The sound of the freight elevator would certainly put whoever was upstairs on alert, but it was time to take a chance. He was alone in an unfamiliar building. The advantage was theirs.
The Hummingbird might be up there.
The freight elevator was an ancient thing. It operated with a worn, old-fashioned brass handle that you pushed one direction or the other. Right was up, left was down. A spring forced it back to the off position as soon as you let go of it.
If it even worked.
There were no automatic doors, no safety features, just a telescoping grating that you pulled across the face of the elevator. Or not. It operated either way.
Back in the good old days before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, before city inspectors and class action lawsuits, if you didn’t pay attention and you hung your foot out of an elevator, it was severed at the ankle. And it was your own damn fault.
So Fisk did not have to close the grating or the door to get the elevator to move. Instead he simply pushed the brass handle to the right. The elevator sighed deeply, then jerked to life, rising slowly.
He knew he would only have a moment to find out whether he could pull off the trick he was considering. He risked a flash with his SureFire as the base of the elevator rose, and he crouched and surveyed the undercarriage to see if there was anything there he could grip and hold on to. As it moved upward, he saw that the base consisted of a network of iron struts. The bottom cable was straightening slowly. Fisk switched off his flashlight and moved quickly.
He grasped one of the struts with his left hand and dangled there, the shotgun in his right. He turned so that he was facing in the direction of the door as the car rose.
He realized he would again only have a few moments to evaluate his situation once he reached the first floor. If he was spotted, he would have to let go and fall back into the darkness—and probably break both ankles. The pit in which the elevator rested contained some kind of base or spring assembly to cushion the elevator, so there was an excellent chance he would fall on something very hard—maybe slicing his flesh or even impaling himself.
So dropping free of the elevator was the least attractive option.
His hand started to burn. The strut was hard-edged and thin, cutting into the base of all four fingers. The elevator shook, thumped, paused, then continued onward. Each movement threatened to break his grip. Fisk was concerned that if he had to hang there too long, the sharp edges would cut right through.
The top of the elevator was rising into view on the first floor.
A voice, whispered, Spanish: “Empty. A diversion.”
“The stairs then.” The second voice was softer, dubious.
Fisk hoisted the pistol grip of his shotgun up into firing position. It was a pump gun, which meant he needed both hands to cycle it. Since he was hanging with one hand, Fisk had only one shot. Then it was either fall back into the dark uncertainty, leap onto the first floor and take the fight to the voices, or hang on and ride up to the top floor.
As the base of the elevator cleared the lip of the first floor, Fisk could see again. Two pairs of feet, shiny black shoes, one near, one farther down the hallway. Toes facing away from him.
Time crawled as the gap beneath the elevator and the floor grew larger and larger. Fisk only had one shot. He had to be sure.
Just then the near set of feet jogged down to join the other at the end of the hall. A bolt was thrown and they started through a door.
Before they disappeared, he saw a submachine gun in the second one’s hands.
Fisk heard, under the groaning of the elevator mechanism, footsteps echoing on the metal stairs.
They were going down just as he was coming up.
Slowly the first floor scrolled fully into Fisk’s vision. His waist passed the floor, then his thighs, then his knees.
Enough finally to swing out and jump. He hit the ground with a thump—no way to land softly—and paused to shake the fire out of his left hand and forearm. Another second or two and his grip would have failed. It had been that close.
He was one man with a shotgun against two men with submachine guns. The smart play was to retreat, to get out of the building and wait for support.
Then he remembered the girls trapped down in the basement.
And the bulkhead door, open to freedom.
As he was starting down the hall to the open door, a figure suddenly appeared in it. Dressed in white and black like a waiter, he also had a large paunch. He raised the muzzle of an MP5 and unleashed a short, disciplined burst of submachine gun fire.
Fisk felt as though he’d been hit in the chest with a brick.
Instinctively he pulled back on the trigger of the 870 as the impact shoved him backward. The roar was deafening in the enclosed space.
But the gunman was already gone. Fisk’s ears were ringing too loudly to hear his own footsteps on the metal stairs going down.
It was only then that Fisk realized he’d been shot. He looked down. All three rounds had struck his vest, which, because of the gunman’s apparent military training and skill as a shooter, had saved Fisk’s life.
A worse shot might have hit him in the face or the neck or the groin or the arm.
This guy had put three rounds dead center, destroying nothing but Kevlar.
A man that good would not make the same mistake twice. Center mass was standard military training, but once you knew your enemy was wearing body armor, you went for the head.
Fisk pumped the shotgun and charged down the hallway. For the first time in his life, he felt an odd fatalistic sense that things just might not break his way. And to his surprise, it did not really bother him. Something about it seemed natural and right.
The whole series of thoughts just came and went like a small dark cloud passing over the sun on a summer day.
He rushed through the doorway to the stairs. If the men had been waiting, he would have been cut to shreds.
They were not. Fisk ran to the bottom, passing the bloody wall and floor, passing the horrified screams of the girls behind the locked doors. The open door above left enough light that Fisk did not have to use his SureFire. He did not want to risk moving his hand off the rifle pump anyway.
As Fisk turned into the narrow hallway, he fired a quick round just to keep them honest. It lit up the tight space, but Fisk saw no one. He racked the 870 again and continued his charge.
He popped up the bulkhead stairs into the light, aiming right and left down the narrow space between buildings. No one.
The door to the next building closed slowly, with a click.
Fisk had to follow. He was racing toward the door when he saw a figure enter the sidewalk space at the far end of the walkway.
CHAPTER 69
Garza had come too late. The Emergency Service Unit heavy rescue truck was parked outside the warehouse Fisk had pointed her to, agents in full tactical gear fanning out. Garza held out her credentials, worried they would not be respected by this fast-moving rapid-entry unit. She was approaching them from the side when she passed the space between the warehouse and the building to its immediate left.
A man wielding a shotgun turned on her from twenty yards away, almost firing. He pulled off his aim . . . and it was Fisk.
There was a bright fire in his eyes. He took his hand off the pump of the shotgun just long enough to point her hard around the other side of the building next to the warehouse. Then Garza watched him run up the stairs, throw open a side door, and enter.
Garza spun away, pulled her Beretta, and started off at a sprint around the other side of the building, looking for a way in.
CHAPTER 70