Ghostwalk

Wincing, the man reached for the scarlet-seeping slash at the back of his boot. “Call me Mr. Gray.”

Kane smiled slightly, recalling the pair of color-coded millennialists he had met in Europe. “You can call me—”

“Kane,” Mr. Gray broke in harshly. “I’ve seen pix of you. Your file is black tagged.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means you’re a high-priority target. Big bonus pay for any of us who nails you.”

He glanced sourly at the Calico in Kane’s hand. “Guess I got too eager. But I could swear I got you.”

“You did, just not as good as I got you.” Kane eyed the man’s injured foot. He popped the magazine out of the Calico and tossed the weapon over his shoulder. It clattered loudly against rock. “Let me see what I can do about getting that boot off.”

Gray looked longingly toward the Calico. “They’ve been making us pay for every gun we lose.”

“Yeah, the consortium has a reputation for squeezing every penny until it screams.” Kane applied the edge of the knife to Gray’s bootlaces, and after a quick sawing motion they parted easily.

“We’re thrifty,” Mr. Gray said defensively.

“There’s a difference.”

Kane didn’t reply as he carefully tugged off the man’s boot. Blood acted as lubricant. Although the pain must have been excruciating, Gray didn’t cry out, although he sank his teeth into his lower lip.

The Millennial Consortium was, on the surface, a group of organized traders who dedicated their lives to recovering predark artifacts from the ruins of cities. In the Outlands, such scavenging was actually the oldest profession.

After the world burned in atomic flame, enough debris settled into the lower atmosphere to very nearly create another ice age. The remnants of humankind had waited in underground shelters until the Earth became a little warmer before they ventured forth again. Most of them became scavengers mainly because they had no choice.

Looting the abandoned ruins of predark cities was less a vocation than it was an Outland tradition. Entire generations of families had made careers of ferreting out and plundering the secret stockpiles the predark government had hidden in anticipation of a nation-wide catastrophe. The locations of those hidden, man-made caverns filled with hardware, fuel and weapons had become legend to the descendants of the nukecaust survivors.

Most of the redoubts had been found and raided decades ago, but occasionally a hitherto untouched one would be located. As the Stockpiles became fewer, so did the independent salvaging and trading organizations. Various trader groups had combined resources for the past several years, forming consortiums and absorbing the independent operators.

The consortiums employed and fed people in the Outlands and gave them a sense of security that had once been the sole province of the barons. There were some critics who compared the trader consortiums to the barons and talked of them with just as much ill will.

Since first hearing of the Millennial Consortium a few years earlier, the Cerberus warriors had learned firsthand that the organization was deeply involved in activities beyond seeking out stockpiles, salvaging and trading. The Millennial Consortium’s ultimate goal was to rebuild America along the tenets of a technocracy, with a board of scientists and scholars governing the country and directing the resources to where they saw the greatest need.

Although the consortium’s goals seemed utopian, the organization’s overall policy was pragmatic beyond the limit of cold-bloodedness. Their influence was widespread, but they were completely ruthless when it came to the furtherance of their agenda, which was essentially the totalitarianism of a techno-tyranny.

Nor were their movements restricted to the continental United States. Not too long before, Cerberus had thwarted a consortium operation in Slovakia.

Kane examined the knife wound. His blade hadn’t completely severed Gray’s Achilles tendon. Even so, Kane doubted the man would ever be able to walk without a limp again.

From a pouch pocket of his pants, Kane took out a long bandanna and folded it, then expertly knotted it around the man’s wound to staunch the flow of blood.

Conversationally he said, “Once I hook back up with my team, I’ll have access to a medical kit and get you some proper bandages and even a painkiller.”

Gray responded only with a muffled groan.

In the same studiedly casual tone of voice, Kane continued, “You don’t seem surprised to hear about my team…. or even what I’m doing out here.”

Gray’s sweat-pebbled face tightened. “We expected you.”

“And why is that?”

The millennialist sighed and said almost regretfully, “We found your spy.”

Kane laid a hand on Gray’s injured ankle. In a level voice he asked, “What spy?”

“He said his name was Philboyd, that he was a scientist and that we should back off.”

Kane tightened his fingers around Gray’s ankle. “Where is he?”

“He’s not dead,” Gray replied quickly. “I swear to you. We didn’t kill him.”

“I asked where he was.”

Gray winced. “I can show you.”

“I’m sure you can.” Kane released the man’s ankle and stood up. “And you’ll show us a lot more besides.”

He gazed beyond Gray. “You hear any of that?”

Mr. Gray’s face registered momentary confusion, then he turned to see Cerberus Away Team Alpha stepping through a break in the wall.

THE SIX PEOPLE WERE ATTIRED in tricolor desert-camouflage BDUs and thick-soled, tan jump boots. All of them carried abbreviated Copperhead subguns attached to combat webbing over their field jackets. Under two feet long, with a 35 4.85 mm steel-jacketed rounds. The grip and trigger units were placed in front of the breech in the bullpup design, allowing one-handed use.

Optical image intensifier scopes and laser autotargeters were mounted on the top of the frames. Low recoil allowed the Copperheads to be fired in long, devastating, full-auto bursts. Four members of Team Alpha also carried XM-29 assault rifles.

Grant strode up to Gray and stared down at him, his eyes shadowed by heavy, overhanging brows. He towered six feet five inches tall in his thick-soled jump boots, and his shoulders spread out on either side of a thickly tendoned neck like massive planks, straining at the seams of his field jacket.

Although he looked too huge and thick-hewn to have many abilities beyond brute strength, Grant was an exceptionally intelligent and talented man. Behind the fierce, deep-set eyes, the down-sweeping mustache, black against the dark brown of his skin, granite jaw and broken nose lay a mind rich with tactics, strategies and painful experience. Like Kane, he had lived a great deal of his life surrounded by violence. He had been shot, stabbed, battered, beaten, burned, buried and once very nearly suffocated on the surface of the Moon.

Kane nodded to Gray. “Gray, this is Grant. Grant, this is Gray.”

“I know who he is,” Gray snapped. “The consortium is very thorough when it comes to identifying its enemies.”

Grant regarded him with no particular emotion on his face. In his lionlike growl he intoned, “All of you millennialists look like you were mass-produced. Same build, same haircuts.”

“And you usually say the same things when we meet any millennialists,” said a well-modulated female voice, purring with an undercurrent of humor.

“I almost forgot.” Grant nodded to Gray and said almost apologetically, “I hate you guys.”

Brigid Baptiste stepped between Grant and Kane, gazing down at Gray with bright emerald eyes. She was a tall woman with a fair complexion. Her mane of red-gold hair fell down her back in a long sunset-colored braid to the base of her spine. Like the other members of CAT Alpha, she wore desert camouflage. A TP-9 autopistol was snugged in a cross-draw rig strapped around her waist.

Kneeling down beside Gray, she lifted the lid of a square medical kit. “I think we can dress your injury a bit more properly.”

Gray gave her a beseeching look of gratitude. “Something for the pain, too, please. I’m really hurting.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Brigid replied sympathetically. She busied herself with the contents of the kit, then paused. “Of course, you’ll have to give me something in return.”