“Rad. Point the way.”
Logan showed his guest to the bedroom.
Seth flopped onto the bed, saying, “Call me when your computer has good news for us.”
“Will do.”
“And why don't you catch some z's? You look like shit, partner.”
Half a smile dimpled Logan's lightly bearded cheek. “Manticore wasn't big on tact, either, I see.”
“Isn't that something you put on the teacher's chair?”
The two smiled at each other… and, for the first time, felt like friends.
FEDERAL BUILDING
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, 2019
Donald Lydecker was livid.
Normally a man whose emotions were held in tight check, Lydecker— in a gray zippered jacket, black T-shirt and black jeans— stood in an FBI office in the Federal Building at Second and Madison, his temper taxed to its limits.
“You're not going to help,” he said, “with a matter of national security?”
“I didn't say that,” said Special Agent in Charge Gino Arcotta, seated behind a desk piled with work. “Not exactly.”
Arcotta was a thin, fit man of thirty-eight, his short hair black and curly, his angular face cleanly shaven, his brown eyes alert and sharp.
“What I said,” he continued, “is that I don't have any men available to assist you, right now.”
“Perhaps I'm not making myself clear,” Lydecker said. “This is a matter of… ”
“National security,” Arcotta said wearily, with just a touch of temper, himself. “Colonel, let me be perfectly clear… ”
Lydecker thought.
“This office is manned by six agents, three on days, three on nights. That's all the manpower Washington has allotted us… and even with that small a staff, we can't stay within our budget.”
“My budget is tight, too. That doesn't mean we shirk our responsibilities.”
Arcotta continued on, as if Lydecker hadn't even spoken: “Now, of the three day-shift agents, two are investigating a bank robbery across town. All three night-shift agents are investigating a kidnapping and are at this moment… ” He checked his watch. “… in the sixteenth hour of their tour.”
“Even one man would be helpful, Agent Arcotta.”
“Colonel, the last day-shift agent is me… and this desk does not go unmanned; that's policy. Tell me, sir… where do you suppose I'm going to find agents to assign to you?”
“I can think of one place you might look,” Lydecker said sweetly, and exited the office like a man fleeing a burning building.
He wasn't going to get any help on the federal level, that was obvious. His own men wouldn't be here for another twenty-four hours, due to unsafe weather conditions grounding their aircraft in Wyoming.
Well, if he couldn't get help from the feds, he'd go farther down the food chain…
Twenty minutes later, he stood across a desk from a police lieutenant.
“Four men for twenty-four hours,” Lydecker said. “That's all I need.”
The lieutenant— balding, forty, his teeth brown from cigarettes, hazel eyes in droopy pouches from too many years on the job— said, “How about twenty-four men, for four hours? Couldn't do that, either.”
Lydecker opened his fist to reveal a rubber-banded roll of bills; then he closed his fist again. “You look like a reasonable man— I can't believe that we can't reach some sort of compromise.”
The lieutenant was hypnotized by Lydecker's fist, which periodically opened— as if he were doing a flexing exercise with the roll of money— to provide green glimpses.
“All I need, Lieutenant, are four men, hell,
men, for twenty-four hours… until my own people get here.”
“We'd have to shake on it,” the lieutenant said.
Lydecker extended the hand with the roll of money, shook with the lieutenant, and brought the hand back, empty. He tossed a card on the desk. “My hotel is on the back… one hour.”
An hour later, in the hotel bar, Lydecker and his cup of coffee sat across a booth from two detectives and their beers; ancient Frank Sinatra ballads were filtering in over a scratchy sound system, and the smoke was stale enough to be left over from Rat Pack days, too.
The older plainclothes dick, in his fifties, looked to still be in pretty good shape, but his face was pallid, his dark eyes sad, his brown hair cut short and graying at the temples; his name was Rush, though he didn't seem to be in much of one. The younger dick, Davis, was thirty or so, with reddish hair, light complexion, and pale blue eyes.
“So,” Rush said, “the lieutenant said you needed help.”
“Yeah. Looking for somebody wanted in a federal matter.”
“We don't usually back up ‘federal matters,' Colonel. What's wrong with the FBI?”
“I heard in this town, you want something done, you go to the PD— was I told wrong?”
“Truer words were never spoken,” Rush said. “Your perp got a name?”
“Sort of.” Lydecker looked from Rush to Davis and back again. “Eyes Only.”
The detectives exchanged wary glances.
“I need to find him.”
Rush snorted. “Good luck. Give him our best.”
“There's got to be a way. Look at how you people lock down sectors, those hoverdrones everywhere—”
“Colonel.” Davis spoke for the first time. “We've been seekin' Eyes Only for
now… and we don't know one thing more than the day we started. He's careful, he's smart, apparently funded up the wazoo… and anybody who has had any dealings with him is absolutely loyal to him.”
“It's like trying to get a cult member to rat out their screwball messiah,” Rush said.
Lydecker twitched a nonsmile. “Well… there's a second suspect—
to Eyes Only.” He withdrew from his inside jacket pocket a handful of stills taken from the SNN video of Seth. “Recognize him?”
They each took some of the photos and riffled through them, then exchanged sharp expressions.
Perking up, Rush asked, “You know this character's name?”
“I was kind of hoping you would,” Lydecker said gently. “I
you must recognize some of his playmates… those Seattle cops he's throwing around like confetti.”
“Listen,” Rush said, leaning forward. “All we know is this kid beat the shit out of some very good people… and we would seriously like to pick his ass up.”
“And put it down hard,” Davis added.
“Sounds like we're on the same page,” Lydecker said. “But is that really all you know about this boy? You don't know
he got into this tussle with your brothers in blue? Convenience-store robbery? Flashing schoolkids? What?”
Rush exchanged another look with Davis, who shrugged. Then the older cop said, “Guy named Ryan Devane, sector chief, powerful guy… Kid was interfering with his business.”
Davis said bluntly, “Hijacking payoffs.”
“Kid mixed it up with our boys,” Rush said. “And you never seen anything like it… got away clean. And now, Devane ain't been seen in several days.”
Lydecker, proud of his rebellious student, said, “Then Devane is dead… This is a remarkable young man.”
