Janus Trap. James Axler

the devastated target whipped back up into the ceiling while two others dropped from the right-hand side of the room. With an astonishing economy of movement, Kane and Brigid turned and sighted the new targets. As ever, Kane took the one that was farthest from the previous target while Brigid cut the other to pieces with a stream of 9 mm rounds.

      Suddenly, a spinning red light flashed overhead, and a honking noise cut into the guitar chords blasting from the speakers. Fifteen minutes had passed; the gruelling training session was over.

      Kane stood there, his gun still raised for a few seconds, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he brought his heart rate back to normal. After a moment, he turned to Brigid, openly admiring her as she steadied her own breathing, beads of sweat dripping down her nose, her red hair damp.

      “You okay?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the saxophone solo that had interrupted the gritty voice of the singer from the wall speakers.

      Brigid nodded, her eyes closed, a tentative smile on her lips. Then she turned to look at Kane, and her smile widened, showing two straight lines of perfect white teeth. “That was intense,” she said, her voice rich and husky. “What the heck setting did you use?”

      “I got Hitch to rig up something with a little extra kick just for me and Grant,” Kane explained with a chuckle. “Too much for you, Baptiste?”

      The redheaded woman checked the breech and holstered her semiautomatic at her hip before looking Kane directly in the eye. “I’ll let you know when it’s too much,” she told him, a definite challenge in her tone.

      Kane couldn’t help but laugh at her bravado. “You know, you shape up pretty good for a bookworm,” he said, chuckling and reaching for the control panel and powering down the target-practice program as it waited on its standby setting. A moment later, he cut the music and followed his beautiful companion through the exit door and into the changing area.

      A quick shower and they would be ready to face the day.

      THE ANCIENT MILITARY redoubt that served as the headquarters of the Cerberus operation was located high in the Bitterroot Mountain Range in Montana, where it had remained largely forgotten or ignored for the two bleak centuries that followed the nukecaust of 2001. In the intervening years, a strange mythology had built up around the shadow-filled forests and seemingly bottomless ravines of the mountains. The wilderness surrounding the tri-level concrete structure was virtually unpopulated; the nearest settlement was some miles away in the flatlands beyond the mountains themselves, just a small band of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians led by a shaman named Sky Dog who had befriended several of the Cerberus warriors over the years.

      The facility itself had not always been called Cerberus. Its official name was Redoubt Bravo, named, like all prewar redoubts, after a letter of the alphabet, as used in standard military radio communications. Redoubt Bravo had been dedicated to the monitoring and exploration of the newly developed matter-transfer network. However, somewhere in the mists of time, a young soldier had painted a vibrant rendition of the fabled, two-headed hound of Hades to guard the doors to the facility, like Cerberus guarding the gates to the underworld. The artist was long since dead, but his work had inspired the people who had taken over the facility to call it the Cerberus redoubt.

      Hidden within the rocky clefts of the mountains around the building, disguised beneath camouflage netting, concealed uplinks chattered continuously with two orbiting satellites to provide a steady stream of data for the Cerberus operatives within. Accessing the ancient satellites had been a long process, involving much trial and error by many of the top scientists at the redoubt. The Cerberus crew could draw on live feeds from both a Vela-class reconnaissance satellite and the Keyhole communications satellite.

      Despite its location high in the fresh air of the Bitterroot Mountains, the Cerberus facility was a self-contained unit. Its personnel had become accustomed to recirculated, filtered air as provided by vast air-conditioning units that continually churned and cleansed the facility’s air.

      The Cerberus operation had been founded and staffed by a cryogenically displaced scientist called Mohandas Lakesh Singh, who had dedicated the redoubt to the continued survival and freedom of humanity.

      Kane, in his previous life as a Magistrate at Cobaltville, had come upon evidence of a vast conspiracy that threatened the autonomy of humankind. Kane had stumbled on the first clues to the existence of a hidden alien race called the Annunaki who had been dabbling in humankind’s affairs for longer than anyone could comprehend. Appearing as gods to early man, the Annunaki had, from the shadows, guided the course of human history over the subsequent millennia, with an ultimate agenda of utter subjugation. Recently, the Annunaki royal family had revealed themselves on Earth once more, and Kane and his colleagues now found themselves in a deadly war of attrition against this seemingly unstoppable foe.

      The Cerberus warriors were one of humanity’s last bastions in the secret battle for the freedom of humankind.

      GRANT’S THOUGHTS were suddenly interrupted by the buzzing of the transcomm at the side of his bed. He lay there another moment, just gazing up at the ceiling in the darkness as he felt Shizuka’s lithe body stir beside him. Then, with a reluctant sigh, he leaned over and activated the button to answer the call.

      After a moment, a man’s face appeared in the tiny window display beside the little unit, smiling in a friendly manner. The man had dusky skin, an aquiline nose and a refined mouth. Lakesh appeared to be about fifty years of age, his sleek black hair displaying just the first hints of white at the temples and above the ears. In actuality, the expert physicist and cyberneticist was two hundred years older than that, having endured an extended period in suspended animation after the nukecaust in 2001. Until recently, Lakesh had physically appeared to be carrying every last one of his 250 years, until a would-be ally of the Cerberus exiles attempted to court their favor by reversing the aging process and giving the elderly scientist, literally, a new lease on life. However, in the months since that, Lakesh had become increasingly conscious that this miracle may not be all that it seemed, and he wondered whether this bountiful gift had hidden strings attached.

      “Yeah, go,” Grant said, looking into the screen where a tiny camera picked up his face and relayed the image to Lakesh up in the operations room.

      “Grant,” Lakesh began in his mellifluous voice, “did I wake you?”

      Grant shook his head slightly as he felt Shizuka sidle behind him and wrap her arms around his wide chest, pulling herself close to him and nuzzling against his neck. “It’s no problem, Lakesh. What’s going on?”

      “We’ve just heard from our contact in Tennessee,” Lakesh explained. “The meeting’s set up and, as we discussed a few days ago, I want you to attend with Kane and Brigid.”

      Grant nodded his acceptance. “The old crew back on the clock,” Grant muttered with a reluctant smile. “When do we leave?”

      “The meeting’s set for 10:00 a.m., local time,” Lakesh said. “You jump in forty minutes.”

      “No problem. I’ll see you there,” he vowed as he hit the button to cut the communication.

      Behind him, Shizuka tightened her grip on his chest, grinding her hips against him. “Do you really have to rush off so soon, Grant-san?” she asked.

      Grant turned his head to look over his shoulder. “Sorry, darling,” he said, “but it’s a simple pickup. It won’t take more than a few hours.”

      Still holding him tightly, Shizuka kissed Grant beneath his ear. “I’ll wait right here,” she whispered.

      After a moment, Grant extricated himself from the woman’s grip and made his way to the tiny bathroom cubicle attached to the room. Shizuka watched from the bed as Grant flicked the motion-sensor light switch to the cubicle and began running the water for the little shower stall within. After a moment, Shizuka pulled herself from the bed and, naked, padded silently across the room to join Grant in the shower.

      WHEN HE ARRIVED at the operations room thirty-five minutes later, washed and shaved, Grant found