Janus Trap. James Axler

had journeyed to Tennessee at the request of Reba DeFore on what could loosely be described as a mercy mission. During her recent inventory, Reba had noticed that supplies of their standard immunization boosters were falling low. With the devastating radiation storms that had accompanied the nukecaust, the whole landscape had become a near-lethal hot zone. Even now, more than two hundred years after the last bomb had been dropped, there were still dangerous pollutants in the air and pockets of radiation scattered across the globe. While the atmosphere was far cleaner than it had been, the use of immunization boosters remained standard procedure for anyone involved in fieldwork.

      Many of the medications in use by Cerberus had actually been produced in the villes of the nine barons who had ruled over America until very recently. Black marketers with connections to the villes remained a convenient source of immunization boosters when necessity demanded it.

      A few months earlier, the barony of Beausoleil in the Tennessee River Valley had fallen in a devastating air attack orchestrated by Lilitu, a would-be goddess whose ambition was matched only by her unquenchable blood thirst. Beausoleil had been razed, leaving a vast number of refugees and a blossoming secondary market in salvage. Just a few weeks earlier, Kane, Grant and Brigid had been involved in tracking genetic material that had been stolen from its ashes and had fallen into the hands of a criminal gang on the Pacific coast.

      Now, once more, the three Cerberus warriors found themselves tracking down material taken from the devastated ville, only this time it promised to be a far simpler mission—or so the Cerberus desk jockeys would have them believe.

      Brigid glanced up at the sun and checked her wrist chron before pointing to her right up the bank of the muddy slope. There were shallow puddles all around, and the air smelled fresh and crisp. It had been raining here less than an hour before, she concluded.

      “Ohio’s people said she’d meet us about two klicks to the north,” Brigid explained as she strode up the muddy incline and made her way toward a rusty chain-link iron fence that surrounded the redoubt’s hidden entrance.

      “Lead on, Baptiste,” Kane muttered as he watched the beautiful woman duck through a gap in the fence and make her way across the puddle-dotted fields beyond.

      Kane and Grant followed, their boots sinking into the sodden ground as they trekked toward the fence.

      Grant pulled at the gap in the fence, lifting the chain link a little to provide Kane with more clearance. “She knows what she’s doing,” he reminded his friend.

      “I know,” Kane allowed. “I just don’t like dealing with these bandit types. It never ends well.”

      Grant agreed as he pulled himself through the gap in the fence after Kane. They found themselves on a grassy hill that sloped gently toward the distant Tennessee River.

      “Way I see it, what it really comes down to is you can’t trust anyone,” Grant said. “First rule of survival.”

      Kane glanced at him, the trace of a sarcastic smile crossing his lips. “You’re still thinking like a Magistrate.” He laughed.

      “It’s kept me alive so far,” Grant retorted.

      Kane snorted. “That and having me at your back.”

      Grant shook his head in mock disbelief as the pair of ex-Mags made their way across the soft, muddy ground after the svelte figure of Brigid Baptiste.

      OHIO BLUE WAS a tall, slender woman in her midthirties with thick, long blond hair that was styled to fall over her right eye. She wore a shimmering sapphire dress that reached almost to her ankles, with an enticing slit revealing almost the entire length of her left leg. She sat, legs crossed, on a crimson-cushioned recliner set in the middle of a vast boathouse located on the banks of the Tennessee, in an area that had once been called Knoxville. Surrounding Ohio Blue and the recliner were approximately fifty large crates and twenty well-armed guards.

      The boathouse was solid on three sides, while the fourth was open to the mighty river itself. There was a sunken area in the large structure where boats could be docked, with the dark river waters lapping against the sides with a constant swishing that echoed throughout the vast, high-ceilinged building.

      With a graceful shrug, Ohio swept her luxuriant hair over her shoulders and stood up, offering her hand to Brigid. The hand was sheathed in a silk glove that stretched all the way past the elbow in a shade of blue that precisely matched the color of her shimmering dress. “You must be Miss Baptist,” Blue said, her voice wonderfully musical.

      “Baptiste,” Brigid corrected as she clutched the woman’s gloved hand and briefly shook it.

      Kane and Grant stood a few paces behind Brigid, flanking her with arms crossed, their Sin Eaters hidden once more in their wrist holsters. Ohio Blue swept her hand casually toward them, a smile playing across lips that were painted an ice blue to match the highlights of her sapphire dress as it caught the light with the movements of her curvaceous figure. “A pair of handsome things,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Companions or employees?”

      “A little of both.” Brigid smiled. The art of the deal was in making the other party comfortable, and Brigid knew that she had better make this black marketer happy. If Reba DeFore’s estimates were correct, the Cerberus personnel would be needing these shots before the month was out.

      Kane and Grant took up positions to the sides of the open area of the boathouse as Ohio Blue sat back down on her crimson-cushioned recliner. The blond-haired woman patted the cushion with her hand, encouraging Brigid to join her. “Let’s talk business, Miss Baptiste,” she drawled. “I understand that you’re in the market for some pharmaceuticals.”

      “That’s right,” Brigid replied, resting herself at the edge of the couch beside the stunning woman. “I’m looking for some specific jabs, the kind of stuff they were producing in Beausoleil before the…” She trailed off, her hands open to indicate that she didn’t have the words to describe it.

      “A terrible thing,” Ohio agreed. “Truly, truly terrible. My brother died in the attack.”

      “I’m sorry,” Brigid lamented.

      “No matter,” the slender blonde continued. “Many a good business opportunity has come out of that disaster, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

      As Baptiste continued to talk with the trader, Kane and Grant warily scanned the vast room. The place smelled damp. There was green mold scabbing over the walls and the wooden floor planks, and the lighting was inadequate for such a large room. There were several broken windows high in the walls of the building, and the whole place felt cold and dank. Guards patrolled all around, armed with subguns, heavy rifles and pistols. When he looked up, Kane spotted half a dozen more guards walking across the tops of the highest crates, and two more just standing up there, their blasters trained on the negotiating parties below. He turned to Grant, caught the man’s eye and mouthed the words, “We are very outnumbered.”

      In response, Grant just nodded and beamed a bright smile. Kane knew what that meant—they were here now, and there wasn’t a lot they could do about it.

      The discussions seemed to be going well between Ohio Blue and Brigid Baptiste, until Brigid opened up her satchel and showed the trader its contents.

      “What is this?” Ohio said, clearly affronted. “Some kind of joke?”

      “Fifty gold coins,” Brigid stated, trying to remain calm. “Exactly as requested in your communiqué.”

      Blue held one of the ancient coins before her visible blue eye and, for a moment, Brigid half expected her to bite down on it like an olden-day pirate testing if a gold piece was genuine.

      “We’ve traveled quite some distance to obtain this merchandise,” Brigid prompted.

      Blue looked at the gold coin for another half minute before finally flipping it back into Brigid’s satchel. “I need more,” she said.

      Brigid was incredulous. “You’re upping the price?”