There was a noise ahead, a clanking sound as though another door had closed somewhere, and they ran thirty feet to where the corridor turned left. There, another twenty feet away, the corridor opened into a wider cul-de-sac. The far wall appeared to be decorative, covered with heavily textured plaster. There was no way out but the corridor down which they had come.
Laika heard a mechanical sound and put her ear to the plastered wall. "There's an elevator behind here." She jerked her head around to the others. "Christ, they're on their way down. . . ."
It was easy now. James just stuck his flashlight in his hip pocket and followed the lights. It was going perfectly. He'd get them in one of these narrow corridors and just blast away. Shit, there was no way he could miss.
He poked his head around the corner and looked into an office. The coffee sure smelled good. Maybe he'd have himself a cup on the way out to celebrate.
He edged his way into the short hall and saw an empty room ahead. They probably went through the kicked-down door. He had heard it splinter way back in the main hall.
James could hear voices ahead. It looked like they were after something, and if they were, they wouldn't expect anybody coming up on them from behind.
He stopped where the corridor turned left. He heard her voice, though he couldn't make out the words. Okay, she was there, it was time, goddamnit. He had thought a lot about what to say just before he opened up on her and had finally come up with something so simple and vicious that it would send her through the gates of hell totally pissed off.
So long, bitch.
He wanted the word that she hated so much to be the last thing she heard in this life.
James took a deep breath and cocked the pistol, wincing at the click it made. Though the sound of metal meeting metal was very soft, it sounded loud to James. But he steeled himself by thinking that the others couldn't have heard it. Then he stepped around the corner, his weapon still at his side, but ready to come up as soon as he saw his targets . . .
. . . And looked into the muzzles of three guns just as big as Christ and death pointing at him from less than fifteen feet away.
"So long bi—" was as far as he got before terror choked him.
Laika, Joseph, and Tony had just turned to run back down the hallway when they all heard the soft but unmistakable sound of a hammer being cocked. They instantly went into a three-man combat stance, aiming their weapons down toward the bend of the corridor. When James Winston suddenly appeared, his gun starting to come up, Laika knew that he saw death looking at him.
"Drop it!" she barked. She knew that Tony and Joseph were trained not to fire until the pistol in James's hand came above his waist. James was only two inches from dying.
She saw fear enter his face, and the gun tremble. This was the moment. He would either bring it up in panic or lower it all the way. If he panicked, he would die before he could get off a shot.
"Turn it around," she said more gently. "Hold it by the barrel. Hand it to us." James was crazier than most people she had known, but she thought even he wasn't crazy enough to pass up a chance of living.
She was right. The .38 slowly dropped to his side, and he reached over with his other hand, took it by the barrel, and held it out toward them.
Tony covered the distance in a second, never letting the muzzle of his gun leave the target of James's chest, and smoothly snatched the pistol from his hand. He shook his head as if at the man's stupidity, then grabbed him by the shoulder and flung him against the wall. "You," he said, "are one real dumbass."
"He's right, James,"" said Laika. "You are a dumbass."
"We've gotta get downstairs," Tony said, "and fast."
Laika knew what he meant. And she knew why James had come after them. The gun told her that. He had wanted to kill her, and probably Tony and Joseph, too, figuring they were her lovers, or some other bullshit.
She was just about to give Tony the nod to do what had to be done when James, as though realizing his fate, shook his head and backed away toward the turn in the corridor. As he stepped back, a shot rang out.
For a split second, Laika thought that Tony had shot James without an order. But then more shots followed, and Laika saw the bullets spitting into the wall next to James. He leapt toward Laika and the others, and she knew the gunfire was originating from the end of the corridor down which they had first come.
She threw her arm around the corner and opened up with her Jati-Matic, throwing half of her twenty-round clip down the corridor at their attackers. She whipped her head and arms back around the corner to safety as the firing from the other end ceased. "Great," she growled. "Now who the hell are they?"
"This is getting to be like a convention," Tony said.
"Friends of yours?" Laika asked James, but he shook his head.
"No . . . no, I came alone. . . ."
"How many, you think?" she asked Tony.
"From the sound of it, I'd guess six to eight. Semis and full. They're well equipped. But as long as we've got ammo, there's no way they can get down the corridor."
"And no way we can get up it," she added.
"What the hell . . . what the hell's goin' on, man?" James said. Laika was far from feeling amused, but she couldn't help but relish the fact that James was sweating like a pig and looked positively chalky.
"What's going on is that you stepped into the wrong place at the wrong time," Laika said.
"With the wrong people," Tony added. Joseph, Laika noticed, wasn't saying much, for a change, but he didn't look scared, just determined. "We gotta get out of here, Laika," Tony said. "Those people on the elevator are gonna be long gone by the time we get out of this, if we do."
"Well, what about the elevator?" asked Laika. "It's worth a try. Joseph, you stay here. They try to advance, fire a few shots to drive them back. James, you come with us."
James obeyed like a puppy dog, staying just ahead of them as she held him at gunpoint. When they reached the wall where they had heard the elevator, there was another burst of gunfire from the hall, but she saw Joseph swing his Uzi into the open and spray the hallway with bullets, and the silence fell again.
Laika kept her gun trained on James, while Tony covered the rough-textured wall with searching fingers. "There's got to be a catch here somewhere. . . ."
He found a small switch at waist level, under a decorative ridge at the right edge of the wall, where no one would come across it by accident. As soon as he pressed it, the panel slid into the wall to the right like a pocket door, revealing an elevator double door of brushed aluminum and a panel with one button.
Tony pushed it, but nothing happened. "Shit!" he said, and the word was punctuated by another blast of gunfire from the corridor. Laika heard Joseph shooting back. "They must've locked it down below."
"Can we open it?" Laika asked, then gestured with her gun. "James, help him."
Tony took a small tool from a pocket and jammed it between the elevator doors, opening it enough to get his fingers in. "Come on," he grunted to James, who did the same on the other side. "Pull, goddamnit!"
As the men increased the pressure on the doors, they slowly slid open until they reached the midway point. Then they flew all the way open, throwing James back against the wall and nearly tripping Tony, who kept his balance. Laika stepped to the entrance and looked in.
The counterweight was directly across the shaft, which told her the elevator itself was all the way at the bottom. Four feet ahead was the thick cable. There was no emergency ladder. There was nothing else at all but an open shaft thirty-three stories down.
"Could you get down?" Laika asked Tony.
"On the cable?" She didn't know if it was possible, but thought it might be. It would be like climbing down a rope, but a slick one. It would take tremendous upper body strength, and she was strong, but not that strong.
Tony thought for a moment. "Maybe if I cut apart some holsters, use them to grip the cable, wrap a belt around them and hang on to that, I don't know. But that
means leaving you two here—I can't do that."
"Bullshit you can't," Laika said, taking out a commando knife and slipping off the holster that housed her single action pistol. "Cover him."
Tony held his SIG on James while Laika stuck her pistol in her belt and cut apart the holster. "Score the inside surface," Tony said. "Give it more traction." Laika did as he'd asked, cutting hatches on the rough leather. Then she snaked her belt off her dark jeans.
"What about your shoes?" she said. "You've got to be able to grip the cable with your feet, too."
"Okay." Tony took off the holster that housed his .45 semi-automatic and jammed the pistol into his waistband alongside James's .38. "I feel like a walking gun shop," he said.
Laika cut the holster open, scoring the leather, and then ran to Joseph, who was reloading during a brief lull in the firefight. "I need your belt and holster for grips," she said. "Tony's going to go down the shaft."
"He'd rather die falling than getting shot?" Joseph said, taking off his belt, and his effort at banter relieved her. But then they both ducked involuntarily as another fusillade came from the end of the hall. Joseph waited until it had died down and then answered it with a rattling series of his own. "Just to let them know we're still here," he said with a smile.
Laika ran back to the elevator, where she performed the same operation on Joseph's holster and cut his belt into strips. Then she gave the whole mess to Tony, who tightly bound the holster leather around his shoes with the belt strips. When he was finished, he gave James's pistol to Laika and handed her his SIG.
"Take good care of her. I'll keep the .45, try and follow them when I get down. I'll come back when I can."
"Good luck," said Laika.
He patted his chest. "Hey, I got my St. Christopher medal. Who needs luck?"
Then he put one hand on the elevator doorway and reached out with the largest of the leather holsters for the cable. "Shit," he said. "I need both hands."
"Hold his waist," Laika told James. "He falls, you'd better go with him."
James gingerly stepped to the edge of the shaft next to Tony and put his arms around his waist. Tony leaned out over the abyss, wrapped the rough side of the holster around the cable, whipped the belt around it, and cinched it tight. At least the cable wasn't greasy. On the contrary, it seemed rough with rust. "You know," he said, "I have absolutely no idea if this is going to work or not."
"Leap of faith," said Laika softly.
Then Tony stepped into space, his leather-soled feet reaching for the cable.
Chapter 48
He fell several feet before he found his footing. Clutching desperately at the belt around the cable, he scrambled frantically with his feet, afraid that he was going to plunge unchecked straight down thirty-three stories.
But the rough hide caught on the twisted cable, never stopping entirely, but slowing him enough so that by great pressure of hands, wrists, and legs, he was able to check his speed. Even so, it was terrifying to him, shooting downward in total darkness, unable to sense how quickly he was falling. It felt fast, too fast, so that he expected at any second to slam against the top of the elevator car as though he had been thrown by a giant fist.
But as the seconds passed and the expected impact did not come, his panic diminished slightly. Still, he could not relax for an instant, clutching the belt tightly with one hand, and holding onto the leather holster itself with the other, while pressing his feet tight against the cable. From above, he once again heard the sound of gunfire, and the thought came to him that even now the attackers might be storming down the corridor and around the corner, riddling Laika and Joseph with bullets.
Suddenly the palm of his hand on the holster started to burn, and he realized with horror that the leather was wearing through. In another two seconds, he began to feel his feet slipping, and knew that the leather on his shoes had burned through to the point where only the rubber of his athletic shoes was against the cable. They did not grip.
His feet went straight down, and the increased pressure ripped the skin from his left hand so that he could hold on no longer.
Then the belt in his right hand snapped.
He fell, trying to twist his body so that he could land on his side, and hit the top of the elevator car almost instantly.
The impact knocked the air out of him, but did not splatter him over the top of the car, as he had feared. He had been only twenty feet above the car when the leather pads had given out and had free-fallen only ten feet. He had hit his left arm on the cable bar, and from the pain suspected that he might have broken a bone in his wrist, but there was no time for concern about that.
In the darkness, he felt around the top of the car for an escape panel, and his hands soon clutched a lever. He pulled up hard and the panel yielded, clattering to the surface of the roof as light poured up from the opening.
Tony pulled his .45 from his waist and dropped down into the car. The switch was set to lock, but far worse for Laika and Joseph, the control panel had been pried open and the wires ripped out. There was no way to send the car back up for them.
Tony snarled a curse and stepped through the open elevator doors into a well-lit twenty-foot corridor with a closed door at the end. He ran down it and shoved open the door, his pistol up and ready.
The door opened on the same garage through which they had entered the building. At its far end, the van that had been parked there was roaring up the ramp to the street. Tony ran across the dirty concrete floor, following it up the ramp and out onto the street.
Damn it, he thought as he ran. If they'd only locked the gate behind them when they'd gone in, that idiot James wouldn't have gotten in, and maybe neither would have whoever had been shooting at them up above. But most of all, the van driver would have had to stop to unlock the gate.
Tony saw the van heading east, already a block away.
There was no way he could catch it on foot, not with so little traffic to slow it down.
He ran to the corner and waited at the red light for several seconds until a car stopped. It was an ancient and rusting Ford Pinto, but he had no time to shop. He yanked open the car door, shouted, "Move!" and pulled out the screaming driver. Then he climbed in and tore after the van, whose taillights he thought he saw now three blocks away, still heading toward the East River.
The Pinto labored and wheezed when he tried to push it, but by running red lights and stop signs he had closed the gap to two blocks. Then the van turned right and he lost it.
He made the turn, heading south, and was surprised to see no vehicles ahead of him. Thinking the van had started out going east and might have taken the next left to keep going that way, he slowed and looked down the block toward the river a half mile away, but saw only a car headed toward him.
Still, it seemed the best bet, so he swung the Pinto to the left anyway. No van suddenly appeared, nor did he spy it on any of the side streets he passed. Finally he drove down Old Slip, hoping to catch a glimpse of it, but found nothing.
Frustrated, he retraced his route, but could find no place where the van had pulled in to let him by. South and east, Tony thought. Where the hell could they have been going? There were no bridges south and east of the financial district . . .
But there were piers. Wondering how he could have been so stupid, he made a U-turn and drove back to the river. When he hit South Street, he went south on it, hugging the docks, and there, parked under a sickly yellow light at the end of a short pier, was the van. A small covered boat was already a hundred yards out in the East River, heading to Brooklyn or Bayonne or Staten Island or any point south.
"Shit!" Tony cried, as he drove down to the pier and then out onto it. He jumped out of the Pinto and ran to the end of the pier, hoping that he could make out something on the rapidly disappearing power boat. But he couldn't. Its running lights were the only thing visible, and from them he assumed that the boat was a twenty-footer, maybe more. He couldn't tell another thing.
He looked i
nside the van, but it was totally empty. Nothing under the seats or in the glove compartment or the storage wells. The license plate had been removed, and the serial number had been filed off.
Slamming the van doors, he got into the Pinto and quickly headed back toward the Weyandt Tower. Through the open window, he heard a siren sounding from the area from which he had come and wondered if it was a police car responding to his act of grand theft auto. But then he figured, hell, this was New York; there were always sirens.
When she saw Tony glide away down into the darkness of the elevator shaft, Laika considered shining her flashlight down on him, but then thought that might distract him more than help him. The point was made moot by another outburst of gunfire from the corridor.
She beckoned to James to get moving, and they rejoined Joseph, who had just fired off another short burst and was now reloading. "I hate to say this," he said, glancing up at her, "but I didn't bring enough ammo to continue this indefinitely. How's Tony doing?"
"He went down the shaft. I don't know if he made it."
"Oh, that's encouraging. Even if he did, he's no good to us at the moment, nor, I'm afraid, can we count on him in the near future. Any suggestions?"
Laika glanced at James. "You're not in on this—get the hell back to the elevator and wait there until I call you." James seemed so scared that he didn't give her any backtalk, not even a second look. He just nodded and went. Laika turned back to Joseph. "You don't have to tell me, I know he's got to die."
"We may all have to die," Joseph said, giving a fairly noble smile. "Though I'd prefer not to."
"You and me both."
"Who are those guys? The goths from the subway station?"
"The goths didn't have that kind of firepower. But the squad that attacked the goths did."
"Why would they help us then and try to waste us now?" Joseph asked.
"Don't know—maybe it's a new player entirely."
"Christ, how many we got in this game?" Joseph was quiet for a moment, then said, "The kid could be useful."
City of Iron Page 29
