Before the Dawn

Chapter thirteen Needle’s point

Around the corner from the elevators, Max came to a door marked STAIRWAY; it had been padlocked, but now the lock lay broken, a plucked metal flower on the detritus-strewn floor. This seemed recent work, not the ancient mischief of vandals.

She opened the door cautiously, and looked inside, up the well of stairs winding their way into darkness that swallowed them; the pounding rain echoed down like a disorganized drum and bugle corps. On the stairs themselves, however, she could easily see a pattern of wet footprints.

Seemed Max was not the only tourist who’d come to the Space Needle tonight...

Gazing up into the blackness, with the drumming of rain hiding any footsteps, she had no way to tell whether the person who’d taken these stairs was half a flight ahead of her, or already long since at the top...

As the storm flailed away outside, Max viewed her five-hundred-foot climb as a chance, at least, to dry out for a while. Her hair hung to her shoulders in wet clumps, those clothes of hers that weren’t leather were soaked, and if she hadn’t had her special gifts, she would have been freezing; all Max experienced, however, was a slight chill. As silently as possible, clinging to the outside wall of the narrow staircase (following the example of those wet footsteps), Max started her ascent.

One hundred and sixty steps later, not winded in the least, she entered a banquet room that had suffered less vandalism than the main floor, the benefit of being one hundred feet up from ground level. The lights of the city were muted by the slashing storm, but her catlike vision allowed her to take in these surroundings...

The room held more tables than Max cared to count, many overturned, some still covered with white tablecloths, others covered instead with a thickness of dust. Purple chairs were scattered everywhere and any smaller items — china, silverware, water glasses, even table lamps — seemed, for the most part, long gone. The windows at this level had survived better, some but not all knocked out, normally allowing in a tiny amount of light — though tonight that meager illumination was confined to strange shadows dancing wildly in the downpour.

Listening carefully for any sign of that intruder who’d preceded her, Max heard nothing... only howling wind and hammering rain.

She still had a very long way to go to the top, but resisted the urge to rush, even with her superior stamina, she did not want to risk wearing herself out — after all, she could not be sure what battle awaited her at the Needle’s point, and needed to be as fresh as possible after so rigorous a climb. Wasting her energy getting there could prove tactical suicide, and her next opportunity to rest would be in the sky-view restaurant, four hundred feet above her. Between here and there, it was just her and the stairs...

... and, perhaps, the other “tourist” who had come up this way ahead of her.

As she continued her ascent, she considered: the only estimate she could make about what awaited her upstairs came from the size of the vehicles — the Lexus could hold six, the Hummer maybe a couple more than that. So, that was what? Fourteen guys, at the most... and she’d already dispatched three.

That left a potential army of eleven for her to face, assuming one of them was the person on the stairs, ahead of her. If the other stair-climber was an interloper, like herself — with an agenda as yet unknown — there could be a dozen guys... a dozen guns... waiting for her.

Before she’d started this climb, the floor indicator on the lobby level had shown the elevator stopping at the observation deck; in this weather, she wondered if the art-for-cash exchange might not have reconvened to the restaurant floor. So she prepared herself for what might await beyond the door...

... but only silence and more dust and darkness greeted her. Apparently, rain and wind or not, the deal was going down where all had agreed it would — perhaps only out in the relative open, even in a storm, could these untrustworthy men trust each other.

After these additional 640 steps and four hundred feet of climbing, even Max’s genetically superior muscles could feel the burn. She paused to lean against a wall.

Now, five hundred feet above the street, the storm still raging outside, the X5 found herself in a room so dark even she had to strain to make details out of the murk. She could see elevated booths — these would have allowed even those dining in the center of the restaurant to enjoy a magnificent view of the city — and maple paneling, accented with other light woods, giving the room a classy air and probably, during the day, a natural radiance. Although covered in dust, the seat cushions revealed their original light yellow, which would have added to the daytime brightness.

She used one gloved hand to wipe sweat off her brow, her breathing easy, regulated; she felt fine, damn near fresh, ready for a final round with that last twenty feet, to end this thing, and take down Sterling and Kafelnikov... and maybe, just maybe, Lydecker himself...

“Christ, do a sit-up once in a while, why don’t you?”

It was a youngish male voice, off to her right. Wheeling toward it, she dropped into a combat stance.

From the darkness, the voice said, “And your skills are rusty as hell... Damn, you didn’t even know I was here.”

Furious — with herself, because that voice was right — she said, “Quit the hide-and-seek, then — come on out and test my combat skills, firsthand.”

The young man stepped into the shadowy light — a figure in black, from his fatigues to the stocking cap that didn’t quite conceal the military-short brownish hair; the narrow, angular face, the green eyes, were the same, though he’d grown into quite a man. Max felt every muscle in her body go weak, and the climbing had nothing to do with it.

Seth.

Not Zack, but Seth... who had not made the escape that night, with the rest of them... was he Lydecker’s X5? Or the rebel SNN made him out to be?

Relaxing out of her combat stance, but staying alert, Max demanded, “What the hell are you doing here, Seth?”

“I’m flattered you recognize me,” he said. “Which one are you? Jondy? Max, maybe?”

“I thought you knew me...”

“Your barcode was showing, when you leaned against the wall, sis. I’m gonna say you’re Max.”

She nodded, and the wave of emotion — some sort of bittersweet warmth, at being recognized by her brother — rolled unbidden through her.

Seth’s eyes tightened and he pointed a gloved finger to the ceiling. “Do you realize what’s going on up there?”

She nodded.

He was still so serious, his face a vacant mask, his eyes empty of emotion — only Zack had had a harder game face than Seth. “That’s my last chance to get away from Manticore — forever.”

“Get away?” she asked.

“That’s right. Maybe we could go together.”

More emotion surged, but she said, tightly, “How do I know you’re not with Lydecker?”

The game face dissolved into confusion — hurt, sullen confusion. “Why the hell would you say such a thing?”

And now the accusation blurted from her: “When we ran, you didn’t go!”

A defense was blurted back: “They caught me!”

“That’s right... they dragged you back. Did you graduate with honors, bro?”

She took an ominous step toward him and he dropped into a fighting stance that mirrored her own.

But he did not attack; he said; “I escaped that same night — two of them thought they had me, but I flipped the bastards, and got out in the confusion. I’ve been running ever since, just like you must have been.”

Even as she eyed him suspiciously, she wanted with all her heart, every fiber of her being, to believe him. If she, and others, had escaped that night, why not him?

Despite the genetic tampering and military training, she had an impulse within her, an impulse that had been fed by Lucy and her mother (if not that terrible foster father) and, yes, by Moody and the Chinese Clan, who lay dead because of her. That impulse — which made her want to believe Seth more than she had ever believed anything — cried out for family, for someone like herself whom she could call sibling...

That thought was interrupted by the squeal of tires in the parking lot below — a sound that only she... or someone like her... could hear in the squall. Responding, both she and Seth went to the edge and looked down through the slanting, slashing rain. A flash of lightning aided them, turning the world white, and they both saw the black Manticore SUVs pulling in at odd angles, TAC squad pouring out.

“Lydecker,” Seth breathed.

“Damn it!” Max said, fury mingling with sorrow. “I should have known you were in his pocket!”

She spun and thrust a kick toward his chest, but he blocked it; she maintained her balance, but allowed him time to launch a flying kick of his own, which she expertly ducked...

... and then the two of them came up facing each other, in combat stance.

Seth was shaking his head, and his eyes seemed desperate. “Max, I swear — I’m not with him. I don’t know how he found us.”

Her voice dripped sarcasm: “I bet it’s a mystery.”

“Sis — we both need to get out of here.”

She jabbed at him with a left, but he leaned back, the blow glancing off his chest, and as he went backward, he grabbed her arm, using her own momentum against her, flipping her over him onto a table that smashed beneath her impact.

As she rose from the ruins, mildly stunned, he said, “We have to get the elevators up here — that’ll slow Lydecker down.”

Lightning flashed through the room, and doubt flashed through Max — maybe Seth was telling the truth, after all...

She said, pointing to the ceiling, “No, don’t do it... they’ll see the floor indicator lights upstairs!”

That would mean any advantage of surprise would be lost, where Sterling, Kafelnikov, and their small army were concerned.

But it was too late for further discussion.

Seth had already jabbed the buttons, summoning the two remaining elevators from the ground floor up to the restaurant. She could only hope that Sterling, Kafelnikov, and their buyers weren’t watching the indicator lights.

“It’s worth it,” Seth said, fiercely. “We can’t get caught by Lydecker now.”

“Or is Lydecker already in that elevator?”she said, through tight teeth.

“Damn it, sis! Grab some tables.”

“Why?”

“When that elevator comes up, we’ll block it open, and keep the cars up here... That way Lydecker and his boys’ll have to make the big climb!”

Now she was starting to believe him.

They hauled tables over, and when the bell dinged and the first elevator door opened, she paused with bated breath, waiting to see if TAC came swarming out...

... but the car was empty.

So was the second one, and they shoved tables in to wedge the elevator doors open, after which brother and sister paused to grin at each other, in a small moment of triumph.

When Seth rushed up the stairs toward the observation deck, Max hung back for a few hesitant moments. Conflicting emotions still wrestled within her; the paranoia of so many years on the run made her wonder if Seth could somehow still be working for Lydecker — could this be some sort of trap?

She didn’t lag long, though. Lydecker was down there — the blocked elevators would only delay his arrival. There was a single option left: follow Seth up to the observation deck.

Max flew up the last thirty-two stairs, burst through the door into the wind and rain on the outdoor platform.

In 1.6 seconds, Max took it all in: rain relentlessly battered the synthetic material of the steel-beamed roof of the concrete deck, which was encircled by a three-foot-high concrete wall with steel rods rising out every ten feet or so. These each contained four holes that served as eyelets for steel cables that had kept people from jumping, back when the Needle had been in business; but the cables had long ago been stolen for salvage, leaving only the low wall and the thick steel rods. Wind whipped the rain into a fury, and visibility beyond the deck itself was next to nil. The bank of three elevators came up through the middle of the Needle and opened onto the deck, in a neat row to the left of the stairway door, through which Max had emerged to see...

... Seth engaged in combat with two brawny Koreans in black raincoats, in front of the elevators!

To her right, she could barely make out Jared Sterling and another, older Korean, in tan and black trench coats respectively, their hair standing on end in the wind, as if they were terrified at witnessing the fight between the young X5 and the Korean thugs.

The tycoon held by its handle a large black art portfolio, no doubt containing some masterpiece earmarked for overseas, and the Asian’s right fist clutched the handle of a briefcase... the two men obviously frozen in the midst of an exchange. Kafelnikov was nowhere to be seen, though he could easily be just out of sight, around either curve of the deck; and somewhere, she knew, Morales and probably several others from Sterling’s security force would be lurking.

As for Lydecker and his TAC team, they would be emerging at some point — there was still one elevator to be summoned, after all, that she and Seth hadn’t blocked with their tables... in which case, Lydecker could make his own melodramatic entrance onto this rain- and windswept stage at any moment.

Seth was uppercutting one of the Koreans, shattering the thug’s nose, a scarlet splash in the gray night; the man fell to the cement and didn’t move, his dark trench coat making a black puddle. As the male X5 circled the second Korean; Max glimpsed Morales, his pistol drawn, coming around the wall of elevator shafts, unseen at Seth’s flank.

Max rushed Morales, which got his attention, and the Sterling guard fired off a round at her, which she ducked, and then was all but on top of him, still low, hitting him with a straight right in the groin. Morales blew out all his breath in a howl of pain to rival the wind. As he grabbed himself with one hand, going down on one knee as if praying to her, Max batted the pistol from his other hand, like the offensive metal bug it was. Then she stood him up straight with a left to the solar plexus, headbutted him, and watched with pleasure as the hollow-eyed security man dropped backward to the deck, as unconscious as the concrete he lay sprawled upon.

Max hadn’t seen it, but when Morales had fired at her, both Sterling and the Korean turned toward the shot. Each had a hand on both the briefcase and the portfolio, and the Korean apparently misread the situation as a Sterling betrayal, and tried to hold onto both items in the exchange.

When Max turned her attention to them, the two art collectors were wrestling back and forth in an almost comic tug of war, as each now tried to claim both prizes.

Seth was in the meantime mixing it up with the remaining Korean thug; he caught his opponent with a left and two quick rights, staggering the burly Korean, the man’s arms dropping to his sides as if begging Seth to strike — which Seth did, leaping, kicking him in the chest. The Korean flew backward, his skull bouncing off the cement wall next to the elevators, where he slumped to the floor, either unconscious or dead.

Then Seth took off toward Sterling and the Korean buyer, only to be cut off by another pair of oversized Asians, bodyguards who had been around the far corner of the elevators and were on their way to intercede for their employer in his tug-of-war with the American art dealer.

Rain lashing, Seth was between the two Asians, keeping them back with martial-arts kicks, when two more of Sterling’s security men seemed to materialize before Max: a gangly white guy, and a compact, muscular Latino. She did a back flip, each of her feet kicking one of the men and sending them both onto their backs, apparently out.

She leapt to her feet and headed toward Sterling; but the gangly security man reached out and grabbed her ankle and brought her down, hard.

This didn’t hurt Max nearly as much as it pissed... her... off! On her side on the damp concrete, as if doing an exercise, she kicked back, her foot taking on his face, his face losing, the nose and jaw snapping, a small crack followed by a larger one. He went to sleep, like a good boy...

Only now the Latino was back on his feet, and obviously knew better, now, than to try to match Max blow for blow; he reached under his arm for his pistol... but never made it. Max sprang onto her feet, and then swung one of those feet around, connecting with the side of the face. The blow wasn’t that hard — and merely caught his attention, his eyes rolling like ball bearings, but his feet staying under him. Max jumped and spun in the air, this kick practically tearing the nose off the man’s face as he fell unconscious, and probably glad to be.

Sterling and the Korean collector had worked their way over to the three-foot wall that surrounded the observation deck, where the wind and rain ruled. They continued tugging back and forth on the briefcase and the portfolio, each unable to gain an advantage over the other. The sky growled at them and the wind beat on them and the rain pelted them and the deck, making their footing treacherous.

Sterling jerked on the briefcase just as he let go of the portfolio, a sudden shift that took the Korean’s feet out from under him, and he pitched back against the edge and seemed to be reaching out with one hand to Sterling, even while holding on to the art portfolio with the other, his eyes pleading. But Sterling merely watched as the man tumbled over into the night, his screams barely discernible over the storm, the portfolio flapping like a big broken wing as the man fell five hundred feet to a certain death.

Coming out of her most recent spinning leap, Max caught the final moments of that confrontation, and now she whirled to find Seth, to aid him; but she saw only the two Korean bodyguards, piled on top of each other, like slabs of butcher’s meat.

Finishing her pirouette, she finally saw Seth, on the move, heading for Sterling and that briefcase of money. Beyond her brother, she could see — coming around the far end of the observation deck — the Russian, his long blond hair darker and flattened by the rain, wearing a flowing long dark coat buttoned from knee to neck; the rock-star-like gangster was pointing at Seth, but not with a finger: a nine-millimeter Glock.

Seth didn’t see Kafelnikov, and Max yelled a warning, but the Russian’s pistol barked and a bullet tore through Seth’s left shoulder, sending the X5 flying off-balance. Her brother wobbled on toward the trench-coated Sterling, who grasped a briefcase handle in one hand and held the other up as if it would stop the human freight train barreling toward him.

Sterling even shrieked, “Stop!”

As if that would do any good.

Max ran toward them, from one direction, as did Kafelnikov from the other, his pistol still raised. The Russian’s second shot went wide, just as Seth was grabbing the briefcase in the hand of his good arm. But Kafelnikov’s third shot caught Seth in the right calf, and the X5 pitched into Sterling, the boy’s momentum carrying them both to the edge of the wall.

Executing a perfect jump kick, Max knocked the pistol out of Kafelnikov’s hand and, at the same time, jarred him off-balance. Pressing her advantage, Max kicked at him again and caught him a glancing blow that sent him tumbling back. When the Russian tried to rise, she grabbed a lapel of his coat in her left hand and hit him with a hard right. His eyes closed and he sagged, the big man hanging by his coat from her tiny hand.

Dropping him to the cement, Max turned to see Sterling and Seth wrestling precariously close to the edge of the wall, wind and rain taunting them. Glad she’d held on to that rope, she grasped the coil like a cowboy prepared to twirl his lariat, and moved toward the pair. As she neared, the pair teetered, Sterling slipped on the wet cement, and they both pitched over the edge.

“Seth!” she cried.

Running to the wall, Max looked over and down to see Seth a few feet below, at the bottom of the guard wall, gripping a lip of cement with the fingers of a hand that belonged to his bad arm. His good arm held the briefcase while Sterling dangled like an earring, also clinging to the case. The howling night sky seemed to be laughing now; but the tycoon was whimpering, his eyes wide and wild, as his grip started to slip in the wetness.

Max knew she had only seconds.

She tied the rope off around one of the steel rods, then whipped it down to Seth, who was just able to let loose of the wall and grab on. Sterling yelped as he nearly dropped off, but managed to keep his hands attached to that briefcase.

“I’ll pull you up!” she yelled into the wind and rain, and from below, Seth nodded — in an almost businesslike way that went back to their Manticore training — and Sterling screamed, “Hurry, for God’s sake, girl — hurry! I’ll pay you anything!”

Before Max could do a thing, however, she felt hands on her and someone lifted her bodily, swept her off her feet in a very bad way, throwing her over the side the way a kid visiting the Needle might toss a candy wrapper to earth.

Spinning in midair, Max reached out and up, grabbing blindly for the rope and instead gripping on to cloth with first one hand, then another...

... and once again she found herself hanging high above a city street, with only the lapels of Kafelnikov’s jacket to keep her from falling. Her feet banged into Seth and Sterling, dangling below her, as she struggled to hang on to the Russian, who was now pressed against the wall, trying to keep from being pulled over himself. He clawed and pulled at her hands with one of his, the other tight around the grip of the Glock.

He snarled down at her: “You miserable bitch!”

Swaying, clinging to his coat, she grinned defiantly up at him, as the rain and wind had at them both. “Déjà vu all over again, huh, Mikhail?”

Now he grinned, a terrible, sadistic white smile shining down on her like a lopsided moon. “Yes — brings back lovely memories — like slaughtering your precious Chinese Clan...”

The Russian was unbuttoning the coat, so he could peel it and let her plummet!

Locking eyes with Kafelnikov, she let go of one lapel; in the murk, he couldn’t see her grab on to the rope with that now free hand.

“This is for Fresca,” she said, ice in her voice.

He had the jacket half unbuttoned. “Who the hell is that?”

“Nobody. Just another of your victims...”

And she yanked on that lapel and carried the Russian past the wall, and over her head, pitching him into the rain-tossed night.

Kafelnikov screamed the whole way down and, as a benefit of her Manticore-heightened hearing, Max was able to hear the satisfying splat of his landing.

She climbed the rope and hauled herself back over the wall and leaned over to start pulling the other two up. Seth remained quiet, almost placid, while Sterling was weeping, praying, and might have been wetting himself, for all she knew... if the rain hadn’t been covering up for him.

Behind her the trio of elevators all dinged at once.

Her eyes flew to those of the dangling, wounded Seth: they knew, the siblings knew...

Lydecker was here — he and his TAC team would be pouring out of those three elevator cars in moments!

Looking down at Seth, she saw him shake his head slowly but decisively. He didn’t say, but she could almost read his thoughts: he was wounded, and couldn’t escape; and he was not going back to Manticore...

Was that a single tear, trailing down his face, she wondered, or just more rain?

“Sorry, Max,” was all he said...

... and he let go of the rope.

Seth fell silently, bestowing the faintest smile up at the sister who reached yearningly down for him.

Jared Sterling, on the other hand, screamed and flapped his arms and hands, as if God might suddenly grant him the gift of flight; but the Almighty was apparently in an ironic mood, because all the wealthy fool got for his effort was the briefcase lid flipping open, raining money down on the parking lot.

Max turned away, before either man hit the pavement, and right now she did not relish her ability to perceive the subtleties of sound on this violent night.

A voice behind her yelled, “Freeze!”

But it wasn’t Lydecker, just one of the TAC team members.

“Don’t move — show me your hands. Now, now, now!”

Under other circumstances, she might have smiled, imagining the astonished expression on the squad member’s face when she vaulted over the wall, and dropped out of sight, apparently plunging into the night.

Which she did. The TAC team couldn’t see her snare the end of the dangling rope, swing out, then back in, through glassless windows into the restaurant below.

She landed like the cat she partially was, head up, alert — she had only seconds, now. Lydecker would be sending his men after her, some down the stairs, others down the elevators. She ran over and pushed the DOWN buttons of all three, hoping to at least slow the pursuing team, and hit the stairs running.

Her brother had given his life to avoid falling back into Lydecker’s hands; she would risk hers to escape that same fate, and mourning would just have to wait.

The observation deck was like a ship plowing through a stormy sea, and “Captain” Lydecker was royally pissed.

“He jumped over the side? ” he roared.

The soldier nodded, decked out in black fatigues with goggles, Kevlar vest, helmet, and MP7A. “But it didn’t look like... a him, sir.”

“What the hell are you—”

“Sir, the pictures you showed us. I was at the elevator, and he... or she... was at the wall, a girl, and with all that rain—”

Lydecker got in the soldier’s face. “Mister, how in God’s name can you mistake a nineteen-year-old man for a ‘girl’?”

“Sir, I—”

Lydecker silenced him with a look, brushed him aside, and strode to the edge of the observation-deck wall, where the carnage below could barely be made out through the slashing rain. This would be one hell of a mess to cover up.

Then he noticed the rope, flapping in the wind, tauntingly.

He spat into his handheld radio: “TAC Five.”

The radio crackled, and a voice from the ground floor said: “TAC Five.”

“Anyone come down in the elevators?”

“No, sir.”

“Watch them closely. We may have another X-Five on the premises. Possibly female.”

“... Yes, sir.”

Lydecker motioned with his head to one of the men. “Down the rope, soldier.”

The man unhesitatingly slung his weapon back over his shoulder and shimmied over the edge and down out of sight. Lydecker was roaming the observation deck now, surveying the casualties up here — half a dozen anyway. Most of them seemed alive, and were coming around, after the kind of beating an X5 could deliver...

“TAC Two,” he said into the radio.

“TAC Two.”

“TAC Two, take half the team and search the building for our man. Possibility of a second X-Five on site, female.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned to the team member nearest him. “TAC Three, dispose of the bodies and cleanse the site.”

The man hesitated.

“Can’t you hear me in this weather, mister?”

“No, sir. That is, yes sir.”

“Then carry out your orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lydecker turned and marched back to the elevators, where another six men in combat black stood waiting. Behind him, Lydecker heard a pistol shot, then another and another.

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

“The elevators, sir,” one of the soldiers said. “The doors closed...”

“You might trying pushing DOWN,” Lydecker said through smiling teeth, though he was not at all happy. “They just might come back up.”

“Yes, sir.”

Something tugged in Lydecker’s gut. He got on the radio. “TAC Two?”

“TAC Two. In the stairwell, sir. No sign of anyone.”

“Keep looking, TAC Two. Time’s running short.”

“Yes, sir.”

The middle elevator dinged and its doors slid open.

Into the radio, Lydecker said, “TAC Five.”

“TAC Five. No movement, sir.”

The other two elevators arrived, and three men got onto the cars at either side, with Lydecker flying solo in the middle one; he went down one floor and the doors opened onto the vacant restaurant — vacant, that is, but for the soldier he’d sent down the rope, who approached.

“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.