“No,” one of them replied.
“No one leaves this floor. Understand?”
“Got it.”
I bolted down the hallway, then to an adjacent hall to the east.
And as I flared around the corner, I saw a man pause at the door to the stairwell at the far end of the hallway about thirty-five meters from me. He wore the same clothes as the man who’d been caught on the security video pushing the wheelchair.
“Stop,” I shouted, “FBI!”
He glanced over his shoulder, his face shadowed by the cap. He reached toward his belt.
A gun.
He’s going for a gun!
I leveled my SIG. “Hands to the side!”
He hesitated.
“Now!”
But a door opened between us, and an elderly couple left their room. “Get down!” I yelled.
They were terrified and hesitated. The man by the stairwell door ducked through and disappeared.
“Get back in your room!” I shouted to the couple, and I raced down the hallway even as I yanked out my cell, called Doehring. “Get someone to the southeast stairwell. First floor. Now!”
Past the terrified couple.
Seconds ticked.
Ticked.
To the stairwell door.
Readied myself.
Threw it open.
Footsteps below me.
Weapon ready, I swung around the corner, scanned the area, and saw someone rounding the stairwell far below me. “Stop!”
I tried to tell if there were two sets of footsteps or just one.
Two, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure.
One suspect or two?
Advice from my training: Always assume the greater threat.
Two.
Quickly I checked the landing above me for any accomplices.
No one.
Then I flew down the stairs, taking them three at a time.
Astrid and Brad had made it to the first floor.
Brad had his Walther P99 in one hand and cautiously pushed the door open with the other.
No cops.
Two doors before her. She pointed to the underground parking garage sign, just ahead on the left.
“Wait,” Brad said. His eyes were on the oversized freight elevator. “I have an idea.”
Ground level.
I burst through the door.
No one.
But the doors of a freight elevator at the end of the hall were closing. “Stop!”
I rushed forward, my heart hammering from my sprint up, then down eight flights of stairs.
And from adrenaline.
And from the hunt.
By the time I arrived, the doors had closed. I pressed the up button. Steadied myself. Leveled my gun.
They slid open.
Empty.
I raced to the parking garage.
Scanned the stretch of concrete and cars.
And saw a latex glove on the ground about five meters away, directly to my right.
32
I saw no movement in the parking area. Heard no footsteps.
No, no, no!
The door behind me burst open, and I spun, aiming, saw Doehring rush in. I immediately lowered my weapon and turned my attention to the parking area again. “Mollie,” I said, “is she safe?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t found her yet.” He was out of breath. His eyes had found the latex glove. “Is the guy in here?”
“I don’t know. You go left. I’ll go-”
Wait a minute.
The freight elevator, Pat… they opened the elevator doors to slow you down… last night Aria waited at the scene… didn’t leave until after emergency personnel arrived…
After.
After.
Assume the greater threat.
Two not one.
Doehring noticed my hesitation. “What is it?”
“Stay here by the door. Make sure no one doubles back. Get this garage sealed off. And have security check every car. Trunks included.”
“What about you?”
“I’ve got an idea.”
I ran back inside and surveyed the hallway: the elevator, the hall I’d come down, and saw a door I hadn’t noticed before because my eyes were on the elevator.
A sign read: Restricted Access. Authorized Personnel Only.
Oh yeah.
That would be it.
Astrid and Brad were making their way through a sprawling room, dark and cluttered, their path lit only by an exit sign fifty feet ahead of them. “The glove,” she said. “It was a good idea.”
“I hope so.” Brad seemed unsure. Uneasy. “This one’s smart. This agent. Somehow he found us.”
I felt along the wall, found a light switch, flicked it on. A line of fluorescents blinked on one at a time, in a long, methodical row. “There’s no way out,” I called, hoped it was true.
I saw no one in the vast room.
Stall, stall, stall.
Slow them down.
“We have this hotel sealed off.” I moved forward cautiously. “Step out now with your hands in the air!”
The storage room was cavernous, stretching nearly the length of the hotel, and was filled with stacks of chairs, end tables, beds, TV cabinets, and mirrors-the leftover furniture from the hotel’s recent renovations.
Literally hundreds of places to hide. But a cleared path led straight through the middle.
I took another quiet step.
Heard a scraping sound ahead of me to the left and swung my gun toward it.
Then a gunshot.
Impact.
The bullet slammed into my left arm as the sound reverberated, echoed, thundered through the room. The force spun me around, nearly threw me to the ground, but I managed to pivot behind an old television cabinet with four mirrors leaning against it before dropping to the concrete floor.
Astrid was standing next to the exit door when Brad shot the FBI agent.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice low, accusatory.
“Sending him a message.”
He scurried across the aisle to join her.
“You’re not playing this smart anymore.” She grabbed his hand, pulled him outside; she heard sirens whining. “You’re going to ruin everything.”
“No, I-”
“Quiet.”
The alley stretched in both directions.
Left or right?
A choice. She made it.
They ran.
Blood all over.
It felt like someone had slammed a sledgehammer against my left biceps, and the pain made it almost impossible to think.
I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to concentrate on the scene.
The scene.
The scene.
A moment ago, I’d heard the exit door at the far end of the room bang shut.
Oh, man, that hurts.
Three possibilities: both suspects left the building, one was still here, or both were still inside and they’d just opened the door to trick me, lure me out.
Thick pain chugged through my shoulder, up my neck, then broke apart like an explosion of glass in my head.
Focus, Pat.
Focus!
I’d passed my gun to my left hand and was instinctively pressing my right hand against the wound to slow the bleeding, but now I removed it, and a quick check told me the bullet had both entered and exited my arm-a through and through.
It was bleeding heavily but not spurting, so I doubted there was arterial damage, and I didn’t see or feel any obvious fractures, so that was a good sign, but the blood and the pain made it impossible to tell.
I needed my gun in my right hand, and that meant I had to find another way to put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. I yanked off my belt and braced myself because the pain was about to get a lot worse.
Gritting my teeth, I wrapped the belt around the wound, slipped the end through the buckle. I didn’t need a tourniquet, but by tugging it tightly I could make a crude pressure bandage.
Do it, Pat.
Come on, come on!
I clenched my teeth and pulled the belt snug.
A shower of hot light broke apart inside my head. Breath escaped me.
Focus.
Focus!
I secured the belt. My arm flared again. Dizzying pain.
Eyes squinched shut, I leaned back against the cabinet.