One man banged the door open, trying to startle an enemy as Cavanaugh aimed into the stairwell. All he saw were harsh lights, concrete steps, and metal railings. Using the metal door for cover, he pivoted around it, showing only enough of his body to allow him to aim toward the higher levels. No one confronted him.
"Clear!" he shouted.
An agent hurried past him, jumping three steps at a time to the lower landing, crouching and aiming downward. "Clear!"
Footsteps scraped on concrete as an agent scurried upward to make sure that the higher levels didn't conceal a threat. Hard to do when the eighth-, ninth-, and tenth-level doors crashed open, other hotel occupants rushing to escape. Amid the blare of the fire alarm, Cavanaugh heard their echoing clatter as he and the other agents added to it, charging methodically downward, checking the next level.
"Clear!"
"Clear!"
Someone groaned. Cavanaugh turned toward a commotion behind him, an elderly man in pajamas tripping, falling down the stairs, two young men catching him.
"Is he all right?"
The man's face was twisted in pain.
"He broke his leg!" someone shouted.
Urgent, Cavanaugh motioned for Yamato's protectors to accompany him down the stairs. Flanking their client, they led the way, the rest of the officials and their protectors following. Adding to the din, cell phones rang. Officials shouted into them, trying to be heard, having even more trouble hearing.
The door to the fifth level banged open. A GPS agent aimed into the stairwell, saw Cavanaugh, reacted to the swarm of people descending from the upper floors, and urged his own group of officials and protectors downward. The fourth and third doors remained closed, the hotel offices behind them unoccupied at night.
At the second floor, Dawn Finch and the communication team escaped into the stairwell. Smoke followed them.
Dawn slammed the door, telling Cavanaugh, "We waited as long as we could. I grabbed these." She showed him a handful of computer discs, the security data she'd accumulated about the conference. "Is anybody hurt?"
"A trade minister broke his leg." Staring down, watching for threats, Cavanaugh hurried with her toward the ground floor.
"Wait," Dawn said. "I don't see Jamie."
"She isn't here. There were so many officials to try to convince, we split up. She's talking to trade ministers at the Southern Belle."
"That hotel's being evacuated, too."
"What?"
"Four hotels were hit."
"I need to find her."
Reaching the ground floor, Cavanaugh spun toward the officials and security teams who pressed toward him. His agents knew immediately what to do, no need to discuss forming a barricade in front of the door and holding out their arms.
"Everybody, relax!" Cavanaugh shouted. Amid the fire alarm and the reverberation in the stairwell, he could barely be heard.
"Stop!" he yelled.
The other security teams shifted into the proper mode, calming the officials.
"You're safe!" Cavanaugh told them.
The footsteps stopped clattering. The reverberation diminished. In a few seconds, the only sound was the fire alarm.
"The door behind me is metal. The walls are concrete. There's a firewall. Nothing's going to happen to you here. I'll check outside. Vehicles are supposed to be on their way. We'll evacuate you as soon as possible."
"What if there's a sniper?" an Italian trade minister demanded.
"Too much commotion. Too much to aim at," Cavanaugh said. Noticing that many of the officials wore pajamas, he said, "Find a security agent who's your size. Put on his jacket. That'll make it hard to distinguish you from the team. A sniper wouldn't be able to decide who's a target and who's a protector. By the time, he managed to sort everybody out, you'd be gone from here."
As protectors took off jackets and gave them to their clients, Cavanaugh noticed the elderly man who'd fallen. Two young men cradled him.
"We'll get an ambulance as soon as possible," Cavanaugh assured him. He nodded to Tony, the agent he'd spoken to earlier. Again, without the need to discuss it, Tony understood what needed to be done.
"The password's Treadmill," Cavanaugh said.
Tony freed the deadbolt lock and opened the door. Aiming, Cavanaugh scanned the chaos in the street behind the hotel, then rushed outside.
13
The rumble of parked emergency vehicles was so loud that Cavanaugh barely heard Tony locking the door behind him. Sirens approached. Exhaust fumes choked the street as men in uniforms rushed through a panicked crowd. Lowering his weapon, Cavanaugh saw a van creeping through the commotion, other vehicles behind it. Emergency workers set up more barricades, preventing pedestrians from getting in the way.
Before the van came to a full stop, Rutherford was already jumping out, hurrying toward Cavanaugh. "Are you all right?"
"Confused as hell, but not hurt. I've got at least thirty trade officials behind this door. We need evac vehicles and an ambulance. A trade minister broke his leg."
"On the way." Rutherford indicated more headlights coming toward them.
"Someone told me this happened at three other hotels," Cavanaugh said.
"Smoke, but no explosives. Gas, but it wasn't lethal," Rutherford said. Like the security agents in the background, he scanned the rooftops.
"It smelled like tear gas," Cavanaugh said, his throat raw, his eyes still burning.
"We think the demonstrators couldn't wait until tomorrow and started early. To give us a taste of what to expect from them."
"Yeah, I can taste it all right."
"Someone had a heart attack in another hotel. The paramedics think he'll survive. But if this had been Duran's work…"
"We'd all be on the way to the morgue," Cavanaugh said.
Across the street, an insistent woman-tall, with a runner's build and long, brunette hair-emerged from the darkness. Lights flashing across her, she forced her way through the crowd. She wore rubber-soled, low-heeled street shoes and dark slacks, her long legs increasing her stride. Veering around an approaching van, she rushed toward Cavanaugh, who broke into a smile and hugged her.
"Are you okay?"
Jamie gripped him tightly. "Yes. What about you?"
Cavanaugh smelled smoke in her hair. He was so relieved to have her safely with him that the smoke might as well have been perfume. "I couldn't be better now that I know you're safe."
Rutherford, a widower, looked as if he wished somebody would be overjoyed to greet him. He knocked on the door and shouted, "This is John Rutherford! FBI! We have the area secured! Evacuation vehicles are waiting for you!"
Cavanaugh shouted, providing the code word, "It's okay, Tony! You can get off the Treadmill!"
Slowly, the door opened. Wary security personnel stepped out, their principals in the protective box they formed.
14
Carl squirmed in his sleeping bag, sirens disturbing his rest. More sirens than usual at night, even in a city renowned for being festive. More than expected as police tried to contain protestors gathering for the demonstrations in the morning. His pistol and knife close to him, he instantly cleared sleep from his mind and sat up.
The van didn't have windows at the sides or the back. That made him feel sheltered and yet vulnerable to a sneak attack. He knelt and stared past the front seats through the windshield toward the end of the dark alley. The flashing lights of a police car sped past, its wail peaking.
A major accident, Carl thought. Or a fire. Or perhaps a collision on the river. Nothing to concern me.
Wrong. Everything concerns me.
He squirmed from his sleeping bag and climbed into the front seat, getting behind the steering wheel. Driving from the alley, he followed the direction of the lights and the sirens. When he realized they were leading him toward the heart of the downtown area, he found a safe side street on which to park. Then he got out, locked the vehicle, secured his weapons under his loose-hanging shirt, and went the rest of the way on foot. Passing barricades and growing groups of demonstrators, he avoided the conference center and angled toward the nearby business district, where he encountered so many uniforms and barricades that he was reminded of occupation zones he'd seen years ago in Bosnia.