The elevator doors were sliding open, the car blessedly empty, and he launched himself inside before repeatedly punching LOBBY and DOOR CLOSE.
The doors remained motionless.
The unmistakable sound of the fire door being opened reached his ears. A male voice was drowning out the girls’ startled reply.
Finally the elevator doors began to close, but there were heavy footsteps now running in his direction. The doors moved in slow motion, now halfway closed. Robert tucked himself into a forward corner to stay out of sight just as the footsteps reached a crescendo and a male hand thrust into the remaining crack, grabbing the door and struggling to reopen it. The doors kept closing relentlessly, and the hand was withdrawn.
The elevator began its descent, the soft noise drowned out by the pounding in Robert MacCabe’s head. He quickly secured the computer case on top of the roll-on bag and extended the handle. If he could lose his expression of panic and move into the lobby like a normal guest, maybe he could meld into the crowd and find a taxi.
The lobby! He’ll radio down and have someone waiting!
He punched MEZZANINE just in time, stopping the elevator one floor above the lobby level, and stepped out as soon as the doors opened. The lobby was visible from the upper railing of the balcony, and he moved quickly toward it, surveying the crowd and spotting two dark-suited men leaping onto the escalator and taking the moving steps two at a time, both of them holding walkie-talkies.
Another surge of adrenaline coursed through his system, propelling him down the nearest hallway, through a pair of double doors, and into a large service bay behind the convention and ballroom areas. He could hear employees on both sides of the large hall talking, but no one was paying any attention to him as he ran the length of the hallway and down two flights through another set of doors into the steam-filled hotel laundry, racing past startled employees to a small stairway on the far wall. There were several angry shouts, but no one moved to stop him.
Robert yanked open the door and stepped into a dark, wet alleyway behind the hotel. He slammed the heavy metal fire door behind him, feeling deliverance in its reverberation.
The alley ran to an adjacent street, and he raced the entire length, moving into the flowing crowd and blending with it before realizing that it was carrying him back toward the main hotel entrance.
A surge of guests spilled from the interior of the hotel through the main entrance doors, tangling with the city crowd as they moved onto waiting buses, each of them happily chatting with friends, and each of them carrying a familiar shopping bag.
He looked more closely at one of the bags, recognition coming as a shock. There were hundreds of them, each emblazoned with a Mercedes-Benz emblem.
Robert MacCabe stopped in his tracks, shaking his head. The Mercedes bag he had seen on the thirty-second floor could have belonged to anyone. They were all over the hotel. He’d panicked for nothing.
But what about the pursuer in the stairwell? Hadn’t he come through a locked stairway door…
Good grief! Of course! Robert thought, wincing. He had a key because he was hotel security! I probably set off an alarm when I opened the stairwell door.
He felt like an idiot as he took a deep breath and began walking calmly toward the main doors, adrenaline making his legs wobbly. Obviously no one had been chasing him. He’d allowed his imagination to get the best of him, building on what had probably been a simple burglary unconnected with terrorism or Cuban crashes or potentially overheard conversations with FBI agents.
I’d sure make a lousy spy! Robert thought. Jumping out of my skin every time the phone rings.
The aromas of Hong Kong began to awaken his other senses, the pungent smell of various seafoods and the essence of fresh garbage mixing with a delicious smell from a steakhouse grill. The street was glistening with moisture from a passing shower, the lights reflecting from the surface of the street in a kaleidoscope of colors.
He looked at the hotel entrance and checked his watch. He’d have to hurry to report the burglary and check out by phone. There was barely enough time to get a cab.
The hotel driveway where the taxis were waiting was incredibly crowded, and Robert had to push into an incoming group of conventioneers, several of whom seemed to be pushing back — one on his left and one on his right — pressing in on both sides and herding him away from the main entrance door as he struggled to hold on to his bag and computer case.
It was no use. Their rudeness was ridiculous, and Robert stopped suddenly to let the two men go ahead. But both of them stopped, too, and at the same moment he felt something hard and metallic poke into his right rib cage.
“That’s a gun barrel,” the man on the right said quietly.
“What… what do you want?” Robert managed.
“Keep walking. Keep looking straight ahead.”
Robert tried to twist away, but firm hands clamped down on his arms as his hand was ripped from the handle of his bag. The voice was in his ear again. “I have a silencer, Mr. MacCabe.”
American accent, Robert concluded, the thought scaring him even more.
“It’s aimed very accurately at your backbone. One more try to wiggle away and you’ll hear a small pop as a nine-millimeter bullet bores in and efficiently severs your spine, and we’ll simply disappear. Or you can cooperate and keep your legs.”
“Okay, okay. I’m walking. Who are you?”
The barrel was thrust harder into his side. Robert winced with pain. “Shut up,” the voice said.
“Look, I don’t…”
“I SAID SHUT UP!” It was more an intense snarl right in his ear than a shout, but the effect was the same.
Looking ahead, Robert could see a dark sedan waiting at the curb and the heavyset man from the thirty-second-floor elevator emerging from the passenger side to open the rear door, his face devoid of expression.
“Where are the bags?” the man by the car asked.
“Got ’em,” the gunman replied. The man on Robert’s left released his arms as the one with the gun pushed him toward the backseat.
Robert felt time distend. Whoever they were, if he got in the car he was dead. Of that he was sure. He had less than a few seconds to act, and no idea what to do.
The gun barrel was withdrawn from his right side as one of the men started around to the other side of the car. The burly one climbed into the passenger seat, leaving only the gunman between Robert and a slim chance of escape.
Robert turned to his right to look at the gunman, a sudden move that startled the man and caused the barrel to rise again.
“You did get my computer, didn’t you?” Robert asked.
The man smiled an evil smile, not caring that his face was fully visible. It was obvious he didn’t expect the reporter to live long enough to identify him, a confirmation of Robert MacCabe’s death sentence.
“How good of you to ask, Mr. MacCabe. That’s precisely what we were looking for, as a matter of fact. Pity you didn’t leave it in your room.” He held up the computer case with his left hand as he let the aim of the pistol in his right hand drop toward the pavement, its barrel clearly visible to Robert.
There was no silencer.
The energy behind the sudden kick of Robert MacCabe’s right leg encompassed every ounce of his will to live. His aim was perfect; the toe of his size-eleven shoe catching the gunman squarely in the crotch and literally lifting him into the air. A piercing cry of pain punctuated the air, followed by the roar of the gun firing wildly as it left the injured man’s flailing right hand. The crowd cringed and turned in his direction to see what was happening.