Still, she figured they would have to do whatever White asked; her only hope to save Logan — and herself, and the lives of those helping her, and the boy Ray, for that matter — would be to walk into the lion’s den and beard the bastards.
The problem was, she wasn’t sure how to accomplish the vital first step — finding the boy Logan had so skillfully hidden away, a step that Ames White no doubt assumed she would be able to accomplish easily. Without Logan to help her, Max’s efforts would be blocked by Eyes Only’s own security measures, designed to protect the boy from White and the Familiars.
In the kidnappings she and Logan had thwarted together, Logan found the clues, and Max grabbed up the missing person — that was the program, that was how it had always gone down.
Now, with Logan MIA — in fact, with Logan one of two key MIAs — she was left to her own devices to locate the other missing person, Ray, and secure him...
And it wasn’t like Ray was a normal missing person. Logan — a master at concealing people, at giving them new starts — had made the boy disappear, so that he would never be found even by his own father and White’s formidable network of NSA and snake cult allies. She’d be finding a needle in a haystack — only she didn’t even know where the damn haystack was.
They left the carnage of the cemetery behind — should the cops show, they didn’t want to seed the press for another transgenics media storm — and repaired to a small café. Nestled in a back booth, over the warmth of hot steaming cups of coffee, the four comrades sat — Joshua, Alec, and Mole watching her, waiting for her decision.
She was their leader, and they would follow her through the gates of Hell, if necessary; she knew as much, and she appreciated it... and this time, the gates of Hell were exactly where she’d be taking them.
On her cell phone, Max called Dix and quickly laid out the situation.
“Who do you want me to kill?” Dix asked.
“We’ll get to that,” she said. “Right now, it’s your brain I need.”
“Good. I just hate it when women want me for my good looks.”
“Bet you do. I need you and Luke to take a crack at decrypting Logan’s hard drive.”
“Ouch. Couldn’t we just crack the Pentagon data banks, or somethin’ easy? Frickin’ Logan, he’s the best, y’know.”
“I know. But Logan says you and Luke are the best hackers he ever ran into.”
“No shit?”
“None at all,” she said, lying through her teeth. “Get on it.”
“All over it,” Dix promised; but uncertainty peeked out around the edges of his bravado.
She clicked off and looked at her three friends, Joshua next to her in the booth, Alec and Mole across. “Logan hid this kid away so that God couldn’t find him. But we have to.”
“What?” Alec said, frowning. “And turn him over to White?”
Shifting his dead cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, leaning forward, Mole said, “Max — you know I will follow your lead.”
“I appreciate that.”
“But this — big mistake.”
“Why?” she asked, and she couldn’t keep the defensive edge out of her tone.
Mole relighted that stogie; got it going good; then he gazed at her, hard. “Why did Logan hide that kid away? To keep him away from daddy dearest. Now we’re going to do White’s damn dirty work for him? Tell me there’s another way.”
“Is there another way?”
All three just looked at her.
Finally Alec said, “You figure we go through with the exchange and, what? Just vamp? Improvise our way out of it, shooting up as many snake-cult goofballs as we can? And hope for the best?... Again, I have to say it: and you think my plans suck?”
Max said, “What... other... choice... do... we... have?”
“You know what choice we have,” Mole said.
Max said nothing.
“He takes one for the team,” Mole said.
“Logan?” She practically shrieked this response, and hated herself for the “girl” softness of that.
Alec shook his head, but he was agreeing with Mole as he said, “Man knew the risks of gettin’ involved with Eyes Only — that’s how he ended up in the wheelchair in the first place.”
Sitting forward, Max said, “No one knows that better than—”
“You’re a solider, Max,” Mole cut in. “We all are... And so, in his way, is Logan. Do you really think Logan would want you to turn the kid over to White, just like that? After you risked so much rescuin’ the brat? After he put so much effort in saltin’ the kid away? No. No way.”
Max turned to Joshua, whose lionlike features were draped with sorrow. “What do you think, Big Fella?”
Joshua covered his face with a pawlike hand. He was crying.
Max touched his arm. “Joshua...”
“Logan,” Joshua said. “Have to respect... what Logan would want.” He lowered his hand and gazed at her, his hairy face matted with tears. “Mole is right. Logan. Take one. For the team.”
Even Joshua could see it — and now so could she. Everything they were saying was true. But that did not mean she would roll over and allow Logan to die at the hands of Ames White — not while there was breath in her body.
“You’re right,” she said, “and you’re wrong.”
Alec arched an eyebrow.
Mole rolled his stogie around.
Joshua dried his eyes with a napkin.
“You’re right that we can’t just turn Ray over to White,” she said. “That would negate everything Logan stands for — everything we’ve stood for... But we don’t walk away from a brother. We don’t sacrifice any one of us unless we absolutely have to.”
Alec said, “I’m sensing a Plan B.”
She nodded. “We still need to find Ray White. We still need that boy.”
Alec frowned. “We find him... blow his cover... yank the kid out of hiding... and then we don’t turn him over...?”
“That’s right — and, Alec, my plan doesn’t suck.”
“Of what use is Ray White to us,” Alec said, “if we don’t turn him over?”
But Mole was ahead of the X5, eyes tight in the lizard face. “Bait.”
Max smiled and nodded. “Got it in one, Mole.”
But Alec and Joshua weren’t on the same page, the former shaking his head, the other squinting in confusion.
Max pressed on: “Ames White is going to insist on talking to Ray at some point.”
“A given,” said Mole.
“Well, if we’ve got the kid, even for White just to talk to on the phone, if he knows we really have the boy, we’ve got a chance of getting Logan back. Or do you really wanna walk away and let Logan Cale ‘take one for the team’?”
Alec, typically, just cocked his head like a beagle who wasn’t sure he’d understood the question.
“We gotta try,” Mole said. “He’d do the same for us.”
“How about you, Alec?” Max asked.
“What?”
“Do we walk away?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I mean... hell, no.”
The self-absorbed X5 still didn’t seem to be fully on board, but at least he wasn’t fighting her anymore.
Mole said, “Max, one thing is understood... we don’t give the kid up to White under any circumstances.”
She’d lost her head for a while, allowing her feelings for Logan to cloud the bigger picture. Now her friends had her back on track. They would use Ray to draw White out, but that was all.
She said, “No way White gets the boy. No way in hell.”
Alec lifted his coffee cup. “I’m in,” he said, and they toasted — Joshua hitting the cups a little too hard, spilling some coffee.