The stairwell door blew open to my left, ricocheting off the wall. Al-Jib dashed out. I brought the gun up and tried to track him, but he had already gone around the corner.
The door blew open again. I spun back toward it. This time it was Delilah. She stuck her head out and checked left and right, the Kimber in a two-handed grip just below her chin. She saw me and said, “Where did he go? Which way?”
“Where’s Hilger?” I said.
“Upstairs! Goddamn you, where is Al-Jib!”
I cocked my head to the left. She took off without another word.
I turned and took two steps toward the guard’s desk. I stopped. I took one more step. Then I said, “Fuck!” I turned and ran after Delilah, heaving the attaché in the direction of the dumpster en route.
I saw her head into Statue Square park and sprinted after her. She raced past one of the fountains inside, the couples sitting around it turning their heads to watch as she blew by them. I sprinted after her, dodging pedestrians. We crossed the square, then weaved through the thick traffic on Chater Road. I could see Al-Jib, about fifteen meters ahead of Delilah. He was running flat out but she was gaining. Damn, she was fast.
He bolted across Connaught without slowing at all. A taxi screeched to a halt in front of him, the driver laying on the horn. Al-Jib knocked down a pedestrian but kept going. Someone yelled something. The cab started to move forward again and then Delilah cut in front of it. The driver laid on the horn again. I flew past him a few paces behind Delilah.
Al-Jib raced up Edinburgh, toward the Star Ferry. If his timing was bad, he was about to meet a dead end, in the form of the southern end of Victoria Harbor. If his timing was good, though, he might just catch a departing ferry. The Star Ferry route between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui has been a major commuting line between Hong Kong and Kowloon for over a century, and the enormous, two-deck, open-air pedestrian ferries, some seemingly as old as the inception of the service, depart every seven minutes, each usually jammed with hundreds of passengers.
Al-Jib ran into the ferry terminal. Delilah followed him. I got inside a few seconds later and looked around. There were crowds of people and for a second I looked around wildly, not seeing her. Then I spotted a disturbance in the crowd on one of the stairwells-there she was, heading up the stairs. A woman was getting up from the floor and was yelling. Delilah must have lost Al-Jib for a moment, then figured out he had knocked over the woman tearing up the stairs. I followed, just a few lengths behind now. A crowd of passengers was heading down the stairs to our left. Shit, a ferry had come in a minute or two earlier-that meant it would already be leaving. We got to the concourse level and I saw Al-Jib, far ahead now. He seemed to recognize his desperate opportunity. He sprinted faster, vaulting over the turnstiles to the departure pier. He knocked a table over as he leaped and coins spilled to the concrete floor. The attendant bellowed something in Chinese.
We went over the turnstiles after him. The pier was empty-the passengers had already boarded the ferry. A worker stood along the gunwale on the lower deck, using a pole to push the lumbering craft from the pier. Al-Jib sprinted straight toward the boat, leaped, and fell across the guardrail, nearly knocking the worker over in the process. Delilah followed two meters behind him. I saw her leap onto the guardrail and pull herself over. The worker shouted something but didn’t try to stop the boat. It kept moving forward. Its stern was about to pull clear of the end of the pier.
I shoved the.38 into the back of my pants and kept running. Come on, come on.. .
Even as I launched myself through the air, I saw that I wasn’t going to make it. I slammed into one of the old tires strung up just below the deck to cushion the boat while it was docking. The tire might have been adequate for watercraft, but seemed to offer considerably less padding for a human torso, and I had the wind partially knocked out of me. But I was able to haul myself up to the guardrail. I scrambled over it onto the deck and rolled to my feet.
Delilah and Al-Jib had disappeared into the mass of passengers, but there was a path of sorts, slightly less packed with people than the areas around it, that told me where to look. I pulled the pistol and set off into the crowd. I was glad there were no security people on board to complicate things. The Star Ferry is about as secure as a sidewalk.
But after just a few meters, the path I’d been following closed up. There were scores of people down here, maybe hundreds, and I couldn’t pick up any vibe in the crowd that might have indicated where Delilah and Al-Jib had headed. In less than seven minutes, we’d be landing in Kowloon. It would be hard to stop him from leaping onto the pier there as we were docking and taking off into the crowd. We had to contain him here.
I moved toward the stern, beyond the rows of wooden seats, but couldn’t see through the mass of people who hadn’t gotten seats and were standing. “Delilah?” I called out. “Delilah!”
“Here,” I heard her say, from somewhere in front of me. “I…”
Something cut her off. I heard the report of a big gun. There were screams. Suddenly the crowd was shoving back toward me. The people ahead were trying to get away from the shooting.
I pushed forward. All at once, the crowd was behind me like a receding tide. And then I saw.
Somehow Al-Jib had gotten behind Delilah and managed to wrest the Kimber from her. He was standing behind her, one arm around her neck, the other holding the barrel of the gun to her temple.
I stopped, pulled the.38, and pointed it at him with a two-handed grip. They were eight meters away. I was still winded from the chase, and the deck of the ferry was rolling with the harbor’s currents. And Al-Jib was holding her like a shield, with only part of his head exposed. I was too far to risk the shot.
“Drop the gun!” he screamed. “Drop it or by Allah I will put her brains on the floor!”
“Don’t,” I said, as calmly as I could. “Because then I’ll have to put your brains on the floor, too.”
“Drop it! Drop it!” he screamed again.
“Listen,” I said over the wind that was blowing across the deck. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t care. My business was with Manny, and that business is done. As far as I’m concerned, you’re free to leave. But not if you harm the lady. Then I have to kill you, understand?”
He looked at me, his eyes desperate, but I could tell he was thinking. He couldn’t shoot Delilah. If he did, in the time it took him to bring the gun around to me I would turn him into hamburger.
“Let’s think this through,” I said. “Let’s find a way to all walk away from here. Why don’t you lower your gun a little. And then I’ll lower mine a little. And then we’ll go from there.”
He started to relax, just slightly. I thought, Okay.
“No!” Delilah shouted. “Shoot him!”
Goddamnit, I would if you would just work with me…
Al-Jib’s grip around her neck tightened. “Drop the gun!” he screamed again.
Delilah was staring at me, her eyes full of rage. “Shoot him!” she rasped. “Goddamn you, shoot him!”
He was choking her, intentionally or unintentionally, I didn’t know. I realized I was losing control of the situation. He was so strung out he might pull the trigger without even meaning to. Or he might shoot just to shut her up. Or he might otherwise miscalculate.
“Drop the fucking gun!” he screamed again. “Or I swear…”
In one smooth motion, Delilah shrugged her head downward and slapped the gun up with her right hand. It discharged into the ceiling. I was so juiced with adrenaline it sounded like not more than a firecracker.
Al-Jib started to bring the gun back down. Delilah caught it in both hands. It discharged again.
I moved in. Delilah was between us, in front of his torso, and they were moving. I was still too far to risk the shot.