Sleep would not come easily tonight… or any other night, not for a very long time. The guilt he felt for getting Seth killed would gnaw at him like a small, voracious animal, always there, chewing him up inside. When sleep did come, it would only be after considerable reflection on the memory of Seth, and speculation on whether Logan had himself tumbled into the ends-justify-the-means abyss.
A few months from now, Logan Cale— Eyes Only— would meet another X5, recognizing a young woman's superior feats as those of a Manticore soldier… with the barcode to match.
But his sense of guilt over the death of one of her sibs would prohibit Logan from immediately confessing his “crime” to her. He would work with her, collaborate with her as he had with Seth, in the pursuit of Eyes Only's crusade… though always filtered through what he had learned from his first unhappy experience with an X5.
The second X5 would be beautiful and trusting of him, and— as he fell in love with her— Logan's secret would turn dark and even fester; but he wouldn't tell her, for fear of driving her away.
It would be a very long time before she learned his secret… and when she finally did, it would come at a terrible time in both their lives, with a potentially damaging cost.
Tonight, however, Logan Cale's major problem was getting some rest. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Sleep tonight would indeed be a long time coming.
THE SPACE NEEDLE
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, 2019
The rain rivaled that other night, not so long ago, when so many had died here.
Max wasn't sure what had drawn her back to this place, with its awful memories. She sat, hugging her knees, rain drops pearling off black leather, her hair turning into thick wet braids, baring the barcode on her neck, her impassive face streaked with what might have been tears… but was just precipitation.
She'd climbed all the way— not just to the observation deck, this time, but farther, to the hard curved metal of the top. She sat up there now, the wind whipping her, a punishment that seemed strangely pleasant on this dark night, the city's scattered lights like fallen stars before her.
Max would reflect here, in the days and months and years to come, on many things. Sometimes she would still be perched there, when dawn came.
Was she wrong, she wondered, to want to find her real family? These surrogate families hadn't worked out so well— the Barretts, an abusive father, an enabling mother, and yet another lost sister; the Chinese Clan, with Moody and Fresca and the others, where she had perhaps felt the most at home, until her mentor's life of crime, and her own Manticore-haunted past, had led to slaughter.
Of course, she was making a new family now, with Original Cindy, Kendra, Herbal, Sketchy, even Normal… the whole Jam Pony gang. Max hoped she would not endanger them, too; she would do her best to protect them from the darkness that followed her…
… but they would never be her only family, her real family. She had connected with Seth for such a short, even tragic time; and yet making that link had been a revelation to her.
She had to find her brothers and sisters.
They were out there, her siblings, out in that world somewhere, stretching endlessly before her from her Space Needle roost; and she would just have to keep on searching.
How could she not? Lydecker surely would.
Max smiled and shook her head, flinging water, but not noticing. She had come out of all this with only one tangible thing— the Heart of the Ocean, a blue stone so hot, so precious, she had almost been unable to fence it. What she finally wound up with was a nice wad of cash… about enough to keep Vogelsang on the job for another month or two.
Now that the violence was over, the Needle had a stately silence— not to mention a fabulous view— and she could reflect, in this terrible yet somehow sacred place, where her brother had died. She would come here, from time to time, to think… and to be with Seth.
MAX ALLAN COLLINS has earned an unprecedented eleven Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations for his historical thrillers, winning twice for his Nathan Heller novels,
True Detective
(1983) and
Stolen Away
(1991).
A Mystery Writers of America “Edgar” nominee in both fiction and nonfiction categories, Collins has been hailed as “the Renaissance man of mystery fiction.” His credits include five suspense-novel series, film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie/TV tie-in novels, including
In the Line of Fire, Air Force One,
and the
New York Times
bestseller
Saving Private Ryan.
He scripted the internationally syndicated comic strip
Dick Tracy
from 1977 to 1993, is cocreator of the comic-book features
Ms. Tree, Wild Dog,
and
Mike Danger,
has written the
Batman
comic book and newspaper strip, and the miniseries
Johnny Dynamite: Underworld
. His graphic novel,
Road to Perdition,
has been made into a DreamWorks feature film starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, directed by Sam Mendes.
As an independent filmmaker in his native Iowa, he wrote and directed the suspense film
Mommy,
starring Patty McCormack, premiering on Lifetime in 1996, and a 1997 sequel,
Mommy's Day.
The recipient of a record five Iowa Motion Picture Awards for screenplays, he wrote
The Expert,
a 1995 HBO World Premiere; and wrote and directed the award-winning documentary
Mike Hammer's Mickey Spillane
(1999) and the innovative
Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market
(2000).
Collins lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins, and their teenage son, Nathan.
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Document creation date: 15.5.2012
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Document authors :
Max Allan Collins
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