After the Dark (13 page)

Still, this was the last possible place—if Logan was here, he would be in that add-on room. Willing herself to move forward, she took a few steps, her feet feeling impossibly heavy, as if she were turning into a stone gargoyle to adorn this cemetery.

And as she slipped through the hole cut in the wall, she could see one person sitting at a table, a man, his back to her.

She felt a snake of revulsion slither in her gut as she realized that the body was headless.

The room was small, barely ten feet across, with a square table in the center, one wooden chair drawn up to it, holding the seated body—not Logan, apparently, as the corpse wore the black T-shirt and jeans of a Fury—three matching chairs scattered on the floor. In the corner, a small TV had been smashed.

Moving forward, she looked over the shoulder of the body at the table and saw what was presumably the body's former head on a plate in front of it, the face recognizable as that of Badar Tremaine, leader of the Furies.

Despite herself, she let out a sigh of relief as she confirmed that Logan was nowhere in the room. If he wasn't here, he might still be alive somewhere.

Taking another look at Tremaine's head on the plate, she noticed an object sticking out from his mouth. Though not squeamish, Max shivered, and buried the impulse to turn and flee, instead going over to the detached head for a closer look at the protruding object.

Whatever it was, it was metallic and not very large, the cylindrical end sticking out like a stiff, silver tongue.

Slowly, as the gang leader's dead eyes stared at her, she withdrew the metal object from the slack mouth . . .

. . . a minicassette recorder.

The other three entered the small room, Mole first, saying, “Doesn't look like anyone's coming back. When you already killed everything that moves, a return trip's kinda pointless.”

“Fubar,” Joshua breathed, looking at the body.

It was a word Alec had taught him and Max didn't care for.

Alec was at Max's side. He said, “Badar Tremaine—well, he
was
the head man.”

Max shot him a glare.

“Sorry,” he said. “Couldn't help myself . . . I mean, he is sitting at the head of the table.”

Joshua grabbed Alec's arm. “No jokes. That headless man . . . what if it was Logan?”

“But it isn't,” Alec said, glancing over at the object in Max's hand. “What have you got there?”

On Badar's T-shirt, she wiped saliva and blood from the little machine. “Tape recorder.”

“Press ‘play' yet?”

Alec, Joshua, and Mole were gathered around her, near the table with their headless host. She looked from face to face among her three friends.

“Go on,” Mole said. “Maybe it's a message.”

She let out some air, and pushed the Play button.

“Hello, 452.”

They all recognized the voice instantly.

“I knew,”
Ames White's vaguely processed voice said from the tiny machine in her palm, “
you would never just deliver the ransom and pay to get your friend back. You're not built like that. You can never play by the rules, can you, 452? I can relate.
”

The urge to throw the recorder off the wall was nearly overwhelming.

“
That's why I employed the Furies, to acquire my hostage. I knew you would track them down. And, of course, they couldn't be left alive to talk to anyone about certain arrangements I made with them . . . So as you can see, I made
new
arrangements with them, this evening.
”

She glanced down at the unseeing eyes of Badar Tremaine.

“The media might even get the story that vengeful transgenics killed the whole gang. I'm fairly sure some good citizen will pass that information along. After all, the raid on Logan Cale's apartment was close to Terminal City, and the victim was . . . is . . . a friend of yours.
”

Joshua growled low and deep in the back of his throat.

“Now that we know the lengths you'll go to in order to get your friend back—and now that your friend is in my personal custody—it's important that we talk about the real ransom.”

“Bastard's been playin' us since jump,” Alec said.

“
You know what I want, 452. Think.
”

As if answering the voice, Max shook her head. This had gone from bad to much, much worse . . .

“
This is your karma . . . You New Age Terminal City trolls believe in that nonsense, right? You see, you took my son from me. So I took Logan Cale from you.
”

“Damnit,” Max said, her voice hard and cold.

“You want your friend back,”
White's voice said. “
Well, I want Ray back . . . Getting the idea?
”

“Yes, you son of a bitch,” she said. “Yes.”

“Stay by your cell phone, 452. I'll be in touch. You have three days to comply, or your friend dies. Oh, and, uh . . . Merry Christmas.”

Chapter Seven

DEATH RAY

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
DECEMBER 22, 2021

A woman named Wendy Olsen had been looking for her son.

The boy had been kidnapped, and Mrs. Olsen came to Eyes Only for help in finding—and retrieving—young Ray. Logan's investigation was already under way when he brought Max aboard, sharing with her the shocking revelation that the boy they were looking for was the son of NSA agent Ames White.

For several years various Seattle citizens—disenfranchised from city, state, and federal governments that seemed on the one hand uncaring and on the other corrupt—had turned to Eyes Only, seeking underground aid in situations like these. Logan would do his utmost to resolve such problems, utilizing his operatives, and for almost two years Max had been his chief field agent.

And Max and Logan had indeed—true to form—rescued the boy, Ray, carrying the child away from Brookridge Academy, a private school that served as a front for the cult Ames White served, the so-called “Familiars.”

Ray had been weak—the result of a typically twisted snake cult ritual that involved slicing the boy's arm with a sword dipped in venomous blood—but White's son had somehow survived the attentions of the Familiars. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for his mother.

When she went to the town of Willoughby, in search of her missing son, Wendy Olsen White was murdered . . . by her own husband.

In the end, Logan had located Wendy's sister, and Ray had been sent to live with her. Logan—using his seemingly endless string of Eyes Only operatives, a modern day underground railroad—had helped the pair vanish, their whereabouts unknown even to Max.

Now the only option open to Max was to play White's game—to retrieve and deliver his son to him; and walk right into a trap. There'd be no fooling Ames White; she might have duped the Furies, but White and his snake cult associates—demented and deluded though they might be—were as shrewd as they were smart.

And she knew they were as vicious as they were smart—just ask the Furies . . . try using a Ouija board . . .

She knew damn well there would be no hostage-for-hostage trade: end game for the snake cult would include her death. That much had been made clear to Max in her previous encounters with the bizarre cult.

Still, she figured they would have to do whatever White asked; her only hope to save Logan—and herself, and the lives of those helping her, and the boy Ray, for that matter—would be to walk into the lion's den and beard the bastards.

The problem was, she wasn't sure how to accomplish the vital first step—finding the boy Logan had so skillfully hidden away, a step that Ames White no doubt assumed she would be able to accomplish easily. Without Logan to help her, Max's efforts would be blocked by Eyes Only's own security measures, designed to protect the boy from White and the Familiars.

In the kidnappings she and Logan had thwarted together, Logan found the clues, and Max grabbed up the missing person—that was the program, that was how it had always gone down.

Now, with Logan MIA—in fact, with Logan one of two key MIAs—she was left to her own devices to locate the other missing person, Ray, and secure him . . .

And it wasn't like Ray was a normal missing person. Logan—a master at concealing people, at giving them new starts—had made the boy disappear, so that he would never be found even by his own father and White's formidable network of NSA and snake cult allies. She'd be finding a needle in a haystack—only she didn't even know where the damn haystack was.

They left the carnage of the cemetery behind—should the cops show, they didn't want to seed the press for another transgenics media storm—and repaired to a small café. Nestled in a back booth, over the warmth of hot steaming cups of coffee, the four comrades sat—Joshua, Alec, and Mole watching her, waiting for her decision.

She was their leader, and they would follow her through the gates of Hell, if necessary; she knew as much, and she appreciated it . . . and this time, the gates of Hell were exactly where she'd be taking them.

On her cell phone, Max called Dix and quickly laid out the situation.

“Who do you want me to kill?” Dix asked.

“We'll get to that,” she said. “Right now, it's your brain I need.”

“Good. I just hate it when women want me for my good looks.”

“Bet you do. I need you and Luke to take a crack at decrypting Logan's hard drive.”

“Ouch. Couldn't we just crack the Pentagon data banks, or somethin' easy? Frickin' Logan, he's the best, y'know.”

“I know. But Logan says you and Luke are the best hackers he ever ran into.”

“No shit?”

“None at all,” she said, lying through her teeth. “Get on it.”

“All over it,” Dix promised; but uncertainty peeked out around the edges of his bravado.

She clicked off and looked at her three friends, Joshua next to her in the booth, Alec and Mole across. “Logan hid this kid away so that God couldn't find him. But we have to.”

“What?” Alec said, frowning. “And turn him over to White?”

Shifting his dead cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, leaning forward, Mole said, “Max—you know I will follow your lead.”

“I appreciate that.”

“But this—big mistake.”

“Why?” she asked, and she couldn't keep the defensive edge out of her tone.

Mole relighted that stogie; got it going good; then he gazed at her, hard. “Why did Logan hide that kid away? To keep him away from daddy dearest. Now we're going to do White's damn dirty work for him? Tell me there's another way.”

“Is there another way?”

All three just looked at her.

Finally Alec said, “You figure we go through with the exchange and, what? Just vamp? Improvise our way out of it, shooting up as many snake-cult goofballs as we can? And hope for the best? . . . Again, I have to say it: and you think
my
plans suck?”

Max said, “What . . . other . . . choice . . . do . . . we . . .
have
?”

“You know what choice we have,” Mole said.

Max said nothing.

“He takes one for the team,” Mole said.

“Logan?” She practically shrieked this response, and hated herself for the “girl” softness of that.

Alec shook his head, but he was agreeing with Mole as he said, “Man knew the risks of gettin' involved with Eyes Only—that's how he ended up in the wheelchair in the first place.”

Sitting forward, Max said, “No one knows that better than—”

“You're a solider, Max,” Mole cut in. “We all are . . . And so, in his way, is Logan. Do you
really
think Logan would want you to turn the kid over to White, just like that? After you risked so much rescuin' the brat? After he put so much effort in saltin' the kid away? No. No way.”

Max turned to Joshua, whose lionlike features were draped with sorrow. “What do you think, Big Fella?”

Joshua covered his face with a pawlike hand. He was crying.

Max touched his arm. “Joshua . . .”

“Logan,” Joshua said. “Have to respect . . . what Logan would want.” He lowered his hand and gazed at her, his hairy face matted with tears. “Mole is right. Logan. Take one. For the team.”

Even Joshua could see it—and now so could she. Everything they were saying was true. But that did not mean she would roll over and allow Logan to die at the hands of Ames White—not while there was breath in her body.

“You're right,” she said, “and you're wrong.”

Alec arched an eyebrow.

Mole rolled his stogie around.

Joshua dried his eyes with a napkin.

“You're right that we can't just turn Ray over to White,” she said. “That would negate everything Logan stands for—everything we've stood for . . . But we don't walk away from a brother. We don't sacrifice any one of us unless we absolutely have to.”

Alec said, “I'm sensing a Plan B.”

She nodded. “We still need to find Ray White. We still need that boy.”

Alec frowned. “We find him . . . blow his cover . . . yank the kid out of hiding . . . and then we
don't
turn him over . . . ?”

“That's right—and, Alec, my plan doesn't suck.”

“Of what use is Ray White to us,” Alec said, “if we don't turn him over?”

But Mole was ahead of the X5, eyes tight in the lizard face. “Bait.”

Max smiled and nodded. “Got it in one, Mole.”

But Alec and Joshua weren't on the same page, the former shaking his head, the other squinting in confusion.

Max pressed on: “Ames White is going to insist on talking to Ray at some point.”

“A given,” said Mole.

“Well, if we've got the kid, even for White just to talk to on the phone, if he knows we
really
have the boy, we've got a chance of getting Logan back. Or do you really wanna walk away and let Logan Cale ‘take one for the team'?”

Alec, typically, just cocked his head like a beagle who wasn't sure he'd understood the question.

“We gotta try,” Mole said. “He'd do the same for us.”

“How about you, Alec?” Max asked.

“What?”

“Do we walk away?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I mean . . . hell, no.”

The self-absorbed X5 still didn't seem to be fully on board, but at least he wasn't fighting her anymore.

Mole said, “Max, one thing is understood . . . we don't give the kid up to White under any circumstances.”

She'd lost her head for a while, allowing her feelings for Logan to cloud the bigger picture. Now her friends had her back on track. They would use Ray to draw White out, but that was all.

She said, “No way White gets the boy. No way in hell.”

Alec lifted his coffee cup. “I'm in,” he said, and they toasted—Joshua hitting the cups a little too hard, spilling some coffee.

A lot more than coffee would be spilled in the days ahead.

“Here's where we are,” Max said. “Dix and Luke are trying to crack Logan's computer, but I doubt they'll have much if any luck. White and his NSA goon squad took the old one, when they raided Logan's prior apartment, and they
still
haven't cracked the codes.”

“You know that for sure?” Alec asked.

She nodded. “Comes straight from Otto Gottlieb.”

Gottlieb, White's former partner in the NSA, had seen the light and helped the transgenics capture Kelpy and bring White down at the NSA. Max wondered if Gottlieb could be of any help on this outing.

But Gottlieb had been rewarded by the NSA with a raise and promotion, for his whistle-blowing on White, and Max was afraid his loyalties these days might be too strongly NSA for her to risk trusting his involvement.

Alec said, “Why don't I talk to Matt Sung—he might be able to help.”

Matt Sung, an Asian-American detective for the Seattle P.D., had helped Eyes Only on numerous occasions.

“Good call,” Max said. “Logan trusts Matt completely.” Then, turning to Mole, she added, “Can you track down Bling?”

Mole's cigar bobbed as he nodded. “Count on it.”

Bling—Logan's African-American physical therapist and occasional driver/bodyguard—knew more about Eyes Only operations than anybody this side of Logan himself.

With Logan wearing the exoskeleton more and more, Bling found himself with free time, now that Logan was doing less rehab and getting himself around. They hadn't seen Bling for several months, but she knew Logan talked to him regularly and was sure he was still in the city somewhere.

“How can Joshua help?” Joshua asked.

Max couldn't exactly send a six-foot-four-inch Dog Boy out to do anything inconspicuous; when it came time to kick ass and take names, Joshua would be the point man. But she couldn't bench him now—it would hurt Joshua, whose fondness for Logan she found touching.

She said, “Go over to Father's house and look around. Logan laid low there for a while—maybe he left something behind that'll lead us to the boy.”

Father's house had once belonged to Sandeman, the enigmatic and benign figure behind the transgenics program that Manticore had corrupted; Joshua had lived there for a while, and Logan had been a frequent visitor who'd often crashed there, after his apartment was trashed by White and the NSA.

Joshua nodded eagerly, happy to be part of the effort.

“What about you?” Alec asked.

“I've got a plan of my own,” she said.

Alec gave her a wicked little smile. “Hope it doesn't suck.”

She traded him smirk for smirk. “Me, too . . . We'll meet back at Terminal City in two hours. Use the cell phones to keep in touch—if you find something, don't save it up for later. Call me
right now.
”

They all nodded.

She let out a huge sigh and slid off the booth. Outside on the street, she said, “Okay—let's go find that kid.”

“Why don't we?” Alec said. His black eye had healed already—those good transgenic genes.

Fists were bumped, and they went their separate ways. Joshua—understandably shy about being seen in public—opted to return to his old house via the sewer system. Max would pit Joshua's knowledge of the sewer system against anyone's, even the engineers who designed it. When it came to underground travel, Joshua was king.

It was agreed that Mole would drop Alec at Matt Sung's precinct, after which Mole would continue on with the X5's cycle in search of Bling. For her part, Max was off to some old stomping grounds.

Might have been yesterday that she last leaned on the bar in Crash; but in reality, she hadn't set foot in the place in six months, not since that day everything went sideways at Jam Pony.

The converted warehouse was separated into three rooms by its rounded brick archways. Video monitors attached to the walls and the big screen TV in the middle room all still showed footage of violent collisions between cars, trains, buses, motorcycles, anything mechanical, providing the crashes that were the bar's namesake. Manhole cover tables were scattered around, each surrounded by four or five chairs. The far room held pool and foosball tables. The entire wall behind the bar was a backlit Plexiglas sculpture constructed of bicycle frames.

Max sat at the bar nursing a diet cola. The scene at the Furies' mausoleum had put her in the mood for something harder, but she needed to keep her wits about her. For now, all she could do was cool her jets and hope she wouldn't have to wait too long.