Chapter Thirteen: What Now?

Three weeks later:

Max sat on the couch staring blankly across the space before her, absently squeezing her index finger as had become habit after two weeks of testing it for feeling. It had been intermittently numb since her brush with death. Sam had said the sensation would pass as the swelling came down, and the bone in her arm began to set. The color was returning to normal in her fingers and she was able to move them more and more each day, Sam had taken the splints off just two days ago. Her arm was healing faster than Sam had expected and he said the cast would probably be removed in a week and a half. Squeezing her finger was now just a nervous tick, something she did when she needed to think. Right now she had a lot to think about.

Zach and Tima had come to her just a day after she had awakened and she had been adamant that they go to the base and reconnoiter Logan's where a bouts. They had beaten her to it, relaying their preliminary findings to her, albeit reluctantly. He had not been delivered to that base previous to or while they were there. They did now want to upset her with the news because they had been fearful she would become depressed or else become rash with her anger and try to go after him on her own. She was in no condition to do that. She had been upset at the news certainly, angry initially, but it was not altogether unexpected. Not where Lydecker was concerned.

They had since gone back taking turns searching the facility for signs of him, sneaking onto the grounds at odd hours to nose around in the "abandoned area". They had tried for nearly a week and it had availed them nothing except for a few volleys of badly placed gunfire. Their first assessment had been proved right, they had taken Logan to a different facility altogether. The question then became where? Were they still in the state with him or had they taken him back to Wyoming, into Oregon, or someplace they had no hope of finding in the near future?

Zach, Tima, and Tinga were here, and they were all supposed to be discussing courses of action in their so far futile search for Logan. The three of them were taking turns reporting what they had found. She sat listening absently to them talk about possible destinations and the leads that they had so far. Max couldn't think straight, her heart sinking lower the longer she thought on the predicament

She pushed down a wave of nausea that threatened to send her back to the bathroom for the third time in ten minutes. Her pregnancy was not helping her concentration in the slightest, between the morning sickness, the cramps, and her urges to eat odd things, she was thinking of everything else but the matter at hand. This one seemed worse than the ones that she could remember, but she was unable to tell herself that it was a bad thing. Except for her first pregnancy, which was only a little better than this one, all of her miscarried attempts had been so mild that she normally had not known she was even pregnant until the sharp cramps started warning her of impending loss of the fetus. She wanted to attribute it to her drug induced cooperation.

When she had expressed her concern, Sam had told her that every pregnancy was different, and that just because the symptoms were worse did not necessarily indicate a problem. He had also assured her that the vitals on her child seemed to be just fine, and the fetus was still progressing normally. He had scheduled to see her once a week, due to her previous inability to carry for any real length of time, putting her into the high-risk pregnancy category.

She was possessed even now with an overwhelming need to get involved somehow with the search. She wanted to go with her brothers and sisters to investigate leads, she wanted to take out her frustration on a few scumbags, kick a little ass. But alas, Sam had admonished her to take it easy, keeping her activity to mild exercise to stay in shape and no more. He did not want to put any more stress on the baby than had already taken place. Neither did she, she therefore, begrudgingly, took his advice to heart, letting Zach Tinga and Tima do the "leg-work" for her.

She relegated herself to trying to convince Logan's Eye's Only contacts to divulge some pertinent information in regards to their search, and using Logan's influence with the police department to try to shake something up. Logan's contacts were a skittish lot of people as she was quick to discover, even through the Internet they seemed to sense that they were not talking to Logan. To a person, they had become tightlipped rather quickly, shelling up as she asked questions or rudely cutting the connection to Logan's computer and not even his hacker programs could trace and reconnect her. They were as good as he was it seemed when it came to keeping hidden. She had been forced to reveal the circumstances for her request to the strangers reading on the other end. Once she had made clear to them what was at stake they were a little more cooperative. Unfortunately that outlet of information had yet to bear fruit.

She felt sluggish on the computer compared to what she used to see Logan do. She was good on the machines but she was no match for Logan's Multi Tasking prowess. If she had to say that Logan had a Manticore powered specialty that would have to be it, his mental capacity had far exceeded any Manticore she could name. Maybe exceeded was the wrong word, it more paralleled their ability, applied in different ways. They had always been taught technicals dealing with being a soldier; infiltration, hit and run, a little bit of hacking, some programming, overriding systems, telecommunications and the like. Logan had just applied his talent to something that he was already good at, programming and hacking, and made it exponentially better. Given just about any existing system, including some of the top computers in the country and he could break the code, access any information he wanted and be back out of the system before they had even know there was a breach. He was that fast, and he was that good, she had seen him do it.

Her thoughts again turned to that fateful day and to the events that had happened, and invariably that would bring her thoughts back around to Kito, and every time her insides would twist with guilt as if she was somehow responsible for what had happened to him.

Kito remained in critical condition in the hospital, having lapsed into a coma. Further X-rays had revealed that the swelling had eased inside his skull, but there were signs of brain damage at the site where the swelling had been the most severe. His face had healed almost to the point that you couldn't tell that Bryn had beaten him nearly to death. But there were no signs of consciousness, and he was unable to breathe without the help of the ventilator. Sam had been unable to give Max any kind of news on whether or not he would pull through nor what condition he would be in mentally if he were to recover. It was too bad too, there was a very good chance that he might have information on where the bases throughout the west might be, and the likeliest candidate for Logan's incarceration. It sounded like he would be lucky to know his own name when and if he ever woke again.

Max glanced up at the faces of her friends, only feeling slightly more comfortable with them here. They were now discussing something amongst themselves, having discovered her to be unresponsive to their queries.

Max's head came up as something Zach was saying had caught her ear. Her attention focused sharply on him as she said, "Wait…repeat that?"

Zach paused his mouth slightly open, but he recovered a moment later, "I talked to one of the doormen," He paused, "He said on that day he had seen a group of what he thought were police, taking an unconscious man out of the tower. He thought that it was some sort of stake out or shake down. It has been happening a lot here lately he said. Not everyone in the tower district came by their money legally it seems, go figure. But the reason it stood out in his mind was that they put the man into the back of an unmarked delivery van, not a police vehicle. The woman who escorted him was a dark skinned woman with a barcode bleached on her forehead."

Max's eyes widened, "Did he get a look at the license plate?" Max said overly loud, hoping this was the break that they needed.

Zach shook his head, and Max looked away her jaw working furiously, "What about Commissioner Sung? He should be able to tell us if a van had been stolen from the area or something."

Max looked up at her brother smiling a little, "I'll go contact him," She stood quickly, and was overcome by a wave of nausea and dizziness. Two sets of hands caught her when she would have fallen to the floor. She quickly pointed the direction of the bathroom unable to speak as her face flushed red with her pending round of nausea and her friends quickly ushered her there before she spoiled Logan's expensive rug.

The persistent ringing of the phone woke Max from her unexpected doze on the couch. She startled sitting bolt upright, and leaning accidentally on her injured arm. She grimaced as it began to ache and she cradled it to her chest as she leaned over to pick up the receiver. She blinked several times trying to get her eyes to focus.

"Hello?" She said tersely, trying to stave off another round with her seemingly endless morning sickness.

"Max?"

"Matt?" She asked suddenly completely awake and alert, "Tell me you got something?"

"I've got something," Matt said cheerily, "That lead you gave me, about the truck?"

"Yes?"

"Well it was never stolen, we know that much, at least no one reported it."

"Oh," she said in disappointment, "I thought you said you had something," She growled thinking he was playing a game with her. If so it was very bad timing.

"I do," Matt said, "I just got a call from a friend down in Portland. He received a report of an abandoned refrigeration truck found at one of the old rest stops near the city. It matches the description you gave me of the getaway vehicle, and the license plates are from Washington State. They were going to impound the vehicle, but I told them it was a suspect vehicle in a kidnapping so they are holding off pending our investigation. I am calling because I thought you would like you to come along. I could use your opinion on what exactly happened to him."

Max was silent for a long time, considering Sam's advice and the advisability of a long distance trip in her condition, "I don't know Matt, I'm not supposed to be doing any kind of travelling. Doctors orders."

"Oh," Matt said sounding disappointed, "OK then I will call you from there and let you know what we find how's that?"

"Uh huh," Max answered unsurely, that want to be involved pricking at the back of her mind again.

"I'll talk to you then," Matt said simply.

"Wait!" Max shouted into the headset trying to catch him before he hung up.

"What?"

She went silent again, rubbing her forehead slowly. She grimaced at the thought of what she was about to do. But, her drive to do something overwhelmed her sense of caution and she finally replied, "Where do you want me to meet you?"

Hours later they arrived by helicopter at the rest stop that held a possibly vital clue as to the whereabouts of her missing husband. They landed at one end of the abandoned lot trying not to do anything to disturb the vehicle that stood starkly white against the evergreen backdrop at the other end of the lot.

Max stepped out of the 'copter, ducking low as she cleared the still slowing rotor blades, Matt was a step behind her as they made their way across the sizable piece of asphalt that separated the two vehicles. She made haste that argued against her condition, eager to find some shred of evidence that she was on the right trail. She stopped short as she neared the truck suddenly shaking unsure that she wanted to look, afraid that she would find nothing, and she was not prepared for that.

Matt stepped up next to her, "You Ok?" he asked her with genuine concern.

"Yeah," She said suddenly meeting his gaze, almost as if to steady herself, "Just a little nervous."

She looked at him for long moments noting how the years had been very kind to him, despite his overwhelming workload as Commissioner of the Seattle Police. His black hair had peppered a bit, and his formerly thin Asian face was a little rounder than it had been when she had known him as a detective.

His enthusiasm for doing the right thing had not diminished through the tough years on the force. It would have been easy to just give in to the bribery and corruption that had permeated the department since he had been a cop, but somehow his purpose had stayed pure.

Now he was in a position where he could change all that, and he had made a lot of strides toward cleaning the department up. He had become merciless in the prosecution of the corrupt within the walls of his building. That had made him some very strong enemies both within and without, but somehow he had managed to dodge bullets that others before him couldn't manage to.

The back of the truck was open and slowly the two of them stepped up inside of it. Slowly Max cast her gaze across the seemingly empty bed. To one side of the bed area was a short bench bolted to the floor of the truck for stability. Across from her was a small window that looked toward the cab of the truck. All else was bare. Her shoulders sagged as she looked around again, unwilling to believe that there was nothing here.

"I'll go check the cab," Matt offered quietly and stepped down from the bed. She stared absently at the floor wondering again what she was hoping to find…a miracle perhaps. Her eyes shifted as Matt's shadow passed across the small ice etched window between them. Suddenly she was very tired and feeling slightly sick. Slowly she moved to the small bench and sat down awaiting Matt's report about anything found in the cab. She looked down at her hands, chewing her lip and wondering what was next. She cast her gaze around the desolate looking truck. Her brow furrowed as the light from the outside cast long shadows from something across the way from her, showing where the wood on the floor had been creased somehow. Sharp splinters stood at odd angles from the spot casting long spikes of shadow across the floor. Slowly she stood again, moving across to the approximate location of the shadow origin. She stepped to one side allowing the light to cast across the floor again pinpointing where she had seen it. Max then leaned down running her hands across the shallow depressions in the pine planking of the floor. She had a hard time making out what was there, nearly convincing herself that it was just random depressions in the floor, recent but random. When she moved aside again and the light played across it she was able to discern that they were letters or numbers, one set on top of another set, "Seventy-thirty?" She muttered to herself looking at it upside down, "Odds?" No that did seem right, if it was, whoever wrote it was dyslexic. She shifted her body to a position opposite and looking at the wall she had just come from. Her eyes narrowed and she refocused bringing them into sharper focus, "L…C…E…O," She sucked in a sharp breath, "Matt!" She hollered as hope rose inside her again.

Matt was back beside her in an instant, "There is nothing to identify who had this beast, no registration no physical evidence. The cab is probably the cleanest I have seen in all my years on the force."

Max nodded and then pointed down with her still cast hand to the broken wood before her. He knelt next to her staring down at the letters that had been lightly and hastily etched into the bed of the truck, "L-C-E-O? I don't get it?" Matt said after a moment of staring into Max's suddenly bright eyes.

"No?" Max said shortly then looked down at the letters and pointed each one out saying, "Logan-Cale-Eye's-Only. He was here Matt…he was here! He left this here for someone who knew him to find."

Matt's face lit up as the realization hit him, "That would explain a lot about what I found outside."

Matt motioned her outside, assisting her down from the bed and leading her to a place where some dirt had drifted across the pavement. Boot-prints riddled the small pile of dirt, military issue of several different sizes. In the middle of them partially decimated by the milling boots and the still blowing wind was one print that was barefoot, "About four blocks from the apartment as you know we found everything that he had been wearing that day." He needn't say anymore, Max knew, the print was Logan's.

"There is evidence of several vehicles being parked off the side of the lot here under the trees as if to remain hidden from any airborne watchers, including the police satellite. The tire treads are widely spaced from each other, telling me that they were military transports. They drove off but so far there is no sign of which way they might have gone."

They stayed until it was too dark to see trying to find another tire track that would give them an indication of which way the convoy of Humvee's had gone. Slowly as the dark became pitch, they gave up the search and headed back to the chopper, "What now?" Max asked softly.

Matt shrugged as he helped her into the cabin, "Something will turn up, at least we know that they were heading south."