Jack Be Nimble: Gargoyle (34 page)

“I’m here for the bachelorette party on the 29th floor,” the clown said again.

Cassiel backed away from the advancing jester. “You’re a bit off track, old chum.” He pressed the button on his radio. Something just a tad unsettling about stumbling across an elaborately made-up clown in the dark.

He never got the chance to complete the thought, as the other man’s white-gloved hand, blocked from view by the radio, prodded him in the stomach.

“No funny stuff,” said the clown, jabbing again with the machine pistol.

Brad hooted and fired the last of his noisemaker bombs down into the tightly-packed clutch of suits. Time to switch to real munitions.

He shucked the special grenade attachment from his rifle and slapped in a clip. The boys below would never know what hit them.

Across from him on the roof Solomon switched to infrared. They’d worked like this together in a dozen different countries, in at least as many situations. He’d already selected his first target, but Solomon hesitated. Something was amiss, something he couldn’t quite grasp. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and the skin began to twitch. He didn’t like the sensation. Of course something’s wrong, he thought crossly. I can look over my shoulder and set my watch by Big Ben if I care to! He shrugged it off and returned to his task. He pulled the trigger and shifted his crosshairs over another suit. He’d already squeezed the trigger again before the first man knew he was dead.

The Asian woman, her prize clutched tightly to her chest, sailed around a corner far down the hall opposite the screaming mob. The little girl clasped her arms tightly about her rescuer’s neck, sobbing groggily. The two of them rolled in that manner around a few more corners, then spun to a stop near a janitor’s closet flanked by two elevators.

“There there, dearie, we’ve got a bit of a surprise for you, we do.” The Asian set her charge on an upended garbage pail and spun back towards the hall, listening intently while she drew a knife and sliced cleanly through her shoelaces.

The little girl continued to whimper behind him as Jack threw his coat, wig, and sunglasses into a nearby barrel. He scoured his face with a specially treated towel, and stuffed that and the remnants of his disguise into the barrel. Scant seconds had passed and things were going almost according to plan. He set his pistol on a drinking fountain and reached into the trash barrel, retrieving a small knapsack.

“Come on, Ian,” he muttered at one of the elevators as he slipped into a pair of black running shoes. “Don’t worry, your Highness, we’re almost in the clear.” He spoke into his headset. “Groucho, this is Jack. Where the hell is our ride out of here?” He glanced back at the girl and did a double take.

It wasn’t the Princess.

Solomon’s finger was just tightening again on the trigger when he realized what it was that caused his scalp to twitch.
Two
open windows? He raised his head to shout at Brad, forgetting his headset.

Just in time to see his friend go down under a flash of fire from the upper window.

The two bearded men leaned back from the casement, laughing. The smaller one shifted his automatic rifle enough to reach his radio. “The boss was dead on, Michael. There is at least one more on the roof; I think Raphael and I can take him. Yes sir. Where can he hide?”

His companion nudged him and handed over another clip for his Kalashnikov. “Look, the black one is running.” They both laughed and leaned out the window.

Nyet, ya Amerikanyets

“Brad, Sol?” Steve blinked uncertainly at the streaming video on his screen. He could see Jack and what was obviously the little girl, but smoke obscured everything else. “Major, let’s see if we can--”

But she was already ahead of him, running over the debris-strewn floor to a window. “Your men are under fire! Pull them out, get them out now!”

Halfway to the window himself, Steve nodded and spun back to the computer, then halted abruptly. “What are you doing?” yelled the major.

He pointed wordlessly across the hall to a monstrous, shrouded shape. Behind several layers of plastic, it had been hidden from view, just another silent tangle of steel and drop cloth. But the outline of the huge turbines and the fanlike rotor blades was unmistakable. Peering through the gloom at the surrounding area, Steve’s swirling brain noted disposable fuel bladders and various mechanics' tools corresponding to the upkeep of a military helicopter. A set of thick cables ran from either turbine to a pair of machines about the size of ice coolers. Each machine hummed softly. It’s being kept warm, Steve realized. Drawing closer, he and the major could see the pulley-and-wheel system on the nearest wall; the entire section was nothing but a pair of rollback doors.

Steve scrambled over his workstation, groping for his headset. “Chico, Zeppo, get out of there.” Where was Jack? “Ollie, we’ve found the missing Sikorsky. Its right here with us! Do you have the package? Ollie?” The security cameras on screen showed nothing.

“I’m here, Steve. We’ve got the wrong girl.”

“
What?”

Jack held the drowsy child awkwardly in one arm, eyeing the hallway. “It was a setup, a double-blind.” Might as well forget code names, now. He paused to shift the little girl to one side, then tapped the elevator call button with the barrel of his gun. “Her name’s Flora Clark, she’s one of the kids that disappeared the morning after Christine was kidnapped. Decoy. Hey, where’s Alonzo?”

Steve was beginning to hyperventilate over the digital interface. “No—word, Jack; we need to pull out. Solomon and Brad may be down. We’ve lost the—element of surprise.”

“Steve, I doubt we ever had it. Any clue where the princess is?”

Before he could answer, Major Griffin pointed over his shoulder at the screen. The two of them watched as a security camera tracked several blurry images down a long corridor. Steve typed feverishly on his keyboard. “Oh, my. They’re moving, Jack. From Raines’ office on the thirtieth floor. Looks like they’ve got the little girl with them. And I’m reading some kind of fire on that floor.”

Jack’s voice was utterly calm. “Alright, Steve. Now: are you plugged into the elevators? Got any control there?”

“Uh, I’ll work on it.” Steve practically dove into his rucksack, yanking out coils of cable. “Major!” he hissed. “Help!” He thrust the tangle of cords at the British woman.

Jack kept talking, his voice still level, “As soon as you can, see if you can lock out all the elevators on their floor. Keep them moving up to you, away from the crowds down here. Did we set off enough alarms?”

“Yeah, firefighters at least will be here in a few minutes. But if that other fire is for real--”

“Good. Might as well trip any other alarms this place has. Make Raines’ security think the whole place has caught on fire, or something. You can do that, right? Piece of cake, isn’t it?”

Steve was beginning to relax. “Yeah, uh, should be.” He began to tap out commands to the central computer.

Jack chuckled across the digital connection. “Practically nothing compared to the time you set off the sprinklers in the Oval Office--”

“Hey!” Steve smiled despite himself, typing faster.

The major spoke. “Listen, Flynn. We’ve called in the cavalry, as you Yanks say. SAS and D-11 will be here in less than fifteen minutes. Get the little girl to safety, then meet me in--” she yanked the blueprints straight. “The thirty-fifth floor hallway. Take the central express elevator. If you hurry we can cut them off.”

Jack grimaced. “This is getting much too complicated. I’m on my way.” Just then the elevator door slid open and Ian staggered out. “Here!” Jack passed the little girl over to the other man. “Get her out on the street and call a cop.”

“No, Jack, wait! This thing downstairs--” Quickly Ian related what he had seen.

“Beats the hell out of me, Ian. Maybe one of those Tesla things you saw on T.V. I’ll ask Raines about it if I see him.” Jack ran back down the hall, gun in hand.

Ian looked at the little girl. She yawned and closed her eyes.

Solomon threw himself into motion, standing and firing at the same time. A bullet gouged a nick into the edge, an inch from his left foot. This was insane.

The enormous black man dropped his rifle and began to sprint across the roof, toward the oncoming fire. He wondered if this would surprise the gunmen long enough to buy him some time. Just a few seconds.

He leaped over the first skylight with nearly a foot of roof to spare. “Hold on, Brad!” he shouted.

Jack ran through the abandoned lobby, taking note of the four suited bodies and where they lay. Steve had killed the sprinklers and turned the alarms off, though colored lights still flashed in shops further down the promenade. Someone was shouting above him, and he turned just in time to see Solomon sail overhead, bathed in the golden light of the theater’s marquee. If any of them lived through this, he thought as he exited the lobby, this was going to make one hell of a story.

Solomon exhaled hard as he hit the other side. One more hurdle to go. He kept his head down, expecting any moment to feel a hot explosion rip across his chest or legs. One more skylight. He was close enough now to see that Brad was still moving, still conscious, and that surprisingly little blood had run down the window on which he lay. Still sprinting, Solomon drew his pistol and fired into the glass above and below his friend. The maniacal chatter of gunfire from the window sent him into a full-out dive, and Solomon slammed down onto his friend, shattering the window on which he lay.

They fell through the darkness, shouting, in a shower of sparkling glass.

The major securely fastened her handgun in its holster at the base of her spine and checked her tightly-knotted hair. Watching her from behind his laptop, Steve noted what a decidedly pretty woman the major was. He snapped the last cable into the appropriate port and began typing, his thoughts awhirl.
Great timing, Fisbeck.
“Good luck, Major.”

The programs which ran the elevator operated on a completely different platform than the building’s security. Access to the elevator would be difficult–no, it would just take a bit of time, he corrected. This is what he was good at; he knew exactly what to do. Steve glanced up in time to see the resolute line of the woman’s shoulders as she walked away. She looked lethal, pantherlike.

Steve found himself wondering what he would have to do to gain a bit of access to Major Allison Griffin. “Living through tonight would be a good start,” he muttered.

The two bearded men sighed. “Too bad,” said the one called Raphael, delicately wiping his mouth with a paisley handkerchief. “Now we will hunt them like rats, eh?”

His companion chuckled, swinging his AK-47 back inside the room. “These ones fall too easily. They couldn’t be SAS.” Then he brightened. “Perhaps we can find a few more scurrying about.”

He paused in mid-chortle. Light from the window fell on a large, bulbous red shoe. The red shoe was half-on a polka-dotted sock.

Alonzo flipped on the lights and kicked a shoe at either man’s face. In the time it took for the two terrorists to blink and bat at the unwieldy projectiles, he had barreled across the room and slammed into Raphael hard enough to knock him off balance. His companion seized a handful of Alonzo’s baggy shirt, and yelled in surprise as the smaller man grabbed his own hem and whipped the shirt off himself and over his opponent’s head. Alonzo slammed his forehead into the terrorist and then turned back to Raphael.

The bearded man lunged, knife in hand. Alonzo slapped the knife away and caught his opponent by the wrist and armpit. Spinning, he sent the other man sailing into the window frame. Alonzo shoved the stunned man halfway out the window, then slammed it nearly shut with his shoulder, trapping the other’s head and knife hand outside. Bending, he slipped one handcuff around Raphael’s ankle, the other he fit over his unconscious comrade’s wrist. Raphael was beginning to struggle, so Alonzo opened the window wide enough to shove the unfortunate terrorist the remainder of the way out.

His scream was cut short as his foot jerked against the handcuff. Alonzo shut the window as far as he could and then drew his pistol. Oblivious to the groaning man below him, Alonzo leaned back behind the window frame and shot twice point-blank into the gears governing the window’s opening system. Before the twin roars had completely died away he was testing the hinge. It wouldn’t budge.

He looked one last time at the terrorist known as Raphael, who was swaying slightly in the wind. Raphael looked back in time to see Alonzo drop their two radios past him. The small man waved.

Cursing steadily beneath his breath, Alonzo wiped a small trickle of blood from the underside of his arm. He’d been cut after all, but nothing a Band-aid and some bourbon wouldn’t fix. He tossed the remainder of his clown suit on the floor, and turned the lights off on his way out.

Jack caught sight of another group of Miklos’ men in the wide atrium that opened up on the top floor of Harrods, below. There was no mistaking the three men, smooth and lethal in their gray suits like a school of sharks, one carrying a little girl in a green coat. Their manner suggested nothing of the disorientation stirred into their ranks by the earlier attack, and Jack wondered then if Miklos had survived.

The atrium was a vast space filled only by a light rig and the occasional banner, hung from the lowest balcony to the level below. A few theatergoers still struggled down the descending stairs and across the catwalks that led to the escalators and elevators below. Their cries of alarm upon seeing the suited men and their unconcealed machine pistols echoed eerily up to Jack like the despairing, lost, half-whispers of ghosts.

He ran along the edge of the balcony, eyes on the unfolding situation below, dodging potted plants and abandoned vendor wagons offering Pizza by the Pound. Reaching a stairwell to the floor below he leaped down it five steps at a time, passed two floors as quietly as he could, then slid to a stop a scant thirty feet behind the cowering Londoners. They were halfway across a raised walkway, one floor above darkened racks of coats and scarves. Miklos’ men were just beginning to cross the span that separated them from their potential hostages. They’d left the little girl behind, asleep and mostly out of sight on a vendor’s cart, which gave him an idea. She probably wasn’t the princess, but, well, someone’s daughter.

Move, Jack, move faster
, the silent voice within him urged.

Two men, older, a young woman and a white-haired grandmother dressed as a beatnik, attempting to hold their own against three suited, fairly clean-cut young men with automatic weapons. A year ago, Jack would have found a sort of gallows humor in the situation
. At least we outnumber ‘em!

He took a flash-bang in his hand and, crouching low, crept closer. His dark jacket helped him blend into the shadows somewhat. With the civilians blocking the gunmen’s line of sight and his footfalls barely a dry whisper along the blood-colored, fired-brick tile, Jack eased out onto the walkway. “Run,” he whispered, and lobbed the disk over their heads at the oncoming men.

Although he’d clapped his hands over his eyes and shut them tightly, Jack was standing so close to the blast he could clearly see the outlines of his fingerbones. Though he expected the sudden, rushing explosion of sound and light, he was still a bit stunned by the grenade’s ferocity. It blew one of the men clean off the walkway; the other two fell to their knees in pain and shock. Rolling back to his feet, Jack drew his gun and fired, putting one of Miklos’s men all the way down and ruining a perfectly good suit. The other suited gunman skittered back along the span, and Jack lost him in the residual wash of smoke from the grenade.

A chanced look over his shoulder informed Jack that the group behind him was clearing out fast, though not fast enough. He charged forward, thinking to at least draw the other man’s fire, and slipped in the first man’s blood, going down hard as his opponent seized the opportunity and rushed in, kicking his gun from his hand, then stomping down hard.

Jack took the blow on the meat of his forearm, which was already flush with the floor, minimizing the damage. He was still slippery from the first man’s gore, so he gripped his adversary’s planted leg and spun into him, wrapping his foot up and around for a blow to the groin.

The suited man left the floor, and then abruptly crashed back into it in a heap, choking. Jack shoved off him and gained his feet, then planted a low side kick squarely across his opponent’s forehead. It was inelegant and poorly delivered, but enough. Jack went to his knees, holding the sprawled man still while he felt for his handcuffs, and then shackled him to his dead companion.

From the time he’d thrown the grenade until he clicked the handcuffs into place, perhaps fifteen seconds had passed. It seemed more like--