A figure suddenly appeared above, looking down. It was one of Skender’s men and he saw the gun in Stratton’s hands. As the man pointed his own weapon at him Stratton fired a round through his head and kept his pistol on aim in case a second shot was required. But the man slumped over the banister rail, his gun falling past Stratton to clatter down into the dust-filled void.
Stratton moved quickly up to the landing to find the emergency door twisted in its frame and jammed solid. He carried on up to the next turn in the stairs, moving on towards the penthouse. The sound of movement above heightened his senses to maximum alertness.
The muzzle of a gun appeared and the man behind it fired several unaimed shots. The first hit the wall inches from Stratton while the others went wide.
Stratton moved up several more steps to change his location in case the shooter chanced another wild bullet. Then he heard the sound of someone scrambling over rubble. A foot came into view as the owner negotiated the obstacle. Stratton aimed quickly and fired a single shot into the heel. This was followed immediately by a howl of pain. Stratton leaped up the steps in time to see the man lying on the rubble. Disorientated though he was, on seeing Stratton he raised his gun. But Stratton fired first, sending a bullet smashing through the man’s eye. Stratton moved closer, ready to follow it up with another. But there was no need.
Stratton immediately saw why the man hadn’t been able to escape. There was a large slab of jagged concrete jammed against the fire exit. Stratton put down his weapon and as he grabbed hold of the body to pull it aside the building groaned loudly. Something below snapped and a loud wrenching sound followed. The floor dropped several feet to lean down at an angle away from the central pillar. Stratton grabbed the banister rail to stop himself from falling into the void. As he regained his balance and pushed himself back onto the landing he saw that the slab had shifted from the fire-exit door.
Stratton picked up his pistol and took hold of the door. He was about to pull at it when he stopped himself, his senses warning him of the potential dangers: Skender and others could be waiting for him the other side. He needed to go ahead quickly, sure, but safely too. He put down his pistol again, grabbed the body and dragged it to the edge of the opening. Holding the dead man under the arms he pulled open the door and lowered the corpse’s head past the door frame. A shotgun blast instantly took the side of the head away. Stratton let the body drop as he once more picked up his weapon, hoping that whoever had fired the shot thought that the stiff was him.
Stratton was undecided about his next move when the building made up his mind for him. Supports ripping from their mountings caused a sudden massive jolt and the entire floor tilted, the outside wall of the stairwell crumbling away to reveal a view of the city. Stratton fell back and let go of his gun to grab the banister rail that had come free of its mounting for several yards. He hung over the centre well, a drop of fifty feet or so underneath him, bouncing up and down as if on the end of a wire. He swung his body, using the sprung tension of the rail to gain momentum, and managed to grab hold of an edge and pull himself back onto the crumbling staircase. The door had popped fully open and he clutched at the door frame, concerned that another jolt might make the entire floor collapse. With the stairs pretty much shattered and descent that way no longer possible there was nothing for it but to get closer to the central pillar, which meant getting back inside. He tensed himself and sprang forward.
Stratton scrambled through the doorway and up the sloping floor without a shot being fired. He raced along the corridor. Its glass walls were gone, their jagged edges jutting down from the ceiling like lethal stalactites.
He twisted into a doorway, expecting a shot any second, and hugged the floor while he scanned the shattered room. The central pillar remained solid and upright but one or two of the outside corner supports must have given way because the floor slanted acutely. As he looked around his gaze fell on something a few feet in front of him. When it came into focus the implications hit him like a bolt of lightning. It was Josh’s camel. Stratton reached out a hand, picked the carved object from the debris and inspected it. The realisation that the boy had been somewhere in the building at the time Stratton had begun his attack and that Josh was possibly now dead filled him with horror.
Stratton pulled himself up and stepped out into the room, holding on to whatever he could to stop himself from sliding down. As he moved to where he could see the conference room, the wall along its entire length gone, a desk at the far side moved up the floor a couple of feet, apparently defying gravity, and was then heaved aside to reveal Skender who had been briefly trapped behind it. Skender got to his feet and then saw Stratton above him on the sloping floor.
The two men instantly knew that one of them was not going to survive the day – though considering the present precarious state of the building neither’s life was exactly guaranteed. Skender’s stare dropped to the ground in search of the shotgun he had lost during the tremor that had left him trapped by his desk but it was nowhere to be seen. Then he saw something else that might prove equally if not more useful. It was Josh, hanging on for dear life outside the room where the wall had fallen away, his little hands gripping a piece of window frame, his feet on another section below.
Stratton followed Skender’s gaze and saw the small hands. He was immediately filled with dread but he did not have time to think about it.
Skender was only a couple of metres from Josh and now he took a step closer to him. Stratton was twice the distance away and got off his knees, ready to make a move.
Skender then saw something by his feet in the rubble and leaned down to pick it up. It was one of his decorative swords, and he pulled off the scabbard to expose a long, slender blade with a slight curve in it. Without further hesitation he made a leap towards Josh. At the same time Stratton released his grip and slid down the tilted floor. Skender arrived first just above where Josh was hanging on but was not prepared for Stratton who crashed into him while simultaneously grabbing the remaining piece of glass-wall framework to stop them both falling out of the room.
The men dropped onto their backs on the sloping floor and began punching and clawing at each other like wild beasts. Skender managed to raise the sword and bring it down close to Stratton’s skull but a savage blow from Stratton sent Skender reeling and he let go of the sword. But Skender was a powerful man and he showed no signs of his age as he spun round, gripped Stratton around the throat with both hands and began to strangle him with real ferocity.
Stratton immediately started to gag. He tried to push Skender back but his arms were not strong enough. As his vision blurred he dropped his hands to grip Skender’s, felt for both the Albanian’s little fingers and grabbed them, bending them back. No one can resist such a countermove unless they are prepared to have their fingers broken in their sockets. Skender let out a yelp as one of his snapped at the joint. He released Stratton’s throat. Stratton slammed him back and to his surprise Skender rolled off the floor and out of sight.
Stratton scrambled to the edge, praying that Josh was still there, to find the boy in the same position. But to Stratton’s horror Skender was only feet away, hanging on to a reinforcing bar. His baleful stare was fixed on Josh and it was quickly obvious that if he fell, which seemed unavoidable, he meant to take the child with him.
At that moment the media helicopter thudded around the side of the building and hovered a stone’s throw away.