Her tone of voice flat, Brigid responded, “Shuma threw himself over that weird little man. Edwards and Brady have been shooting into the crowd, keeping anybody from getting too close to Grant. I haven’t seen Domi, but I know she was the one who—” Brigid broke off, then said crisply, “Stand by.”

  “Baptiste—” “It’s your turn to stand by.”

  THE GRENADE ROLLED ONLY a few feet before detonating with a brutal thunderclap. A hell-flower bloomed, petals of flame curving and spreading outward. Spewing from the end of every petal was a rain of shrapnel, ripping into bodies and the facades of buildings.

  Fragments rattled violently against the half-fallen wall behind which Domi had taken cover. The explosion was followed by the shattering of glass and several keening screams. Domi caught glimpses of men staggering backward with their hands clapped over their ruined faces. Other people stared in wide-eyed shock, frozen in horror.

  Two rifle shots, sounding like the snap of dry twigs, cut through the echoes of the detonation. A pair of men standing on opposite sides of the street fell thrashing to the ground, their heads misshapen by the high-powered bullets. Domi knew the bullets had been fired by Brady and Edwards. The crowd ran in a howling, panicky rush that bowled people off their feet and trampled more than a few of them. Domi stayed behind the wall until the main mass of the crowd had passed. She resheathed her knife then rose to her feet. She lunged back in the direction she had come, plunging through the smoke. As she ducked beneath an outstretched arm, she drew her Combat Master, appreciating the feel of the checkered walnut grip against the palm of her right hand.

  A Roamer, blood streaming from a shrapnel-inflicted gash on his cheek, jumped in her path, his discolored teeth bared in a snarl of rage. With neat precision, she clubbed him across the mouth with the barrel of her autopistol. He reeled away, spitting scarlet and crumbs of his shattered teeth. As Domi stepped around him, she saw a dark-complexioned man wearing a yellow turban racing toward Grant with a three-foot-long sword held over his head, readying himself to deliver a decapitating blow. Because of the roar of the crowd, she couldn’t hear what he said, even though his lips worked as if he was shrieking a stream of imprecations. Moving on impulse, almost without thought, Domi leveled her autopistol and swiftly brought the turbaned man into target acquisition. Twenty yards was long range for the handgun, especially aiming at a moving target, but she had made far more difficult shots. When the sword-wielding figure was framed within the weapon’s sights, she adjusted for elevation and windage, then she squeezed the trigger two times.

  The big automatic pistol bucked in her hands, sending out booming shock waves of ear shattering sound. The first .45-caliber bullet hit the man directly in the center of his turban and the other struck his neck. He catapulted backward amid a spouting of blood. The people around him scattered at the sound of the shots, running in all directions. Because the majority of the crowd was composed of hard-bitten, violence-prone Roamers, they didn’t indulge in a panic-stricken flight. They took cover either in the ruins or they dropped flat to the street, eyes and guns seeking targets. Domi glimpsed the huge dark bulk of Shuma hustling away from the Cadillac, a limp shape cradled protectively in his arms. She guessed the scalie was ferrying his small companion away to safety, but she couldn’t understand why he would care. She didn’t devote any further thought to the matter. She kept her gaze fixed on Grant as he strained against the bonds that held him to the hood of the vehicle. Wisps of steam from the punctured radiator still curled around him, like an early-morning fog. Through a part in the vapors, Domi a saw a scar-faced woman with a bizarre purple-tinged Mohawk haircut shouldering her way through the press of bodies, using the stock of a Stoner machine gun to hammer a path. Her narrowed eyes were turned toward Grant.

  Domi came to a halt and sighted down the length of her pistol, aiming at a spot between the woman’s exposed, tattooed breasts. Too late she sensed a rushing body behind her. Arms encircled her in an agonizingly tight grip, lifting her from the ground. She smelled stale sweat and hot, rancid breath washed over her cheek. As she tried to bring up her pistol, the arms tightened around her in a crushing embrace, pumping all the air from her lungs. Gasping, she kicked backward, the edge of her boot heel striking his shin. Her next tactic was to butt the man with the back of her head. This move was marginally more effective because he swore in pain, but the pressure of his pinioning arms increased, closing like the jaws of a vise. Through blurry eyes, Domi saw the bare-breasted woman raising her Stoner, resting the stock against her hip, the hollow bore staring at her like a cyclopean eye. Domi struggled wildly. A short tongue of flame lipped from the muzzle. The sound of the single shot was like a muffled handclap. Domi squeezed her eyes shut. She felt the man holding her jerk violently as if he received a blow. His grip loosened and his arms fell away altogether. Domi stumbled when the man dropped, but she saw the neat red-rimmed hole in the middle of his forehead and the far-from-neat cavity in the rear of his skull. She threw the Mohawked woman an uncomprehending stare. She smiled at Domi in amusement, inclined her head in a nod and gestured with her autorifle toward Grant. “He’s all yours, sweetheart!” she called. Then she turned and merged into the bustling crowd. Breathing hard, Domi reached Grant, drawing her knife. He turned his head toward her and demanded, “What kind of rescue plan is this—to parboil my ass?” As the edge of the blade sliced through the ropes encircling his right wrist, she answered, “The Kane kind.” Grant gusted out a weary sigh. “Why did I even have to ask.” Domi couldn’t help but grin as she cut the big man free. Although he looked bruised and battered, the fact that he could complain and criticize meant he wasn’t hurt too severely. As Grant pushed himself off the hood of the Cadillac and stood massaging his wrists, Brigid Baptiste pounded up, holding her TP-9 in a two-fisted grip. Her green eyes glinted, bright with worry. “Are you all right?” she asked, looking Grant up and down and wincing slightly at the abrasions and contusions on his face. “Do you need medical treatment?” He shook his head. “Later, maybe.” Brigid turned toward Domi. “We lost contact with you and almost scrubbed the op.” Gingerly, the girl touched the Commtact behind her ear and when she withdrew her hand, her fingertips glistened with wet crimson. “Took a wallop there,” she said with a wry smile. “Mashed it up pretty good but probably kept me from a broken head.” She glanced toward the nearby buildings rising from the skyline. “Where’s Kane and everybody else at?” “I just spoke to him,” Brigid said. “He, Edwards and Brady are on their way to us. Once we rendezvous, let’s get to the jump chamber and gate back to Cerberus.” She paused and smiled without humor. “I’ve pretty much had my fill of New York, New York.”

  Grant matched her humorless smile. “Yeah, it’s a hell of a town. But we can’t leave it right now.” A voice from behind them asked, “Why the hell not?” They turned as Kane jogged up. His dark hair was white with plaster dust, his face and clothes coated with a pale film. With every footfall, little clouds of dust puffed up around him. “What happened to you?” Brigid asked sarcastically. “Too much standing by?” Kane threw her a fake sweet smile. “Lucky guess.” “Why didn’t you just shoot Shuma?” Grant asked impatiently. Kane regarded him with wide-eyed innocence. “And I’m so happy to see you, too.” Grant scowled. “Thanks for saving my life, okay? Now tell me why you saved it the way you did.” Kane opened his mouth to reply, then closed it and shook his head. “I’m not really sure. I had him in my sights, but then I got the feeling he wasn’t the real brains behind this whole SOB deal. I also got the feeling that if I blew his brains out in front of this crowd of scum, I’d be making a martyr, not ending a threat.”

  He paused and added nonchalantly, “Not to mention that every Roamer in the vicinity would’ve tried to carve the best pieces off you in retaliation.” Grant stared at him levelly. “I’m impressed. That actually makes sense, unlike most of your make-shit-up-as-we-go-along plans.” Kane nodded in mock humility, then stiffened when the snare-drum rattle of automatic gunfire and screams rose from behind the ruins. “If nothing else, I think we jump-started some old Roamer clan feuds.” Domi snorted. “What else is new?” Grant, Kane and Brigid understood her oblique reference. It often seemed that wherever the Cerberus team went, violence and death were only moments away. It was rarely planned that way, but terrible and bloody events always happened and the body count soared. Brigid had once opined that they were avatars, catalysts, triggering eruptions and explosions of savagery that had simmered at a low boil for a long time “If Shuma isn’t the guiding intelligence behind the SOB,” Brigid broke in irritably, “then who is?” “Little big head man,” Domi piped up promptly. “Right?”

  Grant threw her a fleeting, appreciative smile. “You don’t know how right. You say Edwards and Brady are with you?” “Yeah,” Kane replied. “They’ll be along. Did you find Wright?” The smile fled Grant’s lips. “I did, I’m sorry to say. Let’s go get her.”

  Chapter 7

  Shuma’s headquarters were situated between a pair of overgrown knolls on the far side of Central Park. Rather than expend time and effort on stealth, the Cerberus warriors opted to proceed the Magistrate way—head-on and determined to shoot, stab and slug their way through any obstacles. Brady and Edwards walked flanking point, wielding their OICW rifles and glowering at everyone who glanced in their direction. Both ex-Magistrates, the two men were of a type. The shaved-headed Edwards stood over six feet tall, very broad of build with overdeveloped triceps, biceps and deltoids. Brady was equally bulked up, but slightly shorter. His blond hair was little more than bristles covering his scalp. He and Edwards were dressed similarly in black T-shirts, green-striped camo pants and high-laced jump boots. In addition to their rifles, the two men carried H&K VP-70 autopistols in belly holsters. Kane, Grant, Domi and Brigid marched purposefully side by side through the nearly deserted camp of the Survivalist Outland Brigade. All four people knew walking in such a fashion was tactically unwise, but they also knew by doing so they were making a theatrical, defiant statement to any Roamers or Farers they might meet.

  Anyone who lived near any of the baronies had heard tales of Kane and Grant, the two rogue Magistrates who had continually escaped and outwitted all the traps laid for them by various barons of different villes. No two men over the past two hundred years had reputations to equal theirs, even if it was an open question of just how many of the stories were based in truth and how many of them were overblown fable. For their part, Kane and Grant found that blurring the lines of demarcation between legend and fact had proved very useful on occasion. They were credited with killing Baron Ragnar in his own bed, and although no one knew how they had managed it, they were also held responsible for the fall of the villes and disappearance of the barons. The four of them strode through the camp grimfaced and single-minded and weren’t confronted. The few people they encountered either scuttled behind trees or sank to the ground, as if hoping they would be mistaken for lumps in the terrain. Some of them were so dirty, they blended in almost perfectly. “Doesn’t look like anybody is inclined to interfere with us,” Brigid noted softly. “We’re pretty scary when we want to be,” Domi replied in a side-mouthed whisper, her pistol hanging from her right hand. “Sometimes even when we don’t want to be.” Grant found it difficult to maintain an implacable facade, since he walked in his bare feet and occasionally stepped on a sharp object. When he hopped on one foot and swore under his breath, Kane tried hard to keep from smiling. The majority of the people who had made up the SOB had already packed up their belongings and departed from the sprawling camp. Unlike the Roamers, the Farer element of the SOB wasn’t enthusiastic about participating in clan feuds. The Farers were too fixated on mere survival to engage in random and gratuitous acts of violence. More sounds of strife reached them—gunfire, screams and a loud female voice shouting orders.

  “Good thing the Merry Widow didn’t hold a grudge,” Brigid remarked.

  “Too soon to say about a Roamer,” Domi stated contemptuously. “Most of ’em only came here for the chance of free food or findin’ underage slaves. They were already primed to start slaughterin’ one another.”

  Kane nodded in agreement. “Grant’s parade was just a diversion. This whole enterprise would’ve fallen apart anyway. It wasn’t worth the life of Wright.” He cast Grant a penetrating glance. “I’d say we did what we set out to do. The Survivalist Outland Brigade has disbanded.”

  Grant scowled. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d met Esau. If we don’t stop him here, he’ll start up someplace else.” “He’s just one more mind-mutie with an attitude,” Kane argued. “We’ve dealt with his type before.” “He’s a mind-mutie with an attitude who knows a whole hell of a lot about us, about Cerberus, about our tech and our defenses. That makes him damned dangerous.” “The more he knows about us,” Brigid pointed out, “then the less he would want us to pay any attention to him.”

  Grant pursed his lips, considering her words, then shook his head. “No. There’s something about that little son of a bitch. He’s powerful, he’s ambitious and he’s flat-out evil.”

  Kane regarded him with surprise, since Grant very rarely spoke in moral absolutes. The fact that he done so meant Esau had shaken him profoundly, to his emotional core. Although he looked too huge and solid to have many abilities beyond sheer strength, Grant was an exceptionally intelligent and talented man. Behind the man’s fierce, deep-set eyes, down-sweeping mustache, granite jaw and broken nose lay a mind rich with tactics, strategies and painful experience. By the time they sighted the building that served as the SOB headquarters, night had fallen. They gazed silently at the structure, noting it was far larger than any of the huts, long and rambling, with a covered veranda running its entire length. “I think this place used to be a restaurant. A pretty famous one, too,” Brigid said softly. Kane grunted disinterestedly and with hand gestures indicated that Brady and Edwards were to take up positions on either side of the main entrance. When the two men were in place, Kane waited and listened. The trees in the vicinity swayed a little in the slow breeze. The underbrush rustled. The far-off shrieking of humans in pain or in anger reached his ears. He stepped forward and whispered, “I’m going in first.” Neither Grant, Domi nor Brigid objected. Kane always assumed the position of point man. It was a habit he had acquired during his years as a Magistrate and he saw no reason to abandon it. His three team mates had the utmost faith in Kane’s instincts. During his Mag days, because of his uncanny ability to sniff out approaching danger, he was always chosen to act as the advance scout. When he walked point, Kane felt electrically alive, sharply tuned to every nuance of his surroundings and what he was doing. When he reached the steps leading up to the veranda, he fell into a crouch, stiffening his right wrist tendons. Sensitive actuators clicked and with a faint, brief drone of a tiny electric motor, the butt of his Sin Eater slapped into his hand. The official sidearm of the defunct Magistrate divisions, the 9 mm autopistol had no safety or trigger guard, so when the firing stud came in contact with a crooked index finger, it fired immediately. However, Kane kept his finger extended and out of contact with the trigger stud. Through his Commtact, he subvocalized, “I’m going in. Keep alert.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brady said.

  “Got it, Commander,” Edwards said.

  Creeping up the sagging steps, he entered the open door of the building. By the amber beam of his Nighthawk flashlight strapped around his right wrist, he saw a big open space full of rickety-looking chairs and tables. The cloying stench of human sweat, marijuana and an untended latrine clung to the air. Back pressed against the wall just inside the door, he waited, casting the flashlight around, straining to hear even a hint of sound or catch even a flicker of movement. When he saw and heard nothing, he whispered, “Brady, Edwards—move on in. Baptiste—you, Domi and Grant can come up, too. I think this place is deserted.” As Edwards and Brady entered, Kane moved deeper into the room. He found a flare-topped kerosene lantern on one of the tables. The fuel well was full, so he lit the wick with a simple flint-and-steel lighter he carried. The two ex-Mags carefully scanned the area, walking heel to toe. The pale yellow radiance showed very little except rough-hewed furniture and a very dirty floor. He saw a table holding Grant’s clothing and his boots. When Brigid, Domi and Grant came in, he pointed out the items. Uttering a grunt of triumph, Grant sat on a stool and pulled on his boots. As he quickly laced them up, Edwards returned and said, “Nobody is here. They cleared out with the rest of the scum.” “They didn’t take Wright with them. Look at the far end of the room,” Grant said flatly. Brady and Edwards moved in the direction he indicated, sidling among the tables. They used their Night-hawks to illuminate their way. The amber glow cast a sickly illumination on the maimed body of the woman, still dangling from the meat hooks. Reflexively, Brigid put a hand to her mouth, but she didn’t turn away and neither did Domi. Both of them had witnessed any number of atrocities over the years, and although they weren’t inured to them, they no longer overtly reacted with horror to the sight. Placing the lamp on a table and stepping closer to her body, Kane growled between clenched teeth, “Why the fuck would he do that to her?”

 

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