Hobart and Seaton hugged the wall, squeezing their heads between their arms as the shock wave ripped down the street bouncing off buildings, trashing windows and tossing those police officers who’d remained on the corners to the ground like paper. The blast cut the tops off the lamp-posts, one landing through the windscreen of a police car, another a few feet from Seaton and Hobart on the sidewalk. Debris rained down everywhere and onlookers screamed, trying to find cover as the television correspondent slammed into her camera and both went rolling.
The glass in the air around Skender’s building briefly held its upward and outward drive, then hung suspended for an instant before gravity took charge and it began to drop, much of it falling inside the sloped sides now devoid of protection. The rest fell onto the surrounding pathways and gardens like hail. Stratton pushed back into Skender’s statue’s arms, covering himself as the debris bounced around him, carpeting the concourse with tiny crystals. Within a few seconds, as the echoing boom subsided into the distance, it went contrastingly quiet except for the occasional chunk of loosened metal window frame dropping with a clang.
Skender hugged the floor where he had dived when the force struck the structure several floors below. After the thunder and shaking had ceased he pushed himself up onto his knees, all his senses alert, wondering what on earth had happened. He shuffled to the window and saw wisps of smoke rising from each buckled lamp-post but due to the angle of the glass that his face was pressed against he could not see the damage directly below. He got to his feet and, stepping over items that had fallen from shelves, hurried through the glass doors to the other side of the building to find a similar picture.
Skender came back to his desk, grabbed up the radio and found the send button. ‘Cano?’ he shouted into it. ‘Cano?’
His guards came rushing down the corridor from the elevator and emergency stairwell looking as confused as their boss.
‘What happened?’ Skender shouted.
‘Don’t know, boss,’ one of them said.
‘I thought the friggin’ building was gonna fall down,’ said another.
‘One of you go down and find out what happened!’ Skender shouted. ‘And get Cano up here!’
As the man ran off, Skender paused to think. It was obvious that the building had been struck by something and there had no doubt been some damage. But it had held, he himself was in one piece and that was the most important thing. He then considered the possibility that it might be a diversion of some kind. He went over to a cupboard built into a wall and pulled out one of a selection of semi-automatic shotguns, his preferred close-quarter weapon. But after calming himself and taking stock he felt certain that the planned attack was over. Though it had been violent and possibly destructive, he had survived it.
‘What are you standing there for?!’ he shouted at his remaining guards. ‘Cover the stairs and the elevators.’
The men hurried back to their posts. Skender checked that the gun was loaded, then took a box of spare cartridges from a drawer and placed it on the desk.
‘Cano?’ Skender shouted into the radio once more. ‘Where is that prick?’ he muttered as he tossed the radio onto the table and went back to the window to look down onto the square. He then remembered a window in the kitchen that opened and hurried down the corridor.
Josh was in the kitchen under a table, a sandwich on the floor in front of him where he had dropped it. Skender hurried in, opened the window and looked below. His jaw went rigid as he took in the sight of the shattered façade of his glorious pyramid. Every window from four floors below on down was gone.
He stepped back in, thought for a moment and then looked down at Josh who was gaping up at him, wide-eyed and confused. ‘Come with me, kid,’ Skender said as he took hold of Josh’s hand, pulled him to his feet and urged him out of the room. The camel dropped from Josh’s pocket in the corridor and as the boy tried to retrieve it Skender yanked him on into the conference room, pulling him forward and over to the far wall.
‘Sit down and don’t move,’ Skender growled, any pleasantness gone from his tone. Josh obeyed, looking at the shotgun in Skender’s hand and wondering what was happening.
38
Stratton stepped away from the protection of the statue, his feet crunching on the glass as he walked towards the ornate front doors that were now dotted with small, splinter-covered holes. He paused to look down on Cano’s disfigured, lifeless body. It was covered in shards of glass, blood oozing from countless holes.
‘How d’you like mine?’ Stratton asked.
Cano’s gun lay by his side and Stratton picked it up, stepped over him, pulled open the heavy door and walked into the lobby.
Two of Skender’s men lay dead behind the doors, killed by a dozen steel balls that had penetrated the wood. The marble floor was covered in shards of glass from the shattered windows on the balcony above where Klodi’s body and those of his colleagues lay bloody and broken.
Stratton walked to the elevators and pushed the call button. One of the doors opened. He stepped inside, hit a button and the doors closed behind him.
A few seconds later they opened on the tenth floor. Stratton stepped out into a strong wind blowing through the building, unchecked now that the win dows and virtually every glass partition on the floor had been smashed by the ball-bearings.
Lying dead were three of Skender’s thugs. Stratton hoped that a similar fate had befallen the rest of the guard force.
He walked to the fire exit and opened the door. As soon as he stepped onto the landing the sound of running footsteps came from below. He looked down through the spiralling banisters to see a mob of Skender’s men heading up in support of their boss.
Stratton pulled back his jacket, grabbed hold of the rail to brace himself and pushed the second and third buttons on the transmitter. The explosions, almost simultaneous, were deafening as the entire building rocked violently. The lights went out and Stratton almost lost his balance as a huge crack appeared in the outer wall in front of him. Dust and shards of concrete fell all around.
The main spars radiating from the central pillar to the outside corners of both the fourth and eighth floors buckled and dropped, the supports disintegrating as large sections collapsed. As Stratton had calculated, the sides of the pyramid were compromised at this point and they bowed inwards, reducing the overall structural strength. But the umbrella effect remained intact, maintaining the configuration of the floors above.
Stratton regained his balance as the rocking subsided and the thunder gave way to shouts and screams from below. When that ceased all he could hear was falling debris. He looked down to find the metal banisters twisted awkwardly and long stretches of the staircase broken off, with daylight coming in through a massive hole. There was a hand sticking out into the well but it was not moving, the rest of the body having been flattened beneath a large chunk of reinforced concrete.
Stratton looked overhead, unable to see beyond the next floor due to the dust, and made his way up the stairs.
Skender was holding on to a piece of furniture to steady himself while the entire penthouse gradually stopped shaking. It had been whiplashed by the blast travelling up the central pillar and expending itself through the top, sending ornaments flying from shelves and pictures off walls. Several windows cracked and tiles and debris fell from the ceiling, a large chunk landing on Skender’s model village and flattening a row of luxury apartments. Skender was stunned, and not just physically, as the real impact of what was happening struck him. He was under serious attack and by just one man. Stratton was indeed not a bluffer. Yet the building remained standing and Skender was alive: he could not help wondering if that was because Stratton had failed or because it was not yet over.