Max Collins - After the Dark

The second one, a burly Russian, pulled a knife and advanced, waving the blade back and forth. Presumably this had intimidated opponents in the past; Alec disarmed the guy, just slapping the blade from his grasp, and caught him on the chin with a left hook that sent him down for the count... a long count.

The one with the cell phone, a medium-sized blond guy with short hair and light blue eyes, took one look at the wreckage of his friends and flew off running in the other direction. Must’ve been stairs around that way, too...

But he had already done his damage: his cell phone call had summoned the troops — feet were pounding up the nearer stairs, a small army headed toward the observation deck, a metallic echoing too much like machine-gun fire for Alec’s taste. An X5 was first and foremost a soldier, and Alec knew all about when it was time to retreat. He went to one of the archway windows.

The four-story drop was just too far to risk, even for a transgenic. So he stood on the ledge and gripped the edge of the Chinese-hat tile roof; he might be able to perch up there and wait it out until the reinforcements left. As if doing a pull-up, he clambered up and lay against the roof, just listening to the show within the observation deck.

The first voice he heard, he recognized: Manny, the Fury he’d met almost a year ago.

“Christ,” Manny said. “What went on up here? Hutt doin’ crank again?”

“From what I heard on the cell,” someone else said excitedly, “it was one guy — all over everybody! Who the fuck can fight like that?”

The next voice was cooler, more in control, probably the guy in charge. “Stefan, you and Woodrow secure the far end.”

“Yes, Badar,” Stefan said. This voice Alec recognized, too — a pity Stefan and Manny hadn’t been around when he came calling; this wouldn’t have played out so bad...

On the other hand, he had struck a sort of gold.

Badar, he knew, would be Badar Tremaine, leader of the Furies and generally considered the biggest badass for three sectors. Alec had never spoken to the gang leader, but had seen him around, and like most everybody else in Seattle, he’d heard plenty about him — tall, slender, with black hair usually swept back in a tight ponytail, Tremaine had close-set dark eyes, a perpetual stubble, and skin the color of oiled leather.

The good news was that Badar undoubtedly would have either approved or masterminded the Logan Cale kidnapping. Alec clung to the edge of the roof, hanging over a bit, listening intently.

He heard four feet pounding down the observation deck toward the far end.

“Savage!” Tremaine again. “You and Dante guard the stairs at this end. Make sure the deck is secure.”

Again Alec heard two men run back to the door. The wind was whipping at him, and ruffling the nearby trees; but his transgenic hearing stood him in good stead. He was in a decent position up here, as long as no Fury below saw him, clinging to the roof in broad daylight.

That would be... unfortunate.

“Manny, this is just the sort of setback we don’t need right now.”

“I know, Badar.”

“Sounds like maybe it’s one of Cale’s transgenic friends dropped by... Hit the woods, scour the area, check the Jamestown. Find the bastard who did this.”

“And bring him to you?”

“Just kill him.”

“You got it, Badar.”

“Don’t screw it up! Nothing can interfere with our plans — Cale’s worth too much to us. The ransom note has been sent, but you can’t trust these transgenics. What we had up here may be their idea of paying up... God only knows if these mutant freaks even understand the concept of money.”

Alec fought the urge to swing over the rail and kick the crap out of Badar Tremaine.

“If everything remains on schedule tonight,” Tremaine was saying, “I want you to move Cale first thing in the morning.”

“The troll?” Manny asked.

“Yeah.”

The troll? Who the hell was the troll? Alec wondered. Was that some bizarre reference to Logan?

“Everything’s secure, Badar.” Stefan’s voice again. “There’s no sign of who did this, but we found one of the sentries hiding on the back stairs.”

“Bring him to me.”

Alec quickly thought his situation through: the blond sentry, the cell-phone caller who’d summoned the troops, had been on the back stairs. Badar and his Furies had come up the other stairs — soon they would figure out that their intruder hadn’t gone down either of those stairways, hence could only have gone out a window...

He looked down and decided again that trying to land safely from this height was a really bad idea. He could swing in and take on the room of gangbangers, but if they captured him, or killed him, what he’d heard would go unreported to Max.

Even if he prevailed, the other Furies might simply kill Logan, rather than risk another confrontation.

The wind whispered to him, through the sun-shimmering leaves.

Alec heard them.

Picking out the nearest, tallest pine tree, he jumped.

Sunrise Island, site of Lyman Cale’s compound, was just east of Vashon Island in the sound, and a boat could be launched from Three Tree Point. The ride to Sunrise would be shortest at that point — less than half an hour — though, after that, things got a little hairier: Max figured on electric fences, dogs, guns, security staff, the whole nine booby-trapped yards.

She wasn’t looking forward to the trip, but Dix hadn’t come up with any other ways of contacting the old man. Jonas Cale’s older brother, Lyman, had made his money years ago and controlled a massive bank account that was separate even from the formidable wealth of the Cale family money.

Max found a recent online video of Lyman addressing Congress from his compound. A world class recluse, the old man hadn’t set foot on the mainland since the Pulse. In the video, as he droned on about “the need for economic opportunity in this climate of fiscal unease,” he gave the appearance of a vibrant older man. Silver-haired with a distinguished spade-shaped white beard, he revealed flashing blue eyes that reminded Max of Logan’s, and a short straight nose over a wide, thin-lipped mouth.

The old boy certainly wasn’t half bad to look at; she wondered if she were possibly viewing a snapshot of Logan at that age. That such a thought would form again, unbidden, was a positive sign... Maybe she was getting past the Seth thing. Maybe Logan Cale was worth growing old with, after all.

Assuming he wasn’t already dead...

Dusk was deepening to night and they hadn’t heard from Alec yet; she couldn’t wait any longer. The ransom note had shown up at Terminal City early this afternoon — delivered by a Jam Pony messenger, no less — and Max now knew the depth of their trouble. The message — addressed to Max, boldly, arrogantly signed “The Furies” — said that if she didn’t bring $4 million to Gas Works Park tomorrow at dawn, Logan would die.

It troubled Max that the note had been addressed to her — they knew of her friendship with Logan, knew it ran deep enough to convince them she could raise this fortune, either from the Cole family or by Logan trusting her with his finances.

Four million or forty million, what was the difference? Without Lyman Cale, she had no chance of saving Logan. His cousin Bennett — now in charge of Jonas’s millions — would just as soon see Logan dead as alive. At least Jonas had liked having Logan around just to have someone to persecute; Bennett didn’t even care enough about Logan to hate him — all Bennett knew was one less cousin meant a larger stake for him, when the Jonas Cale fortune eventually got split up.

The night was clear but cold as Max eased the “borrowed” boat out into the water. She was amazed at how easily she slipped back into her old ways. Telling herself that it was for Logan helped muffle the micron of guilt, but in truth she felt comfortable in the role Moody had schooled her in. In some dark part of her, it felt good, breaking the rules again.