Shadow Box

The bandanna-wearing guard had pulled his bike around, kicking up dirt as the tires tore against the makeshift road surface. Brigid struggled to target him with her TP-9 while Tom Carnack squirmed against her side in the headlock. She seemed only able to watch as the motorcyclist pulled a revolver from his jacket’s inside pocket and aimed it directly between her eyes.

Meanwhile, already thirty yards away, racing down the rough wooden slats of the fishing pier, Grant found himself dragged behind the rider of the other motorcycle, his right ankle caught up in the chain that the man held. His back slapped the splintering pier beneath him, tossing him in the air before dropping him back down hard against its surface, knocking the breath out of him and giving him no time to recover.

Realizing that the slats were evenly spread, Grant timed his breaths and tried to focus his vision on the jostling view of the rider. He was momentarily tossed into the air once more, and as his shoulders took the brunt of another hard landing, Grant raised the pistol in his hand and aimed down the length of his body at the motorcycle, praying he would manage to avoid shooting his own foot off.

The Heckler & Koch spit, and three bullets flew through the air. The first one hit the rider just behind the ear, causing him to turn the handlebars violently and forcing the motorbike into a skid. The second shot went wide, flying over the top of Grant’s target, but the third bullet hit the bike beneath the saddle, drilling through the chassis and into the fuel tank.

With a blossoming explosion, motorbike and rider caught light as it sped off the side of the pier with Grant still dragging behind it.

The motorbike and its flaming rider hit the blue-green waters of the ocean with a splash, before sinking immediately beneath the waves and pulling Grant along with them as the flames were extinguished.

“Oh, crap,” Grant snarled as his head ducked beneath the water and he felt himself plummeting toward the bottom.

Back on the pier, Kane watched as the bike caught fire and Grant disappeared off the side of the wooden structure, dragging behind it. But there was no time to react—the dancing girl was already upon him, swinging the wide blade of her sword in a sweeping arc intended to rip his chest in two. Kane leaped backward, barely an inch out of reach.

“Looks like we get to dance after all, Magistrate man,” the dark-haired woman announced, her eyes flashing.

“I’ve got two left feet,” Kane replied, raising his pistol and targeting her head with the heavy Magnum handgun.

And then, with no warning, the ground started shaking, rocking the whole, flimsy ville of Hope. Kane and his beautiful opponent staggered before falling to their knees.

Chapter 3

Pulled down by the weight around his ankle, Grant held his breath as he sank beneath the waves. He opened his eyes, feeling the salty sting of the ocean press against them as he plummeted from the surface. Beneath him, the rider and the motorcycle were sinking rapidly, and the rider still clung to the length of chain that was wrapped around Grant’s ankle. The ex-Mag fought for a moment, trying to swim away from his sinking adversary, but the chain was cinched tight and he would have to disentangle himself before he could escape.

Grant looked back down the length of his body, watching the darkness of the ocean envelop the bike and its rider. He discarded the Heckler & Koch, letting it drift away from him on the current as he twisted his body in an effort to reach for his trapped ankle.

The darkness was closing around him now, and his chest was starting to yearn to take its next breath. Soon it would be hard to see the chain.

As he scrambled over himself, plunging his arms toward his weighted foot, Grant felt something slam his body beneath the water, as though he had hit a solid wall. He was thrown about in the ocean depths, spun and shunted, as the wall of pressure hit him. Light followed by darkness, then light again, his breath blurting from his mouth in a rush of bubbles, and suddenly Grant could no longer tell which way was up.

Beneath him, or at least at the end of his foot, the rider clung to the chain as his motorcycle was wrenched from under him, and Grant watched in astonishment as the heavy two-wheeler seemed to dance around then disappear over his head.

Suddenly another wall of pressure collided with Grant’s body, and he seemed to pirouette in the dark waters of the Pacific. He felt something pull at his foot as he was tossed around, and suddenly his assailant’s face rushed before his eyes before spinning away.

THE MAN IN THE bandanna and goggles was about to pull the trigger of his Beretta when the first tremor hit, shaking the ground violently and throwing Brigid and her prisoner into a staggering, graceless dance.

Brigid heard the gun blast, watched the bullet speed over her head as she toppled over, releasing her headlock grip on Tom Carnack. A moment later, the dirt track of the ground was rushing toward her face and she thrust her hands forward, still clutching the TP-9, and braced for impact.

When Brigid let go, Tom Carnack found his feet wrenched from under him and suddenly he was in the air, sailing across the width of the street. His brief flight was cut short as his frame slammed against the side of one of the makeshift huts, knocking a thin, plywood wall into splinters before he caught the structure’s metal support pole in midstomach. His breath spluttered out of him as the brigand leader sank to the floor inside the ruined little hut.

The gunman, meanwhile, found his bike and rider, Señor Smarts, dragged away beneath him, and the handlebars clapped into his pelvis, sending a wave of sudden agony through the top of both legs before flipping him to the ground. His jaw hit the dirt road with a resounding thud, making his ears ring once more.

The motorcycle still beneath him, Señor Smarts became tangled with the vehicle as it flipped over itself, again and again, sliding along the street as though at the top of a sharp incline. Smarts’s head cracked repeatedly into the ground as he was dragged backward.

Close by, at the entrance to the pier, Kane and the sword-wielding dancing girl were brought to their knees by the sudden shock. Kane reached forward, his left palm slapping into the wooden slats of the pier as he tried to halt his fall. Beside him, the dancing girl rolled forward, taking the brunt of the fall on her shoulder before turning to face him, still kneeling.

Kane saw the startled look in her eyes, and he was about to question her when a second tremor ran through the pier and he felt the ground shake where it touched his legs and steadying hand. Before his eyes, the dark-haired swordswoman toppled over and rolled down the pier. All around, people and loose items were being tossed about, and Kane heard the crash as several of the poorly constructed buildings collapsed.

Kane clawed the ground as it rumbled beneath him, throwing him onto his side. He lay there, facing the pier as the shock wave thundered through the ground. Abruptly, the pier beneath him disintegrated, and Kane reached frantically behind him to secure a grip on the ground as the whole structure crashed into the ocean, the dancing girl and a handful of fishermen dropping with it. As the pier fell, Kane saw the rising wave behind it, growing from twenty to a monstrous forty feet as he watched, rolling toward him with unstoppable force.

Kane braced himself as the wave crashed over him, the weight of water blocking out the sunlight for a moment before the surge of water crashed down and smothered the seafront buildings.

Kane’s grip was broken as the wave swelled all around him, and he found himself being shunted along the street before being pulled backward toward the ocean along with several dozen locals and their belongings as they were caught up in its ferocious torrent.

GRANT FOUND HIMSELF caught up in the immense wave as it crashed down on the buildings that lined the beach. It was like flying, the water streaming all around him, pushing him unstoppably onward as it tossed him high in the air. He gasped, gulping in air and seawater as he hurtled ever onward, and he saw the motorcycle and, separately, its rider, race away as they were caught up in other parts of the colossal wave.

Suddenly, the wave lost integrity and the ground was rushing beneath him, fifteen feet below. Grant looked ahead and saw sunlight glint off of the corrugated tin roof of one of the huts, and, quicker than he could acknowledge it, he was shoved into the roof and sent rolling over and over until the whole single-story structure collapsed in on itself.

BRIGID WATCHED AS, caught up in the huge wave, Grant’s familiar form sailed overhead and crashed into a wide hut a little way along the street. She held herself low to the ground as the tremor subsided, remaining there for a few seconds until she was certain that the shock wave had passed.

When she looked up again, she saw that the structure that Grant had hit had collapsed in on itself, and a number of the ramshackle buildings along the street were in a similar state of disrepair. Whatever had hit them had hit hard, like a heavy stone being dropped in a pond, the ripples spreading across its surface until its energy was finally spent.

Carefully, Brigid got back on her feet and, steadying her grip on the pistol with her free hand, checked the street. The motorcyclist who had pointed the gun at her head was nowhere to be seen, nor were his bike and passenger. Tom Carnack lay amid the rubble of a building that now stood on the beachfront, where a minute earlier it had been three buildings back. His eyes were closed, and blood was oozing from a wound around his hairline above the right eye.

The street itself was three inches deep in clear water, swells of foam bobbing along here and there as it ran back toward the ocean.

The pier was gone, and Brigid checked the faces of the shocked and wounded who were recovering all around, trying to locate Kane. Neither he nor his lithe opponent were to be seen, and Brigid tamped down the urge to rush to look for him. Grant was just down the street, and she needed to ensure that he was okay first. Plus, assuming he was all right, the two of them could cover more ground in the search for their teammate.

Still clutching the TP-9, Brigid jogged along the street, her boots splashing in the carpet of flowing water, until she reached the collapsed building that she had seen Grant thrown through. Her hearing was coming back now, after the colossal crashing of the huge wave had briefly deafened her, and she could hear screaming and crying coming from all around. The burned beggar was gone; he and his bowl had presumably been washed away. Children were running around in the street, a naked toddler wailing as he stumbled through the road, looking for a friendly face.

Brigid leaned down and scooped up the unclothed toddler, lifting him to shoulder height and looking to make sure that he wasn’t wounded. “There, there,” she told him quietly, “it’s okay now. It’s okay. Hush now.”

Carrying the child over one shoulder, Brigid kicked rubble aside and made her way into the remains of the collapsed hut. “Grant?” she called, raising her voice. “It’s Brigid. Are you here?”

She listened for a moment, watching the rubble for signs of her partner. Grant’s familiar voice came rumbling from across to the right, and Brigid saw the wreckage move and his hand appear above the mess. She rushed across the rubble, taking care not to trip as she balanced the toddler close to her chest, and leaned down to help shift the debris.

A moment later, Grant was struggling out of the shattered remains of the building, water pouring from his coat and his skin caked with pale dust. He wiped a hand over his face and smiled at Brigid. “What the freak just happened?” he asked her, a snarl replacing his smile.

Brigid shook her head, rocking the toddler in her arms. “I don’t know,” she told Grant. “Felt like maybe a bomb blast, but I didn’t hear the explosion. Earthquake maybe?”

“You think?” Grant asked.

Brigid shrugged. “The San Andreas Fault runs through here,” she speculated. “If you look at the old maps, you’ll see that it pretty much wiped out most of the West Coast a couple of centuries back, after the nukes fell.”

Grant nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll see if I can raise Lakesh and get some intel,” he told her. Then the huge ex-Mag looked around. “Where’s Kane?” he asked.

“He was on the pier when it dropped into the sea,” Brigid said, clambering over the rubble and back onto the waterlogged street.

Grant shook his head angrily as he followed her. “This day just keeps getting worse,” he growled. With that, he activated the Commtact that was embedded subcutaneously behind his right ear and patched through to Cerberus headquarters.

“This is Grant in the field, Lakesh, Donald? Are you guys receiving me?”

There was a brief pause and then Donald Bry’s friendly voice came to Grant, uplinked to a satellite from the operations room in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana. “Hey, Grant, how are things? Mission accomplished?”

The Commtact units were top-of-the-line communication devices that had been discovered in a military installation called Redoubt Yankee several years before, and they had become standard equipment for the Cerberus field operatives. Commtacts featured sensor circuitry incorporating an analog-to-digital voice encoder that was subcutaneously embedded against the mastoid bone. Once the pintels made contact, transmissions were picked up by the auditory canals, and dermal sensors transmitted the electronic signals directly through the user’s skull casing. Theoretically, if a wearer went completely deaf he or she would still be capable of hearing, after a fashion, by using the Commtact.

Permanent usage of the Commtact would involve a minor surgical procedure, something many of the Cerberus staff were understandably reticent to submit to, and so their use had stalled, for the moment, at field-test stage. Besides radio communications, the Commtacts could be used as translation devices, providing a real-time interpretation of spoken foreign language on the proviso that sufficient vocabulary had been programmed into their data banks.