After the Dark

by Max Allan Collins

  A hand rested on her shoulder, and she turned, drawing reflexively back to punch, pulling it as she looked up into the reptilian face of Mole.

  “It's okay,” he said. “It's me.”

  “They got him! They got Logan!”

  “Easy—settle,” Mole said.

  She looked around now to see that Alec, Joshua, and a couple of X3s she didn't recognize were combing the apartment. The Furies had cleaned up their wounded and taken them along, too. She took some small satisfaction knowing that she had inflicted a good deal of damage on them; grabbing Logan hadn't come free for the sons of bitches.

  Mole helped her into a kitchen chair. “How'd you know to come?” she asked, her body a mass of pains, her head pounding to an unseen but insistent drumbeat.

  “Luke,” he said, referring to Dix's lightbulb-headed best buddy. “He was going out for supplies when he saw a bunch of bangers pilin' into a truck and taking off. He figured that couldn't be good, called us.”

  “The Furies,” she said. “They took Logan.”

  Alec walked in holding a piece of black T-shirt. “Looks like their ‘uniform.' What the hell would those idiots want with Logan?”

  They all took turns looking at each other and shrugging.

  “Logan's rich, isn't he?” Mole asked. “Maybe it's a snatch job. Anybody see a ransom note?”

  No one had.

  “They're organized,” Alec said, sitting on the table near Max, “but I didn't think they were organized enough to manage something like this.”

  “Where's their HQ, anyway?” Mole asked. “Let's just go snatch him back.”

  Max shook her head. “I doubt that even the Furies are stupid enough to keep him at their crib. If they saw us coming, they might just kill him and run.”

  Mole frowned. “Well, what the hell do you suggest, then?”

  “Don't know yet,” Max said, still groggy.

  Alec said, “Well, I do.”

  Max looked up at him.

  “Leave it to me,” he said.

  Any idea was better than what she had—nothing—but the typical smugness in Alec's tone made Max think “leaving it to him” wasn't a wise strategy.

  During the siege, trying to help, Alec and Joshua had nearly gotten themselves killed, been captured by Ames White, and almost singlehandedly destroyed any opportunity the transgenics had for a negotiated peace with the ordinaries. That was the most recent example of “leaving it to Alec” . . .

  On the other hand, Alec seemed to have changed in recent months, and for the better. The new Alec had actually become a valuable member of the community, even of her inner council. He was considered by many the likeliest choice to run for the city council seat that would become Terminal City's official voice in Seattle politics.

  That was the “new” Alec. But the gleam in Alec's eye suggested the old Alec was back in town, and that was almost as troubling as anything the Furies might manage.

  “We won't be leaving this to you, Alec,” she said.

  “No?”

  “No, but I'm ready to hear you out.”

  “You won't regret it,” Alec said, flashing that smile, and he hopped off the table and pulled up the chair next to her, and she heard what he had in mind and, hardly believing it herself, found herself going along with him.

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  SMART ALEC

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  DECEMBER 21, 2021

  Alec's plan had merit.

  Just the same, Max—finally shaking off the shock of Logan's abduction, not to mention the aftereffects of the Tazer—had a plan of her own in mind.

  And between the two of them, she thought, they might just be able to get Logan back alive.

  She and Alec sat at the kitchen table in Logan's apartment and discussed their respective approaches. All of them—the other Terminal City insiders who were joining them in their efforts, Joshua, Dix, Mole—had come to feel that the kidnapping had an economic motive.

  It was an easy enough conclusion to reach. Kidnapping for ransom had been around since the beginning of time, of course, but it had really made a splash in a post-Pulse United States, where money was hard to come by and even harder to hang onto. That made the privileged few, the wealthy who'd been largely untouched by the Pulse, prey to predators like the Furies.

  Which meant that at some point a ransom note would be delivered, or a call or an e-mail would come in.

  “If they were smart,” Alec said, “they'd have snatched you, Max.”

  “You think they coulda managed that?”

  “Why? Would you have argued with 'em, while you were doin' that Tazer dance?”

  This was a good point, but she didn't acknowledge it, saying, “Why am I a better kidnap choice than Logan?”

  “Logan's the one with the money. You kids don't exactly have a joint checking account yet, do you?”

  This, too, was a good point.

  Max said, “We don't have any way of tapping into Logan's coffers . . . not unless we can hack into various banks or somethin'.”

  “Which is where you come in,” Alec said.

  While Alec put his plan into action, Max would contact Logan's family in hopes of gaining their financial assistance. She only hoped the Cales would still be capable of coming up with the cash for whatever undoubtedly lunatic ransom demand the street gang would make.

  The Cale family's money woes had begun in earnest when Logan's uncle Jonas was gunned down by a hoverdrone programmed by Jonas's business partner, Gilbert Neal. The deal that Neal had made after he killed Jonas cost the family millions; fortunately, Jonas wasn't the only rich Cale in the clan.

  Logan's uncle Lyman—a legendary reclusive billionaire who was often compared by the media to that twentieth-century fruitcake moneybags, Howard Hughes—lived in a compound on Sunrise Island, a private island in Puget Sound. All Max knew about the eccentric uncle was that he was estranged from the rest of the family, with one significant exception: he was said to love his nephew, Logan. Logan rarely talked about him, though Max sensed that the two of them got along very well.

  The media also reported that Lyman Cale's estate had cutting-edge high-tech high security. And Max knew it wasn't like she could let the old boy know she was coming to call. Wasn't like Lyman Cale was listed in the white pages . . . and Logan's computer was so encrypted that not even the cyberadept Dix could make a dent in it.

  That meant she would simply have to flex her old cat-burglar muscles to get inside Uncle Lyman's compound and have a friendly chat with him about his favorite (and kidnapped) nephew. The prospect worried her not a whit—she'd had a good teacher in Moody, back in L.A. . . . Few could rival her breaking-and-entering skills.

  While she was doing that, Alec would be infiltrating the Furies.

  “I know those guys,” he said. “Used to run into 'em, in certain parts of town, back when I worked at Jam Pony. They were always tryin' to recruit me.”

  “Isn't everybody?” she said with a faint smile.

  “It's a gift,” he said, returning the smile.

  Seemed to Max that Alec thought everybody wanted him for everything. He appeared certain that all women wanted to jump his bones and all men longed to be like him. It was a small world he lived in, but he was happy there.

  “Maybe it's a little late in the game,” Alec said, “but I figure I can look those bros up, and tell 'em I've finally come to my senses and realize the only future for me is as a Fury.”

  Such was Alec's plan—not very complicated, especially by Alec's Machiavellian standards, though the element of egomania marked it as his.

  Barely sixty minutes had passed since the abduction, and they were ready to roll. It did not warm her within that she would have to trust Alec; she'd just found out that the steadfast, dependable person she figured she could trust the most in the world had lied to her—and now she was putting her faith in a handsome congenital liar.

  And while Alec could go out and work the streets
immediately, she would have to wait for nightfall to see Logan's uncle. Good as she was, like most cat burglars—most cats, for that matter—she was at her best under the cover of darkness.

  She thought back on the estate of Jared Sterling, the computer billionaire she'd had a run-in with when she first got to Seattle. Sterling's estate had boasted state of the art security and she'd cracked that, hadn't she? Of course, she'd also been caught and had to kick the asses of four armed men, just to jump the fence again with her skin intact; but she had gotten in. Could Lyman Cale's estate be any tougher?

  Probably.

  So Max decided the best thing she could do in the daylight was some research on what awaited her on Sunrise Island.

  As she and Alec rose from the table, each to pursue a plan, Alec looked at her with something akin to sympathy.

  “I gotta hand it to you, Max—you're taking this well.”

  “Logan's not in any danger, not immediately—he's too valuable.”

  An atypically grave expression took over the handsome face. “Max . . . I hate to say this, but . . . in a certain number of cases like this, the kidnappers just ice the victim right outta the chutes. A lot of people have paid ransom money for a corpse.”

  “You're saying this why?”

  “You just need to face that.”

  “If he's dead, what can I do about it? If he's alive, we'll get him back.”

  Alec nodded, smirked humorlessly. “I thought you were just holdin' it in . . . Anyway, I kinda got a hunch what you'll do about it, if he is dead. Just remember, I'm not really a Fury, okay?”

  And he gave her that cocky grin.

  Max smiled a little and nodded. Probably were quite a few females who wanted to jump those bones, at that . . .

  And the deadly government-trained killing machine, the female X5 who knew a thousand ways to destroy her enemies, sprang into action—heading to Logan's computers, to do research.

  Alec cruised his motorcycle on up to the checkpoint at Sector Eight. Trying to blend in, he wore a black ensemble of jeans, a turtleneck sweater, and a leather jacket. He flashed his old Jam Pony ID, held up an envelope he'd stuffed with old newspaper clippings, and got waved through by the sector guard who was too busy with the long line of pedestrians to pay much heed to a pain-in-the-ass messenger.

  What with the difficulty of passing from sector to sector, and with gas so high and the streets and highways in such wretched shape, many businesses used services like Jam Pony, which meant the sector guards found messengers an all-too-common annoyance, and had a nice habit—nice from Alec's point of view, anyway—of just waving 'em through.

  As he accelerated out of the checkpoint, Alec kissed the Jam Pony ID. This had been the easy part, he told himself; he'd only needed to be a little bit lucky. No time to get cocky. Getting into Sector Eight? A snap. Finding the information he needed and getting back out alive? A whole 'nother deal.

  Sector Eight—tired and old and tucked beneath Portage Bay—served as the base of ops for several street gangs, and the Seattle P.D. seldom ventured far beyond the checkpoints. This far north, the shabby urban landscape provided lots of places to stash a body out of the way of prying eyes, official or otherwise.

  The Furies operated out of Lakeview Cemetery and Volunteer Park, but had also been known to frequent the woods around Interlaken Boulevard and the Broadmoor. Once a very popular golf course, the Broadmoor now housed a good-sized Jamestown that provided plenty of potential victims for the ruthless violence of the Furies.

  Alec knew the Furies manned an observation station atop the Volunteer Park water tower. So this seemed as good a place as any to start. Not at all surreptitious, a man clearly confident about who he was and what he was doing, he rode into the woods, and then, not far from the tower, parked his cycle and strolled forward to within twenty yards of the building.

  The tower was four squat stories of faded red brick, rising through the trees like a huge fat chimney, topped by a conical roof perched there like a Chinese farmer's bamboo hat. The structure seemed vaguely medieval to Alec, as he drew closer, though the historical edge was taken off by black spray-painted Furies graffiti.

  Within the brick facade, a giant metal tank had at one time been filled with water. Talk now was, the tank was piled with the bodies of those who got in the way of the Furies. Alec figured this was an urban legend—after all, the only smell was of pine trees—but nonetheless he didn't know anyone who had been brave enough to go find out for themselves.

  The way—a white, recessed door also adorned with Furies graffiti—was guarded by a pair of the bangers. In broad daylight, Alec saw only one way to do this: walk up like you own the place. It wasn't a foreign approach to the X5.

  He stepped out of the woods and walked straight at the two guards, who wore black T-shirts and jeans, like all Furies. They were small for guards—maybe that was why there were two of them he thought—both about the same height, a good four inches shorter than he was, and stick-skinny. They didn't appear terribly bright, either—both looked to be on the dim side of forty watts.

  Alec smiled as he approached, nodding, waving casually, and the two guards looked at each other, as if each hoped the other might have managed to form a thought. Then the same thought formed in both their limited minds, as they simultaneously pulled pistols from the waistbands of their pants and leveled them at Alec.

  The guy on the left had a revolver which had probably last been fired before the Pulse, the one on the right brandishing a small caliber automatic that belonged in an old lady's handbag.

  Pitiful. The only thing that made the Furies formidable was their numbers—they were the largest gang in Seattle, a mix of Latinos and Russians, mostly.

  “Whoa whoa whoa,” Alec said, his hands rising easily in a gesture of surrender, his smile never wavering. “I'm a friend, fellas . . . you know Manny?”

  This was one of the two Furies he'd met a year or so ago and spent some time with, drinking beers they'd paid for when they were trying to recruit him.

  “Manny not here,” the one on the left said.

  “Manny not here,” echoed the one on the right. “You see Manny here?”

  “I would have to agree,” Alec said. “Manny not here—where Manny?”

  The one on the left sighed heavily. “Manny not here!”

  If he didn't find somebody smarter than a footstool to deal with soon, this was going to be a lot harder than he'd thought.

  “How about Stefan?” he tried, dropping the name of the other Fury he knew.

  The two guards looked at each other again, then returned their thick gaze to Alec.

  “Stefan not here,” one of them said, and that was it, Alec was fed up with these two. Another minute with them and there was no telling what kind of permanent damage he might do to his own IQ.

  One more question, any question, should be all he'd need. He asked, “You two related?”

  When they looked at each other this time, Alec plucked the guns from their hands, in a two-handed move, and flipped the pistols around so they were pointing at the guards, who gazed at him with eyes and mouths open.

  “This is where you put your hands up,” he advised the pair.

  Four hands shot skyward.

  “Good, fellas. Nice reflexes.”

  The one on the left turned to the one on the right. “You screwed up.”

  “I screwed up?”

  His brain hurting, Alec said, “Shut up and turn around.”

  They did, facing the tower now.

  “This is stupid,” the one on the left said to Alec, “what you're doin'.”

  “Well,” Alec said cheerfully, “you'd know.”

  And—in another two-handed move—smacked them both on the back of the head with the gun butts. Firmly. Both guards dropped to the sidewalk with little sound, a couple of skinny piles of kindling.

  Alec tucked the guns in his waistband, then dragged the two guards, one at a time, into the underbrush. He tied them up, using their own b
elts and shirts, then returned to the now unguarded door.

  It opened in on a white metal stairwell, the only light provided by the sun glinting through the doorway. On his left was the gray, riveted body of the metal tank, which might have once been white, but time and lack of care had bruised it gray, more Furies graffiti decorating it.

  The stairs circled the tank and led up into darkness. Alec had no clue how many Furies were up there; however many, there was bound to be at least one smarter than the bonehead guards. He had a miniflash in his pocket and considered using it, only he didn't want to give away his position, so it stayed put.

  The X5 had abandoned his like-he-owned-the-place approach; now that he'd taken those guards out, he was officially an invader, trying to maintain silence as he crept up the steps. His rubber-soled shoes made no noise and he kept his breathing relaxed and regular.

  After four minutes and over one hundred stairs, Alec came around a turn into light—the entrance to the observation deck must've been standing wide open. This didn't surprise him; the Furies were probably up and down these stairs all the time. They had guards posted downstairs, didn't they?

  At the top of the stairs, Alec plastered himself to the wall and gazed through the open doorway.

  The floor was concrete, the brick, occasionally graffitied walls punctuated every eight feet or so by arched openings, which may at one time have been glassed-in windows but now stood open to the weather. The gray bulk of the inner tower made the observation deck a relatively narrow glorified covered walkway that curved around.

  At the third window down from where Alec watched, three Furies sat in a sandbag bunker. One Fury took a turn as sentry at a window, using binoculars—but not in the direction Alec had come, luckily; the other two bangers were playing cards and good-naturedly bitching at each other about the game.

  The one with the binoculars looked to be in his early twenties, with dark hair, another Latino; like the rest of the Furies, he wore a black T-shirt and blue jeans—it wasn't much of a uniform but it was theirs. The card player on the left was a big, heavy guy with long, stringy dark hair and a middle European look. Brushing bangs out of his eyes, he said, “C'mon, Hutt, play a damn card.”