The two hoods nodded. He turned to the other two.
‘Wormo and Chang, us three will set ourselves up on the landing. If he gets past the other two, we’ll be there to blast him in a cross fire whether he uses the lift or the stairs. Okay?’
The two men rather reluctantly agreed. He glanced at A.A. Catto.
‘Is it fixed?’
She nodded.
‘It’s fixed.’
The hoods all trooped out. Everyone looked at Billy. Nancy scowled.
‘What about him?’
A.A. Catto turned.
‘What about him?’
Reave turned from collecting up the things they’d need.
‘Can’t he come with us?’
A.A. Catto looked petulant.
‘Why?’
‘He’s my old partner. I can’t leave him, he might be killed.’
‘Why should I do you any favours, you hurt me just now?’
Reave almost grovelled.
‘Please.’
‘Oh, very well.’
Billy looked questioningly at Reave.
‘What about Darlene? She’s up in our room with a trick.’
‘You’ll have to leave her. There isn’t time.’
Billy shrugged.
‘Okay.’
The Minstrel Boy decided to push his luck.
‘What about me?’
A.A. Catto regarded him coldly.
‘What about you?’
‘I could be useful. I’d know where you were. You’re going to have to go through the nothings. I could be amazingly useful.’
A.A. Catto shook her head.
‘You’re not going.’
‘I could save you a lot of trouble.’
Reave looked uncertain.
‘He could be right. After all he is a guide.’
A.A. Catto began to get angry again.
‘I’ve already agreed to take one of your little friends. I’m not taking him. I don’t trust him, and I don’t like him.’
Reave didn’t press the point. The four of them began to file out towards the lift. The Minstrel Boy had one last try.
‘At least untie me.’
A.A. Catto almost spat at him from the doorway.
‘Take your chances.’
The Minstrel Boy sagged back into his corner again. He heard the lift gates clang shut and the mechanism grind into action. Eventually he heard it stop as the lift reached the top floor. A few moments later, the sound of gunfire echoed up the lift shaft. It sounded as though it came from the lobby.
***
Jeb Stuart Ho came carefully through the door of the Leader Hotel. The lobby was silent and deserted. The screen flickered in one corner, but no one was watching it. The drunks had all left. Someone had even turned off the sound. Just inside the doorway, Ho stopped. He felt the air, almost like an animal. It seemed heavy with tension. He turned and walked quietly to the desk. The clerk seemed to have abandoned his usual position. Jeb Stuart Ho leaned over the desk and looked down. The clerk was crouching on the floor. He looked fearfully at Ho.
‘I …’
‘Why are you kneeling on the floor?’
The clerk half rose.
‘I … I was looking for something. Something I dropped.’
‘Did you find it?’
‘Find what?’
‘The thing you were looking for. The thing you dropped.’
‘I … er … no. I didn’t. It must be somewhere else.’
Jeb Stuart Ho nodded.
‘That seems very likely.’
He took two paces away from the desk in the direction of the lift. The clerk sank behind the desk again. Ho stopped and wondered from which direction the ambush that had evidently been arranged for him would come. The most likely tactic for the assassins would be to remain hidden until he was almost by the lift, and then shoot him in the back. He knew that he would have to take a chance on being right. He pulled out his gun and sword. Slowly he bent his knees until he was almost crouching.
With a snap he launched himself into the air. The leap took him most of the way across the lobby. He landed on his feet just in front of the lift gates. He spun round. Two men with guns appeared from behind the battered furniture, on each side of the room. Jeb Stuart Ho flung out his arm. The gun exploded and the sword flashed from his hand. One hood spun into the wall as the bullet smashed into his chest. The other toppled forward and fell on his knees, desperately trying to pull the sword from his throat. As his gun hit the floor it went off. The shot carved a long furrow in the threadbare carpet.
With his arms still extended Jeb Stuart Ho slowly straightened up. The clerk emerged furtively from behind the desk. When he saw Jeb Stuart Ho and the two dead men, he turned even paler. Jeb Stuart Ho slowly let his arms drop. He walked to the man with the sword sticking out of his neck. Ho rolled the corpse over until it was lying on its back. He grasped the sword hilt with both hands, placed his foot on the body’s chest, and tugged. He picked a tattered cushion out of one of the chairs and carefully wiped the blade. He dropped the cushion and looked at the desk clerk.
‘Where is A.A. Catto?’
The desk clerk’s mouth worked desperately, but no words came. Jeb Stuart Ho started to walk towards him.
‘Where is A.A. Catto?’
The desk clerk found his voice.
‘Up on the fifth floor, but there’s more of them waiting for you.’
‘I see.’
Jeb Stuart Ho turned and peered up the dark lift shaft. He would be a sitting duck if he used the lift. He saw that a set of emergency stairs ran round the outside of the shaft. He would be safer using them. As he started up the first flight he turned back, and smiled sardonically at the white-faced desk clerk.
‘I hope you locate whatever you lost.’
He went up the first three floors very quickly, but as he approached the fourth he slowed down and took the stairs much more carefully. It would be foolish not to assume that another trap had been set for him. He stepped on to the fourth floor landing, ready to act at the slightest sound or movement. Nothing happened. Ho waited for a few moments and then moved silently towards the next set of steps. There would be men waiting at the top of the next flight.
There were eight steps in front of him. Then a right-angle turn and, if it was the same as the first four, another eight that led up to the fifth floor. Ho moved silently up to the turn, and stopped. Still nothing had happened. He looked up at the last eight steps. He took a firmer grip on his gun and sword. He put his foot on the first step. Nothing. He tried the second, the third and the fourth. Still there was no explosion of gunfire. Maybe the desk clerk had lied. Maybe there was no one lying in wait. Maybe A.A. Catto had fled the Leader Hotel altogether. He touched the fifth step. He moved to the sixth. As he placed his foot silently on the seventh step, there was the roar of a riot gun. The blast smashed lumps of plaster out of the wall above his head. He somersaulted backwards down the eight steps and landed on his feet at the turn in the stairs. A hail of needles gouged into the wall where he’d been standing just a fraction of a second before.
Jeb Stuart Ho crouched on the stair. On his hands and knees he edged his way forward, a centimetre at a time. The needles and the riot blast meant there were at least two gunmen waiting for him. At the sixth step he paused. He unstrapped the nanchuk from his arm, held one end at arm’s length, and quickly swung the other. It soared into the air, hit the far wall of the landing and clattered on the stone floor.
One riot blast hit the far wall, another smashed plaster from the wall beside the stairs, a burst of needles screamed, ricocheting through the steel cage of the lift shaft. Jeb Stuart Ho smiled grimly. There had to be three of them. The riot blasts were too close together and the angle of fire too great for them to have come from the same gun. For a fraction of a second one of the gunmen had emerged from cover to fire. It was one of the men with riot guns. He crouched in an open doorway. Jeb Stuart Ho could only see him when he leaned out to fire.