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“That we would,” Kane said, impatience in his voice, “depending on what deal you’re offering here. All we’ve heard so far are rumors.”
The man’s head turned and his blue eyes met with Kane’s. He was perhaps twenty-five, lean with sunken eyes but just a little puppy fat around his jowls. He had dark hair, cut short and prematurely balding, and his chin was dark where he hadn’t shaved. With his sharp features and swift, twitching movements he reminded Kane of the rats they had seen in the streets outside.
“Rumors are tricky things,” the man said cheerfully. “Never really know what the cack you’re being told. I’m Tom.”
Kane bowed his head slightly and Grant and Brigid did likewise.
Carnack gestured that they take a seat on the cushions before him. “No need to stand on ceremony. We’re all brothers under the skin and on and on.” He smiled. “You fellas got names, I take it?”
Taking the lead, Kane kneeled on the cushions before Tom. “John Kane,” he said, “with my partners, Grant and Brigid.” This was a lie. Kane had no first name, and nor, in fact, did Grant. Magistrates were born with one name, bred to take over their father’s position in the Magistrate Division in the illusion of continuous service. The need for first names was a luxury Magistrates never enjoyed.
“Nice to meet you, John, Grant and Brigid,” Carnack said genially. “So, why don’t you start by telling me these rumors and we’ll see if we have any common ground or if you’re just pissing your time away.”
As Carnack spoke, the woman draped in shimmering silks continued to gyrate provocatively to the soft music, but Carnack appeared to have dismissed her from his mind, suddenly all business. She was tall with straight brown hair and long, shapely legs, and Kane found himself distracted by her movements for a moment.
He blinked and turned his attention back to the trader. “They say you have access to a baron,” he stated. “A young baron, ripe for training, for molding. Mentally, I mean.”
Again, this wasn’t entirely true. The rumor that had reached Cerberus was that Tom Carnack and his brigands had access to hybrid DNA blueprints and the technology to regenerate barons from them—cloning tech or birth pools or whatever. That part of the story changed in the telling from place to place. Since the hybrid barons were sterile, the only way for them to reproduce had been through artificial techniques.
“Well, you’re half-right, friend.” Carnack nodded, smiling widely. “What I’ve got is, well—did you hear what happened out in Beausoleil?”
Kane rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t get out there that much, but I heard there was some kind of aerial bombardment.” In actuality, Kane and his colleagues had walked through the rubble just a few months ago. “Maybe leveled the whole ville.”
“That’s pretty much the long and short of it,” Carnack told them. “See, the barons had some sort of disagreement and they started taking shots at one another. Don’t ask me what it’s all about, I couldn’t give a monkey’s, I can tell you. The bottom line is, the nine baronies are in turmoil, right?”
Kane nodded, encouraging the man to continue.
“Happens that I knew some folks what were in the flamin’ ville when they started bombing Beausoleil.” The trader smiled. “Almost got themselves barbecued. One of them has got half a head of hair now—you couldn’t miss him.”
Kane suppressed a smile at the man’s friendly charm. “So, what is it you have?” he asked.
“Well, once the bombing was over there was stuff there that was just ripe for the taking, see?” Carnack explained. “High risk, you know. Magistrates trying to keep out independent traders, honest folk like you and me. Anyway, I happened to acquire some genetic material, very nice stuff. Hybrid DNA. You know what that is?”
Grant snarled. “Yeah, flyboy,” he growled, “we know what it is. Nature’s building blocks for making new barons.”
“Spot on, my friend, spot on.” Carnack laughed.
“So, what use is this DNA?” Kane asked.
Carnack adjusted the cushions beneath him and sidled a little closer, holding his hand up to mask his words from the dancing girl. “World’s going to hell in a handbasket, friend,” he told Kane conspiratorially. “The baronies are all blowing up, and I figure the whole game of marbles is up for grabs for those that want it. Strong people, leaders, like you and me. Am I right?”
Kane dipped his head in a slight nod. “Right. So what do I do with this baron DNA? Just add water?”
“If you want to make baron soup.” Carnack guffawed, slapping his thigh loudly. “You’re having a laugh, right? Just add water? What are you, a clown?”
“Then what use is this DNA to me?” Kane asked, his tone somber.
“Like I was saying,” Carnack told him, “the world’s changing and everything’s up for grabs. But you try setting yourself up as a baron, friend—people will lynch you from the nearest tree. They’ve been indoctrinated, see?” He tapped the side of his head. “In their heads. These ville-raised twits all think that the hybrid barons are their natural leaders—it’s like law of the jungle or something.”
“So,” Kane said, “if I had a baron of my own I could call the shots.”
“Exactly,” Carnack told him. “If your crew want to live like barons, you set up your puppet in the position of power and you pull his strings. Welcome to John-Kaneville.” He looked at Brigid and a smile crossed his lips. “Mind you, your friend there can pull my strings anytime, if you catch my drift.”
Brigid smiled tightly at him, narrowing her eyes and saying nothing.
“Suit yourself.” Carnack smiled back before turning to address Kane once more. “So, I’m talking a small fortune for the DNA. On top of that, you’ll need birthing pods. Now, I’ve got a lot of DNA but only one set of the pods. For them you pay the motherlode, and it’s a rental—there’s no buyout option. You get me?”
“And then what?” Grant asked. “DNA in the pods makes us a baron?”
The trader shrugged. “Well, that’s the catch. We’ve got the equipment, but we’ve yet to produce a real live hybrid.”
Brigid leaned forward, suddenly interested. “How are you operating it?”
“What’s that?” Carnack asked. “How do you mean? The thing’s set up with plenty of juice but, honest, all we’ve had come out so far is dead babies. Ugly nippers, too.”
“You have whitecoats operating this? Scientists?” Brigid urged.
“Some, but they’re still working out the kinks,” Carnack admitted.
“So, why would we go in with your organization on this?” Kane asked.
“It’ll work,” Carnack assured them. “Might take another ten goes to get it right, but it’ll work. And if you want to set up a barony, you’ll need a baron. That’s science right there, my friends. Once it works the price triples. Get in early and you nab a bargain, set yourselves up for life.”
Kane gestured to Brigid. “My colleague here is a scientist.”
“Geneticist,” Brigid said by way of clarification as the trader turned to admire her once more.
“What say you to a forty percent drop if she can get your tech working?” Kane suggested.
“Friend,” Tom said, smiling, “if she can get my tech working, I’ll bloody well marry ’er.”
“Forty percent discount will be sufficient.” Brigid smiled patronizingly. “When can I look at the birthing pod?”
Carnack’s eyes lost focus for a moment, and he looked at Velvet Coat, who stood beside the exit while he thought. “Now you’re asking,” he said. “Let me go work out some details. You wait here. I won’t be a minute.”
Carnack stood from the cushions and stepped past the dancing girl, stroking her hair and kissing her cheek before disappearing through a gap in the veils that hid the contours of the walls.
Kane sat still, watching as the man disappeared. He wanted to turn to address Brigid and Grant where they knelt behind him, but the armed guards were still in the room, along with the dancing girl and Velvet Coat. This was too easy. If they could get access to Carnack’s alleged birthing pod, they could assess whether this was a genuine threat and if it was, maybe destroy it then and there.
“Seems like a nice guy,” Grant muttered under his breath after a few moments, and he felt the eyes of Carnack’s men turn on him, watching warily.
“Just watch the pretty girl, Grant,” Kane suggested out of the side of his mouth, and they sat there in silence once more while the long-limbed beauty continued her sensual dance before them.
After a moment, the dark-haired woman leaned down and stretched her arm out to Kane. “You like what you see, yes?” she said, flashing dark eyes at him.
Kane smiled. “You’re very pretty,” he told her, his eyes flicking back to the curtains where the negotiator had disappeared.
“Would you like to dance?” the girl asked.
“I don’t think that would be such a good idea,” Kane admitted.
“Tom won’t mind,” she assured him, leaning in close. Kane felt her warm breath on his cheek as she whispered in his ear, “I’m just his little fancy. You can have me if you want me. Big, strong man like you.”
Kane looked at her, admiring the way that the silks clung to her curved figure like liquid. “I really don’t think that I should,” he told her quietly.
As he finished speaking, Tom Carnack stepped back into the room brandishing a scarred Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle.
“What’s going on?” Grant asked as the other guards in the room leveled their handguns at the Cerberus teammates.
“I’m sorry, Mr. John Kane,” Carnack explained, “but Señor Smarts there recognized you the second you walked in the door.”
Standing in the doorway holding a tiny revolver, a single-shot .25 with a pearl handle, Velvet Coat mock bowed as Kane looked at him. “I can sniff out a Magistrate at fifty paces, señor.”
“What…?” Kane blustered, pulling himself up from the floor. As he did so, the dancing girl swung one of her long legs over his rising shoulder and shoved him down to the cushions so that he was lying on his back. He lay there looking straight up her torso, her legs to either side of his head.
“You should have accepted that dance, Magistrate man,” she told him, shifting her palm to reveal a shining stiletto blade. “I would have killed you so beautifully you would have wept for me to continue.”
Chapter 2
Lying beneath the dancing girl, Kane flicked his eyes to Tom Carnack. “You think we’re Magistrates?” he protested. “This is a joke, right? Little bonding exercise. No, I get it. It’s funny.” He tried to shift his weight and get the dancing girl off him but she crushed her thighs around either side of his head and gave him a warning look.
“You keep squirming, Magistrate man, and I’ll pluck your eyes out,” she told him, bringing her blade down toward his face.
Carnack took another step into the room and pointed the AK-47 at Kane’s groin. “Now, you have to appreciate that we outlanders have our own special way of dealing with Magistrate scum like you,” he snarled.
“Whoa, whoa,” Kane said. “Let’s all just take a step back and talk about this.”
“Yeah,” Brigid chipped in as she knelt on the cushions beside Grant, warily watching the two armed guards. “You’re making an awfully big mistake.” Unnoticed, her hand reached down and her fingers felt around the heel of her right boot.
“Know what?” Carnack said as his gaze took her in. “You, I might just let live. If you’re interested in a new position.”
Brigid shook her head and laughed. “I’m not your type. You’d only get bored of me.”
Suddenly her hand flicked forward as she tossed the Cuban heel from her boot at the man’s face. Before Carnack could react, Brigid, Grant and Kane turned away and the heel exploded in a dazzling flash of brightness and noise.
His ears rang and spots swam before Kane’s eyes as he opened them and looked around the room once more. Above him, the dancer was shaking her head, eyes balled tight against the sudden pain that Brigid’s flash-bang had caused. In the enclosed space and semidarkness of the tentlike room, the flash-bang had an awesome effect, like staring at the sun through a telescope.
Kane tossed the dancing girl off him, slapping her to one side as he stood. “Let’s get out of here,” he said as he turned to his companions, who were warily getting up from the floor. Even with their eyes closed and their heads turned away, the effects of the flash-bang in the little room had still been strong. Heaven only knew what Carnack’s crew had to have been thinking right then.
At the door, the velvet-coated Señor Smarts was reaching for his face, his tiny handgun forgotten as tears streamed from his eyes. “I’m blind, I cannot see,” the effete Mexican wailed.
Grant stepped across to him and punched him solidly in the jaw, knocking the man backward into the wall hidden behind the drapes. Smarts slammed against it with the back of his head and crashed down to the floor, unconscious.
A second later, alerted by the noise of the flash-bang, the two burly guards from the anteroom stormed in through the part in the curtains. Grant dropped to the floor and angled a swift leg sweep, knocking both of them onto their backs. He lunged at the closer man, left hand held flat, and rammed him in the throat, bruising his windpipe and sending him into instant unconsciousness.
The second guard struggled to pull his gun out from under him and began to raise it in Grant’s direction, but Brigid was already beside him. She kicked her right leg out and up, knocking the pistol from the man’s grip. He yelped in pain as the gun disappeared over his shoulder and through the curtain back into the anteroom. Then Grant swung a powerful fist into the man’s face, crushing his nose in an explosion of blood. The man shook his head, droplets of blood spraying left and right, struggling to get to his feet so that he could take on Grant. The ex-Mag drove another jab at the man’s face and he slumped back, his head lolling on his neck, unconscious like his companion.
Meanwhile, Kane had walked across to Tom Carnack, who was doubled over and clawing at his face with one hand, tears streaming from his eyes. Kane grabbed the Kalashnikov midway along its barrel and yanked it from the man’s grip with a single, mighty heave. At the same time, Brigid and Grant disarmed the two other blinded guards.
“Okay, Tom and Tom’s people,” Kane announced. “I want you all to listen up. See, you really did make a mistake. We’re not Magistrates come to haul you in. But we’re also not the kind of people you can just screw over like this. So now we’re negotiating ourselves some new terms.”
Carnack’s face was bright red, and his bloodshot eyes were open but unfocused. “Go screw yourself,” he snarled.
Kane swung the heavy barrel of the Kalashnikov into the man’s face, connecting with a loud crack and knocking the smaller man onto his back. “I don’t think we need any more of that attitude,” Kane spit. “Here’s how it’s going down. You, me and my associates are going to walk out of here together, and you’re going to take us to wherever it is you have the hybrid DNA and the birthing pod stashed. And in return for handing them over, gratis, I am going to be very generous and let you live, on the basis that you close up shop here in Hope. Okay?”
“What are you?” Carnack growled, wiping blood from his mouth where the blow from the Kalashnikov had loosened a tooth. “Some kind of joker? You’re surrounded by a whole bloody ville of my men. I ain’t going to give you squat, buddy. Squat, got it?”
Kane smiled humorlessly. “If you tip-off your men, if you so much as breathe funny once we leave this room, I will shoot you in the head. You understand?”
“Do I look like an idiot? You’d never get out of Hope alive, Magistrate,” Carnack stated bitterly.
“Ninety seconds ago you had a gun pointed at my crotch and your gal pal here was about to take my eyes out,” Kane told him. “I’m thinking that this here is a step up. Now, on your feet, we’re leaving.”
Tom Carnack spit a gob of blood to the floor as he slowly lifted himself from the disarrayed cushions. Kane noticed there was a single broken tooth shining amid the splash of blood.
Grant slipped through the curtain back into the anteroom while Brigid kicked back her foot until the heel of her left boot snapped free. Kane looked at her and she shrugged.
“I’m not running around on one heel,” she told him. “That’s a sure ticket to spinal damage.”
“I didn’t say anything.” He held the Kalashnikov steady on Carnack.
Then he raised his voice, calling to Grant, “Everything okay out there?”
Grant’s head popped through the drapes a moment later, his brow furrowed with concern. “I got into the trunk but the kid’s disappeared.”
Carnack nodded knowingly. “Benqhil has gone for help. You’re dead men,” he snarled.
“Yeah, pal,” Kane said, dismissing him, “heard it all before. Distribute the weapons and let’s move, Grant,” Kane urged, shoving Carnack toward the rift in the drapes.
As they left the room, the dancing girl writhed on the floor, still clawing at her eyes. “Did you hear? They’re taking Tom. Are you all buffoons? Stop them.”
Her pleas went unacknowledged—the guards in the room were either unconscious or still blind and deaf from the flash-bang.
Outside, the chest on the floor of the anteroom stood open, its lock smashed in two where Grant had either pulled or kicked it apart. Grant handed Brigid her compact TP-9, and she checked its ammo clip was still in place before she led the way into the street outside. The TP-9 was a midsized semiautomatic weapon, roughly the length of Brigid’s arm from wrist to elbow. The bulky pistol had a grip just off center beneath the barrel, and a covered targeting scope across the top for pinpoint work. The whole unit was finished in molded, matte black.
Grant clipped the sheathed knife back on his boot and shoved the corroded Police Special into an inside pocket of his black leather duster, keeping the Heckler & Koch in his right hand. He offered the .44 Magnum weapon to Kane, who shook his head.
“Seems a shame to lose the Kalashnikov,” Kane told him, “but it would be bastard conspicuous out on the street.”
While Grant held both pistols on their blinded prisoner, Kane removed the clip from the AK-47 and pocketed it before tossing aside the empty rifle.
“They’ve probably got spare ammo,” Grant warned.
“Of course they have,” Kane agreed as he took the .44 Magnum weapon from his partner, “but they’ll be blind for a couple more minutes yet, and I intend to be long gone by the time they’ve reloaded it.” With that, he shoved a firm hand between Carnack’s shoulder blades and pushed him through the curtain into the tight alleyway after Brigid. “Keep going forward, fast as you can,” Kane told him, “I’ll tell you when to stop.”
“I can’t see anything, you idiot,” Carnack screamed at him as he batted at the wall in front of his face.
“So, run your hand along the wall if it helps,” Kane suggested. “Just keep moving.”
