"For so-called professionals, you really aren't thinking too seriously. Vickers is right when he says you've got shit for brains. Consider this"
Debbie interrupted. "Could we consider it somewhere else? I'm going to get sick if I stay down here any longer."
Vickers and Fenton both looked at Streicher.
"Well?"
Streicher nodded. He seemed to be more in control of himself. Fenton turned to Ralph.
"How about you? Ready to discuss this upstairs?"
Ralph let go a little. Fenton put a hand on his shoulder.
"Let's go upstairs, shall we?"
There was collective relief as everyone filed out. Finally there were only Vickers and Streicher left. Vickers took a final look at the bodies and then motioned with his gun.
"I'd be happier if you went first."
Streicher continued to scowl.
"I'm not convinced of anything."
"Neither am I; that's why I don't want you behind me."
They reassembled in the living room. The curtains were drawn back and it was like a glass box. There was a hint of dawn in the eastern sky. Someone had helped himself to drinks and most had put down their weapons. The mood was now one of discussion rather than retaliatory kill. Vickers and Fenton still clutched their guns. Vickers noted that, for a second time, Fenton had slipped easily into the role of watching his back.
Again he wondered what it was that Fenton ultimately wanted. In the living room, he went even further. He seemed to be acting as Vickers' attorney.
"It's like he told you downstairs. If you think it through, you'd realize that neither he nor any of the rest of us could have guided that team in here."
Ralph was still clenching and unclenching his jaw and fists.
"Some motherfucker did."
"That's a fact, but it wasn't Vickers."
"Maybe you're just hot for his ass."
"Now you're really being stupid."
"I don't like to be called stupid."
Streicher was halfway out of his chair with a parade ground bellow.
"Just shut the fuck up, Ralph!" He turned to Fenton. "You go on, but you'd better make it good."
Fenton scanned the room, moving with scarcely concealed contempt.
"What everyone's forgetting is that we took those suckers with ease. If anyone in this room had managed to get out the location of this place and precise details of the defense set-up including the actual position of the landlines, they would also have reported on how many of us were staying here. How many are we?" He looked around questioningly. "Two dozen? Right? If they'd known that there were two dozen of us in here, would they have sent in a little bitty team of just ten?"
Vickers nodded. "They'd have either sent in a full-blown assault force of fifty or, much more likely, wouldn't have bothered in the first place."
Debbie reached for a bottle of Jack Daniels. "So who did tell Contec we were here?"
Fenton shrugged. "It must have been a leak on the outside."
"Why should an outside leak be any
more likely to give out the wrong information?"
Fenton frowned; for the first time he looked uncertain.
"I don't know. Maybe they had bad information, maybe they had old information, maybe it was all part of some weird setup. What can I tell you? Whatever the answer, it makes more sense than trying to work out an impossible theory so we can pin the blame on somebody here."
Neither Streicher nor Ralph appeared to be any closer to being convinced.
"It's all too easy to place the responsibility back in Las Vegas."
"How many people knew we were all out here, Streicher?"
"I can't tell you that."
"Do you even know?"
Debbie put down her bottle. "Tell me something, Streicher, why are you so all-fired keen to make one of us a traitor?"
Vickers noted the phrase "one of us." Debbie and maybe more had moved on from looking for reasons to hang Mort Vickers to searching for real answers. The suspicious glances were now directed at Streicher. Answers were something he didn't seem to have.
"I just have a feeling. I can't explain it. There's a great deal that I'm not permitted to talk about."
Vickers let the gun dangle by his side. He advanced on Streicher and nobody made a move to stop him.
"That's the trouble with guys like you. You're like trained dogs. You are fine just as long as someone's telling you what to do but if you ever start to lose faith in your master, everybody watch out, you go to pieces."
"I don't have to take your shit, Vickers."
Debbie made an impatient gesture. "Forget about Vickers, what we want to know is what you intend to do."
"I have to get instructions on this. Nothing I've been told covers what's happened here."
Parkwood yawned. Up to that point he'd kept out of the discussion.
"If that's the best you can do, Streicher, I think I'll go and get some sleep. You can wake me if there are developments."
There were noises of agreement and assent. Eggy stood up with a rattle of chrome chains.
"He's right. I've listened to enough of this garbage. I'm fucking off to bed."
Eggy had killed four of the intruders, apparently in a silent, berserk rage, but after they'd come back inside he'd become withdrawn and silent with a strange, heavy-lidded satiation that seemed to indicate that, for Eggy, bloodletting was a deep, profound, even awesome end in itself.