Vertical Run (36 page)

Ransome hiccupped an expletive: “Shit!” It wasn’t like him to swear in surprise.

From the radio, Parrot’s voice: “Robin, what’s going on?”

“At ease, I repeat, at ease. I’ll get back to you.”

The voice on the other side of the wall: “How many? Who?”

Another voice: “Buzzard, Macaw, and Crow.”

Ransome was not whispering. He spoke in his normal, coolly conversational tones. “Loon, Bluejay, and Condor were in the conference room. They’ll be down too. Six men. Mr. Elliot is beginning to get on my nerves.”

“He’s still in there, sir?”

“Affirmative. Where else would he be? If he’d come into the halls, we’d have him by now.” Ransome’s tone of voice shifted. “Or … or …” He sounded puzzled. Dave wondered why.

“Sir, should we …?”

“Should we what, soldier? Earn our pay? I think we should. All right, ladies, on the count. Set your weapons to rock and roll, and if Mr. David Elliot happens to be within your field of fire, do us all a favor and aerate him. Now, one …”

Dave could hear bolts snap. Men who knew they had live rounds in their chambers were chambering another round, just to be sure. It was always that way. He’d done it himself.

“… two …”

Their hearts would be feeling too big for their chests. It would actually hurt. The last spike of adrenaline before the shooting starts is terrifying. The first time Dave felt it, he thought he was having a coronary.

“… three!”

A hail of silenced bullets sounds little different from the flurry of a flock of surprised pigeons, beating their wings in panicky escape from a stalking cat.

Hot brass pinged onto the floor. Glass shattered. Something crackled with the percussion of bursting popcorn. An object collapsed with a crash. Dave could feel the vibration of slugs tearing into the walls, the floor, the ceiling.

He could picture what was going on in Bernie’s office. He’d seen it before. There was a ville just thirty klicks north of the DMZ, and on its outskirts an old French plantation house that was supposed to be an enemy HQ. Dave’s men put so many rounds into it that one of the walls crumbled. Once the shooting stopped, Dave had been the first to enter. The interior of the house—every stick of furniture—had been turned to confetti.

It was quiet. Just for a second there was no more noise. Then a man began to gibber.

“What the hell! Christ, man! These are women! I didn’t sign up for …”

“At ease.” Ransome’s voice had as sharp an edge as Dave had ever heard.

“I’m going to puke. Let me out of here.”

“Take one step, and you’re meat.”

“Aw, shit! That’s the Cohen broad. Jesus! Are you some sort of fucking psycho …”

Dave heard the gentle cough of a silenced weapon. Something limp bumped against the closet, and slid to the floor.

Ransome, his voice soft and serene, whispered, “When I say at ease, I mean at ease. Now, ladies, let’s get back to work. The issue at hand is not these women, the issue is the subject, who appears to have eluded us again …”

“The window, sir …”

“Someone, check out that conference room …”

“No, sir, the window …”

Ransome’s voice drowned out the others. “Stand aside. Let me see what’s … ah, God. Wouldn’t you know it?”

He’s at the window, Dave thought. He’s seen the cable. They’re all with him. Their backs are turned, and it would be so easy.

Ransome barked into the radio. “The roof! Elliot’s got a rope! Parrot, get the backup team up the stairs! Move! Move!”

Parrot yelled back, “West stairwell, sir! That’s the only access to the roof!”

“Do it!”

Seconds later the silence returned. Dave took a long breath. His shoulders slumped, and he loosened his grip on the Jati-Matic’s stock. The whole business had barely taken a minute. They’d come and they’d gone, and not one of them had suspected that it was all a ruse.

The bodies, the blood, the bullet holes, the canvas drawn back from Bernie’s shattered window, the cable dangling outside—it had been a perfect illusion. Ransome bought it lock, stock, and barrel.

Careful. Remember what Mamba Jack used to say about overconfidence
.

A down payment on a body bag.

For a minute there, wasn’t there something funny about Ransome’s voice?

Maybe. For just that one moment it changed. It sounded puzzled.

So?

Better safe than sorry.

Dave slid prone to the closet floor. He wiped his hand across his shirt and gripped the Jati-Matic. He seated its butt against his shoulder.

Forty round magazine. Compensate for the weight
.

He tickled the closet door with the tip of his finger. It opened a fraction of an inch.

Dave paused and listened. Silence. Not the least hint that there was anyone on the other side. He nudged the door again.

Still nothing.

And again. And open all the way.

Dave stepped over the body of the man whom Ransome had shot.

Bernie’s office was empty.

Another window was shattered, blown into the night by Ransome’s men. A section of Bernie’s fine mahogany desk, the quarter nearest the door, was in splinters. Five or six lines of bullet holes traced across the wall behind it. One Wyeth painting was destroyed; two others were untouched. Bernie’s sofa was now merely shreds of fabric, fiber, and wood. His credenza leaned drunkenly. The lamps were porcelain shards. And as for the impaled heads …

He gulped a deep breath, forcing nausea to become anger. Someone had stolen the engraved antitank round commemorating Bernie’s service in Korea. Dave thought that if he found the man who had taken it, he would kill him too.

He belly-crawled to the door, now smashed from its hinges, and rolled into the corridor. He swung left, jutting the Jati-Matic forward, aiming it at the height of a standing man’s waist. He let off a burst of silenced fire, and somersaulted, bringing the still chugging rifle to the right.

The bullets thudded into the walls. There was no one there. The hallway was empty, cool beneath fluorescent light. The understated wallpaper, the discreet beige carpet, the muted, tasteful framed art were as they ever were—corporate America, marred only by a few bullet holes and three bodies bathed in blood.

Dave spun left, and spun again.

God loves ya, pal. Ransome actually
did
fall for it
.

Yeah.

Now let’s wrap it up
.

Right.

Dave ejected the Jati-Matic’s magazine and slapped a fresh one in. He brought the weapon up to port arms and began to run. Ransome was going up the west stairwell, Ransome and
all
of his men except the four on the ground floor.

Dave sprinted for the east stairwell. He was cool now, in control. He had been since taking the three men in the conference room. The old calm had come over him, the
relaxed poise of a professional doing a professional’s job. No rage, no terror, no second thoughts. Only the job. Just do the job.

He reached the door, flung it open, and dashed up the stairs.

Forty-ninth floor.

The fire door was locked. There was no time to shim it. He shot it open.

He ran. He had only seconds left now. Ransome would be on the roof any moment. It wouldn’t take him long to realize he’d been lured into doing the one thing no commander ever should do—concentrating his troops in a location with only one way in and only one way out.

Dave ran.

Down a corridor. Right turn. Faster. Another turn coming up.

His momentum carried him into the wall. He bounced off it, stumbled, and picked up his pace. His shoeless feet thudded on the carpet. He wasn’t breathing hard. He was tranquil, collected, at peace. In less than thirty seconds, everything would be settled.

The fire door to the west stairway.

Dave pulled himself to a stop. It was almost an effort. It was almost that he hadn’t wanted to stop running. He thought he might have kept running forever.

He pressed his ear against the door. He heard nothing. His enemies were not there.

He pushed the door open, propping it ajar with one of his pistols.

The concrete was cold beneath his stockinged feet. Above him he could hear the muffled click of shoe heels. Some few men were still on the stairs, not yet out on the roof.

Too bad.

He took four quick steps forward and looked down. The stairway spiraled away for forty-nine floors. Two flights of stairs per floor, ninety-eight flights in total. A platform at every floor, and another in between each
floor. You could see all the way down. You could see all the way up.

And if you looked up, and if you knew where to look, you could see where the stairwell gave access to the roof. You could see the bottom of the platform inside the roof bunker. You could see where Dave had taped a brown bottle of crystalline nitrogen triiodide.

Baby go boom!

Dave lifted the Jati-Matic. A tricky shot. He glanced back at the door, judging his tolerances. Seven feet. It was going to be close. He’d make it if his timing was right. If it wasn’t, he’d never know.

He steadied his sights. Someone was still up there climbing toward the roof. Dave waited for him to get out of danger.

The radio crackled. Ransome was shouting. “Myna! Myna, seal the …”

Time’s up!

Dave fired.

The Jati-Matic recoiled against his shoulder. He was in the air, diving for the door. His finger was still on the trigger. Bullets sprayed through the stairwell, ricocheting off concrete. The door, the hall, safety was only a few feet away.

His eyes were squeezed shut. There was a white brightness, so white, so bright. The blood vessels in his eyelids glowed incandescent red.

And neon heat, hot as the heart of God.

And a thunder, not the thunder of a lightning storm in distant farmlands, not the slow boom and long roll heard from a young boy’s bedroom window, not wait for the flash and count the seconds until you hear the sound and then multiply by 0.2 so that you know how many miles away the lightning struck.

Not far thunder. Not near thunder.

Interior thunder, thunder heard from inside the lightning.

Most of his body was through the doorway when the blast struck. Its force did not punch him down, but rather
lifted him, rotated him, and slammed him upside down into a wall. It held him for a second, pushing so hard that the breath left his lungs, and then dropped him to the floor.

He felt as though a street gang had bludgeoned him with clubs. Every muscle ached. Every inch of skin felt bruised.

He pulled himself away from the gaping door, now twisted metal on bent hinges. Chunks of concrete rubble rained down from above, bounced, and rolled across the carpet. A choking cloud of dust powdered his face. He gagged for breath and crawled away.

Water.

There was a fountain down the hall. Dave reached it, pulled himself erect, and pushed the lever. He drank deep, and then let water run over his face. Behind him metal shrieked. An I-beam smashed through the ceiling and impaled the floor where, seconds earlier, he had been lying.

Jesus, pal, are you sure you didn’t use a bit too much of that triiodide?

Nope.

He took another drink of water.

Noise—static? a voice?—crackled out of the radio. Dave’s ears were ringing. He couldn’t quite make out … He worked his jaw back and forth, swallowing, and trying to clear his ears. There was a pop, and he could hear again.

“… there? Repeat, what the holy hell was that? Come in, Robin. Come in, Partridge. Repeat, what’s going on up there? Somebody answer.” It was Myna, the man stationed in the lobby.

Dave hit the transmit button. “Myna, give me a status. What did it sound like down there?”

“Like a goddamn train wreck.”

“Did anyone hear it on the street? Is there any activity out there?”

“Negative. Anyone outside who heard it probably thinks it’s just another Con Ed manhole explosion. But
there are other people in this building, and I’ll bet they’re all dialing 911.”

Right. Whatever happens next has to happen fast
.

“Stand by, Myna. Don’t do anything.”

“Affirmative. Who is this anyway?”

“I’ll tell you who it is.” Ransome. His voice was as scratchy as an old 78 rpm record.

Dave pushed his thumb down. “David Elliot speaking, Myna. Keep cool, and don’t do anything rash if you want to make it home today.”

Ransome spoke softly, “You astonish me, Mr. Elliot. It is quite unlikely that any of us will make it home.”

“They will if they listen and do what I say. Myna, Partridge, the rest of you people, pay close attention to me. First, let me give you what I think the status is. Myna, you’ve got three men with you. There are six men down on the forty-fifth floor …”

“Dead,” Ransome shot.

“Not all of them. You should have looked closer. I only shot the ones who didn’t give me any choice. Think about it, guys, I’ve spent the whole day trying my damnedest to
not
kill you people.”

“With a regrettable lack of success.”

Dave ground his teeth. Score one point for a.k.a. John Ransome. He couldn’t let the bastard score again—not if, as he hoped, he was going to be able to win Ransome’s men away from him. “Okay, on the roof, Ransome, you’ve got, what, a dozen people left.”

“You don’t really expect me to tell you, do you?”

“Fewer. Anyone who was on the stairs, anyone who was near the door is on the casualty list. Myna, FYI, the noise you heard was me blowing the stairs. Everyone on the roof stays on the roof.”

“This is Robin. Myna, notify HQ immediately.”

“Belay that, Myna,” Dave snapped. “If you notify headquarters one of two things will happen. One, they send more men, or two, they say to hell with it and drop a heavy. Either way, you die.”

“Don’t listen to him, Myna.”

“Myna, if they send more men, they won’t get me. Not right away. Even if they send a whole goddamned regiment and run an office-by-office check, it will take hours. By then it will be past sunup. People will be in the streets. Commuters will be arriving. The city will be awake.”

“Myna, I have given you a direct order. Call HQ.”