Susan Krinard - Shadowmaster

“Frankly,” Chan said, chewing on her stylus, “I was against it. I think you still have something to prove. You were an orphan, mother dead by suicide, no other living relations. Your father’s legacy is all you have to define yourself. During this mission, you have to put all that behind you.”

“Ma’am, I’ve always—”

“You’re not out there to be a hero, Stryker, only to complete the mission as outlined in the briefing.”

“I understand completely, Director Chan.”

“I hope you do.” Chan sighed. “The committee believes you can handle this. But again I must ask, are you prepared to carry out this mission with every asset at your disposal, without qualms or emotional involvement?”

“If there are any doubts,” Phoenix said stiffly, “perhaps it would be better if another agent is assigned.”

“No. The committee has faith in you, and I’ll have to do the same.” She typed a quick note on her tab. “There’ll be a more detailed report, your eyes only, waiting for you in your quarters, outlining your cover stories and the support you’ll receive from the Agency. Not to be shared with anyone, is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am. Very clear.”

“Then you’re dismissed. Be prepared to move out at 0100 hours tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, Director.” Phoenix rose, turned and walked out of the office. Her heart was pounding, but not with fear. She’d have a chance to show them again. She wasn’t that weakling orphan anymore, and she would never stop proving it.

No matter what it took.

Chapter 2

“Move them along,” Drakon told Brita, all too aware that it was only a few hours until dawn and there was always the chance that the authorities would be waiting for just the right moment to strike. There were only a few secret ways in and out of San Francisco that remained unknown to Aegis and the Enforcers, in those less regularly patrolled areas along the Enclave’s southern Wall and right in the heart of the Fringe.

That, Drakon thought, was the only reason this passage hadn’t been discovered. Even the Enforcers were wary of the Fringe, since more than a few had died here.

Brita hustled the last few emigrants out of the concealed hole in the Wall and had a brief word with the hired gun who was to escort them to the boat. Drakon didn’t trust the man, but the coyotes knew better than to betray the Boss they knew as Sammael.

They knew he would hunt them down and kill them. They didn’t know he was an Opir.

They didn’t have to.

“Done,” Brita said as the others sealed and hid the exit with heaps of trash and artfully scattered pieces of twisted metal and broken concrete. She slapped her hands together as if to rid them of something she hadn’t wanted to touch.

“Damn it, Sammael,” she said, “you know this isn’t worth the risk. The crew is starting to question why they should be involved in this at all.”

Scanning the other members of his crew, who were just finishing their work, Drakon smiled coldly. “We’re paid well enough,” he said.

“Sure, by the ones with rich relatives who don’t want members of their family deported to Erebus,” she said. “But what about the ones you help for free?” She jerked her head toward the hidden passage. “Some of them didn’t have a single Armistice dollar to their names.”

“Why should you care, Brita? It hardly affects you.”

“It’s dangerous. Just like every time we make a trade, the crew thinks about how much money they could get for the product you save for the Scrappers out of your own cut.”

“Half of the crew were Scrappers themselves,” Drakon said, referring to the poor Fringers who survived on any scraps of food or any other necessities they could find. “It’s not my concern if they have no compassion for their own kind. They obey, and they get their percentage. They don’t, and they face me.”

“And what if they just desert?”

Drakon had given up counting the number of times he and Brita had had this same argument, and he was weary of it. “And go where?” he asked. “To The Preacher? The members of his crew seem to die with distressing regularity. Dirty Harry brings in big hauls, but loses plenty just as big because of his lack of judgment.”

“That’s right,” Brita said, scuffing her worn boots in the dirt. “But you’re assuming everyone in the crew has a brain.”

She knew damned well he assumed no such thing. Brita was one of the few people he trusted with his life, but he had never made the mistake of trusting the rest of his crew.

Listening and watching carefully, Drakon walked away, Brita on his heels. He could hear the others following, relying—as he supposedly did—on their dim headlamps to find their way in the dark. Drakon could never let them suspect he didn’t need the light at all.

He knew there might come a time when he slipped and one or more of the crew recognized his superior strength and his aversion to the sun, no matter how carefully he tried to hide both.

He looked human. As human as any of them, with his genetically altered reddish-brown hair and light gray eyes. That camouflage the scientists in Erebus had given him, but they couldn’t change the essentials of his nature.

“We gonna make it in time to the handoff?” Repo asked, trotting alongside Drakon like a puppy eager to please his master. He was the smallest of Drakon’s crew, and though he was as tough as any of them, he’d been treated like a runt for most of his life, the victim of every bully in the Fringe until Drakon had stepped in.

“They’ll wait,” Brita snapped.

Yes, Drakon thought, The Preacher would wait. He needed the product Drakon and his crew had smuggled into the city. Just as he needed the camouflage that being a Fringe Boss brought him. Drakon, Brita, Repo and the rest made their way through the abandoned, garbage-strewn streets, beyond the pale of the city proper. The meeting place changed every time; tonight it was in the virtually abandoned section of San Francisco once known as the Mission District.

As if they knew what was up—and, inevitably, they did—the Scrappers had fled the area and remained undercover, well out of the reach of the not-unthinkable chance that The Preacher might “recruit” one or more of them, especially unwilling women.

The Boss in question was standing just behind a small fire, the light casting his craggy face in dramatic shadow. Drakon had never been impressed by The Preacher’s theatrics, and they were usually dangerous. A fire in the Fringe was an invitation to the Enforcers.

Aware of the ever-present danger, Drakon approached the fire and signaled for the others, except Brita, to stay behind him.

“Well met, Angel of Darkness,” The Preacher said, smiling through his beard. The band of very dangerous-looking men behind him smiled almost as unpleasantly. “Do you have the shipment?”

Drakon narrowed his eyes at the unexpected brevity of The Preacher’s overture. “In a hurry, Preacher?”

“Tonight’s not good,” the Boss said, his grin never wavering. “Feel it in my bones. Let’s do this.”

Brita stepped forward with the tiny box that held the keys to the storage facility. One of The Preacher’s men, twice her size, looked it over as if he actually doubted what it contained.

Drakon and The Preacher had been trading for over a year, and the other Boss knew damned well that Drakon always stood by his word. The Preacher’s man passed Brita a box in return.

“You sure you don’t want to come over to our side?” the man asked Brita with an ugly leer.

Her lips puckered, ready to spit. “Stand down,” Drakon said softly. “Tell your thugs to keep their mouths shut, Preacher.”

The other Boss shrugged. “Lay off, Copperhead. We ain’t here to buy women.” He nodded to Drakon. “Good to do business with you, as always. Don’t spend it all in one place.”