by Diane Capri
“Easiest way is to pull the fire alarm. Some people will stay in their rooms and wait for assistance. If we’re lucky, some will panic. They’ll rush into the hallway and head toward the stairs.”
“The elevators will probably shut down automatically. They don’t want people in elevators during a fire,” Thorn said.
“Right. I’ll wait here to see who comes out of 706,” Scorpio said. “You wait at the staircase at the end of the corridor. Anybody from 706 tries to escape down those stairs, follow. Stay with them. I’ll catch up.”
Thorn had already moved a couple of paces toward the stairs when Scorpio said, “Unless it’s Reacher. If he comes out, subdue him. But don’t kill him. I want to do that myself.”
“Ten-four, boss,” Thorn said.
Scorpio scrambled back to the elevator lobby. He glanced down the long corridor. Thorn was in place.
He located the fire alarm and pulled the square red lever straight down.
Before he could do anything more, an ear-piercing siren wailed. The wailing continued without interruption. The sound was loud enough to cause permanent damage to human hearing.
Several doors opened on the corridor. People came out, milled around, asked questions.
The siren did not abate.
The door to Suite 706 remained closed for three full seconds.
Scorpio put both palms over his ears and waited. His patience was rewarded.
The door opened. Rex Mackenzie stepped across the threshold, dragging a woman along. He had a hard grip on her arm. Her body was covered in full pajamas and a bathrobe. She wore slippers on her feet. Her face looked like a burn victim’s.
More guests left their rooms and came into the hallway, which quickly became overcrowded with semi-panicked patients and caregivers wearing night clothes. A few were tethered to IV poles, drains, catheters, and portable oxygen tanks.
Mackenzie tightened his hold on the woman’s arm and dragged her along toward the stairway at the end of the hall, where Thorn was waiting.
Scorpio’s forward movement was slowed because of the congestion. He walked toward Suite 706. Before he reached the doorway, a petite Asian woman and a Latino man emerged. Neither was Reacher.
The Latino man looked up and down the crowded corridor. He saw the exit sign above the door to the stairway, gestured toward the Asian woman, and both headed in that direction.
Scorpio finally made it to the open doorway of Suite 706. He looked inside. He saw Bramall on the floor, his left torso covered by a bloody towel. His face was pale, ashen, and his breathing shallow. Jane Mackenzie was with him, administering first aid.
Reacher was not in the room.
Scorpio kept moving down the hall.
CHAPTER 45
Sunday, February 13
12:30 a.m.
Guadalajara, Mexico
Gaspar led the way, breaking a trail between the milling and panicking people in the hotel corridor. Otto followed closely behind, like a salmon swimming upstream. She saw Rex Mackenzie ahead, moving faster because he was bigger and had a head start. She had to assume he was dragging Rose along with him, although she couldn’t see Rose.
Mackenzie reached the stairway at the end of the corridor. Otto saw the top of the door as it opened and then closed behind him.
He was headed toward the tunnels that would lead him to the penthouses at the top of the clinic building next door. Rose said that’s where he’d find his flash drive. Otto briefly wondered what data could possibly be so important that Mackenzie was willing to kill to get it back.
But he’d left no doubt that he would kill anyone who got in his way. Which probably meant he’d keep Rose alive until he found the flash drive.
When Mackenzie and Rose reached the stairwell, they’d move faster. They’d run through the tunnels to the clinic, and then take the elevator up to the penthouse.
Gaspar and Otto continued through the bodies, making progress like swimming in molasses. Finally, they reached the stairs. Gaspar pulled the door open and slipped into the stairwell. Otto followed half a minute later.
When the stairway door closed, she heard footsteps heading down. Gaspar’s footsteps were uneven and slow. Heavy footfalls in leather soles slapping the treads belonged to two men. The third was a woman’s soft slippers brushing the concrete. The order was man, woman, man, Gaspar.
Who was the man chasing Rex Mackenzie? Whoever he was, he was moving fast. Much faster than Gaspar could.
Otto picked up her speed. She held onto the handrail and fairly flew down eight flights of stairs, passing Gaspar along the way.
When she reached the bottom, she flung open the double door to the tunnel.
The tunnel walls were covered with green subway tiles. The floor tile was a slightly darker color. Bright fluorescent lights in the ceiling reflected everywhere off the shiny tiles, blindingly.
The tunnel was twenty feet wide. Plenty of room for moving hospital beds with patients in them, and all their post-surgical paraphernalia. Medical equipment was stored along the outside walls. Wheelchairs, beds, even oxygen tanks on wheels.
Up ahead, Rex Mackenzie pulled Rose swiftly along. A big man followed behind, trying to catch up.
“Mackenzie! Stop!” Otto yelled.
He turned his head to look back over his shoulder. He saw the big man coming up fast behind him. He stopped a moment to unhook a chain holding a group of oxygen tanks resembling a fat bundle of steel cigars. He gave the tanks a huge shove, and they clanged to the floor and rolled in all directions, blocking the man’s progress.
Mackenzie yanked Rose’s arm and pushed her through the next set of double doors.
Otto kept running. She heard footsteps behind her. She turned to see Gaspar coming up as fast as he could, struggling with every step. He waved and she kept going.
The big man ran through the oxygen cylinder obstacles and made it to the double doors. He pushed hard in the middle where the two doors met and they opened wide. He ran through.
Otto was a dozen yards behind him, running all out. She pushed through the doors and found herself standing in an empty elevator lobby with a staircase to one side. She heard more heavy footfalls on the stairs.
The elevator was on its way up.
She took the stairs.
After two flights, she couldn’t hear the big man’s footsteps up ahead. When she came to the landing on the second floor, she opened the door. It led to another elevator lobby. This one held four elevators. Two were already on their way up to the penthouse level.
She pressed the call button on the third car. It was waiting behind the doors. When they parted smoothly, she pushed the button for the penthouse and pulled out her phone.
She sent two texts.
One to Gaspar: “Meet me on the roof.”
The second to the Boss: “Reacher’s here. Extraction required.”
She grabbed her gun from her holster and tapped her foot as the elevator slowly ascended. The ride gave her a chance to catch her breath.
What seemed like a century later, the elevator stopped at the penthouse level. The door to the roof was open. Cautiously, she approached the open door. She crept forward as quietly as possible, weapon ready.
A cool breeze blew through from outside. Music from a nearby rooftop jazz bar floated on the air. Voices were carried with it.
She heard Mackenzie first. “Give me my flash drive. That’s all I want. I’ll leave you here with Jane. Frankly, I don’t give a damn what you do after that.”
Rose’s reply was quieter. Otto couldn’t hear the words.
The elevator bell dinged behind her and the doors opened. Gaspar stepped out, weapon drawn. Cautiously, he approached her position.
“Where are they?”
“I’m not sure. There’s another guy out there,” she said.
“Reacher?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’ll go right. You go left.”
He nodded.
CHAPTER 46
&nb
sp; Sunday, February 13
12:45 a.m.
Guadalajara, Mexico
She stepped through the door and flattened her back against the wall. The evening sky was cloudless and filled with so many stars that even the light pollution couldn’t dim its enchantment. The music grew louder as she rounded the elevator’s vertical shaft enclosure.
When she reached the corner of the wall, she stopped and took a cautious look. She was on the cross-street side of the building. The rooftop jazz bar seemed closer than it actually was. A trio was playing. A few couples were dancing. Patrons were scattered at small tables.
The roof’s views of the city lights were spectacular. She knew none of the landmarks, but the lights alone were well worth the time required to admire the vista.
She heard Mackenzie talking to Rose, but she couldn’t see them from this vantage point. Like many modern roofs, this one was flat. While there was plenty of flat space, it was interrupted by HVAC and other equipment that blocked her sight lines.
The good news was that if she couldn’t see Mackenzie or the other man, they couldn’t see her either. She took a chance and dashed from the cover of the elevator shaft to the smaller cover provided by an HVAC unit nearby.
Mackenzie’s voice was louder here. The jazz club’s noises were louder, too. She could no longer hear what he was saying.
She crouched lower and moved closer. From here, she could see Mackenzie. He still held Rose’s arm in a bruising grip. They stood near the edge of the roof adjacent to the jazz bar. She thought she heard the elevator bell ding again. But it could have been the music.
She returned her attention to Mackenzie, watching for the right moment to intervene. He and Rose were close to the edge of the roof where the penthouse had glass doors opening onto a carpeted patio, furnished with comfortable seating and a gas fire pit.
The next few moments happened too quickly. When she sorted it all out later, she thought it went like this:
Gaspar knocked something over. It hit the roof with a loud clang.
The big man pivoted toward the sound and shot twice. Gaspar returned fire. All four shots missed.
A fifth shot whizzed across from the jazz bar on the adjacent roofs. This bullet was true. The big man’s head exploded, and he crumpled to the roof.
Otto looked toward the jazz bar, but her view was obstructed. She couldn’t see the shooter.
Another man had come out of the elevator lobby onto the roof just when the kill shot hit. The scrawny guy who walked with a cane. He dropped his cane to the ground, drew a weapon, and fired toward the shooter.
Otto didn’t see where the shot landed.
She raised her gun and aimed. The movement was purely instinctive. Driven by muscle memory. Practiced a thousand times. Maybe two thousand.
She squeezed off two rounds.
The scrawny man’s life was over. Just like that.
When the first shots were fired, Mackenzie grabbed Rose and held her in front of him.
Otto stepped into the light where he could see her off to his right.
“You shoot me, Otto, you’ll hit Rose first!” he called out.
“You’ll only get one of us, Mackenzie.” Gaspar stepped out on Mackenzie’s left side, weapon aimed and ready. “So make your shot count.”
Mackenzie’s eyes darted left and right like a cornered animal, sweeping his weapon from side to side. He took two steps back, Rose’s body still pressed against him. “I’ll throw her off the roof. I will. I swear!”
Otto heard the faint sound of a helicopter approaching from the direction of the airport. The jazz trio on the opposite roof had never missed a single beat. If the scrawny man had hit the shooter over there, the patrons were blasé about it.
“Let her go, Rex,” Otto said. “She doesn’t have your flash drive. She told you it was up here just to get you away from Jane.”
Mackenzie’s eyes darted to her. His nostrils flared. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
“But since you didn’t, you should put your gun down. Two men are already dead. You can live to fight another day.”
“I’m walking out of here,” he said. “Get outta my way. Or I’ll throw Rose off this roof. I swear I will.” He lifted her feet off the ground like a child lifting a rag doll, as if to prove that he could make good on his promise.
The helicopter was coming closer. The building had a helipad on the roof. Most medical facilities did. Perhaps the Boss had sent this one. But even if he hadn’t, she said, “Hear that, Rex? It’s a helicopter. I ordered it. Know why? To take you back to Chicago to stand trial. You’ve been indicted. You and your pal Big Mike Bavolsky.”
“That’s kidnapping. You can’t do that.”
“Watch me. You’re going back, Rex. Count on it. Question is, do you want to go back on your own two feet? Or would you rather we put you in a pine coffin?”
Before he had a chance to reply, a loud noise clanged against the roof. Mackenzie whipped his head around toward the noise.
Otto rushed forward, weapon aimed. Rose saw what she planned to do. While Mackenzie was disoriented, Rose kicked him hard in the groin with her heel. He bellowed in pain and released her. She fell onto the roof and scrambled out of the line of fire.
Mackenzie’s rage moved the barrel of his gun toward Otto. He shot once. A split second later, she shot back. His shot went wide.
Her shot pounded him center mass. He stumbled backward with the force of the blow.
One step. Two.
And he fell off the edge of the roof, but he was already dead before he hit the ground.
Rose crawled to the edge and looked over. Otto ran to pull her back.
The helicopter banked to the right about two hundred yards before it reached the rooftop and continued on.
Through it all, the jazz music never stopped.
CHAPTER 47
Sunday, February 13
4:00 a.m.
Guadalajara, Mexico
Otto and Gaspar searched the two bodies on the roof. Rose identified the scrawny man, the one with the cane.
She said, “That’s Arthur Scorpio.”
“You knew him?” Gaspar asked.
Rose shook her head. “No. I just know who he was.”
Otto knelt next to the body and patted him down. From a deep jacket pocket, she extracted a hinged jewelry box four inches wide, six inches long, and almost four inches deep.
Rose stared, “That’s Jane’s. Our mother gave it to her. She looked everywhere for it before we left. How did this piece of scum get hold of it?”
Otto pushed the lever aside and used both hands to open the tightly hinged lid.
The box was lined with purple satin and the interior was divided into three equal sections. The left and right sections contained loose gemstones.
“Are these Jane’s, too?” Otto asked.
Rose replied, “They belonged to our mother. My father was not reliable with money. Mom didn’t believe in banks, and she always worried she’d be left destitute one day. She gave the box and the stones to Jane before she died. She said they were her legacy to us because we could always sell them if we needed to.”
The center of the box held a high capacity data traveler flash drive with a zinc alloy metal casing. Otto held it up. “This must be the flash drive Rex was so desperate for. Do you recognize it?”
Rose shook her head. “I’ve never seen that before.”
Otto dropped the flash drive into her pocket. She closed the jewelry box and handed it to Rose.
The Boss’s helicopter arrived for the extraction Otto had requested. A crew of six jumped out. Four of the men collected the two bodies from the roof. Two more men brought Mackenzie up from the street on a gurney and shoved him into the helo, too.
When the extraction team had all the bodies on the helo, the leader said, “Are you coming with us?”
Rose said simply, “No.”
Otto replied, “I’ve got things to finish up here.”
They watched the helo rise above the roof and fly north for a few minutes.
“Will you and Jane go back to Chicago now?” Gaspar asked.
Rose shook her head. “We left because Bramall told us about the indictments. He was working with the investigation. He’s the one who supplied all the details for the indictments against us.”
“Why did he do that?” Gaspar asked.
“Because I’d been drug addicted. I bought and sold. I had my reasons. Good ones. But the law doesn’t care about excuses.” She gave them a pointed look. “Bramall set it up. We’d get immunity and testify against Rex. That way, we’d be clear as far as all the various cops were concerned. We could live without the threat of criminal prosecution. This whole thing would be behind us, once and for all.”
“What about Brooke Bavolsky? Who killed her?” Gaspar asked.
“I honestly don’t know. She was alive when we left. We’ve been here the whole time all that was going on.” She nodded toward Scorpio. “My money’s on him, though. He’s always been scum.”
Otto said, “Was Reacher really here with you?”
Rose nodded. “Supe set it up.”
“You mean General Simpson?”
She nodded again. “Reacher helped us get down here. We couldn’t fly or take any other kind of transportation that would record where we were going. So we took buses and we hitchhiked. He’s good at moving around without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, you know.”
Gaspar said, “Oh, we know.”
“Where is he now?” Otto asked.
“I don’t know. He said he can’t stay in one place too long. He gets uneasy. He needed to move on.” She shrugged.
By the time they made it back to Suite 706, order had been restored. Patients and guests had returned to their rooms. Bramall had been moved to a hospital, and Jane was alone. She had been crying, but she’d composed herself before Rose hugged her and handed over the brown jewelry box that was their mother’s legacy. Which started the waterworks again.