Dark Angel Before the Dawn da-1

by Max Allan Collins

  The nine-millimeter slug tore through the painting leaving a hole bigger than a golf ball, then ripped through Sherwood's head, blowing away a piece of the old man's scalp.

  “The painting!” Glickman called, in warning.

  But Maurer's second shot shredded even more of the masterpiece before cleaving its way through Sherwood's chest and sending him backward, upending the chair, pitching the painting, which cracked against a wall, while the fence lay on his back, asprawl.

  Max leapt, kicked, her boot connecting solidly with the bandage across Maurer's face. He screamed, dropped his pistol, and fell backward to the floor, a hand covering where the blood erupted from his nose, red streaming through his cupping fingers. Glickman had dodged when Max came through the wall, and from the sidelines fired at her, but was off-balance, and missed, the bullet burrowing into Sheetrock. She rushed him before he could get his equilibrium, ducking a wild shot, and kicked sideways, her boot slamming into the man's groin, knocking him into the Sheetrock behind him, air whooshing out of him; he slid down the wall, and his mouth was open in a silent scream.

  But Sterling's security chief was no pushover, and hardly a stranger to pain; plenty of fight left in him, Glickman squeezed off another shot, this one whizzing past Max's shoulder, again thunking into Sheetrock.

  On the floor near the dead fence (who was on his back staring sightlessly at the ceiling) Maurer— his hands smeared and slippery with his own blood— was scrambling for his pistol; he got hold of it, and raised it at Max, stupidly heedless of how close she and his superior were. Just as the black guard fired, Max dived out of the way and Maurer's bullet missed her and sent up a puff of pink as it punched Glickman in the chest.

  The iron-haired security chief's eyes went wide with shock, and he slumped back against the wall. He looked down at his wound, then up at Maurer. His last words were a kind of cough: “You dumb fuck.”

  “Oh, shit,” Maurer said, and brought his pistol around, searching for his target, who seemed to have disappeared.

  Then Max was suddenly at his side, and grabbed his arm and bent the elbow the wrong direction; Maurer screamed and his fingers popped open and he dropped the blood-smeared pistol. She kept going, applying torque to his shoulder as she cranked his arm around behind him.

  The guard was in so much pain, he couldn't even scream.

  “One question,” Max said, her voice cold, hard. “Wrong answer, I break your arm.” She applied a little more pressure to make her point; Maurer arched his back and groaned pitifully.

  “Ask! Ask!”

  “Where can I find Sterling…

  right now?

  ”

  He tried to twist his head around to see her, but she cranked up on the arm and his head dropped, as he yelped with pain.

  “Let's have that answer,” she said, and started moving the hand upward.

  “Okay, okay! He's at the Needle.”

  Frowning, Max relaxed her grip somewhat, and with the lessening of pain, all the air went out of Maurer, who sagged; she felt if she let go of him, he'd drop like an armload of firewood.

  “Space Needle?”

  “What the… fuck other Needle… deal going down.”

  “More,” she said, not bothering to punctuate her question with a ratchet of pain; the guy was cooperating now.

  “The boss and that Russian, they're selling some shit to some Koreans, there. Up top.”

  “

  Right

  now?”

  “Less than an hour from now… yeah.”

  Max said, “Thanks,” and let go of him.

  He stood there unsteadily for a second, his back to her, and he said, “I won't… won't cause you any trouble.”

  “I know,” she said, chopped him across the back of the neck.

  She left behind a damaged painting, a dead fence, a dead security chief, and an unconscious Sterling subordinate, who would have explaining to do about the precious painting he'd ruined and the superior he'd shot and killed.

  At least Max still had the necklace in her pocket, the precious object that had sparked so much damage and death, the weight of it suddenly very heavy. She needed this to end the cycle, or she and her brother would never be safe.

  Gazing down at Sherwood, she shook her head. The old boy hadn't needed to die, but she felt no guilt or responsibility. He had chosen this path, even if he'd never made it to Easy Street. Still, she had liked the eccentric fence, during their short but significant relationship; and now Sherwood was just one more thing taken from her by Sterling and Kafelnikov, one more comrade slaughtered, like the Chinese Clan…

  In the office next door, she put on her amber glasses, walked her Ninja out into the hall and down to the entranceway. Then she climbed aboard, fired it up, and gunned it through the doorway into the waiting storm.

  Wind-driven rain slashed at her face as she raced up Broad Street toward the Space Needle, but she didn't mind— it seemed cleansing; she wished the rain would wash away all the dirt and grime and corruption from this foul city, this fractured country…

  Parking in a burned-out building two blocks away, and looking up to get her bearings, she was surprised at how huge the structure looked. Naturally, she'd seen the Needle before— you couldn't live in the Emerald City and not notice the Needle— but she'd never paid much attention to it.

  Over six hundred feet tall, the Needle rose like a giant metal flower. The night was so dark and the rain so dense that only during a lightning flash could she make out the crest of the building. A beacon of futuristic hope when it was built back in the '60s, the Space Needle now towered in ghostly tribute to the blight brought on by the Pulse, the skeleton of a vision dreamed in a more hopeful, naive time.

  In the years since the Pulse, the downturn in the economy had brought fewer and fewer visitors to the famed tourist spot, until the restaurant had gone under, the observation deck had been closed— too many people were jumping— and the banquet facility had been forced to shutter. The structure now served primarily as a practice pad for every graffiti artist in the city, the Needle seemingly painted a hundred different shades at once; red, black, yellow, white, spray paint in every possible color had been applied somewhere on the giant building. The first-floor gift shop— its windows had long since been broken out— seemed like it would make the natural point of entry for Max.

  The neighborhood around the landmark had suffered the same fate and reminded Max of vid footage she'd seen at Manticore, labeled SARAJEVO and BEIRUT. The only unbroken windows in the whole neighborhood seemed to be in the two vehicles parked in a lot at the base of the Needle, beneath a tin overhang on which rain drummed insistently. She edged closer, positioning herself behind a Dumpster at the periphery of the parking lot. From here she had a better view of the two cars.

  One, a black luxury number, a Lexus, had California plates— this would be the Russian's ride; the other, an old Hummer, appeared to be a rental and reminded Max too much of her days at Manticore. Near each vehicle stood a guard; the one near the Hummer— shorter than the other guy— smoked a cigarette and strolled back and forth on the driver's side.

  The other guard, near the Lexus, closer to her, leaned against the door, staring in her direction. At first, she thought he'd seen her, then she realized that he was looking at nothing, and his head just happened to be pointed in her direction. Still, as soon as she moved, he would likely see her… and any chance for surprise would be gone.

  Behind the Dumpster, she found a rock about the size of a sugar cube and threw it down the street. The rock hit on the concrete, barely loud enough to be heard in the rain; but, to their credit, both men looked in that direction . . Max using the diversion to swing around and conceal herself in front of the Lexus.

  “Hell was that?” the other man asked, his accent giving him away as Japanese.

  “No idea,” the guard near the Lexus said, bored. He wore a dark brown zip-up jacket and black jeans.

  Closer now, Max made him as Jackson
, the crew-cut wrestler from her first visit to the Sterling estate.

  “Should we investigate?” the Japanese guy asked.

  “Do what you want. Soak your ass. My orders are, stay put.”

  The Japanese guard went back around the Hummer and lit another cigarette.

  Jackson was leaning against the driver's door of the Lexus, staring into space;

  real ball of fire.

  Max decided to take the Japanese out first. She rolled under the Hummer, and— when his pacing brought him close enough to her— she grabbed the man's ankles and flipped them up in the air. Gasping, he took the ride.

  She was out from under by the time he smacked his head on the cement; sprawled there, the guard groggily lifted his head to look up at her with a glazed look, perhaps wondering if he was dreaming, such a lovely face looking down…

  The owner of the lovely face punched him in the side of the head and he lay back, out cold.

  “You say somethin'?” Jackson asked.

  When he got no answer, Jackson straightened, eyes tightening, finally interested enough to turn and look. But all he saw was Max's boots as she flew over the top of the car with martial-arts grace and dropkicked him in the face. Jackson toppled over, spitting bloody teeth like seeds, then tried to rise, clenching what was left of his smile… and Max decked him with a short left.

  Rain drummed on the tin overhead.

  Back when the Needle had been a family-fun destination, three elevators had been in service here, and though Max didn't plan on taking one, she did want to know whether or not the things were up and running. If Sterling used the Needle as a regular drop point for his dirty deals, it didn't even seem like a stretch to her that the art collector might arrange having power supplied to the building that only his people knew how to activate.

  Max stepped through a broken-out window in the gift shop and surveyed the store; the only sound she was making came from the moisture dripping off her leather. Access to the power had to be on this floor somewhere. Dust blanketed the floor and the counter, too; she could make out where the cash register had been before it had been ripped out.

  She paused, listened intently, heard nothing… and crept forward.

  To the left, a doorway led to a hallway off of which were the three elevators. That hall curved back, and out of sight, so Max decided to start here. Behind the counter, another opening led to a back room. Again listening carefully, and still hearing nothing, she edged into the room— pitch-black… even Max had trouble seeing. After slowly scanning for any other doors, the X5 backed out into the relative light of the empty store, illuminated completely, now and then, by lightning.

  Max got to one side of the store door and peered down the elevator hallway, saw nothing. Moving forward, she could make out the elevators on her right. She also could see the lighted-up floor indicator, above the elevator doors— they

  were

  working.

  The nearest car was up on the observation deck, the other two were here at ground level. The left side of the hall had once been the glass wall of the pavilion, but now was mostly just metal framing and random shards. Six feet beyond the last elevator door, another doorway beckoned, this one with a small shaft of light shining out of it.

  She slipped across the open space, peeked in… and saw one of Sterling's men inside the small room.

  A naked lightbulb, hanging like electric fruit, provided the only light. Several large circuit boxes lined one wall and Sterling's stooge sat on a folding chair against the other wall, reading a sports magazine with a bikinied woman on the cover. This guy she hadn't encountered before, a redhead with a wide chest and a sharply angular face; he wore a zippered brown jacket and darker brown slacks.

  Stepping in quickly, she said, “Can I see that when you're through with it?”

  He looked up in blank confusion and she hit him with a right, a left, and another right. The magazine slipped from his hand and he and the chair tumbled; she caught them, setting both man and chair down gently, avoiding the clatter. She considered using the coil of rope on her belt to tie the guy up; but decided it might be put to a better use later on, and secured his hands behind him with his belt.

  Taking the elevator up would tip them that she was coming.

  She would just have to climb the stairs to the tower, where an evil prince and assorted vile advisers of his would surely await.

  Chapter Thirteen

  NEEDLE'S POINT

  THE SPACE NEEDLE

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, 2019

  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.