by Matt Rogers
He heard the sharp crack of a report.
CHAPTER 31
It missed.
King wasn’t sure how close or how far the bullet had strayed. Every fibre of his being was focused on making himself as much of a moving target as possible. He guessed Walcott had little if any combat experience. He likely carried a gun for reassurance’s sake, never intending to actually use it. Yet it had created one of the rare situations where King lost all control.
His fate rested in the accuracy of the sociopathic billionaire facing him off across the room.
He crashed into the floor hard enough to scramble his senses, ignoring all his pain receptors until he knew he had successfully found cover. He scrambled like a madman across the carpet, keeping his body under the maze of tables, out of sight.
He heard Walcott squeeze off three more shots.
They tore through the restaurant, drawing more screams out of the fleeing civilians, who by now had made it to the various exits. King ducked instinctively with each gunshot even though he knew he was well-protected by the hordes of dining furniture covering the floor space.
He skidded to a halt behind a six-seater table and overturned it with one explosive shove. It clattered to the floor between two other tables and King scurried behind it, putting the rudimentary cover to full use.
Splinters slashed across his face as he felt a round punch through the flimsy wood.
Walcott had come close to ending his life. King clenched his teeth and rose out of the cover, determined not to let it happen again. He saw the billionaire’s figure across the room, his teeth bared and his eyes wide as he let off a fluid stream of bullets in King’s direction.
King raised his own Glock-22, locked on its aim and fired.
Nothing.
Empty.
With a grunt of irritation, he realised he had made the exact mistake he’d been desperate to avoid. He threw away the useless weapon and leapt back behind the tables as Walcott locked on his aim and squeezed off another flurry of rounds.
Thank God for the rush of adrenalin, King thought.
None of the next three shots came close. King pictured Walcott’s hands trembling as he fired at will, growing increasingly nervous with each missed shot. He probably didn’t carry extra ammunition on his person, likely leaving the heavy firepower to his horde of security.
What use were they now?
King saw a narrow partition in the wall ahead that led to the kitchen. He heaved himself through the gap, crashing to the tiled floor in brutal fashion. His limbs slapped the hard surface with enough force to knock the breath out of his lungs, but it was a small price to pay to put something solid between his vital organs and Walcott’s bullets.
He spotted a wooden door off to the side that led back into the Revolving Restaurant. Keeping his head below the line, he crossed the room silently, snatching a heavy butcher’s knife off one of the spotless countertops as he did so. He knew time was of the essence. It would be worth throwing caution to the wind in order to silence Walcott and Nasser before they could send any instructions to their hired help. A lack of communication would be key in the coming hours.
If he made it out of this alive…
He waited for absolute silence on the other side of the door. Walcott would be quaking in his boots, throwing his aim from side to side in an attempt to locate where King would emerge from.
‘Let’s give him something to work with,’ King muttered.
He wrenched the door open so hard that it clattered off the opposite wall, loud enough to attract the attention of everyone nearby.
It did its job.
He heard more gunshots as Walcott fired at the empty space, but King kept his back pressed against the tiled kitchen wall, sucking in deep breaths of air and praying that Walcott was foolish enough to empty his gun.
He heard the click of an empty magazine, and a sharp intake of air.
‘There we go,’ he whispered.
He stepped around the corner and found a peculiar sight.
Walcott had discarded the empty Sig-Sauer and had both hands raised, pointed toward the ceiling, fingers splayed. He wiggled them, as if to enforce the point that he was unarmed. King kept a tight grip on the butcher’s knife and advanced across the room towards him, skirting around the deserted dining tables. Some had full meals resting on their surface, abandoned hastily when the firefight broke out.
‘You work for a government department, don’t you?’ Walcott said.
King kept his expression neutral as he continued his journey across the room. ‘I might.’
‘I’m unarmed.’
‘I can see that.’
‘We both tried to shoot each other. That’s fair if you hit me in the heat of battle. But you can’t kill an unarmed man. It’s not in your protocol. I’m surrendering myself over to you. Arrest me.’
King kept advancing.
‘Did you hear me?’ Walcott said. ‘This will be caught on film.’ He motioned around the room, pointing to various security cameras dotted around the vast room. ‘You’ll spend the rest of your life in a jail cell. You can’t kill me.’
King sensed the urgency in the man’s tone. As he spoke, his voice grew faster with every syllable, desperate to get his point across before King reached him.
He continued forward.
Walcott held out both hands, offering for King to take him into custody. King closed the distance between them until they were half a foot apart. The billionaire didn’t dare back up any further, at risk of falling out the shattered window to his rear. Soft howls wailed in through the frame. Shattered glass littered the carpet around Walcott’s feet.
King stopped a foot away from the man.
Face-to-face, he dwarfed the billionaire. Walcott couldn’t have been over five-nine, skinny underneath his expensive dress shirt. He had his chest stuck out in an attempt to exude confidence but King saw the panic behind his beady eyes. For the first time in possibly ever, Walcott wasn’t in control. Both of them knew that, and the shaking hands and quivering lip were evidence that the man was struggling to deal with the situation.
His life was in King’s hands.
‘Turn around,’ King said, expressionless.
Walcott hesitated, his hands still raised in the air. Then he realised what the gesture meant and sheer relief washed over his face. There were many avenues he had if he was taken into custody. With his net worth, he could hire a literal army of the best defence lawyers on the planet.
Loopholes could be exploited.
Deals could be struck.
Bargains could be made.
He spun on his heel and placed his hands behind his back, waiting for King to cuff him. King stepped closer and grabbed the man’s wrists.
‘Shame for you,’ Walcott said. ‘Do you know how the world works?’
‘What are you talking about?’ King said.
‘There’s not much that a billion dollars can’t buy.’
‘Really?’
Walcott scoffed, charged with a newfound confidence. ‘You wouldn’t know about that. Government pay must be pretty tough, huh?’
Fuelled by an anger that his plans had been discovered, he had decided to take out the rage by demeaning King.
Not the smartest move.
‘I do okay for myself,’ King said.
‘I’m sure you do. What do you get — eighty, ninety grand a year? Cute.’
‘I work for a very specialised division. They pay well.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘They also let me do things like this.’
He thundered a boot into the small of Walcott’s back. His heel slammed into the guy hard enough to send him stumbling forward, carried by the strength of King’s bodyweight and the technique behind the kick.
Walcott slipped on the smooth window frame, his shoe skirting back in a single panicked motion.
He let out a muffled noise somewhere between a shriek and a grunt, then tumbled out of the tower.
Before he disappeared from sight, King caught a final glimpse of the man’s face. All the colour had drained from his skin, to the point where his features were nothing but a pale mask of sheer terror.
His eyes boggled and his nostrils flared…
Then he vanished.
Ninety storeys was a long way to fall.
King counted out a long ten seconds, standing alone in the Revolving Restaurant, surrounded by shredded wood and overturned furniture. The screeching of panicked diners had faded as they fled the scene, tucking themselves into quiet corners or hurrying into emergency exit stairwells.
He knew that the additional security might have blocked the exits to the Cairo Tower.
Hence the BASE rig still strapped firmly to his back.
He had prepared for such a scenario.
When he was sure Walcott would be a splattered mess on the pavement far below, he stepped up to the window frame and leant over the edge. A gale of wind bombarded his face, giving him a moment of sheer vertigo. First he stared out at the city splaying in every direction, bustling with activity. Then he looked down ninety storeys, at the flat expanse of concrete out the front of the Cairo Tower. He saw commotion across the square, with civilians fleeing out the base of the tower, sprawling into the surrounding streets.
He saw an indistinguishable shape in the deserted gardens to the side of the square — what was left of Andrew Walcott. With a grimace, he cast his eyes away from the sight. The man had got what he deserved, but there was no point lingering on the scene. He didn’t take pleasure in anyone’s death.
He simply did what was necessary.
At the base of the tower, a tiny dot hurried out of the lobby. It was flanked by two other dots, these ones dressed in suits.
Nasser.
More security had come to collect him. They were moving fast, heading straight for a black SUV parked sideways at the end of the square, its door open.
Ready to usher the man away from the scene as fast as possible.
If they succeeded, he would disappear forever.
King swore and backed off the ledge. He felt his stomach lurch as a particularly strong gust of wind howled in through the opening, turning his palms sweaty. He rubbed them against his pants, knowing that he would need every ounce of grip necessary to wrench the pilot chute out of its holster.
He had planned to jump of his own accord. The BASE rig’s purpose had been for if the exits to the tower had been cut off by Nasser’s security. He had intended to leap from the restaurant without haste and touch down in a deserted back street, where he could hurry to Cairo International Airport and leave the country without a trace.
That would no longer be the case.
He had to jump now, or Nasser would get away.
He felt the familiar stirrings of panic that one always experienced before a BASE jump — especially given the nature of this particular instance. He had no designated landing area. He would likely be landing amongst armed men looking to put him away and protect their client.
The jump was the least of his worries.
Yet it still terrified him. He quashed the pounding heart and the shaking nerves and took off at a sprint. If he simply fell in a straight line vertically down, he ran the risk of impacting the side of the tower upon opening his chute. He aimed to put as much distance between himself and the concrete structure as he could.
So he stepped onto the ledge — still running full-pelt — and launched himself out into open space.
CHAPTER 32
Abdul felt the weight of the gun in his hands and wiped away a bead of sweat that had formed on his left eyebrow, threatening to fall into his lap if he didn’t act. His fingers were covered in perspiration that had seeped out of his forehead. He wiped them on his frayed shorts before tugging the battered old phone out of his pocket and staring at the incoming call.
Nasser.
The sun had started to dip in the sky. It was approaching late afternoon, and the majority of visitors who had dotted the grounds during the morning rush had returned to the hotels across Giza and Cairo from where they had come. They would be back in swathes the following morning. Abdul welcomed their arrival…
He had almost been discovered a handful of separate times. At one point a group of Westerners had wandered through the rubble that he had tucked himself into, keeping out of sight of the security. They hadn’t seen him. Even if they did, he assumed they would simply pass him off as a local boy playing hide-and-seek or some other immature game.
He knew his age did not match his appearance, which might be useful if he had to worm his way out of a tricky situation.
His heart beat much faster than usual. Despite having lived a hard life, it had not been a dangerous one. In fact, there was monotony in poverty. Any kind of disruption to the traditional routine made him uncomfortable — none so much as what he planned to do now. He had spent most of his life waiting — waiting for food, waiting for shelter, waiting because there was simply nothing else to do with his time that he could afford.
Now, he waited to kill hundreds.
He did not look at it that way. It was the ticket to a new life, a better life. He cared about no-one other than himself. If the world was benevolent, then he and his family would not have lived such a cruel and difficult existence. It was survival of the fittest. He would take advantage of that.
He answered the call and pressed the phone to his ear. ‘Hello?’
‘Abdul.’ Nasser’s tone had shifted radically. The man seemed terrified. Frightened for his life.
Abdul gulped back apprehension. A lump of fear lodged in his throat, causing him to cough before he responded. ‘Yes?’
‘Are you at the position we planned?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have the detonator?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many people are at the complex? Do you know?’
‘I checked a short while ago. There are not many left. Do you want me to set it off now?’
‘More than a hundred?’
‘I do not think so.’
Nasser cursed. ‘I am in trouble, my boy. Serious trouble. You must not leave that position until tomorrow morning. You keep your head down and your eyes and ears open. Do you have the weapon?’
Abdul looked at the gun resting in his palm. ‘Yes.’
‘This task is of the utmost importance. You know this. Remember all we have discussed. If you are discovered by anyone, you must use the weapon. It is necessary for the greater cause. Nothing can stop us carrying out the task tomorrow, understood?’
‘I understand…’
The sweat leaking off Abdul’s forehead mixed with the tears seeping from the corners of his eyes. He noticed the gravity of the tone with which Nasser spoke. The man did not expect to survive the rest of the day. Abdul felt his stomach constricting as a wave of sensations came over him at once.
Loneliness.
Isolation.
Fear of the unknown.
Nasser had taught him everything. The man had helped keep him functioning when he felt like throwing everything away. And now he would be thrust right back to where he started. Burdened with countless responsibilities, struggling to simply put food on the table for himself. And at the same time …
… an immeasurable additional worry as he attempted to avoid persecution for what was about to take place.
Somehow, Nasser sensed trepidation in the silence. ‘Abdul.’
‘Yes, Khalil?’
‘Are you having doubts?’
‘If you die, this will all be pinned on me.’
‘Months of work!’ Nasser roared. ‘You do not know what I have sacrificed to ensure this plan will work, my boy. You are only there to pull the trigger, but by doing so you will be forever held sacred. You understand this, yes? You understand the blessing which you have received? There is much resting on your shoulders, Abdul, but if you carry out what we planned tomorrow morning a lifetime of riches will await. Allah will bless you for you
r actions. You will be looked after for eternity.’
Abdul gripped the phone a little tighter. ‘I am sorry. I lost focus.’
‘Now you understand?’
‘Of course. Nothing will stop me from doing this. I am blessed.’
‘Good. If you do not hear from me again, press on. Get it done. You have no idea the rewards you will be met with…’
Abdul felt hope soaring through him, freeing him from the negative emotions like a blessing. ‘I am ready.’
He ended the call and waited for the sun to meet the opposite horizon and the complex to empty out.
The most important night of his short life lay ahead.
CHAPTER 33
King felt the heart-wrenching rush of sensory overload as he dropped away from the Cairo Tower.
He spread his arms and legs wide, maximising his surface area, arching his back to ensure he stabilised in the air. It was the main reason why most BASE jumpers were accomplished skydivers first. Skydiving from fourteen thousand feet brought a rush of adrenalin with it, but it was relatively safe. Missing the ripcord was not an issue.
BASE jumpers only had one attempt.
If they fumbled for a second too long, it could spell the difference between an open chute and a corpse splattered against the ground.
If they were inexperienced and couldn’t position themselves correctly for a chute opening, they would get tangled in the fabric and hit the ground too fast to survive.
King understood all these risks. They filled his head as he plummeted toward the ground, which seemed to rush up to meet him faster than he thought possible. He couldn’t have been in the air for more than four seconds before his heart leapt into his throat.
The square outside the Cairo Tower and the large road running past it filled his vision. He saw Nasser’s SUV peel away from the tower, slamming onto the asphalt and roaring away from the scene.
He reached back and wrapped a hand around the pilot chute, acting more out of instinct than anything else. He tugged it free. The small auxiliary parachute caught the air and tugged the main parachute out of the container strapped to his back. It billowed out in a rapid flurry of material.