Popadopoulos sat in the lavatory, waiting for nature to run its course as he read his newspaper. There was no point trying to rush things, he’d long since learned. Things would take as long as they would take…

He raised his head at an odd noise, like rapid hammering. As he listened, he became aware of another sound at the limits of his hearing. Higher pitched-a bell?

The noise suddenly became louder as someone opened the door of the men’s room. It was definitely a bell…

His attention distracted, he lost his grip on a couple of pages and they slipped to the floor. Annoyed, Popadopoulos bent down to retrieve them-

The wooden door of the stall burst into splinters just above his head as a stream of bullets ripped through it, tiles on the back wall shattering and covering him with porcelain fragments.

Popadopoulos decided to keep his head down for a while longer. But at least now he didn’t need to wait for nature.

“Shit! Shit!” Nina threw herself against the table, trying to move it to block the door.

Someone was outside. The door handle turned…

With a final desperate effort, she forced the desk against the door, slamming it shut. Instinctively she ducked below the tabletop, pulling the book down with her-

The door erupted with ragged holes as whoever was on the other side blazed away at it with a silenced machine gun. Nina shrieked, throwing herself to one side. Bullets tore into the desk, blasting holes through the solid wood.

Armor piercers!

The desk wouldn’t provide her with any cover, and neither would anything else in the room-even if she could reach it.

The shooting stopped. The man outside shouted, calling others to him.

She wedged her shoulder under the edge of the table and pushed upwards, straining her muscles to their limits-

The leg lifted. Barely a centimeter-but it was enough.

Nina yanked the chain clear and grabbed the book, hunting for a way out or somewhere to hide. There was neither. She ran to the window and looked out. There was an alley behind the building, but it was five floors down and with no fire escape in sight.

There was a loud bang as someone barged against the door. The desk jolted. More blows, and the door began to open, a little at a time.

If she tried to push the desk back, they could shoot her straight through the door.

The book was like a lead weight in her arms. She’d underestimated how heavy it was; it felt more like thirty pounds than twenty, glass and brass and sheets of metal under the leather combining to turn the thing into her own personal anchor.

But on the other hand, it was solid…

Closing its clasp, Nina rammed one end of the book against the window, shattering the glass. She knocked out the largest shards and looked back. The door was open wide enough for her to see a man with Asian features on the other side peering through at her. His lips curled in expectant triumph as their eyes met and he read her trapped expression. He tried to squeeze a gun through the gap-

Nina scrambled through the window.

There was a very narrow ledge outside, a Deco demarcation of floor level, but it was barely wider than her foot. And apart from the window frame, there was nothing to hold on to. There was no way she could reach another window.

But there was a telephone line, a thick trunk cable serving the whole building, running down from her building across the alley…

Behind her, the banging started up again. The desk scraped across the floor as the door was forced open.

She was over forty feet up, and if she fell she would almost certainly die.

Not that she had a choice.

“Oh, crap…” Nina gasped as she hoisted the book over the phone line, then grabbed the chain as tightly as she could-

And stepped off the ledge.

She dropped almost two feet before the drooping cable snapped taut. Fire seared through her left wrist as the cuff ground against it.

Nina hung on as she slithered down the line. The alley whirled below. She was too scared to scream, watching helplessly as the wall of the building opposite rushed at her-

She pulled up her feet just before impact. The heel of her left shoe broke with a loud crack as it slammed into the brickwork, the jolt driving a hot spike of pain into her knee. The book was jarred from her grip and shot upwards, the chain rasping over the phone line. She fell with a shriek until the book slammed against the cable. The cuff bit into her wrist.

Dangling, Nina kicked off the ruined shoe and took in her surroundings. She was closer to the ground than before, but still two stories up. Dumpsters lined the side of the alley below. Twisting around, she looked back up the phone line to see a face at the broken window-a ponytailed man. He seemed as surprised as she was that she’d made it.

But he still had a gun…

She swatted at the book, trying to flip it back over the top of the cable. It refused to budge. Her own weight was pinning it in place.

“Come on!” she hissed, slapping at the book. It went higher with each blow, but still not enough. “Come on!”

She looked around again. He was taking aim-

The phone line abruptly ripped free of the wall.

Nina screamed as she fell-landing with a wet thump inside an open Dumpster, plastic sacks of trash exploding beneath her. Garbage sprayed everywhere. She sat up, blinking in confusion before shock passed and sensation returned.

Smell, in particular.

“Oh, eurgh!” she wailed, sheer revulsion overcoming all other feelings. But the weight of the book still chained to her wrist rapidly reminded her of her priorities. Struggling to find support on the squishy sacks, she peered nervously over the brim of the Dumpster.

The phone line dangled slackly from beside the empty window. Her attacker had gone.

Her moment of relief was immediately stamped flat. That meant he was coming after her!

She forced herself upright, the contents of the Dumpster squashing revoltingly under her bare foot, and climbed painfully over the side. Kicking off her other shoe, she worked out her location. If the main entrance to the Brotherhood’s “safe” house was to her left…

She went right, cradling the book in her arms. A lifelong Manhattan resident, she only needed a moment to figure out where she was. Police Plaza-headquarters of the NYPD-was just a few blocks away. She would be safe there.

If she could reach it.

Nina emerged from the alley onto a street and searched for help. Not a cop in sight, of course. But there was a guy strolling towards her, sharp suit and slick hair and Bluetooth headset as he chatted to someone on his phone.

He did a double take as she ran to him, weighing her disheveled appearance against the Armani suit beneath the slime and rotting vegetables. “Looks like you need help, babe,” he finally said.

“Oh, ya think?” Nina shrilled. “Call the police, now!”

He gave her a smarmy grin and spoke into his headset. “Have to call you back, bud, it’s Good Samaritan time. Got a real-life damsel in distress. Ciao.”

Nina glanced back up the alley as he ended the call. Four men charged around the far end, guns in their hands. “Shit!”

“Hey, calm down,” said the guy, leisurely tapping the buttons on his phone. “I’m here now, I’ll look after you-”

A chunk of wall by his head was shattered by a bullet.

He let out a girlish shriek. “Second thought, screw this!” he yelled as he ran away.

“Son of a bitch!” Nina shouted at his rapidly retreating back. She sprinted in the opposite direction, heading for Police Plaza. Her pursuers had reached the alley much sooner than she’d expected-there was no way she could stay ahead of them for long, especially with the weight of the book slowing her down…

But maybe there was another way she could lose them.