Cade 2

by Neil Hunter

  The helicopter edged in his direction and settled to the ground, and the muzzle of the 30 mm cannon arced around to cover him. A dark-clad figure moved up beside the gunner. Cade recognized him.

  It was the man he’d seen talking to Barney Culver in the warehouse.

  The man who had arranged Culver’s death.

  The mere called Tane.

  “Just put the gun down, Marshal Cade. You don’t stand a chance.”

  Cade eyed the encircling gunmen. He tossed his gun to the ground.

  “Get on board,” Tane said.

  Cade climbed in through the open hatch under Tane’s watchful eye and gun.

  One of the gunmen called to Tane. “What about the cybo?”

  “You deal with it,” Tane said. To the chopper pilot he said, “Get us out of here.”

  The chopper climbed, then swung around and headed in the general direction of New York.

  “Great,” said the merc who had asked the question about Janek. “We get to dump the tin man.”

  He glanced at his two partners.

  “How do you dump a cyborg?”

  One of them shrugged, eyeing Janek’s motionless form.

  “Unscrew his arms and legs?”

  “Grab hold and let’s get him in the trunk of the car before we get sightseers.”

  The trio slung their auto-weapons over their shoulders, then bent over Janek, reaching for his limbs.

  The cybo burst into movement without warning.

  His right arm swept up and around, the edge of his hand crunching against the closest nose, crushing the bone and snapping the man’s head back. He fell over backward, clapping his hands to his bloody face.

  Janek’s left hand closed over the second mere’s wrist as he rose to his feet. The mere tried to break free, but Janek’s grip was unrelenting. Janek turned the arm against the joint, lifting and raising the moaning man up on his toes. He curled his right arm around the neck, pulled him close and twisted. The neck snapped with a brittle sound, and the mere became a dead weight in the cyborg’s arm. Janek let him fall as he turned to meet the remaining mere.

  This one had managed to free his auto weapon. He made a desperate attempt to level it at Janek, but the cyborg slapped it aside with an easy punch. The man panicked, his finger jerking back on the trigger. The sound of the firing weapon was the last thing he heard before Janek stepped in close and snapped his neck with a savage twist of his hands.

  Janek turned to the first mere he’d hit. The man was crawling about on hands and knees, moaning in agony. Blood dribbled in glistening strings from his nose and mouth. Bending over, Janek hauled him to this feet. As he pulled the man upright, the mere lashed out with his right fist. The blow struck Janek across the jaw. He didn’t even flinch but just stared at the mere.

  “Wasting your time. It would be wiser if you answered some questions.”

  “No way,” the mere spit through bloody lips. He dropped a hand to the small of his back and yanked a hideaway gun from a concealed holster. He jammed the barrel up at Janek’s face, his fingers easing back on the trigger.

  “Awkward son of a bitch,” Janek said.

  His fingers clamped around the barrel of the hideaway, twisting it savagely. The mere howled in pain as two of his fingers were broken in the process.

  “We could do this all day,” Janek said. “Make it easy on yourself.”

  The mere relaxed, apparently accepting his position. Janek let him have a little slack.

  Without warning, the mere dropped to his knees, scooping up one of the SMGs dropped by his dead companions. His finger curled around the trigger, and he angled the weapon up at Janek’s towering form. The auto-weapon crackled loudly, but the volley of slugs struck empty air.

  Janek had gone to ground in a long, low dive, his fingers reaching for the SPAS. He caught hold of the combat shotgun and pulled it to him as he rolled, turning his body in toward the cursing mere. This time the cyborg didn’t hesitate. He triggered twice, blowing sizable holes through his opponent’s upper body. The mere gave a stunned grunt, flopping back, his arms flung wide in death.

  As the echo of the shots died away, Janek lay staring at the dead mere. He shook his head, angry at his over-reaction. He should have applied his inbuilt logic and gone for a wounding shot, rather than blowing the mere away. Killing the mere had erased any chance of finding out where Cade had been taken. Janek stood up, lost for the moment. He was inwardly cursing his stupidity. He knew that this wasn’t supposed to happen to him. He was supposed to act rationally, but somehow he’d allowed his feelings to affect his actions. Because of that, he had lost a possible source of information.

  Janek headed back to the highway. There was a black Dodge Laser-Six parked just behind the wrecked cruiser. He climbed in and fired the powerful engine. He knocked it into gear and took off with a screech of tires.

  He needed to get back to the city and his computer. The disk in his pocket might hold information that could lead him to the place where Cade was being taken. It was a long shot, but it was all Janek had now.

  When he emerged from the Midtown tunnel, he abruptly pulled the car over and brought it to a stop by the sidewalk. He climbed out, went to a pay phone and called the department. He wasn’t sure what had prompted him.

  Braddock’s face swam into view on the vid-screen.

  “Don’t talk, just listen,” Braddock said. “I’ve been hanging around waiting for one of you to call. All kinds of stuff is going down here. I’ve even had Police Chief Norris ordering you off. Now I don’t know what you and Cade have dug up, but there’s been some kind of panic. Just stay low for a while, okay? Do what you have to but stay loose. Don’t come near the department. I’ll cover for you guys the best I can, Janek.”

  The line went dead. Janek stared at the screen. He was glad he’d called in before showing himself. It must have been intuition, as Cade called it—a feeling that warned of possible danger. Janek was curious about how he, a cyborg, had developed such a sense. When he had the time, he would sit down and analyze it.

  Right now he had to stay out of sight as much as possible. But he needed a safe base, someplace where he could take a look at the computer disk they had found in Culver’s safe-deposit box. He returned to the car and on impulse drove across town to Kate Bannion’s apartment block. He didn’t know if she would be in or not. He parked in the basement and left the Dodge in a dark corner.

  As he crossed the parking area, he spotted Kate’s car in its usual slot. He took the elevator to her floor. He checked the corridor before he walked to her door and pressed the buzzer on the door-vid.

  “Janek,” he said.

  Kate opened up and let him in, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Where’s T. J.?”

  Janek filled her in on recent events, bringing her up to date with his call to Braddock.

  “What have you guys uncovered?”

  Janek’s lopsided shrug gave her the answer. “I need to access your computer, Kate,” he said.

  She gave a wry grin. “That’s a new way of saying it,” she murmured.

  Janek’s puzzled expression made her smile even more. “Forget it, Janek.” She indicated the computer on the desk at one end of the room. “Help yourself.”

  Janek switched on and slid the disk into the drive. He watched the screen intently, nodding to himself as text appeared.

  “Is it what you expected?” Kate asked, peering over Janek’s shoulder.

  “Give me a minute and I’ll be able to tell you.”

  Janek scrolled through the information on the monitor. The text consisted mainly of names, and in addition, what looked to be a number of locations.

  “Placid Base?” Kate read. “Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s a military establishment,” Janek said. “At least it’s tying in with the other military references we’ve been picking up.”

  “Munro. Poole. Both colonels, one Army, the other Air Force?” Janek said, “And
there’s a familiar name. Lukas Tane. That’s the name of the guy T. J. heard talking to Culver at the warehouse.”

  “You could run a check on the names,” Kate suggested.

  “I would never have thought of doing that,” the cyborg remarked sarcastically.

  Kate punched him on the shoulder. “Watch it, smartass.”

  “Recognize those names?” Janek asked.

  Kate stared at the screen.

  “Yes. The three dead Amosin employees.”

  “No wonder Culver panicked when George Takagi dug them out of the data bank.”

  “He already knew the background.”

  “Exactly.”

  At the end of the text was a single, incomplete sentence, underlined for emphasis: “August 18: Skylance.”

  “That’s the day after tomorrow,” Kate said. “And what is Skylance?”

  Janek cleared the screen and began to tap in the access code that would link him with the computer in his office at the department. The moment the confirmation code blinked on the monitor, he gave the command for the computer to transmit the information he’d been gathering.

  “Before we left the office, I set the computer on a deep search. T. J. wanted information on the combat droids that killed Takagi. I had to break into ComNet, the military computer system. Highly illegal, but you know how it is when T. J. gets on a roll.”

  He sat and watched the screen text. It flashed and changed, scrolling long code lists before it settled and Janek’s own code reference indicated that his questions were about to be answered.

  “The ID numbers I got from the combat droids indicate they are listed as surplus items, taken out of commission over three years ago. They’re supposed to be in a reserve storage facility at the Amosin Corporation’s robotics division. No indication that the storage has been canceled.”

  “So they were being used illegally,” Kate said.

  Janek fed in the most recent information he’d gathered. The data banks came up with the answers within a couple of minutes.

  The weapons found in the warehouse should have been stored in an armory upstate. According to the computer, they were still there.

  “Someone is building himself quite an arsenal,” Janek murmured as he studied the text on the screen. “Let’s see what we can find out about our two colonels and friend Tane.”

  Colonel Clayton Munro and Colonel Edwin Poole were both senior officers in U.S. High Command, Eastern Division. Their ranks gave them wide-ranging power and influence. The list of credentials on their service records were impressive. Both men were lifers who had earned their positions through long service and by distinguishing themselves as good soldiers.

  Lukas Tane was an ex-soldier. He’d served in Special Forces in most of the world’s trouble spots. He had left the Army two years previously. During his service, he had operated in a special unit run by Clayton Munro. After leaving the Army, Tane had formed his own mercenary unit, consisting of himself and ex-members of his Special Forces unit.

  Finally Janek asked about Skylance.

  Skylance: Orbiting weapons satellite platform. Integrated laser and missile systems. Under the control of U.S. Military Command. Manned by permanent complement of six-man crew plus six androids. Skylance’s potential as a defensive weapon is difficult to qualify due to the destructive enormity of the armaments it possesses. A conservative estimate allows for the possibility of Skylance being capable of laying down a threat to any nation on Earth and carrying that threat through. Skylance is protected by the most sophisticated defense system in operation. Hunter-killer satellites ring Skylance and are capable of detecting and destroying any attack, whether it comes from earth or even space itself...

  Janek canceled the text and leaned back in his seat. He glanced at Kate. “Now we know what Skylance is,” he said.

  “Oh boy,” she breathed. “But what the hell has all this to do with three dead Amosin employees and all the other stuff that’s been going on?”

  “I can only think of one word,” Janek said. “Conspiracy.”

  “Against what? And who?”

  Janek raised his hands. “Take your pick. A potential enemy. The U.S. government. Maybe a military coup.”

  Kate began to pace the room, her eyes searching the walls as if she expected the answer to come leaping out at her. She ran a hand through her red hair in frustration.

  “This is crazy, Janek. What can we do?”

  “We?”

  “Yes, dammit. If you think I’m sitting at home like the little woman, then you’re in for a hell of a shock. T. J. is out there somewhere. He could be hurt or worse, and he’ll need our help. I won’t sit by and desert him. So get used to the idea—partner.”

  Janek smiled. One thing he had picked up from Cade was to accept that it was useless to argue when a woman made up her mind. It was no good fighting it.

  “Something I almost forgot,” he said, and faced the computer again. He keyed in a request for information on Placid Base.

  The answer came slowly, the computer having to search deep and hard.

  “Placid Base,” Janek read. “Decommissioned six years ago and abandoned by the military. It was a training camp for Special Forces. Located near Lake Placid in the Adirondack Mountains. That area took some heavy hits during the chem war. It became uninhabitable. The military even pulled out eventually due to the breakdown of the area and the fact that it became a haven for mutants.”

  “If we do have some kind of conspiracy,” Kate said, “there’d be a need for a base. Somewhere for them to operate out of. I can’t think of a better place—right out in the badlands, no one around for miles.”

  “Except the mutants,” Janek told her.

  Kate shuddered. “Don’t remind me.”

  “Having second thoughts about joining the team?”

  Kate waved a finger under his nose. “No, you don’t, Janek. I’m not quitting, so don’t try and scare me off.”

  “Would I?”

  “You work with T. J. Cade, don’t you?”

  Janek nodded.

  “I rest my case.”

  Switching off the computer, Janek ejected the disk and slipped it into his pocket. Even if the disk was taken from him, he wouldn’t lose the information. The cyborg had committed it all to his own memory banks.

  “So where are we going?” Kate asked.

  “We’ll start with Placid Base. First I need to get my hands on some weapons. No point going in empty-handed.”

  “Give me a couple of minutes to get changed,” Kate said.

  Janek picked up the phone and punched in a number. He watched the vid-screen fuzz into life. A lean, hard-eyed face appeared.

  “Eddie,” Janek said in greeting.

  “Hey, Janek, it’s been a long time.”

  “I need a favor, Eddie. How soon can you open the store?”

  Eddie Culchek stared at the cybo. “You serious?”

  “I don’t have time for joking right now, Eddie.”

  “Okay, pal, come around.”

  “My credit good, Eddie?”

  Eddie grinned nervously. “Sure, Janek. You and T. J. always did right by me. I owe you guys.”

  “I’ll be there,” Janek said, and broke the connection.

  Kate emerged from the bedroom. She had changed into a one-piece jumpsuit and lace-up boots.

  “Ready when you are,” she said.

  Janek ignored her, and he looked toward the door intently. “Janek?” Kate asked. “What—?”

  There was a heavy crash of sound, and the apartment door blew inward across the room. Janek reached out to grab Kate, pulling her tight against him to shield her from flying debris.

  The rush of heavy footsteps filled the room.

  Janek shoved Kate behind him and turned, his hand snaking the auto-pistol from its holster.

  He saw three armed figures crowding into the room. They wore dark combat suits and carried auto-rifles.

  Two were droids. Janek recognized the hard, angula
r features the instant he tracked in with the pistol. He triggered a pair of shots that cored through the lead droid’s left eye into the brain. The droid swung around, out of control, its auto-rifle blasting shots into the ceiling.

  Janek had changed position. He heard the angry rattle of the auto-rifles, heard the explosion of sound as the computer erupted. He hit the floor and rolled, feeling slivers of wood strike his legs. As he gathered his feet under him, Janek saw the second combat droid closing in. The Justice cop swept his gun around, firing quickly. The slug hit the droid’s arm, jerking it off balance. The rifle sagged for a second, giving Janek the opportunity to lash out with his right foot. The blow caught the droid on the left hip, and it stumbled under the impact. Janek powered to his feet, reached the droid in a single stride and, before the droid could react, Janek caught hold and lifted it off the floor. He swung around, hurling the droid bodily across the room. The moving body collided with the third member of the strike team, the mere in charge. They went down in a struggling heap, the droid rolling free. But now Janek was following up, closing in fast. He jammed his left foot across the mere’s neck, twisting it sharply. The neck snapped with a grinding crunch. He twitched violently, then lay still. In the same movement Janek grabbed the rising droid by the neck and shoulder, swung it around and shoved it through the apartment window. The eruption of glass was followed by the droid’s twisting form as it vanished from sight to hurtle to the street below.

  “Come on, Kate. Let’s go,” Janek said.

  He caught hold of her hand, pulling her with him out the damaged door and along the passage to the elevator, ignoring her protests about her apartment.

  Janek led the way down to the basement. He made Kate wait by the elevator while he checked the area, then took her to the Dodge. He pushed her into the passenger seat. Firing up the motor, he rolled out of the garage and swung onto the street. He gunned the motor, heading for the intersection at the front of the building. They had almost reached it when a lurching figure burst from the shadows and planted itself in their path.

  Kate gave a startled yell as she recognized the battered figure of the combat droid Janek had thrown from her window.