Janus Trap

Kane aimed a stream of bullets at another frogman’s head, blasting his faceplate to splinters. “Aim for the head?” he suggested.

Grant’s leg kicked out, slamming into the gut of a blinded diver, knocking him backward with a shriek. “Sure. Now you tell me.”

Brigid joined them then, looking around as Kane and Grant made short work of the final few intruders. She crouched beside Ohio Blue, placing a steadying arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Can you hear me?” she shouted, close to the woman’s left ear.

Ohio nodded, looking in the direction of Brigid’s voice with vacant, bloodshot eyes.

“We’re getting out of here,” Brigid explained as she helped the trader to her feet.

There was a noise from the far end of the boathouse, and all three Cerberus warriors spun to see the front of the building—the wall where the exit door was located—cave in as a heavily armored vehicle crashed through it.

As the dust began to clear, the vehicle stood revealed. It was a square block on caterpillar tracks. Four abbreviated arms stretched out to either side of the vehicle, two on each side in a stack array, each containing three large missiles along its length. The muzzle of a gun stood out low in the rounded nose of the vehicle, swiveling left to right as it searched for a target.

Men swarmed in through the hole in the wall that had been created by the tank, armed with rifles, pistols and shotguns blasting the few remaining guards who were hidden among the crates.

“We’re going to need another exit,” Grant growled as he powered the Sin Eater back into his grip and, in unison with Kane, started taking shots at the approaching gunmen. The shots hit their targets but did nothing more than make the approaching gunmen slow for a moment. Like the frogmen, this team was wearing protective armor.

“Baptiste,” Kane shouted over the furious sounds of gunfire all around, “you studied the maps—any ideas?”

Brigid looked around the boathouse, and her eyes stopped as she came to the sunken area that dominated its center. Letting go of the stunned trader at her side, Brigid dashed across to the safety rail that surrounded it and peered into the lower area. There, bobbing in the choppy waters of the Tennessee River, was a long powerboat, painted blue and shaped like a dart. Perfect.

Brigid turned back to Kane and Grant, calling them over. “Come quick and bring Ms. Blue,” she instructed.

Bullets thudded all about them as Grant, Kane and Ohio Blue made their way toward the area where Brigid waited. Kane kicked over the recliner as he passed, using it for a shield while they retreated from the approaching gunmen.

At the far end of the boathouse, Kane could see the odd-looking tank trundling slowly forward, knocking against one of the towers of crates before shunting it aside.

“Oh, this had better be good,” Kane muttered.

When Kane turned he saw that Ohio Blue was at Brigid’s side, trotting down the short staircase that led to the sunken dock. Grant waited at the head of the stairs, blasting at targets with his Sin Eater, providing what cover he could for Kane.

“Keep moving,” Kane told him as he passed.

Grant drilled a line of bullets into the edge of the lowest crate in a nearby stack. Under the relentless attack, the crate began to sag, its structural integrity ruined, and then the whole tower swayed for a few seconds before it slowly toppled to the floor of the vast boathouse, blocking the way for the approaching gunmen.

The two ex-Mags turned and rushed down the staircase, one after another, their heads kept low as bullets whizzed all about them. Ahead of them, Brigid stood beside Ohio Blue in the dart-shaped boat, swiftly assessing the vessel’s dashboard controls.

Grant stepped into the boat with Kane just behind him. A moment later, the boat roared away, engine howling as Brigid powered it out of the boathouse across the undulating waves. A wall of water cascaded around them as the boat turned sharply and arrowed down the choppy waters of the Tennessee. Behind them, gunmen in the boathouse were blasting shot after shot at the rapidly disappearing boat, but they were already out of range.

As Brigid manned the wheel, Ohio Blue rubbed at her face and looked at the three Cerberus teammates. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said breathlessly.

“Who were they?” Grant asked.

Ohio Blue shrugged her pale shoulders. “Competition?” she suggested, a note of query in her tone.

“See,” Kane told her angrily, “this is what you get when you jack up the price at the last minute.”

In reply, Ohio Blue just gave him a cold smile as the boat carved a path through the waves away from the boathouse. “I guess my brother’s not quite as dead as I thought,” she muttered to herself.

At the wheel, Brigid glanced across to the passengers before addressing the black marketer. “Do you have somewhere else we can go?”

Ohio Blue laughed, pushing her blond hair—now damp from the spray of the river—back over her shoulders. “That place was an empty shell, just for show,” she said. “Do you think I’m foolish enough to invite interested parties to my stock?”

Kane’s jaw was set firm as he looked at the woman. “I figure you just lost maybe twenty men back there,” he said.

“Men can be replaced,” she told him. “They were slow and stupid, so they died.”

Kane’s finger snapped up, jabbing toward Ohio’s face in accusation. “You very nearly died, too, sister,” he snapped.

“Ah, but you saved me, O handsome prince.” Blue sighed. Her visible eyelid fluttered as though swooning, and she clutched her hands together before her breasts. She was mocking Kane and he knew it.

Brigid powered down the engine and the boat slowed to a crawl as she steered it toward the muddy bank. They were over a klick away from the boathouse already, and no one was chasing them as far as Brigid could tell—they didn’t need to keep running. When Kane looked at her quizzically, she nodded toward the verdant slopes in the distance: the redoubt was nearby, its mat-trans unit their quickest way home.

Brigid spoke briefly to the trader before exiting the boat, with Grant leading the way. Kane was the last to leave, his senses on high alert once more in case they ran into further trouble on their way back.

“Well, it’s been a blast,” Kane told Ohio as he stepped up onto the edge of the boat, “but this is our stop.”

“Ohh,” Ohio drawled. “Leaving so soon? How will I ever take care of myself, O handsome prince?”

“You’ll manage,” Kane growled. “And I’m not your handsome prince.”

A wide smile crossed Ohio Blue’s cerulean lips then, that playful fire back in her visible blue eye. “But what else would I call you?” she challenged. “I never did learn your name.”

“Kane,” he told her as he stepped from the boat.

Ohio Blue reached out and pulled him back by the arm. Then she inclined her head, her mouth close to Kane’s ear, and whispered, “I owe you, Kane. Tell Ms. Baptiste that she will get her meds, and at the original price.”

Kane’s steely blue-gray eyes looked at her and a lopsided grin crossed his mouth for a moment. “That’s a very noble gesture,” he acknowledged.

Ohio Blue looked at him through the drooping curtain of her damp blond bangs. “I remember who my friends are, Kane,” she told him, squeezing his arm tightly for just a moment before letting him go.

In a few moments, Kane joined Grant and Brigid on the banks of the Tennessee as Ohio Blue powered the boat away. When he told them that they were getting the booster shots after all, Grant laughed.

“You do have a way with the ladies,” Grant said, slapping his friend on the back.

Kane wasn’t so sure. Friends like Ohio Blue almost always turned out to be more trouble than they were worth.

SHIZUKA SAT CROSS-LEGGED upon the ground on the empty plateau outside the entrance to the Cerberus redoubt. She had dressed in casual clothes, a loose-fitting cotton blouse in a pink so pale as to be almost white, black trousers and flat, open sandals. She sat there, breathing deeply as the midmorning sun played across the exposed skin of her arms, her throat and face, letting her mind fall silent with stillness.

Shizuka had brought two items with her that seemed, because she was dressed so casually, very much out of place: a katana blade, twenty-five inches of sharpened steel, held within a dark scabbard beautifully decorated with gold filigree, and a small wooden casket, just six inches by three, like a musical box. The sword and box rested on an open blanket that she had laid out on the dusty ground before sitting on it.

She had been thinking of Grant, that aching need to be in his company, to share nothing more important than the simplest of moments. But between his commitments to Cerberus and hers to the Tigers of Heaven at New Edo, the couple never quite seemed to have enough time together. Indeed, some of their most significant shared moments had been during the heat of raging battle. This day, for the first time in months, it seemed, Shizuka finally had a free day, the demands of her role as leader of the Tigers of Heaven quiet for once. And, with typical bad timing, Grant was required on a mission halfway across the country.

What had he said? A simple pickup, won’t take long. Her breath slow and calm, Shizuka reached forward and flipped open the brass catch on the little wooden box. She would wait for Grant, so that they might yet spend the afternoon together, with no distractions but for each other.

Shizuka’s delicate hands pushed open the lid and reached inside the box. Its contents had been placed carefully inside specific compartments, a masterpiece of simple design and economic use of space. There were sheets of thin rice paper, a soft square of cotton, a lightly chalked powder ball and a small bottle of oil. Along the front of the compartmentalized box rested a tiny brass hammer, held separate from the other items in the cleaning kit.

Shizuka reached forward, taking the sheathed katana from where it lay on the blanket. Gripping the hilt of the sword with her right hand, she pulled at the scabbard with her left, drawing the blade into the open where its polished steel surface reflected the rays of the sun. The graceful movement was automatic, an unconscious thing for her, practiced so many times as to be a part of her muscle memory, the weight of the sword like just another segment of her body. She looked at the blade for a moment, her eyes scanning its length, observing the grain of the steel, checking for flaws. Then, careful to hold the sharp edge of the blade away from her, Shizuka took a single sheet of the crackling, wafer-thin rice paper and began to slowly stroke the blade with it.