He pressed for the lobby, then hit the third-floor button just as they passed the fourth floor and exited the elevator into an empty third floor hallway. Reese heard movements behind the closed doors of the two closest apartments, but no one (wisely) came out.
If there were two more gunmen left, they would no doubt be waiting in the lobby. That was the only explanation that made any sense and why Reese felt it was safe enough to abandon the elevator on the third.
He turned left toward the stairwell door as soon as the elevator closed back up and continued down. He didn’t go through the door but instead stood back and waited.
“Well?” Allie said behind him.
“Give them a moment,” he said.
“For what?”
“For them to realize we’re not in the elevator. They’ll figure it out.”
Allie said, “Whatever you do, stay behind me, Iris.”
Then Reese heard it — footsteps in the stairwell. They were coming up fast, and he waited, waited—
Clump-clump-clump! as heavy shoes reached the floor landing directly on the other side of the stairwell door. Reese took a brief step back and unloaded the submachine gun into the door and kept firing until the MP5K was empty. He quickly tossed the weapon, drew his Glock, grabbed the doorknob, and pulled the door open.
A figure lay on the landing on its back, the man’s head dangling off the steps behind him. Blood gushed from holes in his torso, his eyes open and staring up at nothing. A pump-action shotgun lay next to him, but Reese ignored it and stepped over the man and into the stairwell, searching for another target.
Searching, searching…
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
A soft tap from above him, and Reese looked up and saw a figure turning the corner, a pistol in his hand aimed right at Reese’s head—
Bang! from behind him, and the man collapsed and slid down the steps, landing in a pile at Reese’s feet.
Reese looked over at Allie, who was leaning into the stairwell with her Glock.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” she said, and stepped into the room beside him.
Iris, sticking close to Allie, looked down at the two bodies, but if she felt anything at all for them, Reese didn’t see it on her face.
Tough kid. Tougher woman leading her.
Reese followed them down. “You could have let him shot me, then taken him out later.”
“I could have,” Allie said, “but what if they had reinforcements in the lobby?”
He grinned as she leaned around the corner, looking down at the second floor below them.
“Anything?” he asked.
She pulled her head back and shook it.
He moved past her to take point again. Allie followed, with Iris close behind.
The second floor was empty, and they exited into the lobby without any problems. He thought about taking the back door instead, past the super’s office, but decided the distance to the front was closer and worth the risk.
“Come on,” he said, and headed toward the door, grimacing through a sudden flurry of pain.
Just a little longer, just a little longer…
Taking the elevator had been a well-deserved break, but the three stairwell floors had just about undone all of that. But as he made a beeline for the front door, Reese couldn’t help but feel better, almost light on his feet, which allowed him to push through the misery and keep moving.
Halfway to the front door (Christ, I might survive this after all!) Reese found himself thinking about that one million he had coming and wondered how hard it was going to be to convince Allie to give him Dwight’s share. Maybe he could come up with a sob story about Dwight having a wife, or girlfriend, or even better, kids. It wasn’t like Allie would know any different. Yeah, maybe that was the correct approach—
“What about the others?” Allie asked behind him.
“Everyone’s dead,” Reese said. “If they want to leave, there’s nothing to stop them.”
“They don’t know that.”
“Not my problem. We already had this talk, remember?”
Allie didn’t reply, but she stopped, and when he glanced back, saw her looking behind her. Iris stood obediently next to her, rubbing her arms as if she were cold. The girl kept looking at the front door, no doubt thinking about all the freedom waiting for her on the other side. Reese thought she might take off on her own at any second, but she never did.
“Allie,” he said.
She didn’t respond.
“Allie,” he said again, “we have to go.”
But she still didn’t move, and he had started running the scenarios through his head (How the hell was he going to get her out of here without bloodshed? Because he needed her out there; he needed her to release that money that was going to help him run as far away from the organization as possible, with or without Dwight’s share) when he heard it.
It was very soft at first because it was still far off, but it got stronger as it neared.
“You hear that?” he asked.
“Yes,” Allie said, looking back at him.
Police sirens…
“You said the cops were paid off,” Allie said.
“Some, but not all of them,” Reese said. “We left a lot of bodies up there, Allie. They’re not going to be able to cover this up.”
He saw her mind working…
Five seconds, then ten…
All the while, the sirens got louder, and closer…
“Allie,” he said.
She finally turned around. “Let’s get out of here.”
But of course she didn’t let him leave right away. They sat in the old truck almost a full block down and across the street from the organization house and watched as two police cruisers arrived, then two more five minutes later. They gathered outside the tenement and waited, cordoning off the street and diverting traffic.
“Here comes the big guns,” Reese said when a black van appeared and was waved through the sawhorses.
Men in assault vests and ballistic helmets, carrying rifles, climbed out of the back of the newly arrived vehicle.
“SWAT,” Allie said.
“And they’ll go in and clear the building,” Reese said. “The girls will be fine.” He turned in his seat and looked over at Iris in the back. “I guess you risked your life for nothing, kid.”
“I want to go home,” Iris said.
“They’ll take you home.”
“I want to go home now. It’s been so long…” She looked out the window, as if she was already imagining wherever “home” was.
“You said you knew Faith,” Allie said, looking back at the girl.
Iris nodded. “She was already here before me. I guess because we kind of looked alike, they put us together a lot of times.”
“Together?”
“You know, photos, videos, that sort of thing. Together.”
Allie nodded. “Do you know where she is now?”
“They took her away two months ago. She’s not supposed to be back for a while.”
“Where did they take her, Iris?”
“Can I go home now?” Iris asked. Suddenly she looked very young and vulnerable, and Reese couldn’t help but wonder if she was one of the girls stuffed into the trailers of those big rigs he and Dwight had babysat in the past.
If we didn’t do it, someone else would have.
Telling himself that usually worked, but this time it didn’t quite have the same impact. He looked out the windshield at the police action up the street instead, anything to keep him from seeing the tears coming down the girl’s cheeks in the backseat.