‘Your suicide from this suite will be the first news report they hear,’ he rumbled, ‘just to let them know that we’re coming for them, that they’ll never be able to escape us. One call, Stanley, one call and your family will become the most wanted people on Earth. Tell me: who, and where?!’
Stanley Meyer sucked in a final, rattling breath.
‘Go to hell!’ he rasped.
Mitchell scowled and made to lift Meyer over the railing as the old man screamed in fear.
Huck lunged and swung with all of his might, and the ornate vase smashed across Mitchell’s temple with a deep crack that sounded as though somebody had dropped a metal ball on wet mud. Mitchell’s body flailed sideways as his eyes rolled up into their sockets and the huge man thumped down onto the balcony as Meyer cried out.
Huck Seavers whirled as the old man tilted over the edge and he lunged for Meyers. Huck threw himself half over the balcony railing and grabbed at Meyer’s wrists, catching them even as they flailed. The old man hung onto Seaver’s grip and looked up at him in amazement.
‘Give me your hand!’ Seavers groaned, barely able to maintain his grip.
Meyer stared at him through eyes smeared with tears of pain. ‘Why?’ he gasped.
Seavers knew what Meyer meant.
‘Because without you I’m nothing now!’ he said in a strained voice, fighting to keep a hold of Meyer. ‘I can’t survive now with or without your fusion cage, my business will collapse! You’re my family’s only hope!’
Stanley Meyer watched Huck for a long moment, suddenly it seemed unafraid any more.
‘Las Vegas,’ he said softly, still fighting back tears. ‘My wife’s in Vegas, and headed for the Crescent Dunes solar plant. Help her.’
‘Grip my wrists!’ Huck shouted. ‘I can’t pull you up like this!’
To Huck’s horror Stanley did not grip back as his legs swung out over the abyss, his rheumy old eyes now calm.
‘No! Don’t you dare do it Stanley!’
Stanley smiled, his voice devoid of anger.
‘Be the man you’d want your family to remember you as, not the man you need to be in the now.’
Huck stared at Stanley in amazement and then the old man’s hand loosened and slipped through his and he plunged away from the balcony. Huck stared in horror for a moment and then averted his eyes before Stanley hit the patio far below. He heard a distant, sickening thump, and bile formed in his throat as he glanced at Mitchell. The agent was lying on his back, blood streaming from the deep wound in his head onto the balcony.
Huck staggered into the suite and struggled to think straight. He managed to set the vase back down on the glass table and then to fumble for his cell phone in his pocket. His fingers felt numb as he dialled a number, and then heard it connect on the first ring and his wife’s voice.
‘Honey, where are you?’
‘Oh God, Angela, you’re safe!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Get the kids, Angela, get them and get in your car and run, okay?!’
‘Huck, what’s going on?!’
‘Just do it! Run, Angela, as far as you can! Everything’s gone, Angela. There’s nothing that I can do now to stop it. Please just do as I say and run!’
‘Okay!’ Angela replied, Huck hearing the tears and the fear in her voice. ‘Where are you?’
Huck struggled to speak.
‘I have some things that I need to do and I can’t be there with you right now. Please, just keep running okay? You know how to access the accounts?’
‘Yes, but … ’
‘No buts! Empty them, all of them, and run! I’m so sorry honey, I love you and the girls!’
‘I love you too, but you need to come with us and … ’
Huck shut the phone off, his own eyes blurred now with tears as he turned to shut the balcony door and buy himself some time. He locked it with Mitchell’s key card and then hurried to a mirror in the bathroom and splashed water on his face from the faucet as he forced himself to think straight.
‘Get out of here,’ he whispered to himself.
Huck straightened his suit and walked back into the suite, grabbed his Stetson and set it onto his head. He took a deep breath and strode to the suite door, opened it and walked out into the corridor. Mitchell’s two guards looked at him as he closed the door behind him.
‘He’s dealing with Meyer,’ Huck informed them, ‘and does not wish to be disturbed.’
The two guards nodded, and resumed their positions as Huck walked past them, his heart beating fast inside his chest as he reached the elevators, already thinking about his next move. He couldn’t use his car, or his jet, and only had a few hundred bucks on him.
Huck made it down to the reception hall and walked from the hotel. He barely noticed the dark — skinned Saudi sitting watching the reception hall from the nearby café. Huck was far too preoccupied with his dilemma. Somehow, he had to get to Vegas and find Mary Meyer before Majestic Twelve wiped her from the face of the planet.
XXXV
‘Time of death?’
‘Ten fifteen this morning,’ the police officer said. ‘We called you guys in as soon as we identified him. Looks like a suicide, but given what this guy’s been through we figured it the smart play.
‘You did good,’ Hannah Ford replied.
The patio beneath the balcony was partially concealed by a canvass forensics tent that flared brightly in the sunshine as Hannah looked up at the fifth floor room. Mickey stood beside her.
‘The guy’s found innocent of any crime, then he commits suicide?’ Mickey asked her.
‘Doesn’t add up,’ she replied. ‘Let’s go take a look, shall we?’
Hannah led Mickey up to the fifth floor, where the entrance to the penthouse suite was being guarded by two police officers. They walked in to see the suite undisturbed, the balcony doors open and fine white nets billowing in the morning breeze.
‘No sign of a struggle,’ Mickey said, ‘but forensics found evidence of vomit on the carpet over there by the wall.’
Hannah Ford glanced at the wine bottle on the nearby table, a half — empty glass alongside it, and the hastily applied marker tape surrounding a damp stain on the carpet nearby.
‘Gets drunk?’ Mickey hazarded, ‘takes a fall outside?’
‘Doesn’t explain the blood trail,’ Hannah said as they followed a faint trail of blood drops and walked outside onto the balcony to look down at the stain by their feet.
‘Forensics have taken samples, so whoever this blood belonged to should show up if they’re in the system. I’m guessing it’s Meyer’s though. Maybe he took a fall out here and then went over the edge?’
Hannah frowned and shook her head.
‘On half a glass of wine?’ she asked. ‘If he fell out here, why are there blood drops inside the suite? And why haven’t we found his wife and daughter yet? None of this makes any sense. The entire top floor to this hotel was rented out by Seavers Incorporated, a Kentucky mining firm, right?’
‘According to the hotelier, yeah.’
‘So where’s the company’s CEO? He’s registered as having stayed at the hotel, but was seen leaving this morning. He hasn’t booked out though. Stanley Meyer stayed in this room, so we’re told, but has no connection to Huck Seavers that we know of. Stanley’s cleared of any involvement in that commune fire and is no longer wanted by the Bureau, despite his case being classed as a high — priority, and now he’s topped himself? What the hell is going on out here?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mickey shrugged. ‘Jenkins says we need to hand any evidence found at this scene over to her, something to do with orders from Langley.’