After the Dark (22 page)

Four thirty-four . . . 4:33 . . . 4:32 . . .

“Maybe I should crack open a brewski,” Alec said, “and read the manual . . . You know, at my leisure?”

“Just do it, Alec,” she said, and she and Mole were out of there.

Max told Mole, as they sprinted down the stairs, “You take the cells on the left, I'll take 'em on the right . . . If Alec can't unlock 'em, just pull the damn things off their hinges.”

“No prob,” Mole said.

That was when the sprinkler system started in, whether automatically—thanks to the explosion of the outbuilding, its fire presumably spreading—or by more experimentation on Alec's part, she had no idea. The indoor rain felt icy cold and smelled of rust, as though it had been captive in the asylum's pipes for a long time.

Max prayed that Alec had found the button to unlock these doors . . .

In the long bare hallway, she tugged on the first door and nothing happened. She cursed, but it was inaudible over the sound of the sprinklers and voices screaming in cells all along the hall.

Finding a fire extinguisher in a box on the wall, Max elbowed the glass, got the thing out and started clanging it against the lock of the first door. Finally, the old lock gave way and she threw open the door . . .

On the single bed suspended by chains from the wall, a wide-eyed C. J. Sandeman lay wrapped in a straitjacket and gagged. Even so, it was clear that he recognized her immediately.

“No time to get you outta that,” she said, yanking him off the cot, steadying him onto his feet. “Building's going up in a couple minutes. Get down to the first floor, they'll help you.”

He managed to nod and stumbled out and off toward the stairs.

Mole tried a door, looked at her bright-eyed. “This one's unlocked!”

Quickly he opened it and stuck his head in.

Just as quickly he yanked his head back out and slammed the door shut.

Mole shuddered.

“What?” she asked.

“Snakes,” he said, and went on.

You'd think
he
wouldn't have a problem with that, she thought, going on to the next cell, trying to keep track of time. About two minutes left . . .

With the water coming down, her hair was well-matted by now. She had released four prisoners when she finally heard the locks all click open. All the doors thrummed open slightly and the prisoners needed no further encouragement than that. They flew down the hall, splashing, barely aware of Max waving them toward safety. She stayed on the floor, going from cell to cell making sure everyone got out.

She saw no other inmate or prisoner until she got to the last door, which she opened wide, and looked in to see a lump in the middle of a padded cell whose stuffing was largely hanging out of gaping tears.

“Get on your feet!” she said. “Building's gonna blow!”

The lump rolled over to reveal a sickly, emaciated man who had obviously undergone a great deal of torture, a man who stared at her with beady dark eyes . . .

. . . a man she had known all her life.

Stunned, all she could say was, “I thought you were dead.”

Colonel Donald Lydecker—the dreaded surrogate father of all the Manticore siblings—looked up at her, his hands shakily reaching toward her. “Not if you help me . . .”

She recoiled. “Go to hell. Get out on your own, if you can, you bastard.”

And she turned to go, the time pressing her harder than this stunning discovery.

But behind her a weak version of that strong voice called out over the sprinkler din: “I understand how you feel . . . but if you help me . . . I'll help you.”

Her back to him as she stood poised in the door, she said, “Help me? Like you've helped me in the past, killing my sibs?”

She was halfway out when his words stopped her: “I know where your mother is.”

Her birth mother . . . her father a test tube, but her mother a real woman, who Max had longed to find, to meet, to know . . .

As the clock ticked, her mind flew: he was lying; Lydecker always lied. He knew her hot buttons and had pushed the hottest one he could think of . . . that simple.

She left him there and went running down the hall.

And then she turned and sprinted back to duck into the cell and scoop up her sickly surrogate father.

The transgenics were scattered across the grounds, robed figures sprawled around them on the snow-dusted landscape. Among the dead, the white-sheeted body of the boy stood out, as did the headless corpse of his father. Here and there a few of the patrol guards, in TAC gear, lay dead, shot by Mole. Any way you figured it, the battle was over, the opponents either dead or badly injured . . . those who hadn't fled.

“Building's gonna blow,” she cried, “any second!
Run!
”

And they ran.

It galled her that she was the one hauling Colonel Donald Lydecker to safety.

They were at the edge of the woods when the building exploded—actually, three small explosions placed around and within the building that together rolled up into one big one, and one fireball, flinging chunks of stone and showering debris like an ugly, landbound comet.

Within a very short time the fallen, half walls of the complex—though one outbuilding stood, relatively unscathed—were home to orange, licking flames and foul, rolling gray-black smoke, the crackling of the fire like sporadic gunfire.

And then the bearded Logan was at her side. He glanced down at the withered form of Lydecker, shivering, coughing, and said, “Look what the cat drug in.”

“I wish I hadn't,” she said, and told Logan what Lydecker had said.

“You can't trust him,” he said.

“I know. I know.”

“But Max . . . you can trust me. Really.”

“I know, Logan.”

“You do?”

“Going to your uncle for the ransom . . . he almost died, because of me, Logan. He may still die . . . he's comatose. And I knew . . . if I caused his death . . . telling you would be the hardest . . .”

He took her hand in his—flesh-to-flesh, no virus to worry about—and squeezed it. “You did this for me, Max. I know you did. You rid mankind of this demented snake cult . . . or anyway, diminished their ranks considerably, including Ames White himself . . . but you didn't do it for mankind, did you?”

“No. It was for you, Logan . . . We hadn't finished our argument.”

He laughed, gently.

Alec had noticed Lydecker's disheveled presence, and said, “I can't believe this bastard's alive!”

“I can fix that,” Mole said, brandishing the pistol.

She shook her head, made a sharp motion. “
No!
I need him, breathing.”

The reptile face wrinkled further and words came through clenched teeth: “But it's what I want for Christmas.”

Again Max shook her head. “I'll get you a tie.”

“What about the comet?” Alec asked. “From what we saw on those monitors, people all over feel fine . . . Other than a hangover tomorrow, maybe. It was a big nothin'!”

Logan said, “Maybe it'll have effects on people like me, in the days ahead . . . but I don't think so. The snake cult may have been physically and mentally superior, thanks to all that ‘good' breeding . . . but they were still a cult. It was religion they were spouting—not science.”

“What if it does kick in?” Max asked.

Logan shrugged. “We do what people always do—our best to survive, a day at a time.”

“I coulda told you it was BS,” Alec said.

Max looked at him. “Yeah?”

“Never believe
anything
in that rag Sketchy writes for.”

There was laughter—a relief after the hard-fought struggle—and Max and Logan pitched in with first aid, patching up some wounds among the transgenics, including her own shoulder. Fortunately, the lack of firearms and other weapons among the Familiars—who'd not been prepared for an invasion tonight, mutant or otherwise—had limited casualties among the ranks of the good guys.

The transgenics Dix had rounded up to play cavalry for Max and her little crew had made the trek in various vehicles—trucks, cars, vans, even schoolbuses, all of them having two things in common: the vehicles were old as dirt, and ran like new, thanks to the Terminal City motor pool of Luke and Dix. Max said her good-byes, giving Dix that big kiss he deserved, and she—and Mole, Alec, Joshua, and Logan—waved as the unlikely caravan of vehicles started home.

Mole returned to the compound, where the fire was starting to die down, and commandeered a truck from behind the one surviving outbuilding—neither Matthias nor Alec had managed to blow that one up—and, soon, they were loading Lydecker in the back with the rest of them and heading out the front gate (the guard post abandoned) to drive around to where Logan's car waited, undisturbed.

Logan and Max climbed down out of the truck, and Max instructed Mole to take the vehicle back to Terminal City with Lydecker . . . alive.

“Call Dr. Carr and get him some medical help,” she said to the lizard man. “And keep Lydecker under lock and key, and constant guard. When he gets to feeling better, he'll be slippery.”

“You're putting me in charge?” Mole asked, lighting up a cigar.

“I know you'd just as soon rip his head off as look at him,” Max said.

Mole glanced Joshua's way. “I don't know, Max—that kinda thing ain't exactly
my
department.”

Joshua looked away, embarrassed.

Max thumped Mole's chest. “Just make sure that evil bastard stays alive. If he can help me find my mother, that's one good thing he can do, after all the bad.”

“Starting a new crusade already?” Alec asked. “Can't we take a day or two off?”

“You know us messiahs,” Max said. “We're savin' souls seven days a week.”

“I thought you rested on Sunday,” Alec said.

“No,” Max said. “You're thinkin' of my Old Man.”

Alec smirked. “Test tubes
never
sleep.”

Then Terminal City's next alderman crawled in back of the truck, where Lydecker had been propped up, half out of it. Joshua, riding shotgun, waved like a little kid. Mole, behind the wheel, stogie in the corner of his mouth, winked at her.

And they disappeared into the bright morning.

Christmas morning.

The couple got into Logan's car, Max behind the wheel.

“So I'm forgiven?” Logan asked.

“I guess.” She started the car and followed the route the truck had taken, but lagging.

“Because of what you said? My uncle and all?”

“Yeah. That, and I love you.”

She said it so casually, he didn't seem to be sure he'd heard right. Their eyes met for a moment, and she could see the surprise in his gaze, then she turned back to the road.

Logan seemed stunned. “I don't think you ever said that to me before.”

“It was always too hard. I wanted to. Maybe I didn't figure I
needed
to, until now. But . . . looking for you, finding you . . . now I know how important it is. To say it.”

He touched her cheek, briefly. “You know that I love you, don't you? . . . God, Max, it's nice to be able to just feel my fingers on your skin . . . Are we all right?”

She glanced at him. “I won't lie to you.”

“I won't lie to you either!”

She smiled a little, then returned her eyes to her driving. “I can't say that this business with Seth doesn't still bother me . . .”

“He was your brother. It'll always bother you. It
should
always bother you.” An edge came into his voice. “Just know, I would never do that to you again.”

As good as it had been to hear him say he loved her, hearing this pledge felt even better.

They rode in silence for a while.

Then . . .

“Sounds like you're getting ready for a road trip,” he said. “You and Lydecker, going to find your mother?”

She smirked humorlessly. “She could be across town, or on another continent. We have to talk to the colonel . . . and you know Lydecker.”

“Reliability is not his middle name . . . And if your mother is halfway across the world?”

“I need to find her.”

“I understand. Room for one more?”

Max smiled at him. “I don't know. Let's get you cleaned up, and see if I still can stand being seen with you.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Have you seen yourself lately?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“That sprinkler system wasn't kind to your hair.”

“Is that right? Well, you can take a look at me, after I have a nice long hot bath. I may just sleep until Christmas, then let everything sort itself out.”

“This is Christmas, Max.”

“So it is.”

They rode in silence for a while—a sweet, comfortable silence. Finally, maybe halfway home, with Logan asleep in the passenger seat, she pulled off the road and into the lot of a small roadside motel at the edge of a little town. She checked in, unlocked the room's door, then came out to the car and opened the door on his side. He was lolled back on the seat. She touched his arm.

“Come on,” she said.

He awoke slowly. “Where . . . are we?”

“Middle of nowhere. Motel.”

He said nothing, getting out of the car cautiously, as if he didn't trust his muscles to work—or the exoskeleton, for that matter.

“You can have a shower or bath,” she said, “which I'm gonna do, too . . . but what we really need is rest.”

They were to the door now, and she had her arm around his waist, helping him walk inside the motel room.

He allowed her to take her bath, and when she had freshened up, and stood in the open bathroom doorway, using the motel's drier on her hair, she found herself alone. She was just about to get concerned when he stepped back into the room, and explained that he'd just run across the highway to a convenience store, where he'd picked up a few toiletries, including a shaver.

He showered and emerged in twenty minutes, the scruffy beard gone, his shirt off, drying his hair.

“You hungry?” Logan asked. “Or should we just go to bed?”

She was already under the covers.

“I thought you'd never ask,” she said, and raised the sheet for him.

Max Allan Collins has earned an unprecedented eleven Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations for his historical thrillers, winning twice for his Nathan Heller novels,
True Detective
(1983) and
Stolen Away
(1991). In 2002 he was presented the “Herodotus” Lifetime Achievement Award by the Historical Mystery Appreciation Society.

A Mystery Writers of America “Edgar” nominee in both fiction and non-fiction categories, Collins has been hailed as the “Renaissance man of mystery fiction.” His credits include five suspense-novel series, film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie/TV tie-in novels, including
In the Line of Fire
,
Air Force One
, and the
New York Times
best-selling
Saving Private Ryan
. His many books on popular culture include the award-winning
Elvgren: His Life and Art
and
The History of Mystery
, which was nominated for every major mystery award.

His graphic novel,
Road to Perdition
, is the basis of the acclaimed DreamWorks feature film starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law, directed by Sam Mendes. He scripted the internationally syndicated comic strip
Dick Tracy
from 1977 to 1993, is cocreator of the comic-book features
Ms. Tree
,
Wild Dog
, and
Mike Danger
, has written the
Batman
comic book and newspaper strip, and several comics miniseries, including
Johnny Dynamite
and
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
, based on the hit TV series for which he has also written a series of novels and a video game.

As an independent filmmaker in his native Iowa, he wrote and directed the suspense film
Mommy
, starring Patty McCormack, premiering on Lifetime in 1996, and a 1997 sequel,
Mommy's Day.
The recipient of a record six Iowa Motion Picture Awards for screenplays, he wrote
The Expert
, a 1995 HBO World Premiere, and wrote and directed the award-winning documentary
Mike Hammer's Mickey Spillane
(1999) and the innovative
Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market
(2000).

Collins lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins; their son, Nathan, is a computer science major at the University of Iowa.