Max Collins - Before the Dawn

“The world beyond will take note of our plight,” he would tell them. “We are not forgotten — be strong till help arrives.”

And his kids believed him; if only Moody could believe himself...

Right now, as he looked through the glass doors of the lobby, toward the nighttime street where those four bodies were still asprawl on the patio, pools of blood dried into terrible brown scabs on the cement, the bodies grotesquely attracting flies after fifty-some hours, the charismatic leader of the Chinese Clan feared help would never come.

Outside, still unseen, their enemy had them paralyzed, as if the Clan were bluecoat soldiers in a frontier fort, facing endless Indian hordes. But as of yet their attackers hadn’t shown the colors of their war paint. Attempts to send out heavily armed scouting teams — no matter which exit — had resulted in the groups getting gunned down within five feet.

The enemy knew about the building’s secret exits, too, the basement catacombs that led to the sewer system, and the tunnel under the block up into the adjacent building. Pairs of kids had been directed to slip out those passages, and were eliminated to a man. That is, to a boy...

Moody knew who had to be doing this: the Brood, of course. He had expected retaliation for the theft of the museum plans, and for snatching the Heart of the Ocean from their Russian leader’s fingers. Such a vicious, all-out assault, however, was a surprise... he would never had guessed the Brood would attempt a full-on siege...

After all, despite their youth, the Chinese Clan had the Brood (whose members were admittedly older) outnumbered by perhaps a third, and they were possessed of superior firepower, chiefly handguns and rifles from that Orange County armory they’d looted last year; further, their rivals would probably not be aware that the awesome fighting machine, Max, was no longer a part of the Clan...

But the kind of armament the Brood had deployed in the last two days — sniperscopes, automatic weapons — made Moody wonder... guns like that weren’t easily come by...

For all his tactical skills — commando training in his distant past had stayed with him — Moody simply did not know how to stop this slaughter.

And as for the “help” he assured his kids would be on the way, Moody could gather from the lack of police response so far that the Brood had bribed the cops to keep their blue noses out of the conflict. Such was not uncommon in LA gang wars: the police collected money, sometimes from both sides, and let the “real” bad guys... the street gangs... fight it out. It was an old refrain: who the hell cared if this rabble killed each other?

But what really struck Moody as disturbing, and dangerous beyond comprehension, was the lack of any federal response. In a case of carnage like this, uncontrolled by the local cops, the National Guard should be stepping in.

How could the Brood have influence on a federal level? Such a thing took more bribe money... and better connections... than that Russian scumbag Kafelnikov would ever have access to. And unless the LAPD was directly involved — cordoning off the area for the Brood, effecting a press blackout, actively cooperating with the Russian — the feds had to be aware that blood was running on Hollywood Boulevard.

What the hell was going on?

In a gray T-shirt and chinos, the lanky yet lithely muscular Gabriel — an Uzi in his hands, an ammo belt around his waist — watched Moody’s back as the Clan leader peered out into the street.

Heavily armed Clan members — older, more seasoned ones, mostly male — took up their position to either side of the glass doors, as Moody nodded to Gabriel, motioning him to the concession stand, where they spoke quietly, so the nearby sentries would not hear.

“Unless they plan to starve us out,” Moody told his second-in-command, “they’ll strike in force — storm our battlements.”

“We lost a few people,” Gabriel said, and shook his head. “I seen better morale.”

“Our troops will come through for us, and themselves.”

Moody glanced at the half a dozen kids — none older than eighteen — in T-shirts and jeans and tennies, caps on backward, semiautomatic weapons in hand. Freckle-faced Fresca, with the new girl Niner at his side, stood with the group nearest Moody and Gabe.

“Even with the hits we’ve taken,” Moody said, a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, “we outnumber these bastards.”

“Their average age is twenty-two — ours is sixteen.”

“We still have the numbers. And that gives them only two choices — mount a commando raid, send in their best people, armed to the teeth... and hope to outfight us. Or...”

“Or,” Gabe finished, “they come in in force.”

“In which case,” Moody said, “they can’t have every exit pinned down to the degree we’ve been suffering these last two days. With a building this size, covering every way out would drain a third of their manpower.”

“So,” Gabe said, thinking it through, “if we see a damn horde of these suckers stormin’ in, we head for the exits.”

“Fighting even as we retreat,” Moody said with a nod. “And we beat them at their own game.”

“How’s that?”

Moody grinned wolfishly. “We head for the Cap... we’ll trade headquarters with the sons of bitches!”

Gabe grinned wide, head shaking on that ostrich neck. “The Moodman still has moves, I see.”

“Always. Now — I’ll help you spread the word.”

In the auditorium, Moody and Gabriel did just that, and faces brightened, morale visibly lifting, and yet the fear remained. Though he felt his plan was a good one, Moody remained uneasy, still troubled by the absence of both the local and federal authorities. How he wished Max was still here... She alone might turn the tide for them, and certainly even up the fight.

His bodyguard, Tippett, looked as stoic as ever in biker leathers, his tattooed arms bared as threats, but the hulking man had removed all his piercings — he never went into battle giving opponents anything to rip from his flesh.

“You want me in the hall?” Tippett asked.

“No — let them have the hall... they’ll try my ‘office’ door and that’ll tell us what they’re up to. You take the back exit, over there...” Moody pointed. “They may still have somebody positioned, so serpentine your ass.”

“No prob... I ain’t had so much fun since the pigs ate my cousin Fred.”

Moody found himself smiling at that. “We should have at least that much fun, this evening...”

His black robe trailing like a cape, Moody threaded through the auditorium, passing along the strategy, continuing to build morale. Then he went upstairs to the old projection booth, where Max had kept her quarters, and knocked.

Freckle-faced Fresca answered. “Yes, sir? What can I do, sir?”

“The girl Niner in there with you?”

“Yes, sir. Just kinda... cooling her out, sir.”

“I hope you haven’t been doing anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Kinda doubt that, sir.” And Fresca grinned.

Of all these kids, only Fres seemed unafraid under these siege circumstances — whether this was courage or naïveté, Moody would not hazard a guess.

“You and Niner go down and block the doors.”

“What with?”

“Use those sandbags we stacked up against the wall, by the stairs, last night. I want them piled directly against the front entry.”

“You got it!”

Fifteen minutes later, when Moody was again moving through the lobby, he saw that the freckle-faced boy and his new girlfriend had set to work.

“Don’t worry, Niner,” the boy was saying. Though he was several years younger than the skinny-looking newbie, Fresca spoke with the authority of experience. “You’ll see.”