by Alex Archer
A man filled the doorway behind them and they turned with their weapons. His other guard stood there with his weapon pointed at them. He lowered it.
Laframboise pierced the man with his gaze. “You saw nothing in the hallway?”
“No.”
“Call the car and have it waiting in the alley. Call in the other team and let them know we’re looking for Puyi-Jin’s men.”
“Yes, sir.” The man fumbled inside his jacket and produced a mobile. He pressed a button and started speaking rapidly.
Campra glanced at the hidden door. “Cute.” He pressed a hand to his side and winced. “The woman knew they were there?”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do about her?”
Laframboise glanced at Magdelaine. “Leave her.” He pinned her with his hot gaze. “But if I lose my lantern, I’m coming back here to kill you.”
The woman reached toward him with a shaking hand. Her face was racked with fear as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Forgive me.”
“Where does this door lead?”
“To the adjoining room.”
“Then out into the next hallway?”
“Yes.”
“There are elevators at the other end of the building?”
Magdelaine nodded and her head jerked with the movement. “Forgive me, Jean-Baptiste. Please. I beg you. I had no choice. You must understand that.”
Ignoring her, Laframboise nodded to Campra. “Let’s go get my lantern back.”
Together, they plunged through the hidden door.
* * *
“I’VE GOT YOUR TARGET.” Heimdall tried to speak calmly, but his excitement betrayed him.
Annja was a step behind Fiona as they rounded the next corner that took them to the hallway where the door to Magdelaine de Brosses’s second room was.
“Where?” Fiona stared down the hallway at the scattered individuals cowering in the hallway at the sound of gunfire.
“Ahead of you. On the left. No. On your right.”
Staring ahead, Annja spotted the Asian man just stepping out of a doorway less than ten feet away. Just before she asked Heimdall for further clarification, she spotted the familiar case tucked under the man’s arm. When the man pulled up a pistol, he removed all doubt as to his identity.
He swung the case up as Fiona fired. The bullet screamed off the reinforced case and dug into a nearby wall only a few feet over the head of a reluctant observer. The man went flat to the ground immediately.
Fiona held her fire, obviously deciding unless she had a clear shot she didn’t want to risk accidentally hitting a bystander. Never breaking stride, Annja plucked the sword into the hallway with her and swung. The blade flashed as it cut through the air and smacked into the pistol.
The weapon flew from the man’s hand as he stared at the sword in surprise. He raised the case to block another sword strike and backed away, talking rapidly.
Annja didn’t realize who the man was talking to until four men rounded the corner at the far end of the hallway. They opened fire at once. Deciding to cope with the more deadly threat, Fiona flung herself into a doorway and fired from cover.
One of the men sagged with a bullet between his eyes. Another lost interest in the gun battle when a bullet ripped through his throat. He stood, frantically using both hands to stem the tide of blood. His efforts were in vain and he staggered to one side, falling over a woman who went into immediate panic.
Brandishing her sword, Annja focused on the Asian man with the lantern case. She swung at his head, trying to scare him into stepping back against the wall. Once he was off balance, she intended to take him down.
Instead, the man spun, blocking her sword with the case, then coming around with a back kick that caught her in the middle of her chest. The air whooshed out of her and she went backward. Dumb, dumb, you should have seen that coming. He knew the wall was there, too.
As she fell back, the man spun again, lashing out with a foot and sweeping her legs out from under her. Reflexively, she reached out to break her fall and released her hold on the sword. It disappeared at once, returning to wherever it was when she didn’t have it. She slammed against the floor. The only reason she didn’t have the breath knocked out of her was because it was already gone.
Her vision turned spotty and she hovered on the edge of unconsciousness. The man loomed above her. He raised his foot and she knew he intended to drive it through her face.
30
Reaching up, Annja caught the man’s foot. She stopped his boot sole only an inch or two from her nose. Her arms burned with the effort of keeping him at bay. He was quick, though, almost too quick. He let her hold on to his foot and used it to push himself up so he could drive the other foot down into her throat.
Lungs burning for air, a sudden headache splitting her temples and her vision grayed out at the edges, Annja wrenched her opponent’s foot. Physiology and leverage created an insurmountable pressure. The man cried out in pain as his body torqued off balance. He came crashing down, arms windmilling, and he lost his hold on the case.
Annja rolled out of the way and air finally rushed back into her lungs just as she thought she was never going to breathe again. She pushed herself to her feet and grabbed the handle of the case.
“No!” The man scrambled to get up, but his wrenched ankle betrayed him and he crumpled to his knee. He lunged for the pistol but Annja got there first and kicked the weapon away.
Gunshots still rang out in the hallway. Only one of the gunmen had survived Fiona’s marksmanship, but he had holed up around the corner at the end of the hall in another corridor.
Fiona took refuge in the recessed doorway and calmly reloaded her weapon. She took note of Annja. “You got the case. Good job.”
“Let’s get out of here before some of these people get hurt.” Annja headed toward the opposite end of the hallway. Another corridor ran perpendicular to the one they were in. If she had the floor configuration worked out, there was another emergency stairwell and a set of elevators there.
Fiona released the slide on her weapon to chamber a fresh round, took another shot at the man around the corner, then turned the pistol toward the man Annja had fought. Annja didn’t have any doubt that the woman would kill in cold blood if she had to. The man was already a recognized threat.
Before Fiona could pull the trigger, though, Laframboise yanked open the door the Asian man had come through. Another man with a machine pistol stood at his side.
“Fiona!”
Effortlessly, Fiona wheeled around and fired at the open door, triggering shot after shot. Annja was uncertain whether any of the shots hit Laframboise or his lackey, but both men dove back inside the room as splinters ripped from the door.
Fiona cursed and dropped the empty magazine, pulling still another from her jacket and slamming it home as she ran to join Annja. “Bloody cross fire is not where we need to be.”
In full agreement, Annja ran after her. Bullets cut the air around them and punched holes in the wall at the end of the hallway. The percussions sounded impossibly loud.
At the end of the hallway, Annja started to go to the right, toward the second set of stairs and elevators. She’d barely managed two steps before she spotted another group of armed Asians sprinting toward them.
“Well, this isn’t where we want to be, either.” Fiona brought up her pistol and fired rapidly, scattering the new arrivals.
Retreating the other way, Annja ran hard but didn’t leave Fiona behind. The older woman kept up surprisingly well. “Heimdall, is the other stairwell and elevator bank clear?”
“Negative. You guys are boxed. I’m sorry. I’ll call our friend. Perhaps there’s something he can do. The police are on their way.”
Fiona drew up alongside Annja and they ducked around another turn in the hallway. This one left them facing a wall of glass that looked out over Paris. The view was spectacular. In the distance, Annja could see the Eiffel To
wer and perhaps even white crenellations of the Arc de Triomphe sitting in the Place de l’Étoile.
Annja took a breath. You’re trapped. How are you going to get out of this?
Fiona stood at attention beside her. Gunshots rolled and echoed around them. She held the pistol, pointing at the ceiling. “You don’t think they’d be willing to surrender, do you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so, either. But it’s only because they don’t know what they’re up against.”
Annja couldn’t help but laugh. Fiona Pioche was irrepressible.
More staccato gunshots peppered the hallway.
“For the moment, they’re distracted by each other, but they’ll get round to us soon enough.” Fiona brandished her weapon ruefully. “I’m down to my last magazine. And to be frightfully honest, I don’t think either Laframboise or Puyi-Jin’s group intends to let us survive this.”
A flicker of movement on the other side of the window distracted her from the dark thoughts that crowded her mind. When she saw the second snakelike flicker slide across the glass, she recognized what it had to be.
She rushed over to the window, listening to the steady roar of weapons closing in relentlessly on their position. There, outside the window, the suspended scaffold she’d spotted earlier hung a floor below them and to one side, perhaps eight feet away. Two men dragged squeegees across the windows with iPod earbuds in their ears.
Annja turned to Fiona. “How do you feel about heights?”
“We’re on the sixth floor. Jumping is not an option.”
“It’s the only option we have.”
Fiona joined her at the window and peered down at the window-washer rig. “Oh, bloody hell. Surely you’re joking.”
“We’re all out of places to run to.” Annja stepped back from the window and drew her pistol. She aimed for the center of the glass and fired.
At first she thought the window was going to hold. Though the surface integrity of the glass had been compromised, with thin cracks that looked like spiderwebs spreading out from the bullet hole, it clung stubbornly to its moorings. The windows had been designed to handle the wind shear and accidental impacts.
Annja set down the lantern case and reached for one of the spare magazines she carried. Just as she slammed it home, the glass sucked out of the window and broke apart, leaving the space relatively empty. The pieces glittered as they sailed across the street, smashed into the building opposite, then rained down over the sidewalk as pedestrians ran for cover.
No one was hurt.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Annja holstered her weapon and picked up the case.
Below, the window washers were definitely aware that something was going on. Both young men looked up at the broken window and spotted Annja. They plucked the earbuds out of their ears and stood waiting. The gunfire was unmistakable, and they hunkered down immediately.
Annja didn’t give them much more time to think. She climbed into the window, barely managed her balance against the sucking pull of the wind and the vertigo as she stared down at the street far below.
She blew out her breath, hefted the lantern case and brought it in close to her body to better manage the balance, then flung herself toward the nearest cable supporting the washing rig.
She clamped her hand around the wire rope and the rigid surface bit into her palm. Maintaining her grip, she wrapped her leg around the rope, as well, and then released her hand and wrapped the rope inside her elbow to protect her fingers. Holding on, able to somewhat control her descent, she slid down until her foot reached the scaffold’s safety rail.
The wind caught her again, but she fought it and dropped onto the scaffold. The men stared at her in shock. Driven by Annja’s landing, the scaffold swung sickeningly.
“Mademoiselle.”
Ignoring them, Annja set the case down and turned to look up at Fiona. The woman stood at the window and gazed down. Gunshots cracked behind her and reverberated over the street. Sirens screamed, growing closer with every passing second.
“Fiona.” Annja wished the scaffold weren’t swinging. She hadn’t considered the effect her jump would have on the platform. “Just get the timing and jump. Wrap your arms and legs around the cable. Don’t try to hold on with your hands.”
Cautiously, swaying with the wind, Fiona climbed into the window frame and gathered herself. Without a word, she leaped toward the scaffold.
Panic froze Annja for just a moment when she realized that something had gone wrong, that Fiona had misjudged the jump. Then the woman wrapped her arms and legs around the wire rope and she slid. She came too fast, though, and her foot hit a glancing blow on the scaffold’s edge and bounced off. Her legs shot past the scaffolding and her grip with her arms was slipping.
Annja grabbed the back of Fiona’s jacket, prayed that it would hold and yanked. Fiona came up a couple inches, giving Annja just enough purchase to catch her under the arms and start hauling.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. Just hang on.”
The scaffold swayed and banged against the windows, jarring Annja as she pulled and fought against the changing leverage provided by the uncertain fulcrum of the safety railing. Before she could get Fiona onto the scaffold, an Asian gunman thrust his head and shoulders through the window above. He pointed his pistol and fired.
Bullets ricocheted off the scaffold and cracked into the nearby windows. The scaffold’s wild swings and the wind shear hammering the gunman made them a harder target, but it was only a matter of time.
Fiona released her grip on Annja’s arm with her right hand and drew her pistol. She had the weapon up and firing even as Annja set herself and yanked again. Fiona’s bullets slapped into the man’s chest. He struggled to step back or shoot, Annja wasn’t sure which, but the wind caught him and sucked him out the window.
His screams echoed around them as Annja pulled Fiona onto the scaffold and fell onto her haunches.
Fiona rolled and contorted, then got into a crouched position with her pistol braced on the scaffold’s safety railing for support.
Searching the scaffold, Annja spotted the control panel. The directions were simple and in French. But there was another problem. She looked at the men.
“Will the scaffold reach the ground?” Scaffolds were usually mounted on rooftops with parapet clamps and didn’t necessarily reach the ground. They were designed to clean the upper-story windows of buildings.
“Second floor.” One of the men answered in a stunned monotone. “It will go to the second floor. Perhaps a little farther.”
“Thank you.” Down, then. Up would have been more problematic, requiring them to escape from the building all over again. Annja pressed the button and the scaffold started dropping. “Heimdall, are you still with us?”
“Yes, but I thought you were dead when you jumped out of that window.”
“Have the car brought around. There’s an alley—” Annja made sure she hadn’t gotten her sense of direction mixed up during the excitement “—on the west side of the building.”
“Siasia will be there. Don’t worry.”
Annja looked at the two window washers. “Can this go any faster?”
The man who had spoken pointed to the control panel. “The lever.”
Spotting the lever, Annja threw it in the other direction. Immediately, the scaffold dropped almost as fast as an elevator. The dizzy feeling in her stomach was there, but it was constantly interrupted by the scaffold banging against the side of the building as the wind caught them again and again.
Fifty yards away, white Peugeot cars with Police on the sides in red and blue slewed to a stop in front of the building. Pedestrians ringed the dead man on the sidewalk only a few yards away. So far no one was paying particular attention to the window-washing scaffold.
Reaching the end of its tether, the scaffold swung six or seven feet from the ground. The motor hummed for a moment, then shut off automatically.
“I’m sorry.” The window w
asher wrung his hands apologetically but didn’t get up from his position on his knees. “This is as far as it goes.”
“That’s fine. Thank you.”
He looked at her hopefully. “Will you be going now?”
“Yes.” Annja grabbed the lantern case and clambered over the side of the scaffold, which was still swinging, though less so now that it had come to a stop. Several pedestrians stared at the scaffold as Annja heaved herself over the side and dropped to the sidewalk. Fiona dropped into place beside her.
“Well, that was certainly an adventure.” Fiona tugged the bottom of her jacket into place. “Is it like this for you all the time?”
“More often than not.”
“Does Roux accompany you much?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. I believe the life you lead is perhaps a little too exciting even for his tastes.”
“It’s a little too exciting for mine.”
“Ah, Annja Creed, I don’t think that’s exactly true.” Fiona grinned. “There’s a certain glow about you that I see when we’re under fire. Or jumping from tall buildings.”
Several of the pedestrians called to the nearby policemen. One of the uniformed men came toward them, then saw the dead man lying on the pavement. He clicked his shoulder radio and more policemen came running with their guns drawn.
Annja shoved through the pedestrians and broke into a full run on the outside of the crowd. Fiona followed her. Together, they sprinted for the alley and she hoped the car would be there.
When she arrived, the alley was empty. She came to a stop and looked around. “Heimdall.”
“Patience. He’s almost there.”
Three uniformed policemen had pursued Annja and Fiona, probably only because they had run. Pursuit was an instinct and man was, by nature, a predator.
“You two,” one of the officers, a woman, said, in French. “Hold it there. We want to talk to you.” She repeated her order in English.
Just as she finished, the car that had brought Annja and Fiona roared out on the street and swooped into a tire-eating turn. The police officers drew back as the vehicle bore down on them.