Free Sorrow Space by James Axler Page A

disarmed the remaining guards, but the pain was subsiding by the time he joined his companions at the far end of the catwalk.
    “I should have recognized a Magistrate sting op.” Pellerito cursed as he watched Kane approach. “Didn’t expect to see you this far out of the villes, though.”
    “I told you before, Jerod,” Kane said, shaking his head. “We’re not Magistrates.”
    “Then what are you?” Pellerito demanded.
    “Something much, much bigger,” Kane told him.
    Grabbing Pellerito by the collar, Kane brought the Sin Eater up to his nose, shoving it so hard that the gunrunner was forced to tilt his head away.
    “Now,” Kane growled, “you and I are going to have a chat about where this nuclear material of yours is. And if I don’t like your answers, you won’t like mine.”
    * * *
    I T TRANSPIRED THAT P ELLERITO had been bluffing about the nuclear material. All he had was a potential supplier and, as he put it, the ink hadn’t dried on the deal. Kane tried to find out more, while Grant and Brigid worked their way through the abandoned factory, setting charges that they had found in the factory’s own supplies. Pellerito proved to be of little further help. Wherever the nuclear material was coming from, there were multiple layers of intrigue between here and there. Kane wasn’t surprised. This was black market stuff, and he knew from experience that it was the territory of aliases and double agents. In fact, that was one reason that he and his team had been able to infiltrate it with such relative ease.
    When Grant and Brigid returned, they came bearing new weapons. Grant had opted for a Sin Eater like Kane’s, and he tossed his partner several ammo clips from a bulging box he’d jammed into a workbag strapped over one shoulder. Brigid had chosen something larger, a 12-gauge shotgun based on the old Mossberg design. She held it comfortably by one hand at its rear-mounted grip, its eighteen-and-a-half-inch barrel stretching down to almost scrape the floor beside her heeled boots. The shotgun had no stock and ended abruptly at the grip end. Seeing it, Kane gave Brigid a quizzical look.
    “Not your usual choice,” he observed.
    “Only thing I could find rounds for,” Brigid told him, the box of ammunition chinking as she bounced it in her other hand. “Well, other than the Sin Eaters, and I just wouldn’t feel right showing you boys up like that.”
    Having set the charges, Grant led Pellerito, Buchs and the few stragglers from the factory out into the hills. “The whole place is going up,” Grant said. “The only thing you’re going to find here after is a fire sale.”
    Pellerito edged closer to Grant, speaking in a low whisper. “You don’t want to do that,” he said. “Kane’s got issues, but you—there’s still money to be made here. An ex-Magistrate like Kane can’t see that.”
    Grant fixed the unscrupulous trader with his grim, no-nonsense look. “ I’m an ex-Magistrate,” he said.
    Pellerito backed away, cursing both men and the red-haired woman who had accompanied them. Ten minutes later, he and his sec team watched helplessly as Kane’s team departed in their Chinook helicopter, the factory burning behind them.

Chapter 7
    “They’re on the move,” Beth Delaney advised as she watched the map update on her monitor screen.
    Lakesh peered up from his own desk, putting aside the initial breakdown report that Reba DeFore had handed him just five minutes earlier. Though incomplete, the report gave the first feedback data on the strange visitor who had arrived via the facility’s mat-trans less than ninety minutes before. If nothing else, Lakesh was always well served by his efficient staff.
    “Who?” he inquired as he caught Delaney’s attention.
    “Kane’s team—CAT Alpha,” Delaney told him. “Looks as if they’re heading back to their mat-trans. And they’re moving at a fast clip.”
    Delaney was able to confirm this from the real-time updates that were fed