Max Collins - After the Dark

“Good. I just hate it when women want me for my good looks.”

“Bet you do. I need you and Luke to take a crack at decrypting Logan’s hard drive.”

“Ouch. Couldn’t we just crack the Pentagon data banks, or somethin’ easy? Frickin’ Logan, he’s the best, y’know.”

“I know. But Logan says you and Luke are the best hackers he ever ran into.”

“No shit?”

“None at all,” she said, lying through her teeth. “Get on it.”

“All over it,” Dix promised; but uncertainty peeked out around the edges of his bravado.

She clicked off and looked at her three friends, Joshua next to her in the booth, Alec and Mole across. “Logan hid this kid away so that God couldn’t find him. But we have to.”

“What?” Alec said, frowning. “And turn him over to White?”

Shifting his dead cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, leaning forward, Mole said, “Max — you know I will follow your lead.”

“I appreciate that.”

“But this — big mistake.”

“Why?” she asked, and she couldn’t keep the defensive edge out of her tone.

Mole relighted that stogie; got it going good; then he gazed at her, hard. “Why did Logan hide that kid away? To keep him away from daddy dearest. Now we’re going to do White’s damn dirty work for him? Tell me there’s another way.”

“Is there another way?”

All three just looked at her.

Finally Alec said, “You figure we go through with the exchange and, what? Just vamp? Improvise our way out of it, shooting up as many snake-cult goofballs as we can? And hope for the best?... Again, I have to say it: and you think my plans suck?”

Max said, “What... other... choice... do... we... have ?”

“You know what choice we have,” Mole said.

Max said nothing.

“He takes one for the team,” Mole said.

“Logan?” She practically shrieked this response, and hated herself for the “girl” softness of that.

Alec shook his head, but he was agreeing with Mole as he said, “Man knew the risks of gettin’ involved with Eyes Only — that’s how he ended up in the wheelchair in the first place.”

Sitting forward, Max said, “No one knows that better than—”

“You’re a solider, Max,” Mole cut in. “We all are... And so, in his way, is Logan. Do you really think Logan would want you to turn the kid over to White, just like that? After you risked so much rescuin’ the brat? After he put so much effort in saltin’ the kid away? No. No way.”

Max turned to Joshua, whose lionlike features were draped with sorrow. “What do you think, Big Fella?”

Joshua covered his face with a pawlike hand. He was crying.

Max touched his arm. “Joshua...”

“Logan,” Joshua said. “Have to respect... what Logan would want.” He lowered his hand and gazed at her, his hairy face matted with tears. “Mole is right. Logan. Take one. For the team.”

Even Joshua could see it — and now so could she. Everything they were saying was true. But that did not mean she would roll over and allow Logan to die at the hands of Ames White — not while there was breath in her body.

“You’re right,” she said, “and you’re wrong.”

Alec arched an eyebrow.

Mole rolled his stogie around.

Joshua dried his eyes with a napkin.

“You’re right that we can’t just turn Ray over to White,” she said. “That would negate everything Logan stands for — everything we’ve stood for... But we don’t walk away from a brother. We don’t sacrifice any one of us unless we absolutely have to.”

Alec said, “I’m sensing a Plan B.”

She nodded. “We still need to find Ray White. We still need that boy.”

Alec frowned. “We find him... blow his cover... yank the kid out of hiding... and then we don’t turn him over...?”

“That’s right — and, Alec, my plan doesn’t suck.”

“Of what use is Ray White to us,” Alec said, “if we don’t turn him over?”

But Mole was ahead of the X5, eyes tight in the lizard face. “Bait.”

Max smiled and nodded. “Got it in one, Mole.”

But Alec and Joshua weren’t on the same page, the former shaking his head, the other squinting in confusion.

Max pressed on: “Ames White is going to insist on talking to Ray at some point.”

“A given,” said Mole.

“Well, if we’ve got the kid, even for White just to talk to on the phone, if he knows we really have the boy, we’ve got a chance of getting Logan back. Or do you really wanna walk away and let Logan Cale ‘take one for the team’?”

Alec, typically, just cocked his head like a beagle who wasn’t sure he’d understood the question.

“We gotta try,” Mole said. “He’d do the same for us.”

“How about you, Alec?” Max asked.

“What?”

“Do we walk away?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I mean... hell, no.”

The self-absorbed X5 still didn’t seem to be fully on board, but at least he wasn’t fighting her anymore.

Mole said, “Max, one thing is understood... we don’t give the kid up to White under any circumstances.”

She’d lost her head for a while, allowing her feelings for Logan to cloud the bigger picture. Now her friends had her back on track. They would use Ray to draw White out, but that was all.

She said, “No way White gets the boy. No way in hell.”

Alec lifted his coffee cup. “I’m in,” he said, and they toasted — Joshua hitting the cups a little too hard, spilling some coffee.

A lot more than coffee would be spilled in the days ahead.

“Here’s where we are,” Max said. “Dix and Luke are trying to crack Logan’s computer, but I doubt they’ll have much if any luck. White and his NSA goon squad took the old one, when they raided Logan’s prior apartment, and they still haven’t cracked the codes.”

“You know that for sure?” Alec asked.

She nodded. “Comes straight from Otto Gottlieb.”

Gottlieb, White’s former partner in the NSA, had seen the light and helped the transgenics capture Kelpy and bring White down at the NSA. Max wondered if Gottlieb could be of any help on this outing.

But Gottlieb had been rewarded by the NSA with a raise and promotion, for his whistle-blowing on White, and Max was afraid his loyalties these days might be too strongly NSA for her to risk trusting his involvement.

Alec said, “Why don’t I talk to Matt Sung — he might be able to help.”

Matt Sung, an Asian-American detective for the Seattle P.D., had helped Eyes Only on numerous occasions.

“Good call,” Max said. “Logan trusts Matt completely.” Then, turning to Mole, she added, “Can you track down Bling?”

Mole’s cigar bobbed as he nodded. “Count on it.”

Bling — Logan’s African-American physical therapist and occasional driver/bodyguard — knew more about Eyes Only operations than anybody this side of Logan himself.

With Logan wearing the exoskeleton more and more, Bling found himself with free time, now that Logan was doing less rehab and getting himself around. They hadn’t seen Bling for several months, but she knew Logan talked to him regularly and was sure he was still in the city somewhere.

“How can Joshua help?” Joshua asked.

Max couldn’t exactly send a six-foot-four-inch Dog Boy out to do anything inconspicuous; when it came time to kick ass and take names, Joshua would be the point man. But she couldn’t bench him now — it would hurt Joshua, whose fondness for Logan she found touching.

She said, “Go over to Father’s house and look around. Logan laid low there for a while — maybe he left something behind that’ll lead us to the boy.”