They’d have to have anti-tank shells to knock us off.”

Smith said, “They don’t need anti-tank shells, they’ve got that goddamned bazooka.”

“Ummm,” Bat said distastefully, beginning to zig and zag in evasive action. “But I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the boys operating it aren’t exactly crackshots. Who in the hell knows how to fire a bazooka in this day and age? It’s one thing sitting pat and directing it at something as big as New Woodstock. But a target this small and on the move?”

“I hope you’re right, Lieutenant,” the other said dryly.