by Neil Hunter
Cade stepped into the room, raising his weapon.
‘For God’s sake,’ Boon said. ‘You can’t…’
Cade fired. The dart pierced Boon’s expensive silk shirt and dug into his flesh. The tycoon felt the rush of the drug through his body. The room began to dissolve before his eyes. He tried to remain on his feet, clutching at the edge of his desk. The desk slipped away from his fingers, and his body lost contact with reality. Boon felt he was drifting, floating.
The room disappeared, and he was in limbo...
…Boon opened his eyes, blinking with the effort. He felt disoriented.
Strange sounds and smells invaded his senses. He realized he was sitting on cold, hard earth. He raised his hands to rub his aching, blurred eyes, and felt dirt on the palms and on his fingers.
He saw his surroundings swim into focus.
He was in some kind of crude room, or was it a cave? There was a blanket covering the entrance. The light was dim.
Boon sniffed. The smell was terrible. It was like the lingering smell of long-ago-decayed food and human waste.
He touched his head. Where in hell was he? He was deeply puzzled and wondered if he were dreaming.
Boon become aware that he wasn’t alone.
He turned slowly, hesitantly.
Pale, white faces stared at him. Eyes that gleamed with undisguised hatred.
‘Who are you?’ Boon demanded. His voice rasped in his dry throat. ‘And where am I?’
‘You are in your future,’ someone said. ‘But I wouldn’t bank on it being a comfortable one.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Boon said. He tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn’t support him. ‘Do you people know who I am? If this is some kind of extortion, you’ll regret it. I promise you that.’
‘No, Boon, you won’t get out of this one with money or influence. We don’t acknowledge those things. We have our own laws. And here the guilty are punished.’
‘Guilty? Of what, damn you?’
‘Of murder,’ a voice close by whispered. ‘Mass murder.’
A cold hand clamped over Boon’s heart. ‘Where am I?’ he asked again, only this time the arrogance had gone from his voice.
‘You are with us,’ the whispered voice said. ‘We are the Darksiders, Randolph Boon, and you have been delivered into our hands for true justice to be served.’
Boon stared about him at the pale faces and the dark accusing eyes, and he knew he was lost. His money. His powerful friends.
The fear he instilled in others. None of it meant a thing down here. Not with these people and the need they had to see simple justice done, without the benefit of the long and uncertain legal system.
‘Stand up, Boon, and come with us. We have a long way to go yet. To the lowest levels, where you will be tried and convicted.’
‘If you’re going to kill me, why not get it over with?’ Boon protested.
‘Oh, no,’ the whisper said. ‘We won’t kill you, Boon. You will be allowed to live out your life until a natural death claims you. But you will live it out in the darkest, deepest tunnels known to us, where no daylight ever penetrates. That’s where you will serve your sentence, Boon, and believe it now, you will never see your world ever again.’
Rough hands pulled Boon to his feet.
He was ushered through the blanket and along a narrow, damp tunnel on the first steps of his long journey to the depths of the Darksiders’ world.
He didn’t notice the two figures who watched him go, or hear one of them speak.
‘And that, partner, is justice,’ Cade said.
Janek thought about it and realized it was.
Real justice.
And now an exciting preview of HARDCASE, the next book in the CADE series, coming soon!
Prologue
George Takagi’s life ended the moment he walked out of the NYPD headquarters building. He didn’t realize he was a dead man at the time, so he continued on to the parking lot and climbed into his car.
He was anxious to make the rendezvous he’d arranged some time earlier.
The meet was with an old friend. The one man in New York Takagi knew he could trust.
Thomas Jefferson Cade.
Cade the cop and Takagi the NYPD tech had known each other for a number of years prior to Cade’s becoming a Justice Marshal. They still kept in touch, meeting when Cade had to call in at the NYPD building on official business.
Every so often they would get together over a beer, maybe a meal. Tonight’s meeting was far from social. It was strictly to do with police business, but it was the kind that Takagi believed had to be discussed off the record.
As a computer technician, Takagi was also responsible for evaluating data. His powerful computer banks enabled the Japanese-American to probe deep into information banks nationwide, as well as local. In his own right Takagi was a computer genius. He could almost make his machines stand up and salute the flag.
When he’d been well into a search-and-evaluation program, from which he would be able to pinpoint increases or decreases in particular instances, Takagi’s computer had locked in on a number of coroners’ reports on sudden, violent deaths. That in itself was nothing outstanding. Death was no novelty in 2055, and Takagi would have passed over the reports except for one thing.
The three deaths had all occurred within a two-day period, and the cause of death had been the same in each instance.
Someone had made an attempt to bury the reports in a limbo file, pushing them into an obscure corner of the New York Station Information Data Base. What they had omitted to do was to secure them with a strong enough restriction code.
Takagi’s computer, with its powerful search-and-retrieve program - devised by Takagi himself - had broken the code and thrown the reports up on his monitor. The program had simply been searching for information at Takagi’s request.
Takagi, a mug of hot coffee in his hand, had sat staring at the screen text. He had read the reports over a number of times, silently asking the question, Why would anyone want to hide death reports?
Because there’s something illegal going on, his police-trained mind had told him.
He’d paid closer attention to the text, reading the reports line for line. That was when he’d found the identical cause of death, which in itself was not unheard of, but this time the cause was unusual enough to make him look even harder.
Takagi had punched in to the National Computer Bank and requested a run-down on the three dead people - two men and one woman. Within a couple of minutes he had established a connection between them.
At the time of their deaths each of them had been employed by the Amosin Corporation.
Takagi knew of Amosin. It was a company with vast holdings. Amosin manufactured a wide range of electronic equipment, from computers to television sets to military hardware. Amosin Robotics were into domestic and combat droids. The company also owned and operated television channels, including the production and distribution of its own programs.
Takagi had started to get suspicious.
Three dead people.
Each had died in exactly the same way.
They had all worked for the same company.
And their deaths had been buried within the information system.
Too many coincidences.
Takagi had turned to his internal vid-phone, checking the indicator pad, and had seen that Captain Barney Culver, his boss, was still in his office.
He’d reached across to punch in Culver’s extension. Halfway through the exercise Takagi had stopped. He’d cancelled the number, leaning back in the comfortable swivel chair, his gaze drawn back to the monitor.
Deep inside something was telling him to cover his back. Before he showed his findings to anyone, he needed to take out some insurance.
Takagi couldn’t have explained why the thought had occurred to him. Maybe it had been pure cop instinct taking over, his training coming through all the crap floating around inside hi
s skull. Whatever it had been, Takagi had acted on it.
He’d reached for the vid-phone and punched through an outside number.
While he’d waited for it to connect, he keyed in the command to connect the phone modem.
His call had connected and told him his party was out but he could leave a message if he wanted to. Takagi had.
He’d faced the vid-phone and explained what he’d found, his mounting suspicions and what he intended doing. Then he’d keyed in the command to have the computer relay the information it contained in its memory.
With that completed, Takagi had broken the connection and got through to Culver.
‘You still here, George?’ Culver’s friendly voice had come over the line as his craggy, handsome face had swum into focus on the screen. ‘You okay?’
‘Captain, I’ve got something I want to show you,’ Takagi had said. ‘Take a look at your monitor. I’m going to key some info through.’
Culver had remained silent after Takagi had transferred the details. He was so quiet that Takagi had imagined he’d gone to sleep. After a few minutes Culver had swung back to face the screen.
‘So?’ he’d asked.
‘Don’t you think it’s too much of a coincidence? Three dead. Time of death close together. Killed in the same way. And all working for Amosin. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s time you went home, George,’ Culver had said.
‘Hey, I’m serious, Barney,’ Takagi had protested.
Culver had grinned. ‘So am I, buddy. I know how many hours you’ve put in today. All I want is for you to go home and get some rest. We’ll get together tomorrow and sort this thing out.’
Takagi had held the cop’s steady gaze.
He’d tried to make sense of Culver’s reaction but failed. The only truth filtering through his brain had been the fact that he did feel bushed. Maybe it was time to call it a day.
‘You still with me, George?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So what do you say? Let me lock this stuff down. Hold it till morning so we can dig deeper.’
Even then Takagi had resisted, and it must have shown on his face.
‘Okay, George, time’s up. Now I’m making it official. An order. You’re off duty. Now get out of here and go home.’
Culver had swung away from the vid-phone. just before he’d broken the connection, Takagi had heard his final words.
‘G’night, George.’
The screen had flashed, then went blank.
Takagi had sat and stared at it.
His attention had been caught by movement on his computer’s monitor.
Swiveling around to face it, Takagi had seen the command display showing an intercept from an internal computer.
Someone was transferring his data. He’d picked up on the input and recognized the transfer code as Culver’s. The captain was accessing Takagi’s files and pulling them out.
Takagi hadn’t liked what he’d seen, but Culver’s rank outclassed his own. He could access any department computer and take whatever information he wanted, no questions asked. Despite that, Takagi had felt there was something odd the way Culver was getting his hands on the information so fast. The tech had recalled the silence that had gripped Culver as he’d read the information. Thinking back, it had struck Takagi that maybe Culver hadn’t expected to see such information on a monitor.
A strange unease had begun to grip him. He’d found he was experiencing traces of fear, and he hadn’t felt secure in his own office any longer.
Something wasn’t quite right.
It had to do with the death reports he’d unearthed...and Captain Barney Culver was involved. Takagi was certain of that now.
He’d decided the best thing he could do was get out of the office. In fact, out of the building.
He’d reached for his jacket and pulled it on. He’d turned to go, but hesitated, then crossed to the vid-phone. He’d punched an outside line, then keyed in an auto number. While he’d waited for the number to connect, Takagi had begun to sweat.
The call had been answered on the second tone. Takagi had almost yelled in relief when he’d recognized the face staring at him from the screen.
‘Hello, George. Been a while.’
‘Listen, T.J., and do what I ask,’ Takagi had said.
‘Okay,’ Cade had replied.
‘I need to talk. Now. Soon as you can meet me.’
Cade, sensing the urgency in Takagi’s voice, had nodded.
‘The old meeting place. Remember?’
‘Sure, George. Hey - what’s wrong?’
‘I pulled some odd info out of the data bank. Tell you when I see you. Meet me in an hour.’
Takagi had broken the connection, replacing the receiver as he’d turned for the door.
If he hadn’t been in so much of a hurry, he might have picked up the faint electronic signal on the line as someone had listened in on a phone tap.
After he’d left his office, Takagi had taken an elevator to the basement garage.
There he’d gone straight for his Ford 4x4 truck. Now behind the wheel, Takagi fired the engine and rolled out of the basement garage.
Leaving the NYPD building behind him, Takagi pushed into the heavy traffic and made his slow way across town until he was able to get onto Broadway. He sat in the lines of crawling vehicles, cursing New York’s choked roads, the inadequate system that got worse with every passing year and the administration that failed to get a grip on the nightmare situation.
Although the city had always suffered from hot, humid spells, in recent decades this trend had intensified. The night was sullen with heat. For the past week the city had been sweltering beneath a harsh, cloudless blue sky. There was no breeze to relieve the monotonous oppression of the heat. The changed climate was another legacy of the environmental decay caused by ecological recklessness and the chemical attacks during the war that had lasted from 2034 to 2036.
The city might have been crumbling around the edges, services regularly breaking down and a crime rate soaring, but the relentless commercial hype went on. Takagi had plenty of time to read the advertisements blinking at him from every available space. Huge television screens, floating ad-drones, holographic displays. They flickered and cajoled the consumers day and night. Buy new cars. The latest domestic equipment. House-droids. Vacations in space. Watch the new season’s hit TV shows.
It never stopped. Never slackened. The messages intruded into daily life at a frenetic pace.
Takagi reached the meeting place ten minutes ahead of schedule, easing off Broadway, past the U.S. customs house, now a crumbling, semi preserved relic, and onto State Street. Traffic here was nil as Takagi slowed the 4x4, turning it across the green sward of Battery Park. He parked and cut the power, sitting back and listening to the crack and ping of the 4x4’s motor.
Beyond the Castle Clinton Monument, now housed in a plas-dome where holographic historical displays entertained the tourists, Takagi caught a glimpse of the Hudson River’s wide span.
Feeling restless, Takagi climbed out of the stuffy cab, hoping to catch a trace of cool air from the river. He leaned against the door
He felt the faint breeze first, the warm air drifting by his face. It took a few moments for him to realize he wasn’t feeling natural air movement. It was pushing down from above, accompanied by a soft, almost inaudible whooshing sound…
Curious, Takagi stepped away from the side of the 4x4, glancing skyward.
He saw it descending toward him. A sleek, dark shape swooping down out of the night sky on near-silent rotors.
It was a Skorpion-2 combat helicopter.
A fast, deadly and heavily armed assault craft. As far as Takagi knew, they were only available for military use.
The chopper angled in toward the ground, barely making a sound. Matt black, with a dark Plexiglas canopy, it resembled a darting insect.
As the Skorpion hovered close by, Takagi saw dark figures drop from open hatches, then
spread out after they hit the ground. As soon as the chopper had off-loaded its passengers, it climbed rapidly, sweeping off across the park.
Takagi reached under his jacket for the NYPD standard-issue auto pistol holstered on his belt. He had managed to clear leather and slip off the safety before the advancing figures from the choppers passed through a patch of moonlight.
Takagi recognized them instantly.
Dull black in color. Powerful humanoid shapes encased in titanium armor casings. Skull-like heads with taut, angular features that emphasized their hostile attitude.
Combat droids, designed and built for a single purpose - killing.
The droids were a military-only piece of hardware. So what were they doing in New York?
Takagi knew the answer.
They were after him.
He reacted instinctively. Even though he’d been off the streets for more than three years, he was still driven by the gut instinct of a street cop, and he responded to the threat. Ducking low, he rolled beneath the 4 x 4, wriggling to the far side of the vehicle. A gasp of pain burst from his lips as he came up against the hot exhaust pipe. He scrambled clear of the truck and shoved himself to his feet.
A droid lunged into view from the truck’s rear, and its stubby submachine gun began to track in on Takagi.
The tech fired first, punching a trio of slugs at the combat droid. The high-velocity projectiles simply bounced off the matt black body armor.
‘Hell!’ Takagi muttered. In his haste he’d forgotten the single most important rule when dealing with droids. Always go for the eyes. The weakest point.
He flipped up the auto pistol’s muzzle for another shot.
This time the droid fired first. A stream of hollow-point slugs burned into Takagi’s chest. The slugs expanded on impact, tearing through tissue and muscle, splintering bone.
Spun around by the impact, he clung to the side of the truck. Out the corner of his eye, he saw the other combat droids moving to form a semicircle in front of him.
He fought the rising tide of pain and dragged the auto pistol up, finger gripping the trigger.
The droids opened fire as one, the power of their combined weaponry literally tearing George Takagi’s body to bloody shreds.
