Dark Goddess

The stairs opened onto a small room that led out onto a balcony. Grant stood there, peering through a screen of oleander leaves. The buttsock of the heavy Barrett sniper rifle was settled firmly in the hollow of his right shoulder. He pushed it forward on its built-in bipod as he leaned down to squint through the twenty-power top-mounted telescopic sight.

Without turning toward Kane, he said in his lionlike rumble of a voice, “I thought you were going to be in and out of here like the wind.”

A big man standing several inches over six feet, Grant had exceptionally broad shoulders and a heavy musculature, but with a middle starting to go a little soft. Beads of perspiration sparkled against his coffee-brown skin like stars in the night sky. Gray dusted his short-cropped hair at the temples, but it didn’t show in the sweeping black mustache that curved fiercely out from either side of his grim, tight-lipped mouth. Like Kane, he wore camo pants and T-shirt.

In response to Grant’s sarcastic question, Kane replied, “That was the plan. I guess they smelled my wind.”

Carefully, he moved to the balcony’s rail and looked down into the ville. He could still detect the chemical tang of the CS powder.

Grant stepped away from the Barrett and tapped the scope. “They caught more than that. Take a peek.”

Obligingly, Kane stooped and peered through the eyepiece. He glimpsed a tall figure standing just outside the log wall, trying to hide himself in the shadows. The rifle he cradled in his arms looked like a lever-action 30.06.

“They left one behind,” he commented. “A spotter.”

Grant nodded. “They want to see which house you come out of. And to find out if anybody in town is helping you, so they can be made an example of.”

Kane shrugged. “I don’t think they got a good look at me. And since you two didn’t arrive until after dark, they most likely don’t know you’re here.”

“Porpoise is probably sure it was you creepin’ around his place,” Domi stated matter-of-factly.

Kane cast her a quizzical glance. “Why do you say that?”

The girl shrugged. “He only saw you and Brigid together—stands to reason he’d figure you’d be the one to try and sneak in and steal her back from him.”

Chapter 2

The morning sky melted, pouring down heat. Kane stood on the shoreline, listening to the noise of the surf and gazing through the smoky spume rising from the breakers.

Although sunglasses masked his eyes, he squinted against the glare glimmering on the blue surface of the gulf. There was nothing to be seen except the blaze of white sand, sparse stalks of beach grass and the long line of combers lapping at the shoreline. He perspired heavily, as if the rising sun were a sponge sucking liquid from every pore of his body and soaking through his black T-shirt. Although he felt the sting of sunburn on his arms and face, the heat failed to thaw a hard knot of ice inside him.

Acceding to the demands of Billy-boy Porpoise, he was completely unarmed, not even carrying a jackknife. The only concession to his standard complement of equipment was the Commtact, a flat curve of metal fastened to his right mastoid bone and hidden beneath a lock of hair.

Despite heat that turned the beach into an oven, Kane stood motionless, hands loose at his sides. He knew he was being watched, and he figured Billy-boy would wait until he had virtually sweated out all of his strength before sending someone to fetch him.

But Kane had learned stamina in a hard school, a killing school. He retained vividly grim memories of former colleagues whose stamina failed them at the last critical second. Stamina in this case consisted of standing steadfast, husbanding all of his resources until they were needed.

A burst of static filled his head and Grant’s voice said, “Testing, one, two, testing.”

Resisting the urge to turn and look in the direction of Coral Cove, Kane reached up behind his ear and made an adjustment on the Commtact’s volume control. The little comm was attached to implanted steel pintels; its sensor circuitry incorporated an analog-to-digital voice encoder embedded in the bone.

Once the device made full cranial contact, the auditory canal picked up the transmissions. The dermal sensors transmitted the electronic signals directly through the skull casing. Even if someone went deaf, as long as he wore a Commtact, he would still have a form of hearing, but if the volume was not properly adjusted, the radio signals caused vibrations in the skull bones that resulted in vicious headaches.

“Receiving you,” Kane subvocalized in a faint whisper. “Do you read me?”

“Reading you. Status?”

“Lots of sea and sand. I think I spotted a crab a few minutes ago.”

The Commtact accurately conveyed Grant’s grunt of disgust. “The bastard believes in making people wait for him.”

“I guess Billy-boy thinks it increases the anticipation.”

“No sign of the spotter he left behind?”

“No. He probably hung around until just before daybreak and then moved on.”

Grant didn’t respond for a long tick of time. Then he asked dourly, “How did such a simple op go so goddamn complicated?”

Kane almost lifted a shoulder in a shrug but stopped himself. “Happens sometimes,” he retorted with a nonchalance he did not feel. “You know that as well as I do.”

“I do,” Grant said. “I also know Brigid hasn’t answered any of our thousand and one hails, so we may want to—”

“Her Commtact is probably malfunctioning,” Kane broke in harshly. “She was knocked into the pool when Billy-boy’s crew put the arm on us. That’s all there is to it.”

“Right,” Grant drawled, his tone studiedly neutral. “So let’s cut to the chase here. Billy-boy wants to parley with you for Brigid’s return. Why?”

“Why what?”

“He’s already got her, so why does he want to bargain with you for her? What does he need you for? It’s the Cerberus armory he wants, not her…unless he thinks having two bargaining chips is better than one.”

“That possibility occurred to me,” Kane admitted. “He was pretty disappointed when we came to him yesterday bearing no gifts, particularly of the lethal kind.”

“I got that. But I don’t think you can trust this son of a bitch to do a simple exchange, Brigid for blasters. You may have to—”

“I hope you’re not trying to prepare me for the possibility that she’s already dead,” Kane interrupted.

“Now that you’ve brought it up,” Grant said, “what if she is? This guy reps out as a stone-cold murderer, not a businessman.”

“If she is,” Kane intoned flatly, “then all the more reason for me to be in Billy-boy’s company. If she has so much as bruise on a leg, he is most definitely a dead man.”

“And what about you?” Grant argued. “You’re waltzing in there unarmed and even if you manage to get close enough to kill the bastard, there’s no way we can extract you before you’re killed, too.”

Before Kane could formulate a response, he heard the grinding of an engine.

He turned toward the south and saw a red Jeep emerge from a copse of royal palm trees. The chassis was painted a bright cherry red with the illustration of a shocking pink porpoise emblazoned on the hood. The vehicle rolled smoothly on oversize beach tires across the expanse of searing sand where it met with the surf line.

The driver was a tall man who looked half Viking and half pirate. His long white blond hair was tied back in a foxtail, a sharp contrast to the deep bronzed tan of his naked torso. A black eye patch embroidered with the outline of a pink dolphin covered his right eye. Sunlight winked from the three-inch gold ring piercing the lobe of his left ear.

The man’s single eye glinted with cobalt brightness, and his hands on the steering wheel were very big and powerful. As the Jeep drew closer to Kane, he flashed a taunting grin. His teeth gleamed startlingly white in his bronzed face.

A young woman sat beside him, her eyes the deep amber of a Siamese cat’s, slanted, cold and dangerous. They looked at Kane with contempt. Her hair was a thick glossy black, cascading in loose waves over her bare shoulders. Little-girl bangs hung in feathery arcs, inky against the white of her forehead. Her eyelids and sullen mouth were heavily rouged, and the bright red blossom of a flower made a splash of color in her raven’s-wing hair.

The woman’s full breasts strained against the tight confines of her slate-gray bikini top. The cloth was almost the same color as the S&W Airweight .38-caliber revolver she aimed at him around the frame of the windshield. Kane had been introduced to the man and girl the previous day. Their names were Shaster and Orchid.

“Here’s my ride,” Kane murmured.

“Acknowledged,” Grant replied. “Standing by.”