Wasteland Rules: Die Fighting (The World After Book 4) by J.G. Martin

going.”
       Zona hesitated and Derek leaned forward angrily.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Zona pleaded. “I’ll tell you. Just promise me they won’t
hang me.”
       Derek looked over at the Ranger captain and she
nodded. “Okay, now talk.” Derek ordered the bounty hunter.
       “You have a five million dollar bounty in gold on
your head, man.” Zona moaned. “We just couldn’t pass that up.”
       “Who put a bounty on his head?” Rora interjected.
       “The U.S.T.G.” The bounty hunter hissed. “Who
else?”
       “Wow! They must really want you dead.” The Ranger
captain interrupted. “What did you do to piss them off so much?”
       “I killed about a dozen Red Berets, twenty or so
Fedpol commandoes, fifty or more soldiers, wrecked a train, stole a chopper,
destroyed a border fence, blew up some vehicles, and generally frustrated
them.” Derek replied off handedly.
       “Don’t forget the space plane.” Rora added.
       “I could see where they might have some animosity
towards you.” Captain Jacobs said slowly.
       “It wasn’t personal.” Zona interrupted. “They just
offered us too much money.”
       “Who is us?” Derek asked.
       “There are at least seven other bounty hunters they
called in and made the offer to.” Zona answered with a groan. “Can you patch me
up please?”
       “Who else?” Derek grilled him.
       “I don’t know. Only me and Huey were at the
meeting, but they told us others got the offer in an attempt to motivate us.”
The bounty hunter replied.
       “How did you get the Reconquistadors to help you?”
The Ranger captain interjected.
       “The government spooks knew I had connections with
Aztlan and set it up.” Zona whined. “The Reconquistadors knew me so they agreed
to it. I was in charge of the ambush, but they were pretty psyched about
killing Rangers.”
       “There’s your proof, if you needed more, that the
U.S.T.G. is arming your enemies.” Derek said pointedly to the captain. “If you
think they will leave you alone after they take out the C.C.A. you and your
superiors are sadly mistaken.”
       The captain spit on the ground and stormed off.
Derek watched her go. He hoped the N.R.T. would smarten up and join the fight
against the U.S.T.G. before it was too late. A brazen massacre and attack in
neutral territory this close to the N.R.T. was tantamount to a declaration of
war by Aztlan. And if they were being armed by the U.S.T.G. it wouldn’t be as
easy of a conflict as before.
       “Was there a computer core?” Rora asked Zona as she
squatted down.
       “I have no idea.” He told her. “I was told to set
up the site to make it look like something crashed and to lead you back here.
After that it was up to us to take you out.”
       Rora groaned in frustration and stormed off. If
there was no computer core than they had been led all the way out here just to
be killed. The core was merely a lure. But how could the U.S.T.G. have known
that the core would be of interest to them or to even think to use that as the
lure? That seemed highly unlikely to Derek, there must be some element of truth
to the story to make it believable.
       “How could you be sure we would show up?” Derek
asked Zona.
       “The spooks said you wouldn’t miss a chance to get
your hands on the core.” He explained.
       Derek nodded and stood up. “Good luck. Next time
follow Rule #29, don’t start a fight you can’t win.”
       He waved the medic over as he walked away. He could
hear Zona laughing softly behind him, followed by cursing as the medic began
stitching the wound without any anesthesia. Derek put that aside to consider
what the bounty hunter had told him. The bounty was ridiculous enough to entice
every lowlife with a gun or a knife to come after him, but they hadn’t made it
public. It sounded like they had only given the notice to a select group of
killers. They wanted it done, but they wanted it done