Before the Dawn (14 page)

Max didn't move for a long moment, then slowly relaxed and dropped into the chair behind her.

“Tell me about your two people,” Vogelsang said, the money disappearing into a desk drawer.

“First one is male—white, about my age, athletic, badass.”

“Distinguishing marks?”

She paused. “A barcode on the back of his neck.”

Vogelsang looked up. “A what?”

She repeated what she'd said, adding, “Just a funky tattoo . . . you know how it goes with us weird-ass kids.”

That seemed to answer it for Vogelsang, who began scrawling some notes. “Any idea where he is?”

“Here. Seattle.”

“It's a big city.”

“And it's your city, Mr. Vogelsang. That's why I'm hiring you. If it was easy, I'd have found him by now.”

“Give me a more detailed description. More than just a badass with a barcode.”

She thought about that, then said, “Six-one, one-ninety maybe, dark hair . . . I think.”

Vogelsang's eyes vanished into slits. “You think?”

“Saw him for ten seconds on a crappy video feed.”

She explained about what she'd seen on the news show, and that she thought she'd recognized a long-lost “relative.”

“Might be able to get that clip from somebody I know at SNN,” Vogelsang said, almost to himself. “He got a name, this long-lost relation?”

“Seth.”

“Last name?”

She shook her head. “Don't know. He'd be using different ones. Maybe even different first names.”

Vogelsang studied the pad, then looked up at her. “Anything else? This is pretty slim.”

“The news story said he might be working with an underground journalist—Eyes Only?”

The detective's eyes widened, and one of them twitched at the corner; he seemed to turn a whiter shade of pale. “Is that right. . . .”

“Why? Is that gonna be a problem?”

The big man shrugged. “Could be. This Eyes Only guy, he's on the g's shit list. Politics make me nervous. Plus, this Eyes Only dude, he's messed some people up . . . doesn't like to be interfered with. Takes himself
way
too serious . . .”

Max offered the investigator a reassuring smile. “You find Seth, I'll take care of Eyes Only . . . I'll take the heat . . .
if
there's a problem.”

Flipping a page in the notebook, Vogelsang said, “Okay—who's missing person number two?”

Max sighed. “Afraid this is gonna be tough, too . . . maybe even tougher: a woman, Hannah, and that's all the name I've got.”

“What does she look like?”

Max considered the private eye's question, replayed that first night of freedom in her head. In her mind's eye appeared a woman in her thirties with dishwater blond hair to her shoulders and wide-set blue eyes the color of a mountain stream . . . staring down at Max in her memory, as if the nine-year-old were still on that car floor.

She gave Vogelsang the description.

“Anything else?”

The Tahoe dived into a valley, then roared up beside Max, the tires sliding a little as the driver stomped on the brakes and locked them up. Max glimpsed the Wyoming plate, AGT 249, then the driver finally got control of the vehicle and pulled to a stop.

Max told him the license number.

“That's it?”

“She may have been a nurse, or some other kind of medical personnel. Maybe for the federal government.”

Vogelsang wrote that down. He looked up, his smile friendly. “Okay . . . give me a week. You got a number?”

“Pager.” She gave him the number.

“Okay, Max—I'll call when I've got something.”

“For a grand—you better.”

Outside the Sublime Laundry, Max hopped on the Ninja and headed for her crib. She felt both closer and farther from her sibs than she ever had.

Unless the media attention had spooked him, Seth was somewhere in this city,
right now
. . . .

In the meantime, while Vogelsang did his thing, she'd be doing hers, just fitting in with her new Jam Pony family.

Funny . . . in her brief time on the planet, Max had been part of . . . and lost . . . three different families. First the Manticore sibs, then the Barretts, and finally the Chinese Clan.

She'd been separated from her siblings by a strange confluence of force and circumstance; and fleeing Mr. Barrett had been self-defense.

Still, sometimes late at night . . . and tonight would be one of those . . . she felt a twinge of guilt for abandoning Lucy, and for running out on Moody and Fresca and the others.

She wondered if the Jam Pony bunch would be just as impermanent.

Chapter Seven

THEATER PARTY

THE CHINESE THEATRE
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, 2019

Two days ago, it had begun.

A quartet of Moody's kids—ranging in age between fourteen and eighteen—had been cut down by sniper fire from the half-standing structure of the former Roosevelt Hotel. Two boys, two girls, shaken like the naughty children they were, were dropped in a mist of blood to the cracked cement squares where hands and feet of forgotten celebrities remained on pointless display.

Every attempt to leave the building, through whatever exit, had resulted in a hail of slugs flinging Moody's people to the pavement in a sprawl of death. Pinned down like this—based upon the food and ammunition on hand—Moody and his crew couldn't last longer than a week. But should be time enough to plan, to react effectively, even to wait for support from the city or the feds.

The youth of his clan, however, was a problem—even in a cavernous auditorium like that of the Chinese Theatre, a sense of claustrophobia could descend . . . that is, when you knew that stepping outside the building would end your life in echoing gunfire. Sandbags, furniture, crates, old theater seats, and anything else not nailed down had been arranged throughout the theater as little aboveground bunkers. Moody would move among them—floating like a silver-ponytailed shadow, a flowing black bathrobe loose over black T-shirt and jeans, for melodramatic effect—calming them with words and gestures, assuring them their fortress was impregnable.

“The world beyond will take note of our plight,” he would tell them. “We are not forgotten—be strong till help arrives.”

And his kids believed him; if only Moody could believe himself. . . .

Right now, as he looked through the glass doors of the lobby, toward the nighttime street where those four bodies were still asprawl on the patio, pools of blood dried into terrible brown scabs on the cement, the bodies grotesquely attracting flies after fifty-some hours, the charismatic leader of the Chinese Clan feared help would never come.

Outside, still unseen, their enemy had them paralyzed, as if the Clan were bluecoat soldiers in a frontier fort, facing endless Indian hordes. But as of yet their attackers hadn't shown the colors of their war paint. Attempts to send out heavily armed scouting teams—no matter which exit—had resulted in the groups getting gunned down within five feet.

The enemy knew about the building's secret exits, too, the basement catacombs that led to the sewer system, and the tunnel under the block up into the adjacent building. Pairs of kids had been directed to slip out those passages, and were eliminated to a man. That is, to a boy. . . .

Moody knew who had to be doing this: the Brood, of course. He had expected retaliation for the theft of the museum plans, and for snatching the Heart of the Ocean from their Russian leader's fingers. Such a vicious, all-out assault, however, was a surprise . . . he would never had guessed the Brood would attempt a full-on siege. . . .

After all, despite their youth, the Chinese Clan had the Brood (whose members were admittedly older) outnumbered by perhaps a third, and they were possessed of superior firepower, chiefly handguns and rifles from that Orange County armory they'd looted last year; further, their rivals would probably not be aware that the awesome fighting machine, Max, was no longer a part of the Clan. . . .

But the kind of armament the Brood had deployed in the last two days—sniperscopes, automatic weapons—made Moody wonder . . . guns like that weren't easily come by . . .

For all his tactical skills—commando training in his distant past had stayed with him—Moody simply did not know how to stop this slaughter.

And as for the “help” he assured his kids would be on the way, Moody could gather from the lack of police response so far that the Brood had bribed the cops to keep their blue noses out of the conflict. Such was not uncommon in LA gang wars: the police collected money, sometimes from both sides, and let the “real” bad guys . . . the street gangs . . . fight it out. It was an old refrain: who the hell cared if this rabble killed each other?

But what really struck Moody as disturbing, and dangerous beyond comprehension, was the lack of any federal response. In a case of carnage like this, uncontrolled by the local cops, the National Guard should be stepping in.

How could the Brood have influence on a federal level? Such a thing took more bribe money . . . and better connections . . . than that Russian scumbag Kafelnikov would ever have access to. And unless the LAPD was directly involved—cordoning off the area for the Brood, effecting a press blackout, actively cooperating with the Russian—the feds
had
to be aware that blood was running on Hollywood Boulevard.

What the
hell
was going on?

In a gray T-shirt and chinos, the lanky yet lithely muscular Gabriel—an Uzi in his hands, an ammo belt around his waist—watched Moody's back as the Clan leader peered out into the street.

Heavily armed Clan members—older, more seasoned ones, mostly male—took up their position to either side of the glass doors, as Moody nodded to Gabriel, motioning him to the concession stand, where they spoke quietly, so the nearby sentries would not hear.

“Unless they plan to starve us out,” Moody told his second-in-command, “they'll strike in force—storm our battlements.”

“We lost a few people,” Gabriel said, and shook his head. “I seen better morale.”

“Our troops will come through for us, and themselves.”

Moody glanced at the half a dozen kids—none older than eighteen—in T-shirts and jeans and tennies, caps on backward, semiautomatic weapons in hand. Freckle-faced Fresca, with the new girl Niner at his side, stood with the group nearest Moody and Gabe.

“Even with the hits we've taken,” Moody said, a hand on Gabriel's shoulder, “we outnumber these bastards.”

“Their average age is twenty-two—ours is sixteen.”

“We still have the numbers. And that gives them only two choices—mount a commando raid, send in their best people, armed to the teeth . . . and hope to outfight us.
Or . . .”

“Or,” Gabe finished, “they come in in force.”

“In which case,” Moody said, “they can't have every exit pinned down to the degree we've been suffering these last two days. With a building this size, covering every way out would drain a third of their manpower.”

“So,” Gabe said, thinking it through, “if we see a damn horde of these suckers stormin' in, we head for the exits.”

“Fighting even as we retreat,” Moody said with a nod. “And we beat them at their own game.”

“How's that?”

Moody grinned wolfishly. “We head for the Cap . . . we'll trade headquarters with the sons of bitches!”

Gabe grinned wide, head shaking on that ostrich neck. “The Moodman still has moves, I see.”

“Always. Now—I'll help you spread the word.”

In the auditorium, Moody and Gabriel did just that, and faces brightened, morale visibly lifting, and yet the fear remained. Though he felt his plan was a good one, Moody remained uneasy, still troubled by the absence of both the local and federal authorities. How he wished Max was still
here. . . . She alone might turn the tide for them, and certainly even up the fight.

His bodyguard, Tippett, looked as stoic as ever in biker leathers, his tattooed arms bared as threats, but the hulking man had removed all his piercings—he never went into battle giving opponents anything to rip from his flesh.

“You want me in the hall?” Tippett asked.

“No—let them have the hall . . . they'll try my ‘office' door and that'll tell us what they're up to. You take the back exit, over there. . . .” Moody pointed. “They may still have somebody positioned, so serpentine your ass.”

“No prob. . . . I ain't had so much fun since the pigs ate my cousin Fred.”

Moody found himself smiling at that. “We should have at
least
that much fun, this evening. . . .”

His black robe trailing like a cape, Moody threaded through the auditorium, passing along the strategy, continuing to build morale. Then he went upstairs to the old projection booth, where Max had kept her quarters, and knocked.

Freckle-faced Fresca answered. “Yes, sir? What can I do, sir?”

“The girl Niner in there with you?”

“Yes, sir. Just kinda . . . cooling her out, sir.”

“I hope you haven't been doing anything I wouldn't do.”

“Kinda doubt that, sir.” And Fresca grinned.

Of all these kids, only Fres seemed unafraid under these siege circumstances—whether this was courage or naïveté, Moody would not hazard a guess.

“You and Niner go down and block the doors.”

“What with?”

“Use those sandbags we stacked up against the wall, by the stairs, last night. I want them piled directly against the front entry.”

“You got it!”

Fifteen minutes later, when Moody was again moving through the lobby, he saw that the freckle-faced boy and his new girlfriend had set to work.

“Don't worry, Niner,” the boy was saying. Though he was several years younger than the skinny-looking newbie, Fresca spoke with the authority of experience. “You'll see.”

“You really think Max'll be back?” Niner asked.

“Oh yeah—she's just off on some errand or something. She ride in on that bike of hers, and kick Brood ass!”

Eavesdropping, Moody could only wish Fresca were right.

Gabriel seemed to materialize at his side. “Them knowin' about our secret exits,” Gabe said quietly, “you don't think Max sold us out, do ya?”

“Don't let Fresca hear you say that.”

“What do you think?”

“I think, no. No way in hell.”

Moody walked Gabriel off to one side, to make even more sure this confidential conversation was not overheard.

Gabriel, Uzi ready, was saying, “They could have grabbed her . . . tortured it out of
her. . . .”

Moody just looked at Gabe. “Do you really think they could get anything out of that girl?”

Gabe's concerned expression dissolved into an embarrassed smirk. “Listen to the stupid shit's comin' outa me. . . . Guess I'm getting stir crazy.”

“You'll like it at the Cap,” Moody said. “End of the day, we'll come out of this with better digs . . . you'll see.”

The explosion erupted through the doors in a belch of orange flame and gray smoke, hurling Fresca and his girlfriend across the room, slamming them into the concession stand in a shower of glass fragments. The girl, Niner, lay decapitated by one oversized glass shard, her head nowhere in sight, perhaps incinerated; and Fresca rested at her side, a twisted charred bloody husk with its guts trailing out, and the only mercy that neither had to witness the horror of what had taken the other from this life.

The kids who'd been standing guard duty at either end, alongside those doors, had their own share of nicks from flying glass, though none seemed to have serious injuries. But it was a bit hard to tell, since before the smoke had even begun to clear they'd started running pell-mell toward the auditorium . . . until machine-gun fire cut them down like tall grass under a swinging scythe.

Blasting away as they came, screaming unintelligible war cries, Broodsters charged up the patio toward where the doors had been, automatic weapons in hand, eyes wild, piling in over the broken glass and the small barrier of sandbags that Fresca and Niner had managed to pile there before they died. . . .

Moody and Gabriel stayed ahead of the invaders, and dashed into the auditorium. The Clan kids—with handguns, mostly, a few with rifles—had taken refuge behind their sandbag and theater-chair battlements. The two leaders circulated quickly, dispatching kids to sandbag the auditorium doors shut; then they sent small groups to try various exits, now that the Brood was attacking in full force, which would presumably open up some outlets for escape.

Each group that headed for an exit, however, opened doors onto figures . . . soldiers . . . in black combat gear, heavily armed, blocking the way.

Tippett was the first to discover this, and reported it to Moody.

“That doesn't sound like the Brood,” Moody said.

“Not hardly! Some kind of damn military SWAT team. . . .”

“Any casualties?”

“No—they didn't fire on us. . . . We got back inside before they
could. . . .”

Four more older Clan kids scrambled up, and reported their exits similarly blocked.

Gabriel said, “Bastards have the building surrounded! We're blocked in by these guys, while the Brood comes in to party!”

It made an awful, crazy sense to Moody: this explained the siege, the suddenly superior Brood firepower . . . the Russian had high-level support in this effort, even federal government
sanction. . . .

Moody looked toward the auditorium doors, where sandbags were piled waist-high. The enemy had breached the lobby maybe five minutes ago, and had not yet made a move to rush the theater itself.

Where the hell were they?

A nearby blast, separated from the auditorium by the left-side wall—accompanied by screams—provided an answer: the explosion came from the corridor along which Moody kept both his real office and the C4-rigged door to his nonoffice. This told him two things: the enemy was filtering into the building, to come at them not just through the main auditorium doors. But it also said that his booby trap had been sprung.

He only hoped the C4 had taken a good number of them out.

Even so, in that moment, it became crystal clear to Moody that there would be no escape. They would either win or lose, live or die, right here in this auditorium . . . and Moody didn't like the odds one little bit. . . .

Right now Gabriel was shouting orders, but these children seemed scared, barely listening. Hell was knocking at the door, and pep talks weren't going to cut it.

Turning these kids into self-reliant thieves was one thing: turning them into soldiers was another. Moody had never tried to do the latter, really—kids weren't cut out for that.

The harsh metallic rattle of machine-gun fire rained down on them from the balcony—that was where the Brood made their first appearance in the auditorium—And then the doors blew open with plastic explosive charges, and members of the Brood streamed into the room, up and over the sandbag barricades, automatic weapons blazing, eyes wild with speed, screaming like the murderous maniacs they'd become.