‘ There!’ Myrna almost shouted, pointing to a screen. ‘Focus in there!’
The operator did as instructed.
‘ Shit,’ she said with disappointment as the high powered lens zoomed in. It wasn’t Kruger.
The frustration she was feeling could have been sliced open with a breadknife. Ever since Tapperman had called her at home with an hysterical edge to his voice and. explained what had happened, Myrna had been on a high.
Suppose Kruger had gone storming to the airport? Suppose he’d got himself involved in a situation he couldn’t handle? Suppose he was already dead meat?
Myrna had initially hung up on Tapperman and phoned Kruger. No reply. She called Tapperman again and instructed him to get a SWAT squad to the airport.
He had guffawed. ‘Just on the off-chance — impossible!’
‘ At least get some cops up there.’
‘ Right. And do you know how many cops are on-duty at this moment in Miami as we speak?’
‘ No.’
‘ Well, I ain’t gonna tell you. Suffice to say the public thinks there’s hundreds. I’d be lucky to scrape a dozen unoccupied officers together. No resources, babe. Usual story.’
‘ Then you’d better get yourself there. I’ll see you at the meeting point in twenty minutes.’ And she slammed the phone down without waiting for a response.
Myrna dressed in seconds. Tracksuit, trainers, her pistol around her shoulder. She kissed her sleeping husband and, grabbing her cell-tel on the way out, ran to her car. She constantly rang Kruger’s home and mobile numbers as she drove at warp factor six to the airport.
There was no reply.
She and Tapperman came together as arranged and using his badge and contacts, got into the CCTV room, where they had been ever since.
Myrna rubbed her eyes. She had been having trouble sleeping, not least because she had cheated on her husband not many hours before and could not get her mind off it. She had secretly, and sometimes not so secretly, been attracted to Kruger ever since she began working for him. Personal and professional considerations and responsibilities ensured it never went further than banter or mild flirtation. The previous couple of days had put an end to those issues and it had been an absolute necessity for her to finish up in Kruger’s bed. She had truly believed she could take it for what it was, keep it as a one-off, go back to equilibrium.
Instead she found herself completely disorientated. She couldn’t get Kruger out of her head, nor the memory of him out of her body.
She had been fully awake, if exhausted, when Tapperman rang, and for a while after, the adrenaline flowed. Now, it was ebbing in despair.
Standing there, in front of the bank of TV screens, she had to admit to herself that she loved Steve, had done so for longer than she cared to recall, and the prospect of not seeing him again caused her to panic.
A little squeak escaped from her lips. Tapperman shot her a quick glance.
Then; ‘There he is!’ Tapperman proclaimed confidently. He rapped the appropriate monitor with his knuckles. The camera shot in, focused. Myrna’s heart shuddered so hard in her chest she nearly fell over.
The screen showed Kruger, surrounded by four tough looking guys, stepping through a sliding door. There was an anxious expression on his face, as well as an injury of some sort which Tapperman could not define.
‘ Where the hell’s that location?’ he demanded.
Kruger, his four friends and a couple of other people were standing by a bank of elevators which would take them to the multi-storey parking lot.
The elevator arrived, the doors opened. A flood of people disgorged and dissipated. Kruger and the others stepped inside the large elevator, constructed to carry about twenty people plus luggage. A woman turned to him. ‘Which level?’
‘ The top, please.’
She pressed her own selection, then his.
Just before the doors eased shut, a big hand stopped the process and forced the doors to re-open.
Two extra people stepped in. A man and a woman… a couple, bickering about something, like they’d been together too many years.
‘ C’mon, you go damned bitch, we’re holdin’ people up here.’
‘ You stop bad-mouthin’ me, you asshole,’ the woman replied, apparently fuming with anger. ‘You ain’t done nothin’ but since we arrived.’
‘ Well, you deserve it, you lazy slut,’ the man said. To the rest of the people in the elevator he said, ‘’Scuse us.’ He yanked the woman between Kruger and the bodyguard to his left. ‘We’ll carry this on back here.’
Kruger’s expression did not change. His eyes showed no flicker of recognition. But inside, his stomach lurched. The hairs on the nape of his neck prickled with excitement. He hoped the guys behind him weren’t staring at his neck, otherwise the game would have been given away.
The doors closed. The elevator rose smoothly, stopping at various levels, allowing people to step out. No one else got in.
Kruger heard snatches of the couple’s argument which had been reduced in volume. It was clear there was a major domestic going on.
‘ You’ll be tellin’ me next it’s healed up,’ the man hissed. ‘I ain’t had it for weeks.’
‘ You don’t deserve it, the way you treat me.’
‘ Nag, nag, nag,’ the man said spitefully.
‘ An’ you do nothin’, nothin’, nothin’.’
Eventually the only people remaining in the tin box were Kruger, his four buddies and the warring couple, all obviously destined for the top level.
When the elevator arrived, the doors slid open.
Kruger was about to step out when one of his captors grabbed his elbow and held him back. Another said to the couple, ‘After you.’
‘ At last,’ the woman said, ‘a gentleman.’ She smiled maliciously at her partner.
‘ Bitch,’ hissed the man, shouldering his way out, pushing her ahead. They turned right.
Kruger got a shove in the ribs and stumbled out to the left. From the corner of his eye he saw the couple move towards a car.
Although they were on the top level, there was still a roof over their heads, and like most high-rise parking, the lighting was relatively poor.
Kruger led them towards his Chevy, parked at the very end of the level. His mind worked furiously, trying to decide what to do, wondering what Tapperman and Myrna, the perfect couple, had planned
… if anything.
Shit, shit, shit, he said to himself, trying to make a decision.
The closer he got to his car, the more certain he was he would have to make the opening move.
Without further thought he went for it.
He stopped abruptly in his tracks. The bodyguard directly behind him walked straight into him. The ones either side went on a few paces.
As soon as he and the man made contact, Kruger swivelled at the hips and in a flowing, single motion, rammed the point of his elbow into the man’s chest, connecting with the sternum. Kruger’s arm rose and he smashed the back of his clenched fist into the man’s face, making a wonderful, crunching sound, like a wooden ruler snapping.
The whole movement took less than a fraction of a second.
Even so, fast as it was, Kruger saw that guns were already appearing from nowhere in the hands of the remaining three team members.
‘ Move, Steve, move!’ Tapperman bawled.
Kruger looked up, saw Tapperman and Myrna about twenty feet behind. Tapperman’s body was fully exposed. Myrna was crouching over the hood of a parked car. Both had weapons drawn, ready for combat.
Kruger knew he had to keep going.
He grabbed the lapels of the nose-smashed bodyguard and swung him round into. the gunman to his left, pushed and let go. They mangled together with spectacular success. Using the momentum generated by this manoeuvre, Kruger dived down between the two nearest parked cars, into cover, out of the line of fire. Tapperman yelled, ‘Armed police! Drop your weapons!’