Survivalist - 23 - Call To Battle by Ahern Jerry

Author:Ahern, Jerry [Ahern, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

26

They were two blocks into Sugar Street, the tourists fewer and fewer, the merchandise that was for sale in the grimy windowed shops and the precarious-looking stalls seemingly raunchier and raunchier. A woman-she was from the Wild Tribes but had brilliant blue eyes-came up and offered them drugs. Then, apparently she’d noticed the men following Annie Rubenstein and Angie, and she ran off like a frightened animal.

There was less vehicular traffic now, too, most of the cars having turned off Sugar Street at the intersection just past. Annie spotted two more men watching them, making for a total of six. “Just how close will Inspector Shaw and his son be, Angie?”

“Close enough I hope,” Angie hissed through her teeth.

They were directly opposite a small store front, the windows filled with packing crates and grated over, the door open, a hot, musty smell emanating from inside. The two men Annie Rubenstein had just spotted started walking quickly toward them.

Annie looked back. The man on the far side of the street was coming across. The three men behind them were closing up fast. “They’re trying to herd us into the store,” Annie said, hugging her purse against her abdomen to cover the butt of her gun.

Angie turned around, looked into the store. “Doesn’t look like there’s anybody inside, which probably means the place is loaded.” Angie made a great show of looking at the men, gesturing to Annie, then started a mincing run into the store front, saying under her breath, “No guns yet, kid.”

Annie resented the appellation “kid”; aside from the fact that she had been born more than six and one-half centuries ago, in chronological age she was no more than a couple of years younger than Angie.

She followed Angie nonetheless, but with a long-strided walk, her purse still clutched to her abdomen over the butt of her gun. As soon as they were inside the store, Annie realized this had to be a mistake. There was the smell of body odor, dust, mildew. Two light fixtures only illuminated the entire length of the deep but narrow building, all the nairower-seeming because of the boxes that were stacked floor to ceding on both sides of them.

The interior of the store was tailor-made for an ambush, a box canyon, but manmade.

Angie was talking, but evidently not for Annie’s benefit, but so that Tim and Ed Shaw would clearly understand that the hoped for robbery or mugging attempt was happening. “Do you think those men who are so close behind us want to hurt us, Annie?”

“Could be. What a yucky-looking store, and right here in the middle of the block. You’d think they’d do something about it, whoever owned it. Let’s see if we can find the owner.”

“The owner of the store? Thafs a good idea,” Angie enthused with admirable dramatic fervor.

They were halfway along the store’s length now and as Annie looked back she saw the six men from the street, two of them standing in the doorway, the other four walking after them.

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