Before the Dawn Read online

  Never.

  Chapter Two

  TITANIC NIGHT

  THE CAP

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, 2019

  Hanging suspended by a slender nylon rope, eight stories over nighttime Los Angeles, Max thought, Piece of cake. . . .

  The line tethering her to the building felt snug against her wasplike waist. Though a chilly wind swept over the city, colder than one would expect for early March, it barely registered on Max, upon whom weather had little or no effect. Her lithe, athletic body was sheathed in black formfitting fatigues, providing warmth enough for her genetically amplified body; besides which, her Manticore training in the frigid winters of Gillette, Wyoming, had toughened her far beyond any mere meteorological phenomenon she might encounter in LA. Her silky black hair, worn long since her escape from the compound, was tucked neatly under a black watchcap, and she made an anonymous, asexual figure as she played human spider.

  Like the music that had once been made here, the record company that had originally erected the pseudo-stacked-disc structure (where she would soon be breaking and entering) was ancient history. After the Pulse, gangster groups had taken the building in lieu of royalties owed, following negotiations that were rumored to have been a literal bloodbath.

  The ragtag street army that moved in to the old Capitol Records Building turned the structure into a fortress that had withstood all attacks . . . until the Big Quake of 2012, anyway. After that, a building that had once resembled a stack of records came to look more like a layer cake with the top four stories smushed by the thumb of a frosting-licking God.

  A second generation of gangsters dwelled in the building—known now as the Cap—and this particular batch of criminals-since-birth were the ones Max planned to rip off this evening. The Brood, as they were called, would buy, sell, or trade anything—as long as it was illegal.

  For instance, right now the Brood had in their possession the security plans for the Hollywood Heritage Museum, not far outside Brood turf on Highland, a reconverted office building (once belonging to a powerful “agency,” Max had been told—spies, she supposed) that held much of the remaining nostalgic artifacts of a city whose main business had once been (before the Pulse, before the Big Quake) entertainment.

  Max knew the Brood planned to rip the museum off, and she and her own clan intended to prevent them from doing so . . . not out of civic-spiritedness, but to take down the score themselves.

  After years of struggle, the sector police had finally fought to a stalemate with the Brood, penning them into an area bordered by the old 101 on the north and east, Cahuenga on the west, and Sunset Boulevard on the south. The Hollywood Freeway, the old 101, curved around the Cap and still occasionally bore spotty, sporadic traffic, vehicles driven by those brave (or foolhardy) enough to pass through Roadhog territory.

  Hanging along the north side of the building, as casual and unafraid as a child on a backyard swing, Max looked down on the twinkling abstraction that was the 101 and watched idly as the Roadhogs chased after some unfortunate soul who'd had the bad judgment to try to run the freeway. She smiled a little, shook her head; how reckless, the young woman thought, as she dangled off the side of the tower.

  Looking north toward Mount Lee, Max could see the fifty-foot letters that now spelled out HO WOOD, their whiteness stark even in the three A.M. darkness. The sign had read HO YWOOD when Max had arrived in Hollywood in 2013, barely a year after the Quake had decimated most of what the post-Pulse riots hadn't. This latest revision struck Max as appropriate to a city of scavengers and street tramps of every stripe.

  She checked her watch: it was time.

  Securing a foothold on a window ledge, Max lowered herself onto her stomach on the steel awning above the seventh floor. On her belly, she spun and slowly crawled to the edge, her head hanging down as she peeked into the window.

  She saw nothing but darkness.

  Silently, she ticked off the seconds until Moody's diversion would begin.

  Moody—leader of the Chinese Clan, the group Max belonged to—had taken over in Max's life (though she had never made the mental connection herself) the father-figure position that had once been filled by Colonel Donald Lydecker.

  An old man by the standards of these short-lived times—fifty-five, maybe even sixty—Moody had piercing green eyes, a trimmed gray beard and mustache that contained flecks of black, his long silver hair combed straight back, usually tied in a long ponytail. His skin tone said he rarely saw light of day; and his nose—a twisting series of hills on the plain of his face—spoke of many breakings, while the thin, pink-lipped line of his mouth kept the man's thoughts locked up tight. His black garments—black leather jacket, black T-shirt, black jeans—inspired Max to her own, similar style of dress.

  The Chinese Clan were thieves, so named not because any of the members were of Asian descent, rather because they lived in what had once been Mann's Chinese Theatre, the grandest of many local, abandoned movie theaters. The Pulse and the Quake had combined to effectively kill the motion picture industry, and theater complexes across America stood empty, their design difficult for any worthwhile purpose, some being turned into flophouses, fortresses, whorehouses, and even occasionally, if clumsily, a hospital.

  The self-dubbed Chinese Clan had occupied the theater within days of the Pulse, and Moody's youthful gang had staved off every effort—from both police and rival gangs—to evict them.

  Five, Max calmly thought, four . . . three, her large dark eyes locked on the window . . . two . . . one. . . .

  An explosion rocked the world, a bright orange column of flame rising along the east side of the building like a fiery offering to the heavens!

  The roar that followed a second later reminded Max of the artillery blasts during war games back at Manticore and, even as heat waves rolled through the building, for a second she froze, a chill slicing through her bones.

  A second explosion, this one on the west side, sent flames shooting skyward, as well, orange and blue tongues licking hungrily.

  Snapping out of it, Max could make out movement behind the darkened windows of the seventh floor. A door swung open, a light in the hallway suddenly illuminating the room, and Brood members poured out into the hallway, most likely believing they were under attack.

  They weren't far wrong, considering those fires burning below; Moody's idea of a diversion seemed to Max to be just short of an all-out blitz on the Brood stronghold. Moving quickly now, unsure how long Moody's fireworks would keep the gangsters occupied, Max lowered herself onto the sill of the seventh-floor window and went to work. Using a glass cutter, she etched a circle big enough to accommodate her slender form, punched it in, and then held the edge to maintain her balance as she undid her tether.

  The lithe thief released her hold on the rope and the window, seeming to hang there for a second, then leapt headfirst through the hole and somersaulted onto the mattresses scattered across the floor, coming up in a fighting stance.

  The room was empty, unless you counted the stench left behind by a dozen unwashed souls sleeping in what had once been an office for one. Only the desk remained from the furniture that had formerly marked this room as a place of business; it sat to Max's left, one mattress on top of it and another underneath, one end stuffed under the desk so the owner's head rested where a worker's legs and feet had once been. In the Brood, this probably qualified as earthquake awareness.

  Tiptoeing to the door, Max listened for any sound that might indicate she wasn't alone on the floor. The information about the security plan had reached Moody through a Brood intermediary who apparently figured the bribe he'd solicited from the Chinese Clan was worth risking the wrath of his own gang.

  According to the sellout, Mikhail Kafelnikov—the formidable, legendarily sadistic leader of the Brood—kept the museum security layout in a safe on this floor, in his private office at the far end of the hall.

  The building, tomb-silent, appeared to have emptied as the Brood poured downstair
s to check out the explosions. Moving into the hallway, Max's hypersensitive hearing sought any sound—a creak of the floor, the squeak of a sneaker, even something as inconsequential as the breathing of a guard . . . nothing.

  Nothing but the distant crackle of flames and raised voices, anyway, many floors below.

  An eyebrow lifted in a little shrug, before Max took off into a short sprint that deposited her at the threshold of Kafelnikov's office.

  She really wanted to make sure that sinister son of a bitch wasn't in—again, she listened intently, hearing nothing, then tried the door . . .

  . . . locked.

  Max considered picking the lock—she had the tools, and the knowledge—then decided her limited time would be better spent inside the office. Rearing back, she kicked the latch next to the knob and the door splintered with a satisfying crunch as it swung open.

  Time is money, she thought, moving inside the empty room.

  Empty of people, at least. This was a combination office, apartment . . . and arsenal. To the left, running the length of the wall, a rack displayed with pride guns, rifles, machine guns, and shotguns. Shelves above the rack held boxes of grenades, flashbangs, and a wide array of pistols. She could have easily helped herself; but ever since Lydecker had shot one of her X5 sibs that night in the barracks, Max had had an innate abhorrence of firearms. She hated the foul things then, she hated them now.

  The wall opposite the guns, to Max's right, was home to a monstrous round waterbed covered with silk sheets; next to it, like a disapproving parent, stood a tall stainless-steel refrigerator. The wall itself was a huge window, moonlight flooding the room with ivory. The center of the office, in front of Max, was dominated by a massive kidney-shaped desk, behind which loomed an oversized, thronelike leather chair. A large-screen TV rose like an altar to the right of (and behind) the desk, angled toward the bed. Behind the leather throne, an oversized portrait in oil of Kafelnikov (not very good) took up most of the wall.

  Surprising there's room for all this stuff, the young woman thought, and the ego of that bastard Kafelnikov. . . .

  Moody's informant had said the safe that held the security plan was behind the painting. If the safe was as big as the portrait, Max thought, the dial ought to be about the size of a hubcap.

  As she made her way around the desk, she slipped a switchblade out of her pocket and flicked the button, the blade springing open with a click. She found a metal wastebasket, turned it over, spilling refuse, and climbed up on it, and looked the Russian gang leader in his smug, superior face. Then, wearing her own smug smile, Max stabbed Kafelnikov in his oil-painted heart and sliced upward, the canvas ripping, as if the subject himself were crying out in agony.

  The safe was where it was supposed to be, and the dial was normal sized. For as elaborate as Moody's plan had been, this seemed to the experienced young cat thief a routine heist. Putting the knife away, Max tuned up her hearing, placing her ear to the safe's metal door, and started turning the dial.

  In less than fifteen seconds Max had the thing open; in five more she had found the security plans to the nostalgia museum, and in another second she had them tucked into her fatigues. A large pile of cash to the left proved too tempting, as well, and that disappeared into other pockets.

  Moody needn't know about that; she would call it a bonus.

  Finally, satisfied with her haul, she turned to leave. That was when she sensed the first dog.

  She had heard the Brood kept dogs to deter intruders, though Moody had been dismissive about these “rumors.”

  But the big, black, beautiful beast, its shiny eyes and razor-sharp white teeth glowing in the moonlight, was no rumor. The dog, some kind of a Doberman mix, moved forward, in a low, suspicious approach, its muscles undulating like shadows beneath its taut skin. The animal growled low in its throat, a disquieting greeting.

  “Nice puppy,” Max soothed, her hand reaching out toward the dog in a slowly offered, underhand gesture of peace, showing the animal an empty, unthreatening palm.

  The dog snarled.

  And the canine sentry was not alone. . . .

  She could hear their paws padding down the hall, and four more appeared in the hallway, and entered the room—very trained, none scrambling on top of each other—fanning out in almost military fashion, growling, holding their positions. Each was at least as big as the leader, with saliva dripping, fangs showing, the quintet snarling in unholy harmony as their leader edged closer.

  Max rose to her full height. The soft approach had failed; so, making her voice loud and sharp, she said, “Sit.”

  The lead dog barked once, the canine equivalent of Fuck you.

  Max let out a long breath. “Your choice. I didn't want to do this, but you're asking for it. . . .”

  And cat prepared herself to meet dog, lowering into a combat crouch.

  The first dog leapt and Max swiftly sidestepped it, the Doberman smacking into the wall with a yelp and a dull thud. As the second and third dogs came after her, separating to hit her from either side—a sophisticated outflanking maneuver coming from canines—Max jumped up on the desk, just as the two animals collided, and rolled away in a yelping ball of paws and claws and tails.

  One of the two remaining in the military line inside the doorway flung itself at Max, who vaulted up and over, the dog's head snapping back around to try to bite her as Max soared over it, hit the floor in a tuck, somersaulted to her feet, and sidestepped as the last dog lunged.

  Rushing out into the hall, Max pulled the splintered door shut behind her; with the lock snapped, the door wouldn't hold the animals back for long, and she knew the beasts would be hot on her heels. Their pissed-off barking said as much.

  She ran to the elevator, wishing those doors would magically open before she got there, and . . . they did.

  Only now she found herself face-to-face with Mikhail Kafelnikov and half a dozen members of his Brood. They all looked as pissed as those dogs, Kafelnikov especially.

  Wait till he sees his portrait, she thought.

  Tall and thin, the Russian immigrant was nonetheless well muscled, with close-cropped blond hair, penetrating blue eyes, and rather sensuous pink full lips. He wore a brown leather coat, knee-length, an open-throated orange silk shirt with gold chains, black leather pants, and black snakeskin boots.

  Moody had said it best: Kafelnikov cultivated both the look and the lifestyle of a pre-Pulse rock star, which his late father had been, or at least so it was said. The son supposedly had musical talent, too, but just figured crime paid better than music, particularly in a time when the entertainment industry had gone to crap.

  The Russian might well have struck Max as handsome if not for the expression of rage screwing up his features; handsome, that is, for a homicidal maniac.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he asked, momentarily frozen in the elevator. Studying the small form in the watchcap, the Russian said, “It's a girl . . . just a girl. . . .” His boys surged out with him, even as he bellowed at them, “Who is this little bitch?”

  Before she could respond in any manner (and words would not have been her first choice), she and the Russian and his men turned their collective head toward a crunching sound down the hall . . .

  . . . and the pack of dogs burst through the already ruptured office door, and galloped down the hall toward them, fangs flashing, tongues lolling, saliva flying.

  Turning back to Kafelnikov, Max said, “I'm the dog walker you called for—remember?”

  And he winced in confusion for half a second, before Max delivered a side kick to the Russian's chest that knocked the wind out of him with a whoosh and sent him reeling back into the elevator, taking his underlings like bowling pins with him.

  Not sticking around to admire her handiwork, Max took off down the hall, the dogs dogging her heels. When she all but threw herself into the room she had originally entered, the lead dog was less than two feet behind her. Diving forward, arms extended in front of her, as if the waiting nigh
t were a lake she was plunging into, Max sailed through the round hole in the window, wishing she'd cut it a tad larger, the snarling dog right behind her.

  She caught the waiting rope and swung in a wide arc away from the building. The dog, misjudging the hole slightly, slammed into the window pane, yiped, and reared back into the office, dropping out of sight. The other dogs, evidently having learned from their leader's misfortune, stopped short of the window, their heads bobbing up in view as they barked and yapped at Max, dangling just out of the range of their jaws. One even edged its head out and took swipes at her, biting air.

  But by this time Max was shimmying up the rope, and their snarls turned to growls as they watched in impotent rage as she disappeared toward the roof.

  Below her, she heard voices. Still shimmying up, she looked down, and saw Kafelnikov's pale enraged face, head sticking out of the hole in the window like a frustrated victim with his neck stuck into a guillotine.

  “I'm going to kill you, you bitch!” he yelled.

  “I don't think so!” she called down, smug, calm.

  His response was nonverbal, and he hit himself in the head, possibly cutting himself on the glass.

  Laughing softly to herself, she continued to climb, knowing the Russian's men were already on their way to the roof to intercept her. Looking down again, she saw Kafelnikov's face had been replaced at the window by one of the Brood members from the elevator. A skinny guy with long dark hair reached tentatively for the rope and, just as he touched it, Max nimbly kicked off the side of the building, jerking the strand away from the guy's grasp. He nearly tumbled out.

  “You bitch!” he yelled, eyes wide as much with terror as rage.

  These boys sure have a limited vocabulary, Max thought, as she kept climbing.

  Beneath her, the guy ducked inside, then came leaping out into the night. He snared the rope, and his momentum threatened to rip the tether from her grasp. Surprised by his boldness, she could feel his weight at the far end of the rope, and knew the line wouldn't support both of them. . . .