That term was a catchall to describe a region in the Pacific Ocean of old and new landmasses.
Back during the nuclear holocaust, bombs known as earthshakers had been triggered, seeded months before by submarines along the fault and fracture lines of the Pacific Ocean. ICBM missiles had pounded the Cascades and the region from western Canada down to California. The concentrated destructive force had ripped that part of the Earth to pieces.
The tectonic shifts and undersea quakes triggered by the atomic megacull raised new volcanic islands. Because the soil was scraped up from the seabed, most the islands became fertile very quickly, except for those in the Blight Belt—islands that were still dangerously irradiated. Pandakar wasn’t one of those.
Arriving on a small island in the Straits of Malacca in Malaysia and finding Pandakar to be a stronghold of twenty-third-century pirates was one thing, but landing barely two hours before a bloody insurrection staged by a rival faction was something neither Grant nor Kane could have anticipated. They had been running and hiding along the sprawling waterfront for the past thirty minutes.
Pandakar’s population was a surprisingly mixed lot of Malays, Dyaks, Filipinos and quite a few Chinese. Unsurprisingly, the little island stunk of dead fish, mud and the eternal heat of the tropics. Mud-filled holes pitted the narrow streets. Still, Brigid, Kane and Grant had been entranced by the people of all colors with monkeys and parrots for sale. There were vendors of magical charms for the healing of wounds and curing of scurvy. There were sellers of maps who offered charts of submerged predark cities and their treasures.
But at night, the waterfront looked quite different, particularly during a rainstorm, than it had during the daytime. When the Cerberus warriors arrived on Pandakar, they had only caught a glimpse of its stilt-legged huts, plank walkways and piers crammed with sampans and brightly painted outrigger fishing boats. In the rainy darkness, the flickering glow of yellow lanterns cast an unearthly aurora over its byways.
A flash of lightning showed only the faint outlines of two figures creeping between a pair of thick wooden pilings draped with fishnets. With the long streamers of rain falling onto them, they resembled life-size mannequins attached to puppet strings.
“Looking for us?” Kane whispered.
“I don’t think it matters much,” Grant replied lowly. “Both sides will probably shoot us on sight.”
Kane sighed heavily. “Why does this shit always happen when we’re making diplomatic overtures?”
Grant uttered a derisive snort. “You’re asking me?”
Diplomacy, turning potential enemies into allies against the spreading reign of the Overlords, had become the paramount tactic of Cerberus over the past two years. Lessons in how to deal with foreign cultures and religions took the place of weapons instruction and other training.
Over the past several years, Brigid Baptiste and former Cobaltville Magistrates Grant and Kane had tramped through jungles, ruined cities, over mountains, across deserts and they found strange cultures everywhere, often bizarre re-creations of societies that had vanished long before the nukecaust.
Another crash of thunder exploded overhead, blasting a shock wave ahead of it, concussing with great force against the roof of the structure. A split roof timber shifted with a creak, and wood splinters mixed with dirty water pattered down.
Grant eyed it apprehensively. “We’re going to have to get out of here pretty soon, no matter what.”
A staccato drumroll wove its way around and through the roar of the storm. Kane and Grant knew the noise wasn’t thunder. They ducked, falling almost prone on either side of the cavity in the wall, and peered into the night.
Illuminated by a lightning stroke arcing overhead, they saw a man lying on the ground near one of the pilings, rain slamming into him. Dark liquid ribbons inched away from his body.
A figure slid away from the shadows, and a stab of orange flame spit from between a stack of wooden crates. Shot after shot cracked in the darkness as the subgun sprayed the gloom with bullets. The muzzle flashes strobed.
A crooked spear of lightning spread a curtain of blue-white radiance across the sky. The figures moved swiftly, bent over in crouches. Kane’s eyes flitted back and forth, trying to fix the men’s position in his mind. Then Grant sucked in his breath and whispered, “They’re behind us.”
Kane wheeled, unholstering a pistol and leveling it at the doorway in the rear of the hut. The plank door hung askew on crooked hinges. Grant threw himself against the wall, putting his Copperhead against his right shoulder. In almost the same shaved fraction of a second, the door crashed open and three men staggered into the hut.
Chapter 2
They were small, fierce Malaysians, all of them adorned in little more than rags. They carried a variety of pistols and carbines. The tallest man, who stood five foot eight, stared at Grant and Kane in astonishment.
A purple silk scarf enwrapped the Malaysian’s forehead, and gold earrings glittered in the lobes of both ears. His face and hands were covered by a network of old scar tracings. A scraggly mustache twisted down around the sides of his mouth, which was open in surprise.
For a long moment no one moved or spoke. Then the man in the purple scarf demanded in passably good English, “Where the fuck did you two come from?”
“Montana,” Kane replied, striving to sound nonchalant. “What about you?”
The man ignored Kane’s question. “You’re not part of Captain Saragayn’s crew. I know all of them.”
“Are you one of his crew?” Grant asked.
The man’s face convulsed with anger. “You don’t know who I am?”
“Should we?” Kane inquired.
The man tapped his chest with a thumb. “I’m Mersano.” The little Malaysian said the name as if it would explain everything.
Kane pointed to himself and Grant. “I’m Kane. This is Grant. We’re trying to find a friend of ours. We got separated when the fighting broke out.”
Mersano’s eyebrows rose. “A friend? A woman?”
Before Kane could reply, a grenade exploded with a muffled crump, blowing a blast of muck and rock fragments in through the hole in the wall. A brief burst of gunfire followed the detonation, and a bullet chipped stone out of the wall beside Grant’s right shoulder. Everyone dropped flat to the floor as three more rounds struck the wall and keened away.
“Their grenade fell short but they’ll try again,” Mersano said angrily.
“Who will?” Grant demanded. “What the hell is going on here?”
Mersano gestured toward the gap in the front of the building. “Captain Saragayn’s crew is trying to kill me and my men.”
“Why?” Kane asked.
“Because me and some others tried to boot him out of office,” Mersano answered, raising his head and gazing at the darkness beyond the hole. “I think you two ought to throw in with us.”
“Good call,” Kane commented dryly, turning and aiming his pistol through the gap. He squeezed off a single shot, the Bren Ten slamming like a door.
Immediately a volley of bullets stormed in, ricocheting and chipping out fragments of stone. Kane counted at least four separate muzzle-flashes.
“They’ve got us pinned down,” Grant said. “They’ll chuck in more grens once they can get closer.”
Mersano chuckled, a harsh, bitter sound. He heaved himself to one knee. “Then it’s best not to linger.”
Kane cast him a questioning glance. “Do you know of a way out of here?”
Mersano thumbed back the hammer of the big Casull revolver he carried and spoke to his two men in a dialect that neither Grant nor Kane understood. His