Chapter Thirty-Nine

Ben almost pitied the two dead men. Whoever they were used to dealing with, they’d been too slow. They just hadn’t seen it coming.

He’d left them where they dropped; found the key in the big one’s pocket and taken both of the silenced Berettas they were packing. Both fully loaded. He nodded to himself, tucked one pistol in his right hip pocket and the other in his back pocket. Glanced quickly around the kitchen. Yanked the knife out of the old chopping board. The stainless-steel blade was serrated and still sharp. He stuck it carefully in his belt.

He’d already figured out his escape route. He strode over to a square hatch on the kitchen wall and yanked up the sliding metal door to reveal the dumb waiter. Next to the three-foot-square hole was a dusty old wall panel with three plastic buttons, two arrow-shaped, one pointing up and the other down, the middle one marked ‘STOP’ in faded writing.

He hit the up button with his palm, hoping the thing still worked after all these years. There was a dull clunk, and the dumb waiter jerked up an inch before he hit the ‘STOP’ button.

Good enough, he thought. The space was just about large enough to cram himself in. It stank of old grease, damp and mouse shit. He reached out from inside, felt for the ‘UP’ arrow and hit it. Felt the dumb waiter jolt under him, and the sensation of rising upwards. He withdrew his arm quickly inside as the wall came down. A glimpse of brickwork and then blackness. The dumb waiter rose up, grinding and vibrating. In the darkness he took one of the pistols and checked it again. There was no telling what he was going to meet up there.

From somewhere over his head there was a screech as though the cables were about to snap. He braced himself but nothing happened. The dumb waiter gave a judder and then stopped. He reached out and pushed gently, opening a pair of double doors three feet square. His guess had been right. He was in the hotel bar, in a little serving area behind the bar itself. He lowered himself out of the hatch, thankful to be out of the claustrophobic space, and crouched down in the dust behind the old bar.

He figured he was on the ground floor. Where would they be keeping Zoë? Upstairs in one of the rooms? It was only a guess, and a vague one, but it was all he had. At least he was close now. Only about a dozen guns in his way. He could worry about that when he started meeting them.

He snapped off the safety on the pistol and crept silently out of the barroom door, sweeping the muzzle left and right, surveying the scene through the sights as he moved cautiously down the murky corridor. He kept in the shadows, tight against the wall, senses fully alert, the gun in front of him, drawing on the ability for complete silence and stealth that had made him legendary among his old regiment. He could hear running footsteps and voices from the lobby. They’d have broken up to hunt for him. Maybe two, three men per team, and probably at least two teams with whoever was left over allocated to guard Zoë’s room.

Up ahead, the corridor was L-shaped and opened up into a wider hallway with doors either side. One was ajar, dusty light streaming out of what must once have been a TV room.

He froze. Someone was coming the other way. Three men running. He shrank back into the shadow, the light from the open door creating enough contrast to mask him. He could have reached out and touched them as they ran by. He let them pass. Quietly snicked off the safety on the pistol.

When the third man was two yards past him he stepped out into the corridor, raised the gun and shot him in the back of the head. The man collapsed, hit the floor and squeaked along the linoleum under his own momentum. Before the other two could register what had happened, Ben fired two more shots in such quick succession that the report of the silenced gun sounded more like one prolonged muted bark than two separate shots. The men’s bodies jerked and they stumbled against each other and went down. A gun slithered across the dusty floor.

Ben gathered up their weapons. More Berettas, all the same model. He ejected the mags out of the three pistols and slipped them in his pockets. Then he stepped over to the three bodies and looked down at them.

He’d never enjoyed the cautionary head-shot. It was something that had been schooled into him a long time ago. He’d never wanted to do this again. But every military tactician since ancient times said it was the right thing to do to make sure your enemy never got up once he was down. It was slaughterhouse-brutal but it made immaculate sense.

Three head-shots at point-blank range with a high-powered handgun is a lot messier than in the movies. Shielding his face against the blood splatter, he did the job fast, stepping from one inert body to the next. The 147-grain semi-jacketed hollowpoint bullets split the men’s skulls apart and blasted brains up the wall. The corridor filled with the ripe stink of blood and death.

There’d be more of it to come. He moved on.

Chapter Forty

Jones dashed along the corridor, stabbing the pistol out in front of him at every turn and doorway. Many of the lights were flickering or dead, casting long black pools of shadow everywhere. He stumbled cursing over a pile of old cardboard boxes and paint cans. Snatched up his radio. ‘Kimble. Talk to me.’

Silence.

‘Shit,’ Jones said. ‘Jorgensen. You still there?’

‘Copy. We’re still up here. No sign of him yet. You?’

‘Nothing. The fucker’s like a ghost. OK. Out.’

Jones rounded a corner. The coppery tang of fresh blood hovered in the air, mingling with the smell of damp and rot. He saw three dark shapes lying in the shadows up ahead. He signalled to Bender and Simmons behind him to halt. They stared at the three dead agents on the floor.

‘That makes five of us he’s taken out, just like that,’ said Bender. ‘He’s just playing with us.’

‘I don’t think splitting up was such a great idea,’ Simmons muttered at his shoulder.

Jones gritted his teeth and nearly screamed at the pain. He wiped sweat out of his eyes. ‘We need more people. A lot more people.’

‘We don’t have any more people,’ Bender said.

‘I can get a hundred men in here and nail that motherfucker,’ Jones spat. ‘I just need to make one call.’ He thought for a moment. It would take a few hours to get reinforcements in place. He’d have a lot of favours to call in first, and the kind of manpower he was thinking of took time to organise.

A fresh idea occurred to him. ‘All right, listen, fuck this. We’re going up to the top floor and join up with the others there. That makes seven. I don’t care how good this guy is, no way can he get past seven of us.’ He grinned. ‘Then we’re going to stick that little bitch Bradbury with the syringe. Right now. I’m tired of waiting games. Let’s find out what she knows.’

‘Slater isn’t going to like it.’

‘To hell with that cowardly bastard. He wants to play leader, he should stick around more.’

They stepped over the dead men and ran on up the corridor. Jones reached the lift first and hammered the button for first floor. They said nothing, faces downcast, as the lift whooshed upwards. Then the doors glided open and Jones was dashing towards his office door.

It was open, lying an inch or so ajar.

He fought to remember. No. He hadn’t left it open. He’d locked it.

He drew his gun. Cold fear began to knot his intestines, and the gun shook in his hand. Control yourself. He held the weapon out in front of him and prodded the door tentatively open with his left hand. It creaked. He pushed it open a little further. He stepped inside the room, heart thumping.

The office was empty.

So was the desk. And the canvas bag had gone.