the limb sagged half a foot. Wishing he were fifty pounds lighter, Kane kept absolutely motionless. The dogs would know he was nearby through scent alone, but if their attention wasn’t drawn upward—
The limb suddenly bent and the splintering crack of wood filled Kane’s ears for an instant.
With a startled growl, the mastiff circling below looked up, caught sight of him and barked ferociously. The other dogs clustered around the base of the tree, yipping and yelping. They slammed into one another as they all tried to squeeze around the trunk.
Kane wasted no time. He dropped the grenade straight down into the mass of milling dogs. One of the mastiffs snapped at it and the casing burst open, the small explosive charge within it detonating with a low, smacking explosion. A heavy cloud of white CS powder erupted, spraying in all directions, like a miniature blizzard.
Instantly, the baying of the dogs turned to high-pitched whines, whimpers and squeals. Pawing frantically at their eyes, the mastiffs reeled away, staggering, snorting and sneezing. Kane jumped down from the limb, landed on the far side of the tree and ran toward the nearest house, a rambling two-story structure built in the old antebellum style. The windows were boarded up, so he decided the door was mostly likely secured and began to angle away.
A black mass shifted in the shadows cast by a balcony overhang. “Kane!”
The urgent whisper cut through the cacophony of the distressed dogs, and Kane darted into the murk. The black shape was a small figure huddled within a mass of rags and tatters, decorated with gray streamers of Spanish moss. Under green stripes of camouflage paint he saw streaks of milk-white flesh.
“Inside! Be quick!” The figure scurried sideways and a door opened and closed.
Panting, Kane groped over the door, searching for a knob. His fingers touched nothing but damp, slightly warped wood. He pressed a shoulder against it, then the door swung inward and he stumbled into an unlit foyer. A small hand clutched at his right wrist with surprising strength and hauled him forward.
“In here, idiot!”
Kane caught a whiff of mildew and urine. The door closed, and he heard the faint snick of a locking bolt being drawn. Fingering his nose, Kane whispered, “And I thought I was the only stinkard here, Domi.”
“Shut up.”
Kane stiffened at the angry intensity of the girl’s voice, but he fell silent, listening to the yowling of the hounds. He heard men’s voice raised in breathless curses, the cracking of whips and the piteous yelps of the dogs.
“Where’d the son of a bitch go?”
“Guess for your own self, Lucas! Got my own problems with this goddamn hound—”
“Billy-boy ain’t gonna like it if we lose ’im.”
“Shit, tell me something new…but he’s gonna have to live with it.”
Ear pressed against the door panel, Kane listened to more whining, whimpering and cursing as the men got the dogs releashed. They didn’t intend to continue the pursuit. Although the citizenry of Coral Cove put up with a great deal from Billy-boy Porpoise and his gang, they wouldn’t tolerate a midnight door-to-door search. After a few minutes, the sound of the dogs and their masters faded away.
A flashlight suddenly glowed, startling Kane so much that he jumped and cursed.
“Relax,” Domi said softly. “Windows boarded over—nobody can see.”
Kane squinted toward her as she flung back the hood that shrouded her close-cropped, bone-white hair. An albino by birth, Domi was a small white wraith of a girl, every inch of five feet tall. Eyes like red rubies stared up at him through the mask of combat cosmetics she had daubed over her cream-white complexion.
“Had you goin’ there, huh?” Laughter was in her high-planed face, and the faint mockery added piquancy to her features.
“Yeah,” Kane said dryly. “You’re a gifted comedian. What would you have done if the dogs had caught me?”
Domi’s small right hand eased out from beneath the ragged cloak. Nestled within it lay her Detonics Combat Master .45. The stainless-steel autopistol weighed only a pound and a half and was perfectly suited for a girl of her size.
“Shoot ’em,” she replied frankly. “Then kill the men who made them killers.”
Kane nodded. “Figures. Where’s Grant?”
Domi shrugged out of the tattered cloak, letting it drop to the floor. “Upstairs. He was keepin’ an eye on you, too.”
Stepping around the heap of rancid rags, Kane pinched his nostrils shut. “Why does it stink so bad?”
Domi shrugged. “Cover up my own scent, in case the dogs got after me. Old Outland trick.”
Kane regarded her gravely. “You peed on it, didn’t you?”
“Among other things.” Domi turned toward a stairwell, casting the beam of the flashlight ahead of her. She wore a black tank top and tight-fitting denim shorts that only accentuated her compact body, with its pert breasts and flaring hips.
Kane followed her up the stairs, reflecting that after five-plus years of working with her, he shouldn’t be surprised by anything Domi did, even wearing a cloak soaked in her own urine.
The stairs opened onto a small room that led out onto a balcony. Grant stood there, peering through a screen of oleander leaves. The buttsock of the heavy Barrett sniper rifle was settled firmly in the hollow of his right shoulder. He pushed it forward on its built-in bipod as he leaned down to squint through the twenty-power top-mounted telescopic sight.
Without turning toward Kane, he said in his lionlike rumble of a voice, “I thought you were going to be in and out of here like the wind.”
A big man standing several inches over six feet, Grant had exceptionally broad shoulders and a heavy musculature, but with a middle starting to go a little soft. Beads of perspiration sparkled against his coffee-brown skin like stars in the night sky. Gray dusted his short-cropped hair at the temples, but it didn’t show in the sweeping black mustache that curved fiercely out from either side of his grim, tight-lipped mouth. Like Kane, he wore camo pants and T-shirt.
In response to Grant’s sarcastic question, Kane replied, “That was the plan. I guess they smelled my wind.”
Carefully, he moved to the balcony’s rail and looked down into the ville. He could still detect the chemical tang of the CS powder.
Grant stepped away from the Barrett and tapped the scope. “They caught more than that. Take a peek.”
Obligingly, Kane stooped and peered through the eyepiece. He glimpsed a tall figure standing just outside the log wall, trying to hide himself in the shadows. The rifle he cradled in his arms looked like a lever-action 30.06.
“They left one behind,” he commented. “A spotter.”
Grant nodded. “They want to see which house you come out of. And to find out if anybody in town is helping you, so they can be made an example of.”
Kane shrugged. “I don’t
