Max Collins - After the Dark

“No, shit-for-brains,” Mole said, and the cigar butt traveled again, “it’s this giant sculpture under the bridge. Looks like a big bearded dude on his belly.”

“What have you been smoking?”

“He’s got this car in one hand, like a bug he snatched up.”

“What have you been drinking?”

“Thing is freakin’ huge, man. I can’t believe you’ve never seen it.”

“A bearded guy with a car in his hand? You expect me to buy that.”

Mole slapped himself on the forehead and uttered a string of four letter words, in the process chewing the end of his cigar to pulp.

“What idiot thing did he say now?” Max asked, striding into the center and looking down at the seated Alec, still being mothered by Luke.

“Dude never heard of the Fremont Troll,” Mole said, trying to relight what was left of the butt.

Max looked at Alec’s pitiful-looking black eye and said, “No way.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Alec said. “You’re all just jerkin’ my chain.”

Crossing her arms, Max eyed the handsome, bandaged-up X5 suspiciously. “And who did you lose a fight with?”

“A tree,” was all he said. “How did it go with Logan’s uncle?”

She told them. “Any ideas?”

Alec filled her in about his expedition, and he and Mole described their plan for a two-pronged invasion before the scheduled sunup drop-off of the “supposed” ransom — one team going to Gas Works Park, the other to the under-the-bridge troll statue.

“It’s a plan,” Max said, nodding.

The Furies were a large, powerful gang, but they were ordinaries, which meant that Max and her crew of transgenics had a big advantage. What the Terminal City team lacked in numbers, they made up for in genetics and training.

“I don’t want Clemente down on us for this,” Max said, referring to Detective Ramon Clemente, the Seattle cop who had collaborated with her to keep both the Jam Pony hostage crisis and the siege at Terminal City from turning into bloodbaths.

“Don’t give it a thought,” Alec said. “We’ll be in and out before the cops even know what happened.”

Mole nodded. “They won’t know what hit them.”

“Two groups, then,” Max said.

Another nod from Mole. “I’ll go with Alec — you round up Joshua.”

“All right,” she said. “In one hour, we’re in position.”

“Better make it an hour and a half,” Alec said. “Luke hasn’t finished taping up my ankle yet.”

Mole glowered at him. “Pass for an ordinary long enough, you get to be a wuss like one.”

Alec gave him a sarcastically beaming look. “And yet still you choose me to team up with.”

Starting up a new stogie, the lizard man said, “Somebody’s got to keep you from getting your ass beat by another tree.”

Max raised her hands, palms out, calling a halt to the floor show. “An hour and a half it is,” she said. “Be ready, and don’t tell anybody. The quieter we keep this, the better off we’ll all be.”

Alec said, “You don’t know how right you are.”

She frowned at him. “Meaning?”

“Somebody had to tip the Furies off about where Logan lived, right? And who knows that besides our fellow Terminal City residents?”

Mole said, “That cop Clemente — a few others that were around the night Kelpy bought it.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Max said. “Are you suggesting we have a traitor in our midst?”

“I’m suggesting just what I suggested: somebody tipped the Furies off about Logan’s private pad. I mean, you didn’t tell ’em, did you, Max?”

“No, Alec. It would have to be somebody terminally untrustworthy — anybody come to mind?”

His eyes widened. “Hey — I don’t deserve that.”

Max’s expression softened. “Actually, you don’t. And you raise a good point — someone tipped the Furies about Logan. But we don’t have time to find out who. Saving Logan’s ass is our top, our only, priority.”

Alec nodded. So did Mole, and Dix in his command chair, even though he wasn’t supposed to be listening in, and Luke as he taped the bandage around Alec’s ankle.

“What we’re up to,” Max said again, “stays among us, and Joshua — just the core group... Now, let’s jet.”

Ninety minutes later Alec finally met the Fremont Troll.

Under the north end of the Aurora Avenue bridge, the reclining stone troll rose eighteen feet, nearly bumping its head on the underside of the bridge. The troll looked just as Mole had described him — long-haired with one shiny metal eye, crawling on its belly, the fingers of his right hand spread, its left fist closed around a gray hulk of a car.

Alec and Mole climbed up behind the troll peeking out from the darkness under the bridge. Rolling his head on the column of his neck to ease the stiffness, Alec settled in for a wait.

No telling how long it would take the Furies to get there with Logan, but a glance at his watch told him it could be up to two hours till the scheduled hostage/ransom exchange.

“Mole,” he said. “I’m beat.”

“Sleep, then,” he said. “I got it covered.”

“I’m just gonna shut my eyes. Rest a little.”

“Go ahead.”

When his phone trilled and he bolted upright, Alec had no idea how long he’d been out. The tiny ring echoed like a church bell beneath the bridge.

“You answer it,” Mole growled, “or I break it.” The lizard man still had a lit cigar clamped between his teeth and had apparently managed to stay awake through Alec’s nap.

Quickly, Alec fished the phone out of his pocket and punched the button on the start of the second ring. “What?” he asked.

“Anything?”

Max’s hushed voice. She’d be at Gas Works Park, with the others.

“No,” he said, but looked to Mole for confirmation. With a derisive snort, the lizard man nodded — nothing had happened. “How about you?”

“Nobody,” she said. “And they’re overdue.”

“Well, they’d stop here first, surely — to deposit their hostage.”

“You’d think. But Joshua’s stood ground while I’ve roved the area — nobody sniffin’, nothing.”

“What’s your read, Max?”

“Either something’s gone wrong, or the Furies are playing some new game.”

“Hate when that happens... Maybe they’re just waiting for you to leave.”

“Nope,” she said. “I got an A-plus in recon. Trust me, they’re not here. And that bag’s just sittin’ there — even the bugs aren’t goin’ near it.”

“Not good, Max.”

“Almost two hours after sunup and nothing — something has definitely gone wrong.”

The bag she referred to was a leather valise they had packed with a cake of bricks and newspaper, under a frosting of smaller bills. If anybody picked the thing up, it’d weigh enough to pass for four million dollars, and a casual opening would reveal money on top. Only a more aggressive search would reveal the ploy.

But from what Max was saying, no one seemed interested enough to even look and see if they were being ripped off.

“We need to make a move,” Alec said, surprised that Mole had let him sleep this long without kicking him. “Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Any ideas, Max?”

“... I think we should visit the Furies’ home.”

“The four of us... just drop by?”

“That’s the plan, Alec.”

“And you say my plans suck.”

“You up for it?”

“Yeah. No problem.”

“Sit tight. Fill Mole in, and Joshua and me, we’ll be right over — then we’ll blaze.”

Gunning her Ninja, Max flew through the open gate of Lakeview Cemetery, Joshua clinging on behind her, hanging on with just his left hand, the valise full of bricks, newspapers, and a few dollars swinging from his right hand.