The Fallen: A Derek Stillwater Thriller (21 page)

Alexander watched until they were dark specks on the horizon. He turned and walked back to a waiting Humvee. What he had just done— releasing twenty-three terrorists under a ransom demand— made him feel like a coward, like somehow they had just lost a major battle. Knowing that F14s were tracking the choppers didn’t make it any easier.

His second in command, Lieutenant Drew Stevens, was talking to someone on a telephone. He nodded and clicked off. Stevens said, “They made the call.”

Alexander nodded. “What did Coffee have to say? They know?”

Stevens hesitated. “He asked about Kosov first.”

“Not good. What did they tell him?”

“That she wasn’t with them. And as far as they knew, she never had been. They thought she was dead.”

“She is. What was Coffee’s reaction?”

“He said something they thought was a code. He said—” Stevens checked a note. “ ‘Delta, Delta, Bravo, Delta, Gamma, Alpha.’ And the guy on the phone, that German prick, Grünwald, repeated it back to him.”

Alexander clenched his jaw. “Sounds like code. Like they had some sort of plan for this.”

Stevens shrugged. “We’ve been interrogating these guys unsuccessfully for almost a year. Does that surprise you?”

Alexander shook his head. Not much about The Fallen Angels surprised him anymore. They were more cult than terrorist organization. They were all highly trained intelligence officers who had abandoned their countries and their loyalties to give their lives to this guy, Richard Coffee.

Stevens studied his boss for a moment. “Sir, what are you thinking?”

Alexander glanced around. “You and I probably know more about these people than anybody else on the planet, don’t we?”

“I think so, sir.”

“So you tell me. Under what circumstances would it be a good idea to let these people loose?”

“None, sir. But they’re going to kill the world leaders if we didn’t.”

Alexander cocked his head. “Letting them loose on the world is like dumping a school of barracuda into a kiddy pool. I think we should shoot those choppers out of the sky and let the hostages take their chances.” He climbed into the Humvee. “And that was my recommendation to General Puskorius.”

Derek felt uneasy leaving Maria alone, but didn’t see where he had any real choice. He’d end up getting her killed if he tried to bring her any farther, and he couldn’t just stay with her while the hostage crisis played out above their heads. He slipped out of a doorway at the back of the power plant that led to the hydraulic pit. He walked down a dozen metal stairs and waited in the darkness.

The stage in the main ballroom— directly above him— could be raised and lowered depending on what use the room was going to be put: concerts or plays or speeches, or if they just needed more floor space for dining. The hydraulic pit was essentially a large open space beneath the stage filled with the machinery used to raise and lower the stage.

From here he could access the ballroom if he had to. At least in theory. Off to each side was a doorway leading to side entrances of the backstage area. He quickly checked them. From the hydraulic pit side, they appeared normal. But he found it difficult to believe they wouldn’t be wired with explosives on the other side.

Toward the back of the stage was a trapdoor. Moving beneath it, he studied the square wooden entrance. It was about four feet by four feet, hinged on one side, and latched securely so there was no give when somebody walked on it. It was cleverly designed and tight— no light seeped around the edges.

So close— the G20 leaders were right above him— wired with explosives, guarded by armed maniacs.

He crept over to a corner of the stage where he had hidden a handgun. He opened the cleverly concealed wooden box and removed the weapon, made sure it was loaded, and slipped it into his belt.

Now what?

He tried to think of the various ways he could move around the building, and an idea occurred to him.

He approached yet another door, this one leading to a storage area at the very back of the building. It was very unlikely this door had been wired with explosives. At least he hoped so.

Derek took a deep breath, gripped the handle, and turned it.

Nothing. He pushed into the storage area. A large, dark room filled with tables, chairs, recording equipment, lighting equipment, boxes of linens, plumbing fixtures, and other detritus— the spare parts bin of the Cheyenne Center. Keeping the flashlight to the ground, he picked his way around the clutter toward the back corner of the room.

He flashed the light upward. Yes, he thought.

Twelve feet off the floor was a cold air intake vent. It was about three feet wide and eighteen inches tall.

Sweat beaded up on Derek’s forehead as he thought about this. Just do it, he thought. Don’t think too much.

Carefully he started to move boxes around under the cold air vent. What I’d give for a ladder, he thought.

Finally, after fifteen minutes of stealthy movements, he was able to climb up on the boxes so he was level with the vent. Using the screwdriver that he had been carrying since getting out of the walk-in freezer, he unscrewed the grille and set it aside.

With a sigh, he squeezed into the vent. It reminded him of every thriller movie he’d ever seen. Probably every thriller movie ever made. It was a joke, too. In those movies the air ducts were huge. This one wasn’t. It was tight. Very tight. Eighteen inches was barely enough room for his body while lying flat. And even that was tight. He had to be careful not to make noise or display any light.

Derek squirmed forward and hit his first turn to the right. It took a lot of effort to make the turn, and in the process he scraped his ribs against the metal of the ductwork corner. Pain shot up and down his side, radiating throughout his body. He stuffed his fist into his mouth to muffle the groans. His vision grew dim and his breathing echoed harshly in the duct.

Derek’s brain played little games— thoughts of getting stuck here, unable to move forward or back. The space seemed to get tighter and
tighter around him, the air thinner and thinner. He willed himself to calm down, to not panic.

Breathe, dammit. Breathe!

Slowly the panic seeped away. Calmer, he inched forward toward a dim patch of light. It seemed to take him forever to get to a T-junction, even though it was probably only about a dozen feet away. If it had been the length of the building he knew he wouldn’t have been able to do it.

Off to his right, the duct ended in a grille that glowed palely in the darkness. To his left the duct seemed to curve upward. He thought it probably did. He wanted to go up, but knew there was no way he could climb vertically in the duct. So he went right.

As he had suspected, the grille looked over an elevator shaft. This was a freight elevator on the opposite side of the building from the elevator he and Maria had taken to the basement. It would have to do.

It took longer than he had expected to remove the grille from the inside, but finally he was able to pop it off. He was five feet above the freight elevator. Squirming out, he thought he was going to pass out again. He wasn’t a contortionist on a good day, and today was definitely not a good day.

Dangling out of the grille, hands reaching for the steel cables, he lost his balance.

With a stifled cry, he dropped onto the top of the freight elevator with a hard thunk that jarred every nerve in his body. Blackness. Slowly the world moved from black to gray to twilight, a world in fuzzy focus. Dirt. Grease. Dust. Shafts of dim light beaming from small holes way above. He lay on top of the elevator for a moment, catching his breath.

This, he thought, isn’t going to work. You’re not up to this. Get real.

He had to consider what he had been unwilling to do before— climb up the elevator cables. Forty feet up a rope would not have been difficult for him, even in his current battered condition. Forty feet up greasy metal cables with metal splinters ripping his flesh was a different story.

He studied the cables and the walls of the elevator shaft. He saw his goal. Near the top of the building was an elevator entryway that led to a workspace at the back of the stage near the roof of the Cheyenne Center. The freight elevator was the only way to enter this space, which was used to access the lighting board for the stage.

I could just ride the elevator up there, he thought. But Derek knew that it would instantly alert Coffee and his men to where he was and where he was going.

“Shit.” He looked upward. Taking out the Emerson knife he had lifted from one of the Fallen Angels, he cut off his shirtsleeves. Removing his leather belt, he cut it into strips and wrapped the cloth from the shirt around the leather, then wrapped them around his hands, like cloth-covered leather gloves.

With a sigh, he gripped the cables and began a slow, arduous climb upward.

From her awkward perch in the sycamore tree in the lobby of the International Center, Irina Khournikova thought she heard faint sounds from the lower level. She kept perfectly still, waiting, straining her ears to hear.

Yes, she thought after a moment. Someone is moving down below. Someone moving very quietly, very slowly, very deliberately.

She heard a clatter, focused on the source of the noise, and caught her breath.

Bouncing along the slate floor was a hand grenade.

The concussion wave nearly blasted her right out of the tree. Shrapnel bit at the limbs and peppered her side, though she was mostly protected by the sycamore. Stifling a cry, she clung to her branch, ears ringing from the concussion, which had torn a hole in the floor and thrown up a huge cloud of dust and debris. Blinking her eyes, she tried to focus. She saw a figure rush through the fallout toward the front entrance.

Swinging her rifle around to take aim, she watched the blocky figure spin and toss two more grenades, one toward the upper level, the other falling very close to the trunk of the tree she was in.

Desperate, rifle dropping away, she leapt toward the railing of the second level overhang just as both grenades exploded. With a crack, the tree collapsed as the shrapnel and concussion tore apart the trunk. Slowly, the tree began to fall toward the ground.

Irina slammed into the rail and dangled, feet flailing for purchase in the air, fingers coiled around the metal bars just as the grenade above exploded.

She lost her grip and fell fifteen feet into three feet of water in the fountain. It wasn’t quite enough water to break her fall entirely. She smacked into the basin’s concrete bottom with enough force to knock her
breath out. Sputtering and coughing, she fought her way to the surface, gasping for air. She rolled over the ledge and fell to the ground, covered with chunks of wood, rock, dirt, and marble.

Glancing wildly around for the MP-5, she saw that the tree had landed directly on top of the assault rifle. She staggered to her feet, water streaming from her clothes, sodden hair clinging to her scalp. The world rolled and swooped and she found herself falling back to the ground, unable to keep her balance. Blinking grit from her eyes, she tried again. She knew the grenade’s pressure wave had done damage to her ears. Not only was her hearing muffled, but she felt a swirl of vertigo every time she tried to stand.

She felt around until she located the walkie-talkie she’d been given. She clicked it on and pressed the talk button. “Superman, this is Special K. Superman, this is Special K. Do you read?”

Nothing. She checked the radio. She couldn’t hear well enough to know if it was working, but she thought the fall, the water, and the concussions had disabled it. Or the NSA was still jamming communications. She tried to stand again, and this time, by gripping a tree branch, was able to stay on her feet. She gulped air and pulled herself hand over hand toward where the MP-5 lay. Dropping to her knees, she tried to pull it free, but the tree had landed directly on it. It was pinned.

Turning, she fell over. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She despised feeling helpless. It made her angry. She slapped her hands on her belt and found the handgun. Good enough. It would have to do.

She staggered to her feet and picked her way over and around tree limbs and debris toward the front doors. The more she moved the better she felt, her head starting to clear, the world feeling less wobbly.

Once out of the building, the fresh air helped even more and she was able to break into a trot back toward the Mobile Command Unit. A snake of suspicion had wormed its way into her gut; something about the figure she had glimpsed fleeing the International Center had seemed familiar. She thought she knew who had taken over the security center. And she suspected she knew where he was headed. Now if only she could stop him from doing any more damage.

Hand over bloody hand. Derek stopped, dangling thirty feet above the elevator car, to catch his breath. He may have miscalculated. He was in worse shape than he had thought and his muscles screamed at the strain. His vision kept blurring and the pain in his skull was a constant thumping tattoo. The climb was aggravating the wound to his ribs, which were starting to ooze blood again, soaking his shirt. He didn’t know how much longer he could go.

Gulping a burning lungful of air, he gathered his energy for a last push and slithered his way up the cables, which were shredding his work-pants and tearing into his thighs. The cloths around his hands were tattered rags, but the strips of leather belt were holding up reasonably well. Still, his fingers were scraped raw and bleeding.

Finally he was there. The top of the shaft was only about six feet above his head. Directly across from him was the elevator doorway to the workspace.

He studied the closed doors for a moment before continuing upward to the very top of the shaft. Above him were the gears and motors of the elevator mechanism. Toward the back of the shaft were steel plates— the elevator counterweight.

The doors to the workspace were at least four feet away from the cables he clung to. The ledge was only about six inches wide.

Sweat ran down his forehead and burned into his eyes. He blinked and shook his head, immediately wishing he hadn’t as fresh pain blossomed behind his temples.