by Mark Ellis
He crept to the side of a large wooden packing crate. His eyes settled on a door on the far side of the place. Swiftly, soundlessly he moved through the jumbled maze of boxes. Then the door opened and somebody came out.
What saved Grant from immediate detection was that the man who emerged paused at the threshold to exchange a few words with someone behind him. Grant dropped to his knees behind a stack of cardboard cartons. He stared hard at the tall, spare figure in the doorway. Even in the uncertain light, he saw the resemblance to Dos, and he also saw the mini-Uzi dangling from a strap around his neck.
Uno closed the door behind him, glanced around, and then walked purposefully across the warehouse, straight for Grant’s position. Grant didn’t want to draw the Sin Eater until the last possible second because the spring-powered cable made a distinctive click.
Uno came on until he was a bare ten feet away. Abruptly he turned aside. His back to Grant, he strode quickly to the pyramid of crates and boxes. Grant watched him carefully.
Uno spread his arms wide, fitting his hands around several containers at the base of the pyramid. He grunted with exertion, and the boxes of the lower tier all lifted away in one piece, attached to one another by glue or some other adhesive.
With the ease of familiarity with the procedure, Uno removed one entire side of the pyramid. Grant crept forward a few feet for a closer look. Inside the shell of containers was a low-slung, treaded vehicle. It bore a likeness to the Sandcats, rough-terrain vehicles stored in the armoury, but though its contours were similar, it looked far older. The front, sides and rear were sheathed by rust-stained armour plates. The windshield glass was streaked with dust and cracked in places.
Grant wasn’t terribly surprised. Some outrunners, particularly the roamers, travelled around in retooled preNuke vehicles. He had seen some of the junkers—rattletrap trucks, tractors and jeeps.
As Pit boss, Guana Teague could have smuggled the Sandcat into the barony in pieces and assembled it here, for the eventuality he ever needed to beat a hasty exit. Teague evidently felt the need now.
Uno opened the driver’s door, and the poorly oiled hinges screeched. He leaned inside, fiddling with the instrument panel. Behind him, Grant left the shadows in long strides, moving silently on the balls of his feet. He snatched the leather strap of the autoblaster around the strong-arm’s neck and yanked.
Grabbing at empty air, Uno fell backward, right onto Grant’s out-thrust knee. He clawed first for the Uzi, but it was beyond his reach, then he clawed at the strap cinched tight around his throat. The only sound he uttered was a gasping grunt.
Grant kept the pressure on Uno’s carotid artery until the man’s struggles weakened and finally ceased. He eased him down to the damp floor and dragged him to the rear of the pyramid. He quickly detached the strap from the blaster, and by looping and knotting it expertly, he hog-tied the man in a matter of seconds.
Patting him down quickly, he found no other weapons. Uno moaned faintly. Cutting off a man’s oxygen and the flow of blood to the brain was usually good for five minutes of unconsciousness. Tucking the mini-Uzi into a coat pocket, Grant returned to the door.
Pressing his ear to the wood, he heard voices. The words were unintelligible, but he picked out a man’s grumbling tones and a young woman’s softer but petulant-sounding response. The doorknob rattled, turned from the inside.
He tensed his wrist tendons and the Sin Eater slid into his hand. Setting himself, he raised his right leg and kicked the door. It flew open, the edge clipping Guana Teague and slapping him sideways. He slammed into the wall, bounced off and fell heavily. The entire warehouse seemed to shake with the impact of three-hundred-plus pounds hitting the floor.
Leaping through the doorway, Grant roared, “Freeze!”
The bore of the Sin Eater covered both people in the bare-walled room. Teague remained on the floor, goggle-eyed and gape mouthed with shock. He looked uglier and fatter than Grant remembered. He wore a sleeveless shirt that exposed his greenish, flabby arms.
The girl was the same albino whom they had pursued into the ambush. Grant looked hard at her, from her untidy white hair bound by a colourful scarf, her piquant face and shapely arrangement of curves beneath a tight T-shirt and very short, very red shorts. A pair of bulging duffel bags lay on the floor, one near where the Pit boss had fallen.
“Taking a trip?” Grant demanded. “Let’s see your travel permit.”
A torrent of slack-mouthed words spilled from Teague’s lips. Grant couldn’t understand much of what he said, except for repeated pleas for a Magistrate’s mercy.
“Shut up,” Grant snarled. He strode over to Teague, who cringed away, scooting on the seat of his baggy pants until his back was pressed against the whitewashed wall. Grant went to one knee beside him and planted the bore of the weapon against his forehead.
“I’m going to ask you a few questions,” said Grant quietly. “If you don’t answer them, if I think you’re lying or if I simply don’t like your attitude, I’ll blow your head off. You understand?”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Teague nodded several times; “Yes. Yes.”
“You tried to have me killed.”
The Pit boss swallowed with difficulty. His voice was a harsh rasp. “Yes.”
“Someone hired you.”
He hesitated, and Grant dug the bore into his forehead. “No. Yes. I mean—oh, hell, I don’t know!”
The girl raised her hand, as if she were in a classroom. “I know, I know!”
Grant glared at her. “What’s your name?”
“Domi.”
“You’re Guana’s piece?”
Her face contorted in a mask of scorn and intense loathing. “He forced me. Held me prisoner.”
“Right,” said Grant dryly. “All right, Domi, what do you know?”
“I show you.” She turned and moved toward the wall behind her.
“Freeze, goddamn it!”
Domi froze in mid step. “Have to show.”
“Domi,” groaned Teague. “Don’t.”
“Show what?” Grant asked.
The girl met his level stare unblinkingly. “A comm. Hidden in wall.”
“Show me, then,” Grant replied. “Do it slow, hear me?”
Domi nodded, stepped carefully to the wall, ran her hands over the surface and swung open a square panel. Slowly she picked up an object from the recess and turned, holding it in both hands.
“A trans-comm,” said Grant. “Standard Mag issue. Where’d you get it, Guana?”
“From a Mag.”
Grant smacked the side of his head with the barrel of the Sin Eater, not hard enough to cause serious injury, but hard enough to cause serious pain. “The truth, you sack of blistered hog fat!”
Guana clapped a hand to his head. Tears welled in his tiny, flesh-choked eyes. “I swear! A Mag gave it to me!”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I swear! He was in armour. He just handed it to me.”
“When?”
“Years ago. I swear! It’s an arrangement kind of thing. Every once in a while, I’ll get a call on it, and I’m told to arrange things.”
“And somebody called you on a Mag trans-comm and told you to arrange my murder?” Grant snarled out the question.
“I swear! Hell, I’m sorry, Grant. I got nothin’ against you. It wasn’t personal.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” replied Grant. “I’ve got nothing against you, either, Guana—no more than I have against any other turd bucket that decided to get up and walk around.” He whacked him again with the blaster, this time on the other side of his head. “Why me?”
Voice nasal and snuffling, Guana Teague choked out, “I don’t know. I swear! He told me to kill you and the other Mag—”
“Kane?”
“No, not Kane. This whole thing was about
Kane. The cherry Mag, Boon, if he got in the way. You were supposed to be blown away in front of Kane, really messy. Traumatic, like? You know?”
“No, I don’t. Where’d you get the blasters?”
“Found ’em here one night. About a year ago. I swear.”
“Knock off the swearing. Have you been contacted since the hit went sour?”
Teague nodded miserably, his triple jowls creasing and uncreasing, like an accordion made of suet. “Yeah, about two hours ago, on the trans-comm. Told me I fucked up royal, but he could fix it, do some damage control. Said for me to sit tight, keep low, not to try and split the ville. Said I was still of use to him.”
Eyeing the duffel bags, Grant commented, “You didn’t believe him, I guess.”
Wagging his head, brushing tears from his cheeks, Teague mumbled, “Would you, in my shoes? I admit it I was runnin’ to the Terra Infernus.”
“If a Mag is behind this, they’ll just come after you. With a squadron of Deathbirds and blow your two-ton ass to the coast.”
Gesturing to Domi, Teague said, “She claims to know a way overland into the Mesa Verde hellzone. Figured I could lose any trackers there, then move on. Maybe to one of the Western Islands, or even the Barrens, where there ain’t no barons and no Mags.”
Glancing down at his loose pants, Teague moaned at the sight of the dark stain spread around the crotch. “See what you made me do?”
“You’ll be goddamn lucky if that’s all the bodily fluids you lose today. On your feet.”
The Pit boss slowly lumbered to his feet. He cast a slit-eyed stare at Domi, hissing, “You bleached-out little gaudy slut.”
There was a scuffling and the sound of rushing feet behind Grant. He whirled as Uno, the leather strap dangling from one wrist, bore down on him, a length of nail-studded wood in his hands. His face was a bare-toothed snarl of hurt pride and unthinking, murderous fury.
Grant had to give him credit; not only had he come to sooner than expected, but he’d managed to wriggle free of his bonds in record time. Not that it made any difference. He pointed the Sin Eater and let loose with a 3-round burst. The staccato hammering of the autoblaster filled the warehouse as three holes stitched across Uno’s shirtfront. The multiple impacts slammed him back and down in a twisted tangle.
A tremendous weight slammed into Grant’s back with bone-jarring force, cannonading him out the door. His feet struck the newly made corpse, and he fell on his face, sliding across the flagstone floor.
Gasping, he levered himself onto his back an instant before Guana Teague hurled his body atop his. The wind was literally crushed from his lungs, exploding out of his mouth. He gasped for air as Teague’s hand closed tightly over his right wrist, immobilizing it and keeping the Sin Eater aimed at the ceiling.
The Pit boss not only outweighed him by a minimum of a hundred pounds, but he was far stronger than he looked. He combined over three hundred pounds, strength and years of experience as a Pit fighter with an outpouring of adrenaline-driven energy generated by sheer terror. He tried to gouge Grant’s eyes, and the squeezing pressure of his knees was like an iron band tightening around his rib cage.
With his free hand, Grant clawed for his attacker’s face, but the fat man twisted aside and locked the fingers of his left hand around the Magistrate’s throat, the thumb pressing cruelly into his windpipe
“Domi!” shrieked Teague. “Domi!”
Over the man’s shoulder, Grant saw the girl appear, a very long, razor-edged knife gripped in both of her hands. She held it over her head. Her ruby eyes shone wild and bright with kill-light.
Grant heaved and bucked, struggling to throw Teague’s mammoth bulk aside, if only for a second. But it was like trying to wrestle a mountain. Desperately he flailed with his legs, hoping to kick Domi or her knife before she plunged it into him.
Suddenly, Guana Teague stiffened, head snapping up and back. His eyes widened and bulged, filled with wonder and pain. A liquid gurgling bubbled past his lips, followed immediately by a tendril of bright crimson.
Grant saw Domi withdraw the long blade from Teague’s back. Half of its length glistened with blood. With his head up and back, his squat throat presented a vulnerable target. The knife blade slashed once, very expertly, from behind. The flesh beneath his triple chins opened up in a red-rimmed caricature of a smile. Bright arterial blood cascaded from the wound, drenching Grant as though he were standing beneath a waterfall.
Guana Teague shuddered and collapsed, his spasming bulk falling forward and all but smothering him. Grant cursed in disgust, tearing his wrist free of slack fingers. He heaved and elbowed and thrashed to roll the grotesque corpse off himself.
Domi kicked the mound of flesh again and again, grinning in triumph, tears shining on her cheeks. “Finally got this lizard-dick,” she chanted. “He is big-time got!”
Swiping at the blood on his face with sleeve, Grant climbed unsteadily to his feet. “Enough, Domi. He’s dead. Big-time.”
She stopped kicking, and let the carmined blade dangle from her small fist. When Teague’s legs trembled briefly in a post-mortem spasm, she whipped up the knife. “I do it again!” she cried.
Then she threw herself against Grant, pressing her face to his chest, heedless of the blood. Her slim frame quivered. Automatically, he held the girl, cradling her bandaged head. He felt very weary.
The warehouse reeked with the coppery stench of fresh blood, cordite and body wastes. It looked and smelled like a slaughterhouse. The smells and sights were familiar, but this time something deep inside him recoiled in utter revulsion.
“I suppose you expect me to thank you,” he muttered.
“Yes,” she said in a quavery whisper.
“I guess there’s a first time for everything. Thank you.”
With a shock, he realized he didn’t know what to do next, and that was quite a novelty for him. When he heard the faint voice from the transceiver on his lapel, he felt almost absurdly grateful. Kane would no doubt have a list of suggestions, even if most of them made no damn sense. Even refuting them would be a relief at this point.
Domi lifted her head, blinking in puzzlement at the transceiver button. Her face had been pressed against it, muffling the sound. Grant gently pushed her away and drew the pin mike up to his lips. “I’m here.”
“Good,” said the cold voice. “Stay there until we come for you.” And Salvo cut off the transmission.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BRIGID PACED THE cell, her mind busy battling with her emotions. She knew it was nearing 0800, and she could no longer submit to the relaxation techniques. There was nothing she could do but wait—for the eighth hour. Even with awaited her, she couldn’t keep the thought of Kane out of her head.
You’ll never see him again. He has a new set of priorities now, and you don’t even qualify as a footnote.
She played around with those thoughts, juggling possibilities and examining them from every angle. Either Kane had been arrested and was awaiting trial, or once he had successfully ensnared her, he had moved on to another assignment.
The lock mechanism of the door double-clicked, and it swung open. A Magistrate in full armour stood there, frowning beneath his red-tinted visor. Behind him, Brigid saw another pair of armoured Mags.
The man tossed her a threadbare, faded yellow bodysuit. “Put it on.”
She did so, trying not to think of all the condemned prisoners who may have worn it in the past. Boot socks were attached to the legs of the shapeless garment, and she adjusted the Velcro tabs until they fit her feet snugly.
After zipping the suit up, she permitted herself to be led away, flanked by the two Mag guards. Brigid expected to be marched down the chill, sterile corridor to some sort of courtroom. Instead, she was escorted only a dozen yards down the hall and into a chamber not much larger than her cell.
At least this room
had a piece of furniture, a high-backed sturdy wooden chair with the legs bolted to the floor. The chair faced a small monitor screen. It shimmered a dull gold. Brigid sat down before it, bracing herself against the fear, the devastating hopelessness of the situation.
On the screen, a vague, misty outline took shape, like the head and shoulders of a man hidden behind veils of chiffon and backlit by golden sunlamps. The Mag shut the door behind her. None would see or hear what went on within the chamber; none would ever know the testimony she gave—except Baron Cobalt.
Brigid stiffened, cold sweat springing in icy drops at her hairline. She shuddered to the depths of her soul. Part of her mind knew that maintaining the baron’s mystique was contrived, an intimidation strategy, an old psychological gambit. It was theatre, it was hokum, it was a sham.
But it was effective.
The serene, musical voice wafted from the speaker at the bottom of the screen, sounding as if it were echoing from the black gulfs between the stars. “Citizen Baptiste, you stand accused of dissent, sedition and treason against the barony. You are further accused of illegal possession of barony property. If you have anything to say before sentence is pronounced, speak now.”
Forcing herself to stare into the vid lens on the wall beside the screen, Brigid replied, “I am innocent of these charges, Lord Baron. Save that I did have in my possession the said piece of property --here is my defence.”
Brigid told her story straightforwardly, without faltering or groping for words. She had only been engaged in following a line of inquiry ordered by the Magistrate Division. She did not know the orders had not been sanctioned by Kane’s superior officer.
The baron said, “You were aware the information you accessed was restricted. You used an authorization code that was not your own.”
“Curiosity and fear, Lord Baron,” Brigid responded crisply. “Magistrate Kane had piqued my interest, and I feared for my safety if I disobeyed him.”