by Tim Stevens
Doors began to open along the corridor. Venn yelled, “Get back inside, get back inside,” and raised his own gun. Frightened faces disappeared once more behind slammed doors.
Venn shouted at Lovett: “Go check on Mykels.” He pressed himself against the wall of the corridor, the patrolman following suit, and edged toward the stairwell.
From several floors below, he heard Harmony scream: “Venn. Triad guys. Ah, God – they’ve got assault rifles –”
As if triggered by the words, the rifles opened up.
Venn heard plaster and brick splintering as high-velocity rounds smashed into the walls of the stairwell. Below him, but close, he heard a man scream in pain.
“Cop down,” shouted Harmony.
Venn peered round the corner of the stairwell, aiming his gun straight down. He couldn’t see anything from this many floors up.
“Harm,” he shouted. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She sounded breathless. “Twenty, twenty-five of them. Maybe more. They’re coming up.”
“Get clear,” Venn roared back. He hoped she’d leave the stairs on the second or third floor and find somewhere to take cover. If the men below were firing up the stairwell, they were bound to hit her sooner or later.
He heard racing footsteps, saw a flash of Harmony’s shoulder down the stairwell, thought he glimpsed her turning onto the corridor below.
The gunfire stopped. In its place, he heard feet pounding the stairs. Lots of them.
To the patrolman beside him, he said: “Cover the elevator.”
Venn looked back down the stairwell. On the stairs, he saw a man’s face staring up at him.
The man raised a gun, aiming upward.
Venn fired the Beretta, two quick and steady shots. The face jerked away in a mist of red, a scream echoing up the stairs.
Twenty, twenty-five of them, maybe more, Harmony had said.
Those were long odds.
If they were Triad people, and the man he’d shot had looked Chinese, then they’d be Torvald’s men.
Which meant the only way to stop them was to get to Torvald.
Venn jerked his head at the patrolman.
“Come on” he said.
They started back down the corridor. As they neared the elevator, the doors pinged.
They slid open and four men spilled out. All of them Chinese.
All of them armed.
Venn dived and rolled and fired in a fluid movement, keeping moving, dropping himself out of range and launching a pre-emptive assault all in one go.
One of the men was flung back into the elevator car. Another slammed back against the wall. The third managed to loose off a shot, which hit the opposite wall of the passage, before Venn’s bullet caught him square in the chest and his knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor.
Four down in total.
The patrolman had his service pistol in his hand, but seemed too shell-shocked to register what was happening.
They reached the end of the corridor and turned the corner, Venn in the lead. Ahead, to the left, was the door to suite 46A. Mykels’ room.
The door was shut. Venn reached it, listened for a moment - heard shouting voices inside - then seized the handle and shoved it open and dropped into a crouch, the Beretta aimed.
Three men stood in the room. The closest to Venn was Lance Lovett. He’d adopted the Weaver stance, and was aiming his gun side-on at Louis Mykels.
Mykels was further back, near the balcony windows at the rear. His gun was trained on Carl Torvald.
Midway between the two men, and forming the third point of the triangle, was Torvald. He held a revolver, and had it leveled on Lovett.
A Mexican stand-off.
Chapter 39
Venn said: “Drop it.”
His Beretta was centered on Torvald’s face.
Venn had moved immediately into the room to allow the patrolman access. The uniformed cop was similarly pointing his gun at Torvald.
Over his shoulder, Lovett said: “He’s gonna shoot Torvald. Mykels. He said so.”
Mykels had glanced at Venn and the patrolman when they’d entered, but now he returned his gaze to Torvald.
He muttered: “You bastard. You set me up.”
Without looking round, Venn kicked the door shut behind him.
He said, between his teeth: “I don’t know what the hell’s going on here. But listen closely. There are more than twenty Triad goons about to congregate outside this door. If they open fire, they will kill us all. They have assault rifles. They could waste us through the door. I’m assuming you’ve sent for them, Torvald. Which means you have the power to call them off. You need to act right now and tell them to stand down.”
Torvald looked remarkably composed.
He said: “I didn’t send for them.”
“Bullshit,” snarled Mykels.
Venn said, “Shut up.” To Torvald: “Whether you did or you didn’t, it doesn’t matter. You hired them in the first place to kill Mykels. I’m guessing that’s what they’re here to do. You need to talk to them. Tell them to back off. And you need to do it right away.”
Torvald took a second to consider.
Outside, in the corridor, the unmistakable sound of footsteps was drawing nearer.
With the gun still aimed at Lovett, Torvald took a few steps forward.
Mykels tightened his grip on his gun. “Stay where you are.”
Venn switched his aim to Mykels. “Back down, you idiot. He’s our best chance to save us from all getting killed.”
Through the double-glazed windows of the balcony, Venn heard the distant sounds of activity on the street below. Sirens, and shouted voices. The noise of men gathering.
Harpin’s men, he assumed.
Venn and Lovett and the patrolman stepped aside as Torvald approached. He’d taken his gun off Lovett now, and was holding it loosely by his side.
Torvald opened the door.
The reaction of the men on the other side was immediate. They raised gun barrels so that a forest of hardware was aiming in through the doorway.
Behind Torvald, Venn raised his own Beretta and aimed it back.
Torvald said, in a voice that was at once soft and commanding: “My name is Carl Torvald. I’m the person who hired your boss, Micky Wong. Your services are no longer required. Please lower your weapons and stand down.”
Venn thought: he’d have made a decent hostage negotiator.
One of the men outside pointed past Torvald and Venn into the room.
“It’s him.”
Venn knew he meant Mykels.
A second man shouldered his way so that he was in the doorway in front of the others.
In his hands he carried an assault rifle. A foreign make, one Venn didn’t recognize.
Venn guessed he was the leader.
The man studied Torvald. Then switched his focus behind him, toward Mykels.
Then he looked at Venn. Venn stared back.
A second passed, one that stretched out so long it may as well have been five minutes.
The man said: “Say that again.”
Torvald said, patiently: “I no longer require you to kill the man behind me. Louis Mykels. Your contract is terminated. Kindly stand down.”
Venn watched the man’s eyes. Saw the decision being made there.
The man said: “Kill them.”
He raised the rifle.
Chapter 40
Johnny Lee made his decision quickly and fearlessly.
Just like a true leader was expected to.
This man, Torvald, if that was his name, was one of two things.
Either he was a liar, who was trying to protect Mykels.
Or, he really was the man with whom Micky had been dealing. In which case, by changing his mind about the hit on Mykels, he was selling Micky and his memory out. It meant Micky had died for nothing.
Either way, the man needed to die. As did Mykels.
Johnny felt the fire scorching his vei
ns, the pure thrill of speed and power and bloodlust. They’d stormed the hotel lobby, with no resistance, until the two cops had started firing on them from the stairs. Johnny had cut down the uniformed cop himself, with a burst from the rifle. The other one, the woman, seemed to have gotten away.
They’d find her in good time.
Right now, he and his men had a roomful of enemies to dispatch.
He swung the rifle upward, feeling again the elation which had coursed through him the first time he’d fired it.
He felt the heat from the still-warm barrel against his hands.
And the heat, the real heat, crashed over him like a tidal wave from his left.
Johnny Lee lived for precisely six more seconds.
In that time, he felt like he’d already gone to hell.
Through the terrible, yellow-orange shroud of flame, he made out black shapes. The shapes of his men.
Screaming assailed his ears. Some of it came from his men. Some of it came from his own lungs.
The pain was indescribable.
The fire seared off the upper layers of Johnny Lee’s skin. It melted the filmy conjunctival membranes of his eyes and burned away the gel beneath. It scorched the hair clean off his head.
By the time he dropped into the merciful blackness of oblivion, his throat was fused shut, preventing him from breathing.
*
Shelly had cased the outside of the hotel three times, circumnavigating its perimeter, before she spotted the unusual activity.
She’d seen the patrol car parked outside from the word go, but Mykels had already warned her about that. She watched people come and go through the hotel entrance, but they didn’t look like anything other than harmless, innocent guests going about their normal business.
She’d left Wayne in the car, parked up the street. He gazed at her with the eyes of an adoring spaniel as she climbed out.
“Wait here,” she said. “Keep your phone handy. I’ll call you.”
The look of stern enthusiasm on his face almost made her laugh out loud.
Rounding the corner of the hotel building for the third time, she saw the Crown Vic skid to a halt in front, and she ducked back.
Crown Vic equalled cop car.
When she peeked round the corner once more, she held her breath.
Joe Venn was racing toward the doors, together with a black woman and two uniformed officers.
As she surveyed the front of the hotel for backup, she thought quickly.
Venn must know Torvald was coming, or already here. And that he was a threat to Shelly’s client, Mykels.
Which meant he’d arrest Torvald, and Shelly wouldn’t get her bounty.
“Uh-uh, Joe,” she murmured to herself. “You cheated me once before. Not this time.”
Shelly broke cover and moved swiftly toward the doors.
As she did so, she saw the crowd of men running toward her from the opposite direction.
They looked young, and mean.
And every one of them was Chinese.
It took her a second to realize they weren’t running toward her, exactly. Nor were they even looking at her.
They were heading for the hotel entrance.
Shelly slowed and turned away toward the street, as nonchalantly as she could. If she were lucky, they wouldn’t notice her, or at least wouldn’t regard her as anything more than a passerby on the street, one of the score or so of people passing by the hotel at that point.
She watched them pour through the glass doors of the hotel. On the sidewalk, passersby stared after them and pointed.
There must have been twenty-five or thirty of the men, Shelly judged.
Now this changed things.
She trotted back to the stolen Nissan. On the way, he tried to work it out.
Torvald had come to the hotel, probably to kill Mykels.
He’d called in his Triad cronies as backup.
Venn and his sidekicks were there to stop Torvald.
And so was Shelly, but for different reasons.
The presence of the Triad contingent added a whole new layer of danger.
Shelly was thrilled.
Back at the car, Wayne stared though the window at her. She smiled, gave him the thumbs-up.
“Wayne,” she said. “Slight change of plan. I want you to leave the car and walk into the basement parking lot. Wait there for my call.”
Shelly thought that within a short while, the entrance to the hotel would be cordoned off by a solid line of blue, and it would be impossible for Wayne to get in.
She reached into the backseat and drew out a canvas rucksack.
She hadn’t thought she’d need to use what was inside, and if she’d been up against Torvald alone, her handgun would have been sufficient. But her enemies had now multiplied in number thirtyfold.
It was time to break out the big guns.
Wayne climbed out the car and, casting another adoring glance her way, began to lumber toward the ramp of the parking lot.
Hefting the rucksack on her back, Shelly slammed the door and made her way unhurriedly toward the hotel entrance.
On impulse, she turned and blew Wayne a kiss.
Chapter 41
The shooting started before Shelly reached the entrance.
She stepped back instinctively, because she didn’t need a stray bullet hitting either her or what she carried on her back. Shots starred the doors of the hotel, before further ones blew out the glass.
On the sidewalk around her, people began to scream.
At a crouch, Shelly approached the doors. She caught sight of the backs of the Chinese men, piling toward the elevators and the stairs.
For an instant she considered opening fire from the entrance, while their backs were turned. But there were civilians in the lobby, and there was no need to kill them, too, if it could be avoided.
Instead, she stepped cautiously through the wreckage of the doors. She noted the reception staff cowering behind the desk.
Four other people, civilians, were flattened on the floor behind a sofa. They didn’t look hurt. Just dazed, and scared out of their wits.
At the foot of the stairs, two of the Triad guys lay motionless, their twisted bodies and bloodied clothes telling Shelly they were dead. One of the patrolmen sprawled halfway up the steps, also dead.
She heard gunfire continuing to erupt from upstairs.
Swiftly, Shelly unslung the rucksack. Hefted the flamethrower, and fitted it to the propane tank, which she then hoisted once more onto her back inside the rucksack.
She reached the stairs and peeked up. There was noise, lots of it, from up above. But the shooting had stopped, and there was nobody to be seen.
Shelly stepped over the bodies and mounted the stairs in her sneakered feet, pausing at each floor. The noises seemed to be coming from the fourth floor, the one where Mykels had his suite.
At the top of the stairs, she hugged the wall and slipped down the corridor.
Turned the corner at the end.
And there they were, at least twenty of them, crowded in the corridor outside Mykels’ door. All of them were armed.
A couple of them looked like they had automatic weapons.
The door was open, and Shelly realized one of the Triad guys was talking to somebody inside.
As one, the men raised their weapons.
It was now or never.
Shelly took a few steps toward the group. At the last minute one of them looked round and saw her.
He yelled a warning, but he was too late.
The propane gas shot out of the muzzle of the flamethrower. The piezo ignition sparked it into a spurt of flame.
Shelly stared, rapt. The effect was beautiful. Beautiful.
The narrowness of the corridor forced the men into close proximity, so that the flame engulfed them and spread to each one in rapid succession, and sometimes at the same time.
The ones closest to her staggered back against the others, igniting them.
&
nbsp; The screaming was like a chorus of terrible, unholy angels.
Gunfire exploded, and Shelly flinched. But in a split-second she realized that the shots were coming from inside the room.
She watched three or four of the men go down as bullets slammed into them.
Shelly took another step forward. She kept the stream of fire coming.
A couple of the men, those furthest from her, began to fire back into the room. Shelly lifted the muzzle and concentrated the flame on them.
Within a few seconds, the corridor was filled with a pile of bodies, some moving and mewling pitifully, most of them motionless.
A couple of guys were still standing, but they were trying to beat the flames out of their hair and their clothes and weren’t any threat.
Shelly took her finger off the trigger and stepped back quickly round the corner.
She unslung the backpack – it would just weigh her down – and drew her handgun.
And took out her phone.
Chapter 42
His ears ringing, his face burning from the heat, Venn moved to the doorway and darted a glance out and pulled back again.
The carnage was sickening. Charred bodies littered the floor. A couple of men were trying to stand, but failing.
There was nobody at the end of the corridor, where the flame had come from.
He backed into the room and slammed the door. Locked it.
Inside, the walls and the floor and the furniture were chipped and scarred by bullet holes.
Mykels lay on the floor at the base of one of the couches. His face was a snarl of pain, sheened in sweat. His hands were clasped over his belly, where his shirt was a ragged mess of blood.
Venn glanced at Lovett and Torvald and the patrolman. They looked unhurt.
He took out his phone and punched up Harpin’s number and yelled: “Where the hell are your guys?”
“Entering the hotel now,” said Harpin. “Christ, Venn, what’s going on up there?”
“I’m with Torvald and Mykels,” said Venn. “Plus a couple other cops. The Triad guys have just been taken out with a flamethrower, by the look of it. I think most of them are down. I don’t know who’s got the flamethrower. But they’re still out there.”
“Stay there,” said Harpin. “My men are on their way up. Plus, I’ve called in SWAT.”
