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  Nothing.

  The tapping stopped.

  His gun coming up, Otto took a step forward, then another. Still no sound from the dumpster. He took a third step, and was now less than ten feet away. Taking a breath in through his nose, he blew it out through his mouth, just like he did when he was running.

  The lid to the dumpster flew open, clanging off the wall, and a figure rose up from within the container.

  Freaking at the noise, Otto dropped both the flashlight and the briefcase as he brought up the gun in a two-handed grip. The light stayed on, doing its job as best it could, shining crazily toward the foot of the dumpster.

  The briefcase wasn’t so lucky.

  Money spilled out into the puddles in the alley, and the remaining cash got splattered by the rain. The crash of the lid scared Otto so badly he almost shot whoever-the-hell-it-was without getting a clear look.

  Fumbling to keep the gun on the dumpster and pick up the flash, Otto stumbled, went to a knee on the wet pavement, and finally had the light and gun pointed at the new arrival.

  “Freeze!” Otto yelled.

  The figure looked up, saw Otto, the flashlight, and the gun . . . and screamed.

  Then the screamer ducked back down into the dumpster, out of sight, but not out of mind.

  Otto had only a glimpse to go on: the body shape had seemed male, but the scream was as high-pitched as a little girl’s; and the person’s hair was long enough that Otto couldn’t tell whether he’d just cornered a man or a woman.

  “Federal agent,” he said, perhaps too loudly. “Put up your hands, then slowly stand.”

  No one stood, but Otto thought he could discern a soft whimpering from inside the dumpster.

  “I’m not going to tell you again. Hands up and stand up slowly.”

  First he saw the dumpster dweller’s hands, then the person slowly stood, the rain dripping off a disheveled mat of dark hair. “I didn’t do nothin’,” the man said.

  Older man.

  Otto shined the light on the guy’s face—late fifties, kind of frail, wearing a lightweight navy windbreaker. The dumpster dweller had a scruffy beard and bad teeth that he managed to smile with. His way of showing he was on the up and up.

  “What’re you doing in there?”

  “Gettin’ out of the rain.”

  “You were making some kind of noise in there, a tapping—what was it?”

  The old man’s face went blank, then he looked down inside the dumpster. “Oh, that?”

  “Oh, what?” Otto asked.

  “Scrounged me a flashlight. Tried to knock it against the side, to get it to work. But the batteries is bum.”

  Otto came up to the edge of the dumpster, shooed the old man to the other end, then looked over the edge. He shone the flashlight in, and on the bottom caught a glimpse of metal. He homed in on it with the light, and when he finally figured out what he was looking at, his heart sank.

  The thermal imager—beaten almost beyond recognition.

  “Okay, old man—time to get out.”

  The dumpster dweller did as he was told, but not without bitching about it: “What’d I do?”

  “Did you put that, uh . . . flashlight in the dumpster yourself?”

  “No! It was there already, when I went fishin’ inside. Honest. Swear to God.”

  Otto believed the old guy. The man didn’t seem to be strong enough to have taken out a sector cop; and if he had, why was he down rooting in the dumpster?

  “Go on, gramps. Take a hike.”

  The old man frowned. “Can I take the flashlight?”

  “No.”

  “I found it. It’s mine. You guys didn’t repeal finders keepers, did ya?”

  Fishing into his pocket, Otto pulled out a five and held it out to the guy.

  “Bet it’s worth more than that.”

  Otto brought the gun up and gave the guy a good look at it. The bum took the hint, and the five spot, climbed out and started to walk off in the direction of the briefcase.

  “The other way, gramps.”

  The old man held up his hands. “You got it, boss! Other way it is.”

  When the old boy had disappeared around the corner, Otto finally took another breath. He shook his head—feelings of fear and anger gave way to relief. But uneasiness remained; what did the imager turning up mean? Where the hell was that greedy sector cop? Five dollars had bought what five grand was supposed to. . . .

  Profanity running a race through his mind, Otto went over and stuffed the soaked bills back into the briefcase and carried it over to the dumpster, as if he were about to throw the damp money away.

  Now it was Otto’s turn to climb into the soggy filth to pull out the thermal imager. He took a quick look around, set the case on the ground, edging it behind the dumpster, and holstered his pistol. Using the edges of the container, he pulled himself up and over and inside.

  The dumpster smelled—not surprisingly—of rot, decay, and, if he didn’t miss his guess, human feces. Otto tried to bring to mind the time when he’d loved his government job, and as he shined the flashlight down and picked up the battered thermal imager, he realized he couldn’t recall the last time he’d liked—let alone loved—his job.

  He cast the beam over the imager and saw spatters of blood.

  As sure as he was standing in garbage, he now knew Brian Dunphy was dead. That one answer led to countless questions. Where was the body? Who killed him? Why was he killed?

  And was Otto’s own life in danger . . . right now?

  Again the urge came to call White. This time Otto didn’t fight it. He pulled himself out of the dumpster, retrieved the briefcase, and headed back up the alley. He’d go to his car, dry off, call the boss.

  At the corner of the street and the alley, Otto again looked up the alley across the street. The rain had lightened up just a touch, and he could see the old man he’d chased off, as well as several more street people, standing in a loose circle looking at a good-sized lump of something on the ground.

  Without taking another step, Otto knew that he’d just found Brian Dunphy.

  Pulling out his gun again, the NSA agent crossed the street and trotted up. The trio around the body split when they saw him coming, and the entire party disappeared into the shadows by the time he arrived.

  Pointing the flashlight down, he saw something he’d seen before but had hoped to never see again.

  The other time he’d seen a body in this condition, it belonged to that old-timer, Cal Hankins. Sprawled there, in a spreading pool of dark fluids, the bright red corpse that almost certainly belonged to Brian Dunphy gazed up at Otto with huge bulging eyes and a grotesque clown’s grin in a caved-in skull with brains showing.

  This made three murder victims who’d been skinned. All Otto knew of the second victim was that he was a cop. His info came strictly from the news, since he hadn’t discussed that second kill with White.

  But now he was looking at victim number three—the guy’s uniform scattered around the alley, his gun and boots already stolen—and Otto had a chill. Was there a connection, beyond two victims being cops?

  The car and getting dry would have to wait. Moving clear of the crime scene, Otto pulled out his cell phone and punched in the number for Ames White. The senior agent picked up on the first ring.

  “Is it done?” he asked.

  “Not really,” Otto said. “And we’ve gotta talk.”

  For the next several minutes Otto outlined what he’d found, Ames White staying uncharacteristically mute.

  When Otto had finished, White simply said, “Fuck.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “You sure it’s the sector cop? What was his name?”

  “Dunphy. Pretty sure. He’s been skinned, probably beaten to death with the imager, first. And there’s pieces of uniform scattered around the alley—I haven’t looked for ID or anything, but it’s pretty evident that—”

  “All right, all right—here’s what you do. Get the hel
l out of there. You talk to any civilians at the scene?”

  “Just the bum in the dumpster.”

  “Identify yourself to him?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Bring me the money and the thermal imager.”

  “But, sir, the imager—it’s almost certainly the murder weapon.”

  “I don’t seem to give a shit, do I? If the cops get their hands on that device, you know damn well it’s going to end up on the news, and then the transgenics will see it, and then it will be useless. Would that be a good thing, Otto?”

  “That would be a bad thing.”

  “Right. Bring it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then, once you’re safely out of the sector, make an anonymous 911 call and report the body.”

  “All right.”

  “And then I want you to get hold of Clemente.”

  That puzzled Otto. “The police detective?”

  “Yeah. Let him know that it was you who phoned in the anonymous call, but that for national security reasons you had to leave the scene.”

  “Okay. . . .”

  White’s voice had delight in it. “Transgenics did this and now they’re going to hang themselves. Tell Clemente what you saw and tell him that we have evidence the killer’s transgenic.”

  “Do we have that?”

  “We will, Otto. We will.”

  Otto didn’t like the sound of that—the implication, however vague, was that evidence would be manufactured, if necessary.

  “Now, Otto, after you talk to Clemente, bring me the money and pick me up at home. We’ve got work to do.”

  “We do?”

  “This is going to turn into a PR war, Otto. We have a demented serial-killer transgenic to tell the public about; if you think the rank and file are frightened of transies now, just you wait till the media gets their teeth in this. And which side of the PR war do you suppose has the most media on their side?”

  “That would be ours, sir.”

  “Damn right,” White said. “Now’s our chance to use them too.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Got the drill, Otto? 911, Clemente, then get your ass over here.”

  Not liking this a bit—neither what was going down nor White’s condescension—but realizing he had fallen in way over his head, Otto said the only thing he could think of, which was, “Yes, sir.”

  Hustling back to his car, his feet splashing in puddles, the briefcase pounding against one hip, the bloody thermal imager clutched in his other hand, Otto Gottlieb wanted nothing more than to be done with this awful night. At the car, he locked the imager and money in the trunk, got behind the wheel, started the engine and gunned it.

  Time to get the hell out of there.

  A few blocks down he found a pay phone, pulled over, and made the call.

  “This is 911, how may I help?”

  “There’s a murdered sector guard in Sector Eleven, in the alley off Renton.”

  “Your name, sir?”

  “Just check it out,” Otto said, and hung up.

  Knowing the police would try to trace the call, Otto wiped the phone clean of fingerprints and got back on the move again. As he drove toward White’s house, he phoned the office, got the home and cell numbers for Detective Ramon Clemente, and looked for a nice secluded spot to pull over and make the call.

  He pulled into the parking lot of an all-night restaurant near the King County Airport. Though the lights were on, the place looked vacant, and Otto figured he’d get the peace and quiet to make the next call.

  He thought about it long and hard. If he went down this path with White, his career could be over; but if he didn’t—his career could be over! Nice options.

  Obviously, White was up to some bad shit here—Otto just didn’t know what, exactly. He found it difficult to believe that the government’s agenda was White’s, that Washington was behind this antitransgenic crusade. But if he went in now and tried to rat out White, who would believe him? He had no evidence, and what did he have besides his own suspicions?

  Suspicions of what? Evidence of what?

  And what if Ames White’s antitransgenic agenda was the government’s?

  As much as Otto hated to admit it, there seemed only one way to go. Shaking his head, listening to the cover-your-ass voice once again, Otto pulled out his cell phone and dialed Clemente’s home number . . .

  . . . once again, doing the bidding of Ames White.

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  REALITY BITES

  TERMINAL CITY, 3:00 A.M.

  MONDAY, MAY 10, 2021

  Most of the transgenics were deep asleep, catching the peace the waking world refused them, when the call came in from a guard post near the main gate.

  But Max was awake—waiting.

  She keyed the radio. “Say again?”

  The guard said, “Got a guy approaching the main gate. Black dude with two white uniforms tagging along.”

  Looking up at the security camera, she saw Detective Ramon Clemente and two other officers at the gate. “Tell him I’ll be right down,” she told the guard.

  “What’s up?” Dix chimed, unrumpling his clothes as he came up the two stairs to his work area. He apparently slept in that half-goggle “monocle” of his; Whatever, Max thought.

  “Light sleeper?” she asked him.

  “Always. Gotta be, if you wanna make a habit of waking up in the morning. . . . We got visitors?”

  “Time to start talking,” Max said with a nod. “You got a discreet transmitter?”

  The mashed-potato-headed transgenic looked injured. “Of course I do.”

  She grinned. “That’s what I like about you, Dix—always ready.”

  “And willing, and able.” He pinned a tiny microphone to the inside of her black leather vest. “This baby’ll pick up both of you, easy deezy.”

  “Thanks, Dix.” She started off, then had a thought. “Do me a favor?”

  “As long as it’s illegal, sure.”

  “Record this, will you?”

  “You want the audio equiv of a paper trail, huh? No problem.”

  Max skipped down to the door, then snugged on a ball cap and stepped outside. Rain fell steadily, as if God was trying to calm the world, and the night felt damn near cold. As she strode toward the gate, she could make out Clemente, bundled in a dark overcoat, the two cops behind him looking like they would rather be anywhere else.

  “You reading me, Dix?” she said easily.

  “Loud and clear,” came his voice in the minuscule earpiece she wore.

  Max passed between two transgenic guards—fearsome critters designed to give the ordinaries pause—and approached the gate.

  “You wanted me?” Clemente asked by way of a greeting.

  The detective looked only slightly more rested and less stressed than the last time she’d seen him. He wore no hat and the rain ran down his impassive face like tears. His large brown eyes still appeared red-rimmed, and Max couldn’t help but wonder what sort of debriefing the detective had endured.

  “I missed you,” she said, smiling at him.

  The two people who had done the most to keep Jam Pony and its immediate aftermath from turning into a bloodbath faced each other with respect and perhaps a smidgen of affection.

  He gave her a little grin. “I missed you too, Max.”

  “You’re here because you want to be here?”

  “Of course.”

  She didn’t believe him for a second. “If we’re going to make progress here, Detective, you’re going to have to start telling the truth.”

  “It’s the truth, Max. You know I don’t want this to get any uglier than it has to—and that’s not true of everybody on my side of the fence.”

  She knew who he meant: Ames White. And she knew too that White’s influence might spread within the police department. That was why she had wanted Clemente as her police liaison.

  Nodding, she said, “That’s part of what I want to ta
lk about.”

  “So, talk.”

  She shook her head. “Alone—you and me.”

  Now Clemente shook his head. “I have orders to maintain my bodyguards and stay on this side of the fence.”

  “Orders are always contingent upon field conditions, Detective. We talk alone—inside.”

  His expression revealed genuine frustration. “Max . . . I’ve got no power—this is way over my head.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself, Detective Clemente. You’re here now, aren’t you?”

  “Obviously.”

  “And how did it go down? You’re home asleep in your warm dry bed, and someone very important—the police chief maybe, possibly a general—demanded that you get your ass out of bed and haul it down here to the siege site.”

  He grunted a tiny laugh. “That’s about it. Are you psychic, Max?”

  “No—but I was bred to this kind of shit. I don’t like it, but we can’t choose our parents, can we?”

  If so, she thought, I wouldn’t have picked a test tube.

  She gestured in a welcoming fashion. “Come on in out of the rain—somebody on the Seattle PD must be smart enough to do that, right? We’ll get a cup of coffee and talk.”

  He gave her a long look. “If I come in, what about my guards?”

  “The bookends stay out here in the rain. Just you.”

  Clemente eyed the two transgenic sentries. “You’ve got two guards.”

  “They’ll stay here keeping your boys company. Just the two of us, Detective.”

  Nonetheless, Clemente looked uneasy.

  Max stepped closer to the gate. “If I were going to kill you, Detective, you would have been dead Friday—think back . . . I had half a dozen chances.”

  His eyes tightened, acknowledging the truth of that.

  “I need someone trustworthy on your side of this thing, and unfortunately for you, you’re the closest candidate the Seattle PD has provided me, lately.”

  “And you trust me?”

  “So far. You trust me?”

  He thought about that. “You know . . . I think I do.”

  “Then you got two choices, Detective—come in, or leave.”

  Clemente wheeled, said something sotto voce to his two companions, then turned and nodded, curtly.