Flee (29 page)

The
woman opens her eyes and stares at him, very much alive, as the taser pumps
juice through his body.

He
manages to stumble backward, ripping the darts from his flesh, but he can't
regain his balance and goes down, hitting the floor hard.

The
force knocks the air out of him. He gasps for breath, but he's not done. He
still holds his weapon. Bringing it up, he sprays rounds in her direction.
Bullets fly everywhere, uncontrolled, his muscles still in spasm.

Her
.45 lays useless on the floor, out of reach, and she spins around, shielding
herself with the armored chair. She takes off in the other direction.

She's out of ammunition
.

She
had to be. It was the only reason for her to turn tail while he was down and
wheezing and out of control.

Victor
scrambles to his feet and starts after her. He feels stronger with each step,
and he closes the gap between them despite her surprising speed. He has her
now. This time he will not hesitate, he will not assume anything. This time he
will shoot her in the head first and savor the kill later.

He
pushes his legs to move faster, running all out, gaining.

Small
pieces of something fall from her chair and skitter over the marble. He doesn't
fully grasp what is happening until his foot comes down on one.

The
spike drills through the sole of his shoe and knifes into his foot. Cold slices
his flesh, chased by pain. He bellows and pulls up short.

The
chair keeps moving, rolling around the corner.

#
#  #

Hammett
releases her sister as they tumble down the stairs, spreading out her limbs to
stop the rolling. She snatches the railing, the world a blur, and watches
Chandler reach the bottom floor and begin to crawl away.

Oh no, you don't.

Hammett
unholsters her Beretta. She fires, pinging Chandler three times in the left
side.

They're
hollow points, meant to open up on impact and cause massive internal bleeding.
A hit to a limb at this range should prove fatal, let alone three body shots.

Chandler
cries out, but keeps crawling.

Body
armor? Perhaps the liquid prototype Hammett had stolen?

No
matter. She's got something stronger than hollow points.

Slapping
at her pocket, Hammett removes the grenade. According to The Instructor, the
transceiver has a diamond-hardened case, and is practically indestructible.

Chandler,
however, is not.

She
pulls the pin and throws it, fastball style, at her sister's head.

#
 #  #

Fleming
took a turn into the main lobby, leaving the Russian behind.

She
couldn't help wondering how Chandler was dealing with their dear sister. Right
now, she'd give nearly anything to be able to get upstairs to help. When
Hammett's men had started shooting, she hadn't been able to hear much over the
earpiece. Now her pulse was beating so hard in her own ears, all she could make
out was a loud explosion.

She
hoped to hell it was only gunfire.

"Chandler?
What's going on?" Her voice sounded shaky, even in her own ears.

There
was no answer.

Fleming's
arms felt weak, as if all the adrenaline was suddenly draining from her system.
Her chest and legs hurt like hell. While the liquid armor she'd borrowed from
Forsyth's body had stopped the Russian's rounds, they'd still left countless
deep bruises in their wake and what felt like at least one cracked rib.

Approaching
one of the building's exits, she slowed the chair and took several shallow and
painful breaths. If everything went to hell, as it indeed had, she and Chandler
planned to meet at the Congress Hotel, but the thought of wheeling out the door
and leaving her sister to face Hammett alone left her cold.

But
could she really help? She was injured, and while she normally wouldn't let
that stop her, she had the extra problem of being out of ammunition.

When
they'd arrived, she'd had to stay on the ground floor because cops had closed
off the restaurant and the express elevators leading to the top floors. Now
those cops were dead. The elevators were accessible. And the bodies of Hammett's
men were scattered around them.

Hammett's
armed
men.

A
few of their weapons and a short elevator ride, and Fleming would be back in
business.

She
turned away from the exit and headed back into the building.

#
 #  #

Getting
shot while slathered in the liquid body armor felt a lot like getting hit with
a bat.

Then,
a moment later, the ball hit me as well.

But
it wasn't a ball. It was heavier and green and unmistakably a grenade.

It
cracked into my hip, then rolled a meter to my left on the black marble floor.
My heart froze in my chest. I had no time to think, no time to get a safe
distance away, so instead I crawled toward it. No time to even pick it up, I
swatted it and covered my head as it rolled into the corner of the restaurant.

The
explosion was epic, impossibly loud and bright, the light blinding me even
though I had my hands over my eyes.

Then
came the wind.

I
blinked away motes, and saw that the grenade had  blown out two of the
floor-to-ceiling picture windows. The wind was gale-force.

I
crawled away from it, not anxious to get sucked outside.

Hammett,
still on the stairs, had to grab the railing so the gust didn't knock her over.
I dug into my bag, pulling out the spare Sig, and unloaded on her. It took a
few shots before I was able to adjust to the crosswind, but then I began
pegging her like a tin bunny in a shooting gallery.

She
dropped her gun, but the rounds didn't drop her, and I guessed she must have
slathered herself with the body armor as well. So I went for the head shot.

That's
when she charged me.

I
tried to adjust, but I was dizzy and hurting, add the wind, and my shot went
wide, and then Hammett was throwing a tackle, lifting me up off of the ground,
driving me toward the broken window.

#
 #  #

Victor
pries two spikes from his foot. The hot ooze of blood soaks through his sock,
and he curses the bitch and her tricked-out chair.

She's
long gone now, he's sure.

He's
not happy.

He
turns and hobbles back to the express elevators. Bodies litter the floor, blood
pooling on light marble. Nikolai is still wailing, his leg dragging behind him
as he tries to crawl.

Victor
doesn't feel like carrying him, but although he wants to put a bullet in the
worthless man's brain, he resists, instead kicking him in the ribs. "Shut
up and pick up your weapon," he says to the man in Russian. "Be
ready."

Dialing
his wails down to whimpers, the man does as he's told.

"When
Hammett steps off those elevators, shoot her." Victor has had enough. He's
going to collect his transceiver.

He
picks up an AR15 off Sergei and hits the up button. The chime sounds and the
elevator door slides open. He steps on just as shots squeeze out from Nikolai's
position.

What the hell?

He
peers out in time to see the cripple roll in from the opposite direction.
Nikolai is shooting, but she is not dying. She rolls past the open elevator,
leans down and scoops the weapon from Peter's dead hands. She empties it into
Nikolai.

She
has her back to him, either not yet aware he's there or confident her chair
will protect her.

He
steps up behind her. Keeping his body out of range of whatever blade she might
produce, he flings the assault rifle's shoulder strap over her head and yanks.

Her
head slams against the back of the chair.

He
keeps the pressure on. Once she stops struggling, he tips the chair forward and
dumps her onto the floor.

She
lays limp on the marble.

He
levels his weapon on her, waiting for the slightest twitch.

A
cough shakes her body. She's still alive.

His
first inclination is to end her before she tries something else, but then he
notices her earpiece.

This
one might be more useful alive.

Victor
hears a police radio crackle. Any second, the cops will be swarming the place.

He
drags the cripple over to the express elevators and hits the call button,
summoning the lift.

It's
time for this debacle to end.

#
 #  #

Hammett
aches all over from being shot, and this little game has gone on long enough.
The wind is howling and whistling, whipping through her hair. She body slams
Chandler to the floor, pinning her down, and Chandler's gun bounces across the
floor and out the window. Then Hammett reaches for her Spyderco knife, wanting
nothing more in the world than to slit this bitch's throat, get the phone, and
get the hell out of Dodge.

Chandler
grabs her wrist, trying to leverage Hammett away, and Hammett drops a knee onto
her stomach, provoking a lovely grunt of pain.

"Didn't
you hear, Chandler?" she shouts above the wind, raising the blade up. "You're
second best. I'm number one."

"This...
this is what you are," Chandler says, punching Hammett's knife-hand.

Hammett
almost laughs at the attempt, and then feels the spike of pain, accompanied by
a roiling nausea. She looks at her hand, and sees Chandler has stabbed her with
a piece of silverware.

Chandler
grins, her face manic. "You're forked."

Then
Hammett's nose explodes when it meets Chandler's fist.

#
 #  #

Fleming
wakes up to pain. Excruciating, unrelenting pain.

It
takes her back years, to waking up on the operating table, her shattered bones
poking through her skin in so many places her legs looked like cacti. She
screamed so hard her throat bled, screamed while the nurses scrambled to put
her under, screamed even as she slipped into unconsciousness.

This
pain was similar. Except she wasn't in a hospital. She was in an elevator. And
her legs weren't the cause of her agony. It was her finger.

Her
broken finger, that the Russian was twisting back and forth, pulling it and
snapping it again, and again.

Fleming
tries to claw his face, his goddamn smiling eyes, but he easily slaps her hand
away, twisting even harder, prompting the biggest scream of her life.

#
 #  #

Hammett
pushed herself away from me, and I rolled to all fours, taking a quick look
over my shoulder at the howling Chicago skyline, less than two meters away.

My
stomach twisted into a vertigo knot, and then I scrambled after Hammett. She
was staring at the fork in her hand as if it had magically appeared. Her nose
was a mashed tomato, leaking down her chin.

I
bent down, reaching for my VORAX blade, when my head was pierced with the most
horrible sound I'd ever heard. A scream, in my earpiece. So sharp and shrill
that it drowned out the whooshing wind.

Fleming.

#
 #  #

Victor
twisted the cripple's finger once more, grinning at the screams he provoked.
Then he snatched the earpiece from her and shoved it into his own ear.

"You
hear that, Chandler? That's your sister. You couldn't save your dear Kaufmann,
but I'll give you a chance to stop her pain."

He
twisted so hard he heard the knuckle pop out of place. The high-pitched keening
probably woke up every dog in the building.

"I
want the transceiver, Chandler."

#
 #  #

For
a moment, I was unsure what to do. Fleming's cries cut me to the core, and
suddenly I was back in that helpless place, watching Kaufmann break down, lose
his humanity, knowing it was me who'd betrayed him. In that instant of
inaction, Hammett pounced on me, throwing a reverse kick. I managed to catch it
on my shoulder, bunching up my muscles. She followed with a knife thrust, and I
managed to block that, too.

Another
scream threw off my concentration, and this time Hammett used a Muay Thai kick
known as a
Kradot thip
—a jumping foot-thrust. It connected with my
thigh, forcing me backward, backward toward the edge of the world.

"Don’t
give him shit!" Fleming cried out, followed by more shrieks of agony.

I
took a quick glance behind me, the night wind slapping my face, the ninety-five
story drop so steep I couldn't see the ground.

Hammett
took two steps toward me. She'd yanked out the fork, and was slashing her knife
in front of her, cutting the air. Not any martial arts move I was aware of, but
terrifying nonetheless.