Grailstone Gambit

When Brigid came to a knitted mass of wreckage that appeared to be several buildings that had toppled atop one another, she paused to study it, looking for a way through it or over it rather than around.

A series of concrete slabs formed something of a crude staircase over the top of the rubble and she began clambering up them, leaping from one to the other until she pulled herself to the summit. Breathing hard, she looked toward the street, just as the yellow Cadillac rolled behind a pile of bricks. She saw the broad dark bulk of Shuma standing in the rear of the vehicle, waving to the shrilling mob. She caught only a glimpse of the big black man spread-eagled across the hood and her heart jumped in her chest.

Quickly she opened the Commtact channel to Kane. “Shuma himself just passed. Big as life and about five times as ugly.”

“Did you see Grant?” he demanded.

“Yes.” Her tone quavered ever so slightly. “It’s going to be close, I’m afraid.”

“It’s what I figured. Stand by.”

Brigid knew Kane was in contact with the other members of the away team, Brady and Edwards, so she did not linger. Swiftly, she bounded down the face of the rubble heap. The footing wasn’t treacherous, but it wasn’t particularly trustworthy, either. Twice, stones turned beneath her feet and she nearly pitched headlong to the ground below.

When she reached the base, she started running, hoping to get ahead of the Cadillac and provide support for Brady, Edwards and Domi, although she knew all three people were experienced. Domi, of course, had lived most of her young life in the wild places, far from the cushioned tyranny of the baronies. She had spent years cautiously treading the ragged edge of death, and her inner fiber had been forged into an iron strength and an implacable stoicism.

Edwards and Brady were, like Kane and Grant, former Magistrates and were now trusted members of the Cerberus away teams. Lakesh had initially opposed the formation of the three Cerberus away teams, made uncomfortable by the concept of the redoubt’s own version the Magistrate Divisions, ironically composed of former Magistrates. However, as the scope of their operations broadened, the personnel situation at the installation also changed.

Kane, Grant, Brigid and Domi couldn’t always undertake the majority of the ops and therefore shoulder the lion’s share of the risks. Over the past year and a half, Kane and Grant had set up Cerberus Away Teams Alpha, Beta and Delta. CAT Delta was semipermanently stationed at Redoubt Yankee on Thunder Isle, rotating duty shifts with the New Edo’s Tigers of Heaven, and CAT Beta was charged with the security of the redoubt and surrounding territory.

A number of former Magistrates, weary of fighting for one transitory ruling faction or another that tried to fill the power vacuum in the villes, responded to the outreach efforts of Cerberus.

Diplomacy, turning potential enemies into allies against the spreading reign of the overlords, had become the paramount tactic of Cerberus. Lessons in how to deal with foreign cultures and religions took the place of weapons instruction and other training.

Over the past five years, Brigid Baptiste, Domi, Kane and Grant had tramped through jungles and ruined cities, over mountains and across deserts. They had found strange cultures everywhere, often bizarre re-creations of societies that had vanished long before the nukecaust.

Due in part to her eidetic memory, Brigid spoke a dozen languages and could get along in a score of dialects, but knowing the native tongues of many different cultures and lands was only a small part of her work. Aside from her command of languages, Brigid had made history and geopolitics abiding interests in a world that was changing rapidly.

She and all the personnel of Cerberus, more than half a world away atop a mountain peak in Montana, had devoted themselves to changing the nuke-blasted planet into something better. At least that was her earnest hope. To turn hope into reality meant respecting the often alien behavior patterns influenced by a vast number of ancient religions, legends, myths and taboos.

Brigid ran through a scattering of machine parts, her Copperhead bumping in an irritating rhythm against her left hip. Most of the rusted hunks of metal were so corroded as to be unidentifiable. Brigid continued along the front a row of roofless brownstones. As she crossed an overgrown strip of gravel alley between a pair of buildings, she heard the roar of the crowd as Shuma’s vehicle hove into view.

Vaulting over a web of rusty iron pipes, Brigid sprinted to a low brick wall and knelt down behind it, catching her breath. Urgency vibrated along all the sensitive nerve endings of her body. Kane’s voice suddenly entered her head.

“Baptiste, can you see Domi?”

From a jacket pocket Brigid withdrew a small monocular and pressed it against her right eye. She swept the crowd swarming on both sides of the street, but she saw no one standing out to attract her attention.

“No…why?”

“She was cut off.”

“Cut off how?”

“How the hell do I know?” Kane snapped impatiently. “That’s why I’m calling you.”

“Do you think something has happened to her?” Brigid demanded, still peering through the lens of the monocular.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Brigid focused on the dark bulk of Shuma’s figure. “That’s no answer. Until we know what’s happened to her, we should scrub the mission.”

“There’s no time for that.”

“Dammit, Kane—”

“Stand by,” Kane broke in tersely. “Everybody, just stand by.”

Brigid’s gaze was drawn to the strange figure hunched down beside Shuma. He looked shrunken, almost dwarfish. A chill finger of dread stroked the base of her spine as she studied his features. His eyes were his most disquieting characteristic. They were wide, unblinking and not completely human. Tiny red pinpricks blazed brightly within the pupils. The eyes fixed on her, and she felt a sudden pressure in her temples.

Heart trip-hammering in her breast, feeling out of breath, Brigid jerked the monocular down and said into the Commtact, “We need to pull back and regroup before—”

“Shut up, Baptiste,” Kane snapped.

Her face filmed with cold sweat, Brigid did not reply. The gunshot was sharp and sudden. Even at such a distance, she saw the spark flaring from the Cadillac’s polished grillwork. A plume of steam jetted from the radiator, obscuring Grant from sight.

Pushing herself up from behind the wall, she reached for her TP-9. A sudden explosion behind the Cadillac sent a cloud of black smoke billowing into the air. The sound boomed back and forth, and Brigid felt the concussion like the slap of a languid hand across her face.

She recognized the characteristic crump of an M-33 fragmentation grenade, and she had no doubt at all who had thrown it.

Chapter 4

When Grant awoke that dawn, he tasted blood in his mouth. The blood had dried on his lips and he licked them, his tongue exploring the lacerations on the tender lining of his cheeks. He came out of unconsciousness like an exhausted swimmer pulling himself ashore, and he became aware of a consuming pain in his head and a burning thirst. He remained motionless, listening to the sound of voices speaking in low tones below him. The abraded flesh around his left eye felt swollen and raw.

Grant lay in a wooden cage, a bit under five feet tall at its apex, six feet in diameter. The slats were lashed together by rawhide thongs and many turns of a heavy-gauge wire. The entry gate was sealed by a length of rust-flecked chain and an old-fashioned iron padlock.

All things considered, the cage hanging from the cross-brace framework ten feet above the ground wasn’t the worst place he had ever been imprisoned, but it was a long way from the most comfortable.

The events that had led up to his imprisonment were only a set of disjointed images, fragmented memories of ugly dreams.

Grant remembered how he and Domi sauntered into the camp of the Survivalist Outland Brigade without being challenged by sentries, mainly because none was posted. They hadn’t seen any pickets, nor did there appear to be a clear-cut perimeter of the camp. The place was a sprawling mess of people and slapdash structures.

Tar-paper shacks, lean-tos, huts and tents stood jumbled in Central Park, spread out like a spilled garbage can. Four huge fires sputtered redly in the drizzle. In front of some of the dwellings stood poles of stripped saplings with skulls mounted on top, not all of them animal.

The people they saw in the camp ranged from youths with wispy beards to sharp-eyed, hard-bitten warriors. The clothing styles were varied and eclectic—colorful wool serapes, wide-brimmed cowboy hats with snake-skin bands and scruffy fur caps.

Grant easily differentiated between the Roamers and the Farers—the Roamers were festooned with weaponry, bandoliers crisscrossed over their chests, with foot-long bowie knives and big, showy handguns at their hips.

The Farers dressed a bit more sedately, and their weapons of choice were utilitarian longblasters, bolt-action rifles and a few autocarbines.

But neither Roamer nor Farer gave Grant or Domi so much as a second glance, which, he realized in retrospect, should have aroused his suspicions. Despite being dressed in standard Farer wear—patched denim jeans and leather hip jacket over a khaki shirt—he still stood four inches over six feet and much of his coffee-brown face was cast into sinister shadow by the broad brim of an old felt fedora. Walking side by side with a petite albino girl barely five feet tall should have drawn some curious glances, even from the most jaundiced member of the SOB.

He had almost no memory of being buffeted on all sides by a surging mass of bodies that overwhelmed him with such swift efficiency he had no chance to draw his weapon. As he was borne to the ground under the weight of many men, he heard Domi blurt in wordless anger. He shouted for her to run, then a flurry of blows fell on him and hands ripped the big revolver from his shoulder rig beneath his jacket.

A soft, lisping voice said, “Move aside, let me see him. Move aside, let him up so I can see him.”

When the crushing weight obligingly left Grant’s body, he lunged upward—then he felt as if an immense fist slammed into the back of his head. The impact drove all light and consciousness from his eyes. For a long time, he saw nothing but black and heard only silence.

He regained his senses in piecemeal fashion when a cup of icy water dashed into his face roused him. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Agony tore his skull apart. He tasted the salt of his own blood in his mouth.