Scarborough inhaled sharply, all nerves. He was sweating under his innermost layer of apparel. Sweating torrents in the below-zero cold. The wagons had since been redubbed Light Strike Vehicles and given a bunch of munitions upgrades that made them even deadlier, but call them whatever you wanted, one of those swift automotive killing machines was highballing straight at him. He had no time to wonder who had launched it. The vehicle was fully manned and armed. That was enough for him to know his party was in desperate trouble.

He lowered the binocs, looked urgently around for cover.

Cerberus’s steep grade was banded by a thirty-foot zone of loose, pebbly scree. No protection on that side. A large block of stone heaving up out of the sand near the fractured left slope was their only bet.

Scarborough grabbed Bradley’s elbow. “We have to move, get to that outcrop.”

She eyed the oncoming assault vehicle, emitted a breathless gasp of confusion and horror. The LSV had almost reached them. Long kerchiefs of sand streamed back from its spinning tires. The crewmen wore crash helmets, face masks, snow goggles, and wind-resistant camouflage outfits that melted seamlessly into the terrain. Scarborough made the heavy weapon sandwiched between the antitank tubes on its roof as an M-2 .50-caliber machine gun. The man in the gunner’s station was gripping its black metal handlebar triggers. In front of the passenger seat’s occupant was a pintle-mounted M-60 machine gun—smaller but no less capable of blowing a human being to bits and pieces.

“My God.” Bradley was frantic. “That car . . . Alan . . . the guns on it . . .”

“Just come on!” Scarborough tugged hard on her arm, looked over at Payton. He was still a blank, lock-limbed mannequin. “Both of you, let’s go or we’re dead!”

His shouted warning finally snapped Payton out of his daze. Scarborough motioned him toward the outcrop and then broke for it, clinging to Bradley’s arm, half dragging her along at his side. A slight woman, she weighed about 115 pounds under the bulk of her packs and clothing, and would be unable keep pace without help.

Scarborough and Bradley had almost reached the big protuberance of rock, Payton trailing by a step or two, when their attackers opened fire. The rattle of the machine gun was deafening as its ammunition slapped the ground at their backs. Scarborough shoved Bradley behind the outcrop, dove after her, landed on his belly. He heard another crackle of gunfire on the other side, a grunt, and pushed himself to his knees, dirt spilling from his trouser legs. A hurried glance around the rock’s edge confirmed what he’d feared. Payton was sprawled on the ground, his garments ruptured with bullet holes, steam rising into the air from his wounds. There was blood on him, around him, everywhere.

Warm red blood flowing from his gaudy red coat into the parched-red cold-desert sand.

Scarborough dropped back into cover, looked at Bradley.