Turning, he looked across the canyon. The figures of the team moved shadowlike around the bend in the wall, pressed against the darkness. Kane tapped the all-clear code, and the five men eased forward. When they were crouched down around the heap of shale, Kane pointed to the wall and indicated they should go over it rather than walk around looking for a gap.
Salvo nodded brusquely, and the team slid down into the ditch, then climbed up on the opposite side. MacMurphy and Pollard made stirrups out of their hands and heaved Kane high enough so he could see what lay on the other side of the wall. He investigated the top with his fingertips, searching for alarm wires. Then he slowly chinned himself upward.
There was nothing to see but walls and a maze of passageways. There was no one in sight, which meant, he hoped, no one could spot him. Cacti grew out of the packed earth at the ends of the once-solid wall on either side of him. The windows of the caved-in towers were black.
Lithely Kane pushed off from the hands of his comrades, bringing one leg up to one side, and crawled atop the wall. It was nearly three feet wide, and he stretched out flat along it. For a moment he didn’t move, just listened and looked. Hands hooked on the edge, he lowered himself noiselessly inside the compound. He dropped to one knee, Copperhead at the ready, waiting for the team to scale the wall and join him.
When everyone was up and over, they moved through the complex toward the Cliff Palace itself. Because of the narrow footpaths, they weren’t able to assume the standard deployment. Kane once again took point, leading the team through deep shadow between roofless walls that had once enclosed living quarters. They passed doorways leading into nothing but darkness. The footpath took a sharp turn, and the team spread out across the courtyard, watching the dark windows above them.
A sudden flash of brilliant light flooded the courtyard, instantly turning the deep twilight into high noon.
Chapter Two
Kane froze for an instant before reacting instinctively and lunging into a narrow corridor of semidarkness between two crumbling walls. The ground was slippery with pebbles and littered with fallen roof beams. Through his helmet transceiver, he heard his team cursing in surprise and anger. He knew the others would be diving for any available cover.
The glare of the floodlights concealed their source somewhere on one of the ridges below the cliff overhang, about a hundred feet up. But the voice, amplified by a loud-hailer that split the silence, left no doubt that the Magistrates had strolled into an ambush. The words were harsh, muffled by his helmet, but still easily understood.
“You trespass!” the high-pitched, nasal voice declared. “Lay down your weapons and return to your machines.”
Cursing under his breath, Kane peered around the edge of the doorway and scanned the towering ramparts. Though his visor reduced the glare, he still had to squint. The lights were arranged in double rows, a half a dozen atop another, spaced twenty feet apart. Blastermen were probably behind the lights, provided with clear views and fields of fire.
Salvo’s voice shouted into his ear. “Milton Reeth! You are obstructing the duty of authorized enforcers of Cobaltville law. By Code 7b of the Territorial Jurisdiction Act, you must surrender yourself to our custody.”
After a moment of echoing silence came a loud, contemptuous laugh. “Salvo, you rad-gelded backstabber! I knew you were behind this! Too late for you to crawfish on me now, you”
The rest of Reeth’s words were swallowed up by the deep hammering of a Copperhead. Salvo raked the ledges in sweeping, left-to-right arcs of gunfire. Three of the spotlights shattered in eye-searing blazes of blue sparks. From behind the lights, blastermen opened up with full-auto fire. Spear points of flame flickered from the darkness.
The Cliff Palace complex filled with the staccato stuttering of autofire as a chain reaction from the pinned-down Magistrates sent a steady steel-jacketed rain storming up toward the ridges. Small fountains of dirt and rock sprouted from the ground. Kane heard two distinct cries of pain.