the old familiar sights he had been used to for so long.
Outside was little different. Just beyond the rollback door where the garish three-headed hellhound had been painted many years earlier, lending the Cerberus facility its name, thick posts of rock lined the plateau, barring the entryway to the redoubt for anything wider than a human. Even now, workers were chipping away at those pillars of stone, breaking them down into gravel and dust.
“I’m sorry it’s such a mess in here,” Lakesh said as he offered a seat to the beautiful woman who had come to speak with him. “You haven’t caught us at our best.”
Rosalia shrugged indifferently. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m not staying.” Rosalia was long of limb with thick, dark hair that reached past her shoulders to halfway down her back. In her early twenties, Rosalia wore loose clothes, a pale skirt that brushed her ankles and a white cotton blouse that she had left half unbuttoned. Where her olive skin could be seen it was tanned a beautiful golden. Rosalia had first met one of the Cerberus field teams as an adversary, but she had joined their ranks during their campaign against Ullikummis and had proved her worth many times over.
“You’ve been a real asset to us, Rosalia,” Lakesh told her. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to stay?”
Rosalia looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. “This? It’s not my scene,” she said. “You’ll be fine without me.”
And there it was, Lakesh thought. That remarkable arrogance that had typified Rosalia and her behavior within the Cerberus organization. The woman was competent—there was no question about it—but she was very aware of that fact. Whatever she had done, she made it clear that she had done it as a favor to Cerberus, not the other way around.
Kane, an incredibly gifted field agent and a lynchpin of the Cerberus team, had brought her on board. He had been trapped in the Life Camp at the time, and he had needed Rosalia’s help to escape and thus free the other Cerberus captives. But he had seen something in her and had asked her to help them for the duration. With Ullikummis now destroyed, Rosalia felt that her time with Cerberus had reached its natural end.
“Where will you go?” Lakesh asked, raising his voice to be heard over the sounds of chiseling going on just behind his shoulder.
“Somewhere,” Rosalia told him, as ever giving almost nothing away about herself.
“Cerberus owes you,” Lakesh said, “and I would like to see us pay our debts. If there’s anything I can do, or anything you need from the people of this facility, you need only ask.”
Rosalia stifled a laugh. “The first time I met your people—” she began.
“The slate is clean,” Lakesh cut in. “Whatever you did before you came here is forgotten. I promise.”
Rosalia nodded with gratitude. “You know, there is one thing,” she said. “I was planning to go see some people I... Some acquaintances. They’re down south. It’s quite a journey or I would have gone there sooner. You have your tech, the interphaser and the mat-trans. Think you can maybe give me a little push in the right direction?”
A broad smile appeared on Lakesh’s features. He was glad to be able to help the normally cagey young woman. “Where is it you need to go?” he asked.
“There’s a town close to the border, Mexico,” Rosalia said. “That side, not this.”
Lakesh was already tapping at the computer terminal that dominated his desk. The screen still had tendrils of stone across it like a cracked windshield, but he could see enough to get what he needed. “Whereabouts, exactly?”
“The place has gone by many names,” Rosalia said, “and it never once appeared on any map. I was told it was set up by a bandit who made himself its uncrowned king way back before the nukecaust. He meant it as a place where other outlaws could retreat and maybe retire. These days it’s a place of tranquillity and learning, high in the mountains, away from the villes.”
“Do you have coordinates?” Lakesh asked.
Rosalia nodded, tapping on the illuminated map on his computer screen. “Get me close enough, I’ll hoof it from there.”
“I’ll have to track down the nearest entry point,” Lakesh said, “which may take a while with the—”
“Everything?” Rosalia said brightly, gesturing around the ruined room.
Lakesh nodded. “Yes, with the ‘everything’ right now. Leave it with me—you’ll ship out before the day’s over.”
Rosalia nodded, pushing herself up from the swivel chair and making her way to the doors of the ops room. Rough stone ran along the edges of the doors, and they still wouldn’t close properly. A worker called Farrell, with goatee beard and hoop earring, was using a hammer and chisel to slowly chip away the offending rock, piece by piece.
Looking up from his computer, Lakesh eyed Rosalia wonderingly. “What’s there?” he asked, unable to contain himself.
“My old school,” Rosalia said in response before leaving the room.
* * *
BLACK JOHN JEFFERSON drifted back to swirling consciousness, a burning pain urgent in his gut. His eyes flickered open, gazing straight up and into the glare of the sun overhead. He saw it but could not feel it; instead his skin felt cold.
All around he could hear the sounds of rushing water, as if someone had opened a plug and let the whole damn ocean in.
Beneath him the deck of the ship lurched, and Black John was sent sliding across it. He had to dig his heels in to stop himself going any farther. He felt as if he would be sick, and he tilted his aching head to one side, spitting out the warm mouthful of blood that threatened to fill it.
Suddenly the deck of La Segunda Montaña rocked violently to one side once again, and Black John struggled to pull himself up to a sitting position. The deck was wet beneath him, water mixing with his own blood and the blood of others as he tried to make sense of it. He stared at it, trying to remember what had happened, the blood swilling and churning in the clear water, eddying in little whirls of red.
He had shot him. That was what had happened, wasn’t it? He had shot Fern Salt, turning on him after he had snuffed the straw-haired harlot before her screaming gave him any more of a headache. Hadn’t worked. He had one hell of a headache now, so much so he reached up to his forehead with a curse. When he did so, he found the slick wound there, cried out in surprise and at the furious twinge of pain.
“Fuck!”
The boat lurched again, its prow disappearing beneath the waves once more, bobbing up for a moment before disappearing one final time. He was on a sinking ship, scuttled by his own men—shot and left for dead.
“Those mutinous bastards,” he muttered, pulling himself up until he was standing, feeling queasy.
The wound in his skull was making him light-headed, so much so he couldn’t tell if it was the boat that was lurching or himself. Then another wave hit the sinking scow, and Black John stumbled as he tried to retain his balance.
The sound of rushing water was becoming more restrained, and Black John realized what that meant. The ship had all but sunk; there wasn’t much
