Dark Angel Before the Dawn da-1

by Max Allan Collins

  “So Sterling can own these paintings, but he can't sell them?”

  “Not overseas— the paintings would be confiscated, and he'd be a felon. In addition, I suspect he's moving stolen art, and some of the ‘legal' transactions include such odds and ends as the original owner of Sterling's latest acquisition washing up dead on a beach.”

  Mention of a murder seemed to have finally caught Seth's attention. “Where would

  we

  come in?”

  “Well, he's obviously making these transactions discreetly… and he may be using the same conduit to move his artwork as Kafelnikov. In fact, Sterling may

  be

  that conduit… that may be what brought the Russian to Seattle.”

  “So Sterling's scam will lead us to the LA guy's scam.”

  “My instinct is it's the

  same

  scam.” He handed Seth a slip of paper with an address on it, and some security info Logan had hacked. “Your next stop… ”

  Seth glanced at the paper, memorized in an instant, and tossed it on the nearby computer station. “You're the boss,” Seth said, with only the faintest sarcasm.

  Logan walked him to the door. “And do me a favor, Seth?”

  Seth smirked. “Why not?”

  “Please don't kill this one right away.”

  “Which one you talkin' about— Sterling, or this Russian guy?”

  “Either. Neither.”

  Seth shrugged. “Fine— but take this Russian, for example. Look at all those gang kids he massacred. Guy is an evil dude— and he's tied to damn

  Manticore!

  Wouldn't the world be better off without him?”

  “Just gather the information, Seth.”

  Seth was shaking his head, truly not getting it. “If this Kasselrock is the problem… ”

  “Kafelnikov.”

  “… then killing his evil ass ought to

  end

  the problem… his part in it, anyway.”

  Logan grasped the X5's arm. “Seth, if you kill him, we'll never know what happened to the paintings he's already smuggled… assuming, of course, that he's the right guy to begin with.”

  “If these paintings are gone, they're gone. What's the difference?”

  Logan wasn't sure whether Seth was… teasing him, or really was this bloodthirsty; probably the former, but that he could even be considering the latter was very disturbing…

  “Seth, we need to know if Kafelnikov is tied to Manticore… and if so, how, and why.

  That's

  our best lead, at the moment.”

  “You don't mind if I let

  that

  motivate me,” Seth said, “and not some sense of preserving ‘Americana.' ”

  “Not at all. But watch your all-American ass, my friend. The Russian, whose name you refuse to learn how to pronounce… ”

  Proving he'd been yanking Logan's chain all along, Seth said, “Kafelnikov.”

  “Any way you say it, Seth, he's a dangerous man.”

  Halfway out the door, the X5 shrugged. “

  I'm

  a dangerous man.”

  Logan couldn't think of anything to say to that.

  MANTICORE HEADQUARTERS

  GILLETTE, WYOMING, 2019

  Colonel Donald Lydecker sat at his desk, drumming his fingers on its Lucite-covered metal top.

  Had Max been there to see him, she would have noted that he looked little different than he had when the X5s broke out of Manticore back in '09. The years had been kind to Lydecker, despite an alcoholism problem that he had kept in check during that same time span. His blond hair now contained a few straggling grays but was thick as ever. His icy blue eyes had changed only in that he now needed glasses for reading, and more “smile” lines had been etched in the corners. His body was still tight and muscular… it just took a little more effort these days, to keep it that way.

  His office was strictly government issue, the walls and ceiling a pastel mint green, the file cabinets, chairs, desk, and computer table all standard institutional gray. Not one personal item adorned the top of his desk or any other part of the anonymous, no-nonsense office. Only his black shirt, slacks, and leather jacket were— because of his sub-rosa status— not GI.

  Across the desk from him were two subordinates— a kid in his early twenties, Jensen, and an African American in his mid- to late thirties, Finch. The two men stood at attention, soldiers in civilian suits and ties, and Lydecker thought he detected a slight trembling in both.

  It pleased him that they feared him— in his lexicon,

  fear

  and

  respect

  were analogous. He let his breath out slowly, calming himself, getting centered, just as he'd taught his kids.

  “I've been watching video footage of one of our X5s— a male.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

  “And where do you suppose I got that footage?”

  They glanced at each other quickly, then turned their eyes front. Neither man spoke.

  “Perhaps I got it from our own intelligence efforts. Do you think I got it from our own intelligence efforts, Mr. Jensen?”

  “… no, sir.”

  “How about you, Mr. Finch?”

  “Yes, sir… I mean, no sir… ”

  Lydecker sighed, just a little. “I got it from SNN.”

  The two men stared straight ahead; they might have been carved from stone… if stone trembled.

  “Would someone please tell me why the Satellite News Network can find one of our kids, and we can't?”

  Finch and Jensen had no answers.

  “Mr. Finch, I want our people at the offices of SNN within the hour.”

  “Yes, sir,” Finch said.

  “Mr. Jensen, I want to know the source of this tape.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I don't want it tomorrow. Dismissed.”

  The two men saluted, turned, and left.

  Lydecker turned to the TV and VHS machine on a cart near his desk, and played the tape again. He watched the grainy picture as the young man leapt across the screen. He knew immediately it was one of his X5s. Judging by the athleticism of the boy's moves, Lydecker figured the young man on the tape was Zack, or perhaps Seth. The two oldest subjects, they had always been the best athletes of the X5 program.

  Lydecker could only appreciate the athleticism of the young man, the beauty of his discipline. If this one was anything to judge by, these kids were growing up to be just what he and the others had dreamed they could be. Watching his creation clean the clocks of five police officers in less than forty seconds, Lydecker felt a surge of parental pride…

  Thirteen of them had escaped that night, the group of twelve and their leader, Zack, with Seth immediately captured but overcoming the two guards and slipping out in the confusion; and the colonel had spent much of the last ten years trying to round up this deadly baker's dozen.

  He knew the higher-ups considered his recapture record less than stellar; the irony was, he had done his job so well with his young soldiers that they had made him look incompetent. Two out of thirteen in a decade did seem a shade paltry… he still remembered the general staring at him in contempt, saying, “You mean to say you can't recover a goddamn bunch of little

  kids?

  ”

  Little kids.

  When they'd escaped, the youngest one had been seven. That meant six years of full-bore Manticore training… Kavi had been the first to be recaptured and that had taken over five years. Even then, it had been luck that they'd stumbled onto him in Wolf Point, Montana.

  Kavi, then twelve, had been spotted by a Manticore operative— Finch, in fact— who'd stopped to watch some kids playing baseball. Kavi made a throw on the fly from the outfield fence to home plate… a major leaguer would have envied that throw… and Finch knew immediately where the kid had gotten the golden arm.

  Two and a half years later, Vada, a female— eleven
at the time of the escape— had been surrounded in the desert outside Amargosa Valley, Nevada. She had grown into a shapely young woman in a T-shirt and jeans and running shoes— soft brown hair, huge brown eyes, full sensuous lips.

  Noting the sexual attractiveness of one of his own kids, Lydecker felt a twinge of something… guilt? Embarrassment? But the colonel could hardly fail to notice that Vada's blossoming physique looked ready for a whole different set of sins than those she'd been designed for.

  When she fought back, dropping three members of the TAC team without losing a drop of sweat, Lydecker had drawn his pistol, warned her once.

  She cursed him and came running at him, like a wild beast, her fists tiny hard things raised to pummel…

  When he put that bullet between her pert breasts, Lydecker surprised himself with an immediate feeling of loss.

  Self-defense,

  his mind assured him.

  But it wasn't that easy: Vada was, after all, one of his own. He had reminded himself that this was his job, and if anyone was going to kill one of his kids, it should be him. After all, the X5s were his responsibility.

  And it wasn't like she was the first.

  After the unpleasantness in Los Angeles— he'd found dealing with the Russian and his rabble extremely distasteful— Lydecker had returned empty-handed again. The amazing reports of the dark-haired young woman— Jondy?… Max, maybe?— had all the earmarks of an X5.

  But after aiding and abetting the slaughter at the Chinese Theatre, Lydecker had come home with bupkus, the trail cold, ice cold…

  Now, a reprieve, a real shot at getting back another of the X5s, a male, and he didn't want to let that chance get away like the girl in LA.

  He picked up the phone to arrange transport to Seattle. No matter what his men learned or did not learn at SNN, Lydecker had a trip to take.

  One of his kids had turned up in Seattle…

  … and “daddy” longed for a reunion.

  ENGIDYNE SOFTWARE

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, 2019

  The child Lydecker sought was creeping down the hall of the uppermost floor of Engidyne Software, the computer infrastructure company whose youthful CEO… and owner… was Jared Sterling. Seth had bypassed the alarm, opened a window in a lunchroom, and gotten inside.

  This was the executive level of a steel-and-mostly-glass six-story suburban box that was otherwise primarily rabbit warrens of underpaid computer geeks. This floor, unnervingly quiet after hours, served the top echelon, half a dozen wonks who had been with Sterling from the start, millionaires thanks to Engidyne stock options. No one on this floor had to stay late to prove him- or herself, and— while a few geeks on the floors below labored into the night, seeking advancement that would never come— that left only a token security staff, about half a dozen… who had just finished their hourly rounds of the floor.

  With its deep plush carpeting, expensive oak paneling, and gilt-framed examples from Sterling's art collection lining the walls, the executive floor felt more like the mansion of the company's owner than his corporate office. Seth moved down the darkened hallways, spidering himself to the wall, avoiding the built-in video cameras. Slick and unobtrusive, the security cams had a flaw: they were stationary, and could be maneuvered around.

  Without any trouble— and with the help of Logan's info— Seth easily made his way to Sterling's office. Even without Logan, Seth could hardly have missed the egomaniacal display that was Sterling's name, embossed in gold on a black plate on the rich wood door. He picked the lock and went in.

  To the right sat the desk of Sterling's executive assistant, Alison Santiago (or so said the nameplate). This reception area gave Ms. Santiago a generous space that any nerd downstairs would have given his or her pocket-protector collection for.

  Stepping to Sterling's door, Seth found this inner barrier locked as well, used a pair of picks to open it in 3.5 seconds, and stepped inside, closing and relocking it. If the security guards checked while he was inside, they'd find this door locked and likely move on: all Seth would have to do to facilitate that was conduct his search in the near dark. Between his sharper-than-shit eyesight, and blinds he adjusted to let in moonlight, Seth knew that would be no prob.

  He settled in for a thorough search.

  Seth didn't even turn on a lamp or use a flashlight to take this unguided tour of Sterling's office. The CEO's desk was clutter-free and not quite big enough to accommodate an ice-skating competition, his computer station a second, smaller desk behind. An immense painting took up the whole wall above the computer…

  Seth's wide eyes traveled over severed arms, bull's heads, image upon image, screaming women, dead people… it was the strangest, most bizarre painting he had ever seen and he wondered what weird shit had been going on in the mind that created such a horrific, yet undeniably beautiful scene.

  He also wondered what sort of a man would have a painting like this in his office— would want to live with such a violent collage of images, who might find this nightmare in oils soothing, or somehow inspiring…

  Slipping behind to the computer, Seth sat down, touched a key, and the monitor came alive, the flat screen glowing brightly in the dark room; the computer itself was already on.

  What a thoughtful host,

  Seth thought, and started breaking Sterling's security.

  Coming from a company so supposedly adept at computer tech, Sterling's system caved pretty quickly; on the other hand, X5s had hacker training and physical abilities that would put the best system to the test. Once in, however, Seth searched through thousands of computer files with no luck.

  He did find one promising folder, though… an encrypted one with its own password. No matter what he tried, he couldn't open it, which was starting to piss him off (admittedly, his rage threshold was easily crossed).

  Finally, giving up, Seth copied the file onto a disc, covered his computer tracks as best he could, and crept back to the door. He unlocked it quietly, slipped into the executive assistant's space, then opened the hall door a crack to peer out and down, both ways, to see a wonderfully empty corridor.

  Seth was halfway back to his lunchroom entry point, on a floor where no geeks labored, when he saw a member of the security team, a heavy guy in his midfifties— probably an ex-cop or maybe somebody's uncle, passing the days until retirement. The guard had no firearm, but he did have a Tazer and a walkie-talkie on his belt.

  Keeping to the shadows, Seth followed the guard down the hall toward the entry point. All the guard had to do was keep moving and Seth could slip out as easily as he'd slipped in.

  But as they passed the lunchroom, the security man looked in casually… then stopped—

  cold.

  Seth didn't think the guard could've spotted the window from that vantage point, but, damn, the guy

  must

  have! Here Seth was, a lean young genetically tuned engineered soldier, less than twenty feet from his access out of here… and this old fat friggin' guard decided to pick

  now

  to be on top of his job.

  Fatso reached for the radio on his hip, his head swiveling as he looked down the hall in the other direction, apparently checking for more evidence of an intruder.

  Seth had hoped to get in and get out without raising any suspicion; but that seemed impossible now. The guard had lifted the radio from his belt, poised to put in his call— a call that if Seth let him make meant the rest of a (presumably slimmer) security force would be on the way in seconds. But taking the guard out first would tell Sterling that his company's security had been breached…

  Manticore training, and life on the streets, had taught Seth long ago to pick the lesser of evils.

  The guard had just pushed in the TALK button, and sucked in a breath to form the first word, when Seth chopped him on the back of the neck, and the guard folded up like a fat card table, pitching awkwardly forward, the walkie-talkie clunking to the carpeted floor and bouncing away a few feet. The guard had barely
hit the indoor-outdoor carpeting when Seth had him by his collar, to drag the man away.

  “Hey!”

  The voice came from behind Seth, off to one side.

  “What the hell?”

  Another voice.

  “What's going on?”

  Another!

  Spinning toward the lunchroom, Seth saw four more guards sitting around a big table, sandwiches spread out before them, two empty chairs, their eyes all now turned toward the boy in shock.

  Shit,

  the X5 thought. Fatso hadn't discovered Seth's entry point— the guard had simply been calling to the last member of the security team, to invite him to join the group for their midnight lunch!

  So much for getting away clean.

  Seth didn't wait for them to gather their wits; he'd been trained to use surprise, and the surprise on their faces invited him to join them, in the lunchroom…

  As the nearest guard rose from the table, Seth jammed a fist up under the man's nose, the X5 thrusting hard, the guard unconscious, possibly dead; as the guy toppled, Seth grabbed the man's Tazer before he landed, taking the chair with him.

  Seth aimed the Tazer at the guard across the table, out of the X5's reach— a kid barely his own age. The two darts flew and struck the young guard in the chest, the charge dropping the kid to do a twitching dance on his back on the floor.

  “Fuckin' kill you!” another of the guards spat, a square-jawed probably ex-military boy, on his feet, going for his own Tazer; but then, like a jump cut in a movie, Seth was suddenly beside the guard, and triggered the weapon in the man's grasp, sending the shocking darts sailing down, sinking into the guard's own trousered leg, to convince him to do his own convulsing Riverdance before he dropped in a spasmodic heap, to duet with his twitching buddy.

  Seth allowed himself a laugh at that, which may have been what sent the final guard's scare level into overdrive, inspiring the guy— another older, overweight waste of a security-guard uniform— to make a run for it.

  The X5 merely walked quickly— running was not necessary— and grabbed the guy by the hair on the back of his head and guided him, face first, into the door frame. The guard dropped to his knees, a glistening red clown's nose in the midst of a pitiful expression.