Max Collins - Before the Dawn

Kafelnikov laughed harshly. “I’ve seen you in action, Max... and I’ve seen the tape of this man, tossing cops around like dolls. If you two are not brother and sister, you at least shared the same teacher.”

Max’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you think we’re brother and sister?”

The Russian shrugged. “You move the same, you fight the same — you move your hands, your feet, your heads the same. Either you’re family or you trained under one master, most likely at the same time. Either way, you know this man. Who is he, and where is he?”

“You want to know this,” Max said to the Russian, “because your business partner here got robbed... or is there a reward for this rebel? Maybe one for me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kafelnikov said, the lie surprisingly apparent.

Max glanced sideways at her host. “Ask him about his friend Lydecker — ask your Russian pal here what kind of art Manticore’s collecting.”

Sterling glanced at Kafelnikov. “What’s she babbling about?”

“Nothing — that’s all it is... babble! ”

Max was smiling, and Sterling, the two bodyguards, and even the Russian were clearly disconcerted by the absence of fear in her demeanor.

“This was a great party,” she said. “Mr. Sterling, I owe you a big debt of thanks. You, too, Mikhail. I got exactly what I came for, and so much more.”

“What the hell’s she talking about?” Sterling demanded. “Who is this Lydecker?”

Sterling’s attention was on the Russian, and that was where the security guards were looking, too; only the Russian’s eyes were on Max, but his gun hung loosely at his side. When she hadn’t struck immediately, the men’s guard had flagged, got relaxed, sloppy, making this as good a time as any...

She just wished she wasn’t wearing these damn tight pumps.

Her hand moved so quickly, no one reacted; she twisted Sterling’s pistol away from her ribs and he reflexively pulled the trigger, the slug going wild, sending the Russian and the two guards ducking for cover. She broke Sterling’s ring finger, and got the gun out of his hand as he screamed in pain and surprise.

Then she took out the clip and, in one fluid move, brought the pistol up and pitched it like a ball at Maurer, just as he took aim at her. The pistol broke the guard’s nose (again), turning his face into a wet crimson mask as he sagged to the floor.

She elbowed the collector in the face, stopping his screaming by knocking him cold. She moved away from the couch, the curtained window to her back, as Morales came at her with a stun rod; but she dodged, wrenching it from his grip as he swept by her, and — with a helpful push from Max that lost his balance for him — Morales tore down the curtain and crashed through the window.

Spinning, she saw Kafelnikov bring up his pistol, but as he fired, she dived. The bullet zinged through the window into the night as Max jammed the stun rod into Kafelnikov’s ribs. The pistol dropped limply from his hand and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

Max stared down at him...

Zack or Seth would have killed him right there, Max knew; but she was unsure whether there was any benefit in taking revenge on an already beaten opponent. She hadn’t quite made her decision when gunfire ripped the room, as other members of the security force descended.

Max vaulted through the broken window, more bullets chewing the wall around her, wood and plaster fragments flying. She dropped to the ground next to the fallen Maurer, jumped up, on the run. The night was alive with the yells and screams of Sterling’s guests, alarmed by the gunfire.

But by the time the guards were able to add any more gunfire to the merriment, snouts of weapons blossoming out the window, Max was long since out of range.

She couldn’t risk the ferry, and didn’t have a boat, so she kicked off those damn shoes and dived into the cold water. As she swam, she wondered why she’d hesitated when she’d had the chance to kill Kafelnikov.

It wasn’t like her, and it certainly wasn’t like her training — though the decision had some strategic merit, since the Russian was the link to Lydecker’s role in the Mann’s massacre...

She thought about Kendra, Original Cindy, and the other “normal” people who’d come into her life... Normal included; maybe hanging with all these real folks all the time was making her more human.

And then she wondered whether or not being more human, more normal, was a good thing.

When she got back to her squatter’s pad, dripping wet, Kendra’s frock ruined, Max was thinking of the boy who must be Seth. Now she not only needed to find him for herself, but for him, too.

Seth was in danger, and she didn’t know how to warn him; but she’d have to find a way.

Going over the John Singer Sargent painting with a small, handheld ultraviolet device, Pepe Henderson — an art expert friend of Logan’s from the Seattle Art Museum — pored over the canvas like a criminalist seeking clues. In his early forties, with a middle-aged spread courtesy of a desk job and too many fast-food lunches, Henderson was an unprepossessing professional, dark hair thinning, with thick black-frame glasses riding a round face, a button-down white shirt challenged at the belly, and black slacks that kept slipping down, revealing the kind of cleavage people do not crane their necks to see.

In a pullover sweater and jeans, apparently relaxed and centered, Logan Cale sat back in one of the two chairs that bracketed his brown sofa, the anxiety pulsing in his stomach a secret.

Three of the paintings Seth had stolen from Engidyne were spread out on the cushions of the sofa, while the other three were smoothed out on the area rug. Unstretched, the canvases had a loose quality, like animal skins, that was somehow disconcerting. The lights were low, to aid the expert in his ultraviolet testing. Logan still couldn’t believe the quality of the art arrayed on and around his couch — N. C. Wyeth, John Singer Sargent, Jackson Pollock, Norman Rockwell, Charles M. Russell, and Frederic Remington... an amazing collection.

In his black leather jacket, blue jeans, and a gray T-shirt that said LEXX (a reference lost on Logan), sullen Seth paced the hardwood floor just beyond the conversation area. As twitchy, as itchy, as a drug addict (Logan even wondered if the boy was low on tryptophan), Seth watched the art expert’s examination of his paintings like an expectant father who’d cheerfully brought his video cam into the delivery room, only to run into a bloody C-section...

“No question,” Henderson said, rising, hitching up his trousers, mercifully.

“I told you they were the real deal,” Seth said, coming around the sofa, cockily.

Henderson raised a hand, like an embarrassed traffic cop. “No — I’m sorry, son... No question it’s a forgery. ”

Eyes blazing, Seth stormed over to the seated Logan, loomed ominously over him. “What the hell... what kinda scam?... You told him to say that!”

Logan shook his head. “No, Seth... I didn’t. Frankly, I don’t need to scam you out of money — I have money.” He sighed. “But I admit I was afraid they might be forgeries.”

Seth pointed at the Sargent as if he wanted to shoot it. “Just ’cause that piece of shit’s a fake, doesn’t mean the others are, too!”

“That’s true,” Logan said, calming; but then added: “Still, Seth — it’s hardly a good sign. Don’t get your hopes up.”

The art expert ambled over and joined the conversation. “Don’t get me wrong, boys — it’s a good job.” Henderson shook his head admiringly. “As good a forgery as I’ve ever seen... but fake is fake.”