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 t
he 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?
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