Before the Dawn (28 page)

“Anything?” Lydecker asked.

The soldier pointed. “Sir, wet footprints all over the place—more than one set.”

Lydecker didn't like that; what it might mean made him very unhappy. “Did you search the entire floor?”

“I followed the prints to the stairwell, sir, but some went up and some down.”

Exasperated, Lydecker said, “Stay at this position.”

At the lobby, Lydecker emerged from the elevator to find that the cleanup crew—in yellow
TOXIC WASTE
suits and carrying no weapons—had arrived. In the parking lot, they were already dealing with the splattered remains of what appeared to be four different bodies.

Several of the yellow jumpsuited Manticore specialists were scraping up parts and filling body bags. One of them broke away from the group and scurried over to Lydecker, displaying a plastic bag from the thick fingers of a yellow glove.

“You'll want to see this, sir,” the yellow-jumpsuited man said, his voice muffled by his headgear.

Holding the plasticine bag up in the rain, Lydecker could see a fragment of human flesh, but nothing significant. He pulled out a Mini Maglite and took a closer look at the bag's contents: a chunk of skin with a series of black numbers, four in a row, and a barcode, the others numbers abbreviated on either end, probably from the impact with jagged concrete that had separated Seth from his head.

But even a partial number was enough for Lydecker to know they'd tagged another X5 . . . or perhaps the X5 had tagged himself.

“Good work, soldier,” he said, handing the bag back to the cleanup man. “Lock that evidence away. Top security.”

Colonel Donald Lydecker checked with the various TAC positions, to see if anyone had spotted anyone or anything else. That young soldier must have been mistaken: that had been Seth who went over the side, falling on his figurative sword rather than return to the Manticore fold.

His choice.

Then Lydecker got back on the radio. “All TAC members assemble at ground level—suspect has been apprehended, I repeat, suspect has been apprehended. We're going home, men. . . . Saddle up.”

Another yellow-jumpsuited man approached the colonel, this time with a wallet in his hand. “One of the deceased looks to be that computer big shot—Jared Sterling.”

Lydecker shook his head—
fucking mess,
he thought—and then, already weaving a new web mentally, said, “All right.”

The tech returned to the gory parking lot, and Lydecker moved back inside, found a quiet, dry corner and made a cell phone call, filling in another Manticore specialist, finishing with, “Despondent over recent business setbacks, the well-known computer tycoon took his own life last night when he leapt from the top of the Seattle Space Needle.”

The voice from the cell said, “We can make that happen.”

“Do it—and filter the money through the usual channels.”

“Yes, sir.”

They wouldn't take all of Sterling's money—that might raise suspicions among certain reform-minded politicians and their liberal-press lackeys. Just a few million to make it look like things were turning sour for the art collector. Maybe they'd have to plant some drugs or incriminating photos; but the world at large would never question the not-so-tragic suicide of another poor little rich boy.

Lydecker clicked
END
and returned to the parking lot, to supervise. The TAC team was coming down now, and he'd get them the hell out of here, before this turned into an incident. Wouldn't do for that Eyes Only to get ahold of tonight's fun and games. . . .

Thank God the neighborhood was practically deserted, but for junkies, winos, and other riffraff, not the sort of place where anyone would call the cops over a few gunshots.

Lydecker's thoughts were interrupted by the sound—a few blocks over—of a motorcycle revving, then peeling out. When he turned his rain-flecked face toward the engine roar, Lydecker saw nothing. Something nagged at the back of his mind—that girl, that remarkable girl in LA—but he shrugged. Things were contained. And another X5 could be checked off the list.

No one would ever know what had happened here tonight. The bodies and the blood would be swept away, like the garbage they were; and the money that littered the parking lot would be taken into custody by Manticore.

Things in Seattle would soon be wrapped up. They'd be going home . . .

. . . only Donald Lydecker still had the gnawing, nagging feeling that he'd missed something, something important, that for the success of Seth's elimination, an important but unspecified failure had also occurred, making a nasty balance.

Two days later, back in Wyoming, he called a certain TAC team member into his office—the young man who had seen the X5 dive off that observation deck. Lydecker—having learned that one of the dead men was the Russian he'd aided in the Chinese Theatre massacre—wondered if Kafelnikov's presence indicated also the presence of that extraordinary young woman from the Chinese Clan, that unidentified suspected X5.

“Tell me again what you saw,” Lydecker said.

The soldier, Keenan, just a kid himself (from Nebraska), wore simple black fatigues now, instead of his TAC gear. His blond hair was cut close, and he had shown nothing but loyalty to the program in his year and a half of service.

The boy was obviously considering the question carefully before risking an answer. “Sir, I saw the X5 known as Seth. He had his back to me, and—”

“No.” Lydecker rose behind his desk, hands on his hips. “Don't tell me what I want to hear. Tell me the truth—tell me exactly what you
really
saw that rainy night.”

Keenan met his superior's eyes. “I saw a girl, a woman really . . . with black hair, dressed in black, sir. Leather, I think. Sort of . . . motorcycle gear.”

Lydecker's memory replayed the sound of that cycle revving up and taking off, a few blocks from the site. “Did you see her face?”

“Negative, sir.”

“You're sure it was a female.”

Nodding, Keenan said, “Yes, sir, I'm sure. She was . . .” And now he risked a tiny smile. “. . . built like a girl. Woman.”

“Athletic?”

“Oh yes, and . . . nice.”

Lydecker sighed. “I'm glad your faculties are so acute, Mr. Keenan . . . well done. Now . . . this stays in this room . . . between you and me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

Keenan saluted, spun on his heels, and strode out.

Lydecker sat down, rather heavily, and thought over what he'd just heard. It wasn't completely implausible that the X5s were in contact with each other. But were they
up
to something, together?

He thought about that revving motorcycle and wondered if he'd screwed the pooch. Maybe there
had
been two X5s in the Needle that night, Seth and one of the girls . . . Jondy, Brin, Max . . . could have been any of them. And very possibly this was the LA X5, over whom so many had died at the theater.

He would find out, when he caught up with them. He knew that someday he'd catch up with all of them.

Now, however, he was concerned that if the X5s were all communicating, maybe they were planning something, too. Maybe they were planning on catching up with him.

Shaking his head, trying to drive away the thought, he went back to work. But the notion that they might be after him as much as he was after them—that the children might come home to take revenge on their father—did not go away easily.

It never would.

Epilogue

RUMINATIONS IN THE RAIN

LOGAN CALE'S APARTMENT
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, 2019

Rain battered the windows of the high-rise condo, as Logan stared out into the night, seeing nothing but shapes and blurs.

Ten days had passed since something had gone terribly wrong at the Space Needle, and—despite what he could only assume were Manticore's best efforts—Eyes Only had managed to piece together only a few details.

At first, Logan had thought Seth had double-crossed him, had taken the money
and
the masterpiece, and killed everyone, then disappeared across the Canadian border; that the boy's homicidal streak had combined with greed and fear to get the best of the X5.

Then Logan had started thinking about what was wrong with that scenario. Sterling's body had been found in the parking lot, yes; but there'd been no sign, living or dead, of a certain Korean art dealer, and a notorious, ambitious Russian street gang leader out of LA . . . though street rumors strongly suggested the presence of the latter.

And what of Sterling's bodyguards? Logan knew Sterling wouldn't so much as go to lunch without his muscle. Had there been a gun battle in which only Sterling himself had gone down? Or, if bodyguards had been combat fatalities (and with the X5, that would seem inevitable), why would Seth leave only Sterling's corpse to be found?

And the more Logan mulled it over, the more absurd seemed the story of a billionaire's suicide over business setbacks.

No mention, for example, was ever made of Sterling's car—where was it? Had Seth stolen it? If so, why hadn't it been found? The boy surely would have ditched it by now. And what if Seth
hadn't
stolen the car? Obviously, Sterling wouldn't have walked the twenty miles from his house to the Space Needle, just to jump off. . . .

So—how had Sterling gotten there? Where was his driver?

Spurred by these inconsistencies, Logan had started digging into Sterling's alleged financial setbacks. At first blush, every column seemed to add up; but the more Eyes Only looked, the more things appeared out of whack.

Stocks that Sterling lost money on had shown only marginal dips, far less significant than officially reported versions of the dead man's deficits. Businesses that were ancillary to his Internet company had failed, but checking their track records for the previous six months revealed each had been financially healthy until the day of Sterling's death.

So many people had their own financial woes in the economic minefield that was post-Pulse America that Logan knew no one would look very close at a calamity suffered by the wealthy likes of Jared Sterling. The country was in no mood to pity some billionaire who'd flung himself off a building at the first sign of trouble.

No, Logan told himself, no one would look into this . . . except Eyes Only. And Eyes Only knew somebody was cooking the books. The question was . . . who?

Logan had far more questions than he had answers, and whenever he spotted that pattern, his mind turned to a cover-up. And when he thought cover-up, he thought government, and when he thought government . . . in the case of a mysteriously missing X5, anyway . . . Eyes Only turned to Manticore.

He knew more about the organization now, but he still had few hard facts. Lydecker's group did, however, seem to have the kind of major clout to pull off a cover-up of this magnitude—sweeping murders under the carpet, perhaps committing more murders in the process.

But the question that nagged him was . . .

. . .
why would Manticore cover up what happened at the Needle?

For Logan, the inevitable and rather chilling answer was: because Manticore had caught up with Seth.

This gave Logan a whole new scenario for what may well have happened at the Space Needle on that rainy, windy night . . . a scenario even more disturbing than his previous theory.

Initially he'd thought that Manticore had somehow caught up with Seth at the Needle, and captured him. Only, if Lydecker had nabbed his renegade X5, and taken him away, why had Sterling also been killed?

Not just Sterling, but the other witnesses, the Korean, the bodyguards, and God alone knew how many other unrecorded victims. . . .

But if Seth had been captured, alive . . . why kill anyone? These witnesses were involved in a crime; they could be coerced into silence, easily enough. Sterling, Kafelnikov, and the others would have no knowledge of Manticore and the X5 program; to them, Seth would merely be an extraordinary physical specimen.

The only answer Logan could come up with was that Manticore had tried to intercept Seth in the midst of the art deal going down . . . and Seth had not gone quietly into that rainy night, and Manticore had been forced to kill its wandering son.

In front of witnesses.

Who had to die, so Manticore could cover its tracks.

The cyberjournalist turned away from the window and moved aimlessly through his rich man's apartment. He could not be sure this scenario was the correct one, but he felt certain he could not be far off the mark. And it made him feel sick. . . .

Bitterly, Logan recalled how he'd lectured Seth about ethics, and yet . . . hadn't he ruthlessly, recklessly used Seth?

No matter how noble Logan's motives might be, in the end, he'd used the young X5 for his own purposes . . . which had gotten Seth killed.

If Logan Cale had helped Seth disappear, as the boy had requested, instead of recruiting him to help in the Eyes Only crusade, maybe the young man would be plotting his next revenge against Manticore from somewhere remote and safe, like the small town near the Arctic Circle where he'd sent the lab tech, Ben Daly.

Logan fell heavily onto his bed, on his back, and took off his glasses, resting them on the nightstand and closing his eyes, pressing a thumb and forefinger to the inner bridge of his nose.

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.