by James Axler
Kane reached one strong arm around the man’s shoulders before he could step away. “We’re planning to give you a long line of credit, Jerod,” he said. “We want to know what we’re getting into. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?”
Pellerito nodded, as if convincing himself. “Yes, that does make sense,” he said after a moment.
“So?” Kane probed. “Are you ready to go nuclear or not?”
Pellerito smiled, and it was the ugly smile of the school bully. It was the same smile Kane had seen all those years before, back when he had arrested Jerod Pellerito as a rebellious teen. “We’re all set, Kane. Nuclear strikes on command.”
Chapter 5
Kane stared at Jerod Pellerito with his steel-gray eyes like bullets. If Pellerito could supply nuclear missiles, this situation just went from disquieting to catastrophic. Kane and his team had come here to assess an arms factory, not to halt a nuclear conflict.
“Have you supplied many of these—what did you call them—guided missiles?” Kane blustered.
“We only tapped into the designs last week,” Pellerito explained. “What you see here is fresh off the production line.”
Removing his arm from Pellerito’s shoulder, Kane leaned over the edge of the railing, letting out a long sigh as he scanned the missile construction area. Suspecting that he was losing his backer, Pellerito sidled next to him and said conspiratorially, “There’s interest out there. A lot of interest. This’ll sell, Kane. With the right backer, we could take this to the next level.”
“No,” Kane said, turning back to the arms dealer. “I’m sorry, Jerod, but I can’t back this. We’re out.”
Pellerito looked astounded, but he composed himself swiftly. “That’s too bad,” he lamented. “You could have been a kingmaker.”
“Not my style,” Kane told him, signaling to Grant and Brigid that they were leaving. Kane was uncomfortable here now, standing this close to the very type of weapon that had set humanity on the road to self-destruction two hundred years before. That time, the population had been cut down to a fraction of its former size, and left the survivors living in a virtual hellscape. Seeing the building blocks laid out, seeing it all start again like this, did not sit well with him. He wanted to get out of there, ponder his next move, bring in Cerberus and shut this operation down, root and branch. How the hell did this kid come out of Magistrate incarceration to end up like this?
“There’s just one problem, Kane,” Pellerito said as the Cerberus team gathered themselves up. “You’ve seen the operation now—and perhaps my people weren’t clear to your people about this—but we can’t let you leave.”
Kane turned back to face Pellerito, and as he did so he heard the distinctive click of safety catches being switched on the sec men’s weapons.
“We need money,” Pellerito said, “not friends. You’ve come too far to back out now.”
* * *
CERBERUS MEDIC REBA DEFORE had never wanted to play coroner, and she had done too much of that over the past six months. Now she knelt before the inky stain pooled across the operations room floor outside Cerberus’s mat-trans chamber—the one that had been a woman—with a portable lab beside her.
DeFore was a stocky woman with long, ash-blond hair that she had tied behind her in an elaborate French braid. Besides the standard-issue white jumpsuit, DeFore wore a pair of thin rubber gloves with which she could sift through the oily detritus without contaminating it.
The area of the inky stain had been cordoned off using a couple of well-placed chairs, allowing Reba to work undisturbed as standard procedures continued all around her in the operations center. The black liquid had spread to a rough circle pattern that ran about nine feet in diameter, and it glistened under the fluorescent lights of the room, an oily rainbow shimmering across its surface as DeFore collected her samples.
The circle still had four struts poking from it, a vestigial hint of how the limbs had been spread when the mysterious woman had dropped to the floor here. The farthest edges of the stain were dry now, and the remainder was evaporating as DeFore worked, scraping the coal-black residue from the floor. The dark material had a powdery quality, clotting from the liquid into tiny islands of solid matter that adopted an almost crystalline appearance, like flecks of onyx littering the floor. She leaned closer, running the metal tip of her scraper across the lumps, pulling a few more away to analyze under the microscope.
As DeFore continued to work, running a battery of tests on the samples, Lakesh strode across the room to join her, standing on the far side of the carefully placed chairs that formed the barricade around the stain. “Have you found anything, Reba?” he inquired gently.
The Cerberus medic looked up from her work, a serious expression on her striking features. “It’s genetic matter,” she summarized, “which appears to be going through the standard stages of decomposition far faster than one would expect. I wish I’d been here when the—woman, you said?—when she came through the mat-trans.”
Lakesh stroked his chin pensively. “You said the material was experiencing decomposition at a faster rate than normal.”
“‘Normal’ is too specific a term,” DeFore corrected, “but certainly, the body has deteriorated far faster than a human should in this environment. Normally, the human body passes through five stages of decomposition once it has died.
“In stage one, once the blood stops pumping the flesh will take on a bluish hue and rigor mortis will set in, stiffening the tissues and making it difficult to move the limbs.
“That is followed by the bloat stage, where anaerobic metabolism begins to break down the body, resulting in the accumulation and dispersal of gases.
“Stage three is active decay, which involves the purging of decomposition fluids. This is typically the period of greatest mass loss, when what had been a corpse moves to resemble something more like a skeleton.” DeFore fixed Lakesh with her steady brown eyes. “The body here has passed through that stage with incredible rapidity. From what you’ve told me, it appears to have reached that stage less than a minute from the woman’s arrival in the mat-trans.”
Lakesh peered down at the inky stain. “What are the other stages?” he inquired.
“Stage four is characterized as advanced decay, where the carcass breaks down more slowly as less cadaveric material is available,” DeFore informed him. “That’s followed by the dry stage, basically where the corpse is just dried-out skin and bones with no flesh remaining.
“In this case, the woman seems to have liquefied, such was the speed with which stage three took hold. What we’re looking at here are decomposition fluids, albeit turned a rather nasty color on expulsion.”
“She was covered in an oily sheen of unknown nature,” Lakesh clarified.
“It appears to have mixed with the body during breakdown.”
“Do you have any idea what it’s made of?” Lakesh asked.
“Hard to tell without a proper analysis,” the medic admitted. “There’s nylon in there, along with Mylar and something that resembles Nomex.”
“Nomex?” Lakesh blurted in surprise. “The fire-resistant material?”
DeFore nodded. “Whatever it was your visitor was covered in, it was most likely intended for her protection.”
Lakesh looked thoughtfully down at the inky stain that had expanded across the ops room floor. “If that is the case, then I think we can say it failed. This time.”
“You believe it will happen again?” DeFore asked.
Lakesh nodded solemnly. “Somebody went to a lot of trouble to send this woman here. I would wager they won’t give up at the first failure.”
* * *
ON THE CATWALK IN THE Panamint arms factory, Kane had turned to face Jerod Pellerito as twin guards covered his Cerberus teammates.
“Now, back up a minute here...” h
e began.
“Sorry, Kane,” Pellerito mocked, “but we can’t risk you leaving here now. The deal was that you came to view the investment. There was no provision for you to reject the deal. You were just here to talk terms, and if there aren’t any terms to discuss then I’m afraid we’ve reached the end of our relationship. But I’m sure your employers will pay handsomely for your safe return. You’d better hope so, eh?”
Kane was only half listening. Already his senses were reaching out, analyzing possible options, searching for his best escape route.
“If it makes you feel a shitload happier,” Pellerito concluded, “I had a terrible time inside, thanks to you. So I suppose this is kind of karmic payback.”
“You know what?” Kane growled, slapping his hands against the safety bar that surrounded the catwalk. “That ain’t gonna do it for me.”
Before Pellerito realized what was happening, Kane vaulted over the side of the catwalk and disappeared from view.
“What th—?” Pellerito blurted as Kane dropped down to ground level.
Still on the catwalk, Grant and Brigid took their cue even before the guards could react. Grant’s muscular right arm swung back, grabbing the barrel of the nearest guard’s blaster and yanking it forward, dragging blaster and man toward him.
The guard reacted by pulling the trigger, but the weapon—a modified MP-9 submachine gun—was out of his grip before the first bullet had left the chamber. Grant cursed as a blur of bullets blasted from the weapon, feeling the barrel shudder in his grip as he yanked it away from its previous owner. His other arm was already snapping back, driving the pointed ram of his elbow into the surprised guard’s face. The guard crashed backward with the impact, blurting out an abbreviated yelp of pain.
To Grant’s side, the red-haired Brigid dropped low and brought her right leg around in a rapid sweep that knocked the second guard off his feet. Continuing her sweeping arc, Brigid spun back to a standing position in a feat of athletic prowess.
Below his teammates, Kane had dropped two stories to land beside the guided missile with a hard thump, the cushioned soles of his boots absorbing the shock. A surprised whitecoat stumbled as Kane landed beside him in a crouch, but before the man could raise the alarm Kane was rearing up, driving a ram’s head punch into the man’s jaw. The blow was so hard it knocked the whitecoat from his feet, and the bespectacled man went colliding into a round segment of the missile housing with a metallic clang. The missile tolled like a bell with the strike.
“Stop him!” Pellerito called at the top of his voice, his face turning an angry shade of red as he glared over the edge.
Kane ignored him, shoving another of the white-coated workers aside as he ducked through the curtains. In a second he was on the factory floor proper, sprinting past whirring blades and trundling conveyor belts as he hurried toward his objective.
“Grant, Brigid,” Kane said, engaging his Commtact. All that came back was the whine of a feedback loop, and Kane cursed as he toggled the unit back to stand-by mode. Whatever Pellerito had done in his office, it was still blocking the signal.
Kane kept running, shunting another of the factory workers aside.
On the catwalk above the factory floor, Robert Buchs was hurrying toward Brigid with loping strides as she recovered from felling the guard. Behind him, more guards were running toward them along the catwalk, newly minted Ruger knock-offs in their hands.
As Buchs drew close, some sixth sense kicked in, and Brigid turned as one of his scythelike legs swept through the air toward her. Buchs had brought his center of gravity low, Brigid observed as she turned, extending his artificial leg like a sword to its maximum reach. The bladelike limb brushed past Brigid’s face, slicing through a few rogue strands of her red-gold hair even as she twisted out of its path.
In a moment, Brigid found herself pushed back against the safety bars that ran the length of the catwalk. “Dammit, Kane,” she muttered. “What have you walked us into this time?”
Though he may not have voiced his concerns aloud, Grant was thinking much the same as his impulsive partner. Kane seemed to have a knack of getting them into dangerous situations that sprang out of nowhere. It had been the same for as long as Grant had known him, dating all the way back to their days as Magistrates in Cobaltville.
Grant turned the stolen MP-9 over in his hands, adjusting his grip and resting his index finger on the trigger as more guards appeared. Grant didn’t like the MP-9, but it would have to do—the cast-iron rule that had been insisted upon before this visit was that the Cerberus team arrive unarmed.
Having checked the breech in a split-second glance, Grant looked up at the cluster of armed guards who were sprinting down the catwalk toward him.
“Put down the weapon and get your hands up where we can see them,” the leader called as he halted beside some packing crates, at last spying what Grant was holding.
“Must think I was born dumb,” Grant muttered as he swept his glasses aside and raised the weapon. Without hesitation, Grant squeezed its trigger, admiring its smooth action as he sent a lethal volley of 9 mm slugs down the catwalk toward the approaching guards. He smiled grimly as two of them fell, while the remaining three scrambled back, ducking for cover behind the crates.
Down on the factory floor, Kane was ducking and weaving through an obstacle course of potential foes, expending as little energy as possible to reach his objective. He clambered over a moving conveyor belt, kicking aside a half-dozen ammo cases as the workers there struggled to grab his ankles. One worker went flying off his stool as a booted ammo case smacked the dead center of his forehead, while another grabbed at her bloody mouth as an ammo clip knocked her front teeth out.
Kane bent down for just a moment, snatching up two of the familiar ammo clips from a stuffed box. It was 9 mm, just what he wanted. Then he was leaping back to the floor, ducking under a moving cauldron that was poised to fill a mold with molten metal. Kane felt its heat blasting against his face as he ran past, driving himself on toward something he had noticed earlier. He knew it was around here somewhere—if he could just figure out where.
* * *
ABOVE KANE, BRIGID’S BACK was pressed against the metal bar of the safety balcony as Buchs rushed at her, his arms pumping at his sides, his artificial legs stamping out an angry tattoo against the metal walkway. Brigid leaned back, lifting her body and kicking out in the blink of an eye.
Buchs saw the move too late, and he found himself reacting after the event, turning aside even as the sharp toe of Brigid’s booted foot clipped the side of his head.
Brigid brought herself back to a standing position as Buchs sank dizzily to the floor. But the liaison-cum-bodyguard was still moving, thrusting one of those brutal-looking leg attachments out at her like some lethal version of jump-the-rope.
Miss Suzy had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell. Miss Suzy took some dynamite and blew the bell to hell-o, operator, give me number nine...
Brigid leaped, bounding above the first kick of those legs, only to meet with the second kick-sweep as Buchs redoubled his efforts.
Brigid tumbled to the floor with a shuddering crash of bone against metal, her red hair flying loosely about her head like a flaming halo. Buchs scrambled across the catwalk, snagging the front of her tunic and shunting her back. There was another awful clang as Brigid’s head struck one of the support bars that held up the catwalk, and she felt the blow ring through her skull like the steamboat’s bell.
Buchs dragged Brigid’s bloodied head close and snarled at her. “You think I’m going to say something clever?” he growled. “Not my style.”
Brigid took that moment to kick him in the crotch with all her might, and Buchs doubled over with a strained yelp. Then Brigid pushed herself up from the catwalk, sweeping a trickle of blood from her mouth as she loomed over the hunkered and sobbing form of Buchs. He was in ag
ony. “Think I wouldn’t kick a cripple in the balls?” she challenged. “Not my style.”
Down on the factory floor, Kane rolled beneath a twisting two-ton turner mechanism before bringing himself up at its far side. The turner kept rolling on its spindle as Kane ran past.
In another second, Kane was at the production line he had spotted on entering the building. Six women were working at the trundling conveyor belt, deftly putting parts together to form the familiar Sin Eater handgun. Kane assessed the line in an instant, reaching for one of the units as the woman working at it completed the construction. “’Scuse me, ma’am,” Kane blurted as he reached over her shoulder and snatched up the assembled weapon.
The woman swore in surprise, cursing Kane in Spanish.
Kane ignored her, securing the fourteen-inch hand pistol in his grip and snapping one of the stolen ammunition clips into place. Then he raised the blaster high in the air, pointed it in the direction of the ceiling and snapped off three quick shots. The Sin Eater sounded like a sudden thunderclap in the busy factory, and once Kane had finished everyone on the factory floor had stopped to stare fearfully at him, their assembly lines forgotten.
“We’re shutting the hole down,” Kane shouted over the harsh whines of the machinery. “Everybody out—now!”
Some of the workers stood and stared, but most just grabbed their personal effects and scampered toward the open doors of the factory. Those who did remain took one look at the grim expression on Kane’s face and decided not to argue. They knew the factory was illegal, and it was not worth getting involved with this fracas for the paltry sums they were being paid.
On the catwalk overlooking the factory floor, Jerod Pellerito was red-faced with anger as his staff left en masse. “Somebody stop them,” he screeched. “We’re not—”
But before he finished, Buchs came crashing into him where Brigid had dropped the paraplegic over her shoulder. Pellerito staggered against the wall, shrieking as his delirious aide knocked him off his feet. When he looked up again, Brigid was looming over him, her red-gold hair framing her face like a lion’s mane.