“It’s never over,” he said with a grotesque grin. As with the assassin, there was no mistaking this man’s Russian accent.
He fumbled in his pocket for something, and, thinking he was going for a weapon, I lashed out with the chair. One of the legs caught him on the ear and he dropped whatever had been in his hand as he stumbled. I looked down and saw something small and black in the snow. A plastic square about the size of a book of matches. The driver was looking at it too. He tried to lunge for it, but I hit him again and he fell back.
“Give up,” I said.
He reached a decision and suddenly ran away from me, toward the giant rooftop skylight that hung over the bar.
“No!” I yelled.
He jumped, sailed through the air and crashed into the skylight. The glass shattered, the frame splintered, and I ran over and watched him flailing as he fell nine stories and smashed into one of the ornately decorated banquet tables far below.
CHAPTER 34
I DROPPED THE chair, picked up the small black device and ran to the fire door. I raced into the building, down the fire stairs and into the eighth-floor guest corridor. I could hear commotion rising through the huge atrium and pressed the elevator call button. Burning with adrenalin, I paced the elevator lobby and caught my breath. I looked over the edge of the balcony and saw a crowd gathered around the fallen man’s body. Snow was being blown off the roof through the hole in the skylight, glinting as it floated down toward him.
The elevator tone sounded its arrival and I hurried over to the middle car and waited impatiently for the doors to slide open. I stepped inside and hit the button for the ground floor. The ride down seemed to take an age and I used the time to study the square device the driver had dropped. There were two buttons and a small LCD screen that reminded me of an old calculator. I pressed the buttons, but nothing happened. What was this thing? Why had he been reaching for it?
I glanced in the mirror. My eyes were wild, my hair disheveled and my face dirty and bruised. My right ear was glowing red, the legacy of where I’d been caught by the chair. My clothes were soaked with melted snow, and covered in stains. I certainly didn’t look like a winner, and the loss of the assassin and the driver meant I didn’t feel like one either. As the adrenalin subsided, aches and pains began to make themselves known.
When the doors opened, I rushed across an almost deserted lobby to the bar, where I found a few uniformed members of staff and a couple of well-to-do guests milling around near the entrance. Police and paramedics were on scene. One team was clustered by the long table at the podium. Another group had surrounded the Russian driver, who was spread-eagled in the wreckage of the collapsed table.
“Jack!” Justine called out from across the room.
She ran over and surprised me by throwing her arms around me.
“I thought it was you,” she said. “When I first saw him, I thought it was you.”
She looked up, and tears glistened in her eyes.
“It’s OK,” I said. “Take this.” I handed her the black device. “Give it to Mo. See if she can figure out what it is.”
“I’ve got a pulse,” a voice announced.
Justine and I turned to the group around the driver, and sensed new urgency from the paramedics. I pushed my way through the gathered people and was soon beside the injured man. His eyes were glazed, and flecks of blood and spittle were rasping from his mouth with each labored breath. He didn’t have long.
“We’ve got to get him out of here,” the attending paramedic said. “Bring over the gurney.”
Another medic ran for a gurney that was parked by the lobby entrance. I’d seen enough endings to know the Russian had the cold shadow of death on
him. It was now or never.
I sensed collective shock and disbelief as I knelt beside the injured man and grabbed his collar.
“Who sent you? I demanded.
The paramedic tried to push me away. “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I resisted, and kept my focus on the Russian. “Who sent you?” I repeated.
I felt hands on me, but I fought their pull and pressured the driver.
“Tell me!” I yelled.
The man muttered something in Russian and his eyes focused briefly.
“Get off him!” an angry voice yelled, and it was joined by others.
The hands were pulling harder now. I couldn’t resist for much longer.