“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.