He was glad of the Ranger’s instinctive response. He knew how good the man was and preferred to have him around rather than half a dozen local cops bristling with weaponry and in a mood to shoot anyone who didn’t look right.
There was the click of a door. Somebody entered the room next door. Harry tensed, straining to track the other person’s movements. A cupboard door banged, two thumps as shoes hit the floor and a grunt as someone lay down on the bed. Then silence.
Out on the expressway the hum of traffic continued into the night.
Harry sighed and tried to relax. Breathed easily and slowly, listening and analysing every sound.
Kassim sat in the dark, immobile. He had learned a long time ago that the hunter who could not remain still rarely caught his prey. He was also listening to the murmur of voices, the ice machine and the traffic on the expressway. For him it was a distraction from the task in hand, to be blanked out and ignored.
The green digital readout of the television clock glowed brightly across the darkened room. It was past midnight. Another new day.
So be it.
He got to his feet, careful to avoid brushing against the furniture. The knife felt good in his hand, balanced and ready. In his other hand was the piece of blue fabric. He was filled with a feeling of quiet fatalism. What would be would be.
One silent step across the carpet took him close to the connecting door. He cocked his head, projecting his senses through the crack around the frame into the next room. He thought he detected someone breathing.
He reached out to touch the door. This had to be hard and fast. There was no time for hesitation. In, do it and out again.
Harry needed a cold drink. Or movement. Either would do. He was tired of waiting in this dark, airless cell, wondering what was going on outside. Waiting had always been a problem for him, but he wasn’t usually the target. Far better to be up and moving.
He picked up the Ruger and went to the door. The peephole revealed an empty corridor. Other than the person next door, and some distant voices that could have been a television, there had been few signs of movement for over thirty minutes.
With the lightest of touches he opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. The carpet was springy, silent. The overhead lights were dimmed, and at the far end, a green fire escape sign glowed in the dark. He waited for the ice machine to begin its throaty rattle, then pulled the door closed behind him with a soft click.
First he checked the fire door leading to the car park. It was closed and could only be opened from the inside by depressing the bar. Satisfied his back wasn’t exposed, he turned towards reception.
He had barely taken two steps when there was movement at the end of the corridor leading from reception. A tall figure was moving towards him. Harry waited, trying to get a sense of what the man was like. A suit . . . he was wearing a suit. A flash of white at the chest showed a shirt but no tie. But there was a silvery glimmer of reflected light down by his side.
Harry’s throat went dry. He forced himself to continue walking. It might not be the killer. It could be anyone . . . a late-night reveller, perhaps. Harry held the Ruger down behind his leg, ready to bring it up, and wondered if the man had seen it. He’d soon find out; any innocent person would scream the place down.
Harry was halfway along the corridor when the man veered abruptly to one side, and for a second he thought it was to let him pass. Then he moved back, this time with a small shake of his head like a dog emerging from water. His arm moved, again showing a glimmer of light in his hand.
Harry dropped into a crouch, bringing up the gun and focussing on the man’s mid-section. His training switched in and coordinated his movements. His finger began to take up the slack on the trigger as he watched the man’s hand, waiting for the last possible moment before opening fire. In this narrow corridor, the sound of the shot would be like a field-gun.
He stopped, requiring a Herculean effort not to squeeze the trigger, and stood up. Moved to one side as the man lurched by, his room passkey in one hand and a shiny aluminium ice bucket in the other. A wave of alcohol followed him like a flag. He was in his fifties, his skin mottled and flushed, a businessman fixing himself a nightcap.
Harry breathed out, his head pounding with tension. He continued along the corridor to the ice machine, turning once to glance behind him. The drunk had stopped by a door and was attempting to slide his passkey into the lock.
Harry plunged his hand into the chute and wiped two or three ice blocks across his face, grateful for the icy coldness on his skin. From back up the corridor he heard a thump, then silence. The drunk had only just made it home in time.
He glanced round the corner into the reception area. It was empty, the front doors closed. As he paced back along the corridor towards his room, something began tugging at his brain, insistent and disturbing. Something was odd, out of place. The reception area? The front entrance? The corridor?
The drunk. He’d gone into the room next to Harry’s.
Harry looked up and saw that the overhead corridor light nearest to his door was dead, leaving that part of the corridor in a pool of shadow.
It had been working earlier.
He felt horribly exposed but continued the last few paces until he reached the room next to his. As he drew level with the door, a groan sounded close by. With the Ruger held high in front of him, he reached out with his free hand to touch the door.
Then the door of his own room opened with a crash and a large, bulky figure stumbled out on unsteady legs.
‘What the—!’
Harry tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Then the picture disentangled itself. It was the drunk, head slumped forward over a slash of red on his white shirt front. The man seemed suddenly to have developed two heads . . . and two more legs.
Two heads . . . two people.
The killer had been in the next room.
‘Stand still.’ Harry centred his gun on the head behind the drunk. But as he did so, the two figures lurched away towards the fire door. Now he could see from the light further along the corridor that the man behind was supporting the drunk with one arm wrapped around his torso, dragging him along as a shield. In his hand he was holding a piece of blue material. His other forearm was curled tight across the drunk’s throat, holding a large hunting knife digging into his chest.
‘I said, stand still!’ he repeated, but the man ignored him, intent only on reaching the outer door.
Then the drunk was standing by himself, half-propped against the wall, and the door had clanked open behind him, letting in a gust of cool night air. In the background the other figure seemed to flit away with barely a sound, and disappeared into the darkness.
TWENTY-FOUR
As the drunk’s body finally lost its grip on the wall and toppled forward, Harry heard a shout of surprise from outside. He caught the falling man and lowered him gently to the floor, then ducked low to the ground and slid out of the door into the night.
Immediately to his right was a flower bed with shrubs at shoulder height cutting off his view of the car park. If the killer was anywhere, he could be in the bushes, waiting for Harry to show himself. But what had the shout been? Perhaps he’d run into Pendry.
He slid sideways into a patch of deep shadow created by the security lights spaced around the hotel, and breathed softly, tuning in to the night sounds. The traffic hum from the expressway intruded, and he knew if the killer was anywhere close and saw Harry first, he would get minimal warning before the man was upon him. Better to be out in the open.
The grass was soft and springy, already cool to the touch. He squatted down and edged out to where he could see a line of parked cars. If the killer was among them, the shadows were too dense to reveal him. He stood up and walked along the line, confident that if the man did show himself, he could react in time.
Two minutes later he found a man in a waiter’s uniform lying by the open door of a Bronco. There were no keys in the ignition.
He left the man where he was and continued to search the area, heart hammering in his chest. Then a whistle drew his attention and he saw Pendry appear from between two panel vans that bore the logo of a catering company. The Ranger was signalling towards the other side of the hotel complex. In his fist was the sheen of a handgun.
‘He came out the door and ran into the guy with the Bronco,’ said Pendry in a whisper, ‘but I guess he couldn’t find the keys. Then he went to the front of the building. He’ll be looking for a free ride out of here.’
‘Not this one,’ said Harry. ‘He’ll have a vehicle. He was trying to distract us by leaving a body lying around. Let’s split up. You go to the back – I’ll take the front.’
Before they could move, however, the roar of an engine sounded from the other side of the hotel, and headlights flared across the bushes near the entrance. The next moment red tail lights disappeared along the approach road with a squeal of tyres. Damn . . . the man was seconds from the expressway.
Harry ran back to the Bronco and found the waiter sitting up nursing his head. He looked groggy but unhurt. ‘Lie still,’ Harry told him. ‘An ambulance will be here shortly.’ He ran back inside the hotel corridor to where the drunk was lying motionless against the wall. His breathing was faint and rapid, and he needed urgent medical attention. Pendry appeared and swore softly.
‘I’ll call it in,’ said Harry, and went into his room to use the phone. As he dialled and spoke to the 911 operator, he saw the connecting door to the next room was open. The wood around the lock was splintered and raw where it had been kicked in.
Pendry joined him after making the wounded man as comfortable as possible. ‘Damn,’ the Ranger muttered, eyeing the broken door. ‘He bust through from the next room?’
Harry nodded, remembering the sounds the killer had made pretending to be another guest. He was clever. Very clever. ‘I told you he was good,’ he said, and replaced the phone, paraphrasing an old military saying. ‘Let’s hope he isn’t lucky, too.’
Kassim pounded the wheel in frustration as he joined the expressway, earning an angry bray of air horns from a tanker driver as he came close to clipping one of its giant chrome fenders. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, he thought savagely. He had the advantage . . . he should have been able to finish off the Englishman!
He pressed his foot to the floor, aware that he only had minutes to get clear of the area before the police saturated the roads with men and vehicles. Traffic was lighter now, but if he managed to put a few miles between himself and the hotel, he might just get outside any net thrown up to entrap him.
He felt for the rucksack on the back seat of the car. He had to get cleaned up. He might have traces of blood on him from when he’d stabbed the drunk. Another mistake; he should have left him alone. But he’d reacted without thinking, aiming for the throat but hitting the man’s chest instead, the knife blade glancing off bone.
After two miles, Kassim’s breathing returned to normal and he began to feel calmer. He slowed down. Now would not be a good time to be stopped for speeding. It was time to think. Time to decide on the next move.
Time to do the unexpected.
‘What is it with you?’ Rik murmured thirty minutes later, after knocking on Harry’s door. ‘I go out drinking and you’re the one who has all the fun.’ He had arrived back to find a police cordon around the hotel and the surrounding darkness lit by the lights of emergency vehicles. Harry was being interviewed by a police detective, who seemed satisfied that the attack had been a random room invasion by an opportunist thief. The drunken guest and the waiter had both been taken to the nearest emergency unit for treatment. Pendry had gone to see Gail, who would have heard the news of the fracas and be worried enough to come out. Having her wandering around while the attacker was still out there was not something they wanted to contemplate.
Harry looked at Rik. He had a flush to his face and seemed edgy. Something had happened. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing, why?’
Harry waited, eyebrows raised, until Rik relented and told him about the four men. ‘It was nothing. Just a bunch of guys trying it on.’
Harry held out his hand. ‘You’d better give me the gun. I’m on a military flight to LA, so I can get them checked through. We’ll meet up there.’
Rik handed over the Ruger and spare magazine. ‘Did you get a look at him?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Not really. Taller than average, slim . . . we already know he can move fast. But I didn’t see his face; he’d taken out the light in the corridor. When will you get anything on Bikovsky?’
‘Ripper said a couple of hours.’
‘Ripper? What’s his real name – Malcolm?’
‘Very funny. They use tag names to protect themselves. I’m sure he’ll come through.’
‘It would be nice if he did before I set off for LA. I don’t want to trek all the way over there for nothing.’
‘But you’ll go, anyway.’
‘I have to. Bikovsky’s likely to be the next one on the list.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Harry dropped his bag by the reception desk and waited to check out. He was booked on a military flight to the Los Angeles Air Force Base at El Segundo at nine thirty, courtesy of the UN. Deane was pulling strings to move him around with the minimum of fuss and paperwork, and other than having to check in the Rugers to a secure box, he was going to face minimum questioning.
He’d told Rik to make his own arrangements about getting to LA on a commercial flight. The more they were in the same area, the more risk there was of someone making a connection. He didn’t think it likely that the killer had someone watching his back, but he didn’t want to take the chance.
He was surprised to see Carl Pendry stride through the hotel’s main entrance, dwarfing the slim shape of Gail Tranter alongside him. The Ranger was stuffing his military ID into his pocket after being checked through the police cordon outside.
With the coming of daylight, several crime scene investigators and forensics personnel were now quartering the car park for clues, and questioning guests about the previous night, while coloured tape fluttered in the morning breeze, shutting off all non-essential access to the area. So far, though, they had turned up nothing substantial.
Gail was the first to speak, her eyes flashing spiritedly at Harry.
‘He won’t tell me anything,’ she said, nodding at Pendry. ‘I know something bad happened out at the training grounds – and here last night with two men being attacked. The whole town’s talking about it, what with the helicopters coming and going, and the state and city cops on every route through here. They’re saying a trainee got killed . . . is that right?’
Harry studied her for a moment. She was evidently smart and the bond between her and Pendry was close. It would be fair to tell her what was happening, but he wondered if she would react well to hearing that her boyfriend was a target for a killer. He glanced at Pendry, who was impassive and brooding, annoyed by the senseless loss of one of his charges and their failure to catch the man responsible.
‘Carl can tell you as much as we know,’ he said. ‘After that, he should find you somewhere on the base to stay for a few days. Somewhere safe.’
Gail shot a keen look between the two men. ‘Why? Is he in danger?’
‘Possibly. But if you take precautions you’ll be fine. And I can do my job a lot easier. Carl?’ He looked meaningfully at the Ranger and stuck out his hand, drawing him to one side. ‘I’m off to see if I can find Bikovsky. Get Gail away from here and keep your head down. He failed this time but he might try again. Don’t give him Gail as leverage.’
The Ranger nodded. ‘Sure thing. But say – any chance I can help? I’d sure like to nail this sonofabitch, and I’m sure I could get a release after what happened to Lloyd.’
‘Sorry. He’ll spot me eventually; with us together he’d do it even quicker.’
Pendry nodded ruefully, desperate to do something to redress the
balance. ‘OK. Let me know how it goes, though, huh?’ Then he stopped, looking awkward. ‘I thought about a couple of things last night. Could be important.’
‘Like what?’
‘One was the Marine, Carvalho. You thought he was one of the compound guards who went to Pristina, right?’
‘So?’
‘He wasn’t. I remembered he was sick that night and switched with another guy – a Brit. Carvalho knew he’d be no good in a fight, so the Brit agreed to go instead. I don’t think they told anyone in the rush to get out, so it wouldn’t have been official – at least, not until later when the rosters were checked.’
Harry tried to recall the British soldier, but he’d had his hands full that night and the compound guard had been out on patrol. Then he remembered something from Deane’s briefing: the man had been one of two British soldiers, a member of the Royal Military Police. He had since died of natural causes.
Either way, the fact that Carvalho had switched duties at the last minute had eventually found its way into the roster records, and had been picked up by Demescu.
‘What was the other thing you remembered?’
‘The guy Bikovsky.’ He looked awkward, then ploughed on. ‘I don’t like saying this about another man, but there was some talk around the table the night Kleeman left, before we rotated back to our units.’
‘Talk?’
‘Bikovsky was being derogatory about the locals, saying they’d steal anything that wasn’t nailed down and the women were little more than whores. The guy had a real attitude problem. He was also bragging about not going back to the US at the end of his tour, saying he was going to bug out as soon as he could. I figured it was drunk talk. We’d all had a couple to loosen up, but he’d picked up some extras. Later on he told another guy he’d got into trouble before enlisting and was scared to go back.’
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