They pull the van up onto the sidewalk and quickly pour out onto the park grounds, guns concealed in jackets, eyes alert for anyone who looks like Hammett. The gravel on the path around the fountain crunches under combat boots, pigeons scattering at their approach, and Hammett holds the PC in front of her like a talisman, tracking the nearest blip. It’s close, moving slowly, erratically. The other three have dispersed, fleeing to other parts of the city.
Hammett zooms in to the maximum resolution of the tracking map, wondering why the powers that be, in their infinite wisdom, gave each of the Hydra sisters an identical chip, rather than a unique one that could be linked to a specific identity. Of course, that was years ago, and technology wasn’t as advanced as—
“There!”
Victor, the fool, whips out his gun in public. Several spectators turn and stare at them with wide eyes. Hammett combs the small crowd, trying to focus into the darkness and pick out the familiar shape of a sister. But there’s nothing there. Nothing but—
“Pigeons,” Hammett says. She checks the tablet, then confirms it with a forward glance. There’s a loft of pigeons ahead, dozens of them, feasting on what appears to be small, bloody pieces of steak.
Correction. She spies a bird with something in its beak. Something that is quite obviously a piece of a human finger.
Hammett laughs, so loudly and profusely that she disturbs the loft, which takes flight and spreads out over Chicago.
“What’s going on?” Victor asks.
“This bird has flown,” Hammett says.
“What?”
“Your piece of ass. She played us. Played us good.”
“What are you talking about?”
Hammett realizes her laughter has attracted even more attention, people backing away as if afraid she has lost her mind. She turns to Victor, her mood suddenly souring. “Put your gun away, you idiot.”
He tucks it back inside his jacket. Hammett folds her arms, tries to concentrate, but anger clouds her thoughts. Staring at the PC again, she resists the urge to throw it into the dancing waters of Buckingham Fountain. Instead she looks at the blip moving north on the screen and then gazes in at the Magnificent Mile, all lit up along Michigan Avenue. Chandler told the truth about the Hancock building. They hadn’t found the transceiver, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
“Call your men. We’re going back to the ninety-sixth floor.”
Victor’s brow furrows. “My superiors—”
“Fuck your superiors,” Hammett says. “You either come with me, or you go back to them empty-handed. Now move your ass, comrade.”
Hammett strides back to the van, indulging in a private smile. It has been so long since she’s faced any sort of challenge. Tragic as the current events have been, she has to admit, she’s having fun.
Almost as much fun as it will be to launch one of those nukes on some unsuspecting country, once she gets the transceiver.
After all, what’s the point of having ultimate power, unless you exercise it?
“Always prepare for the worst,” The Instructor said, “because the worst is usually what happens.”
When I was growing up, my wicked stepfather used to call pigeons rats with wings. While I didn’t share that sentiment, pigeons were undeniably scavengers, and they had made quick work of the fingertips and the tracking devices, gobbling them up with ratlike efficiency.
“You know what you just did?” Fleming said, pulling the Hummer onto Columbus and heading north.
“What?”
“You killed two birds with one stone.”
I allowed myself a small smile, then turned my attention to the substantial armory Fleming had in the back of the truck. I packed a rucksack with two Sig Arms P220 Combat Pistols, loaded, and four eight-round magazines. I also added an M18 green smoke grenade and a Taser M26.
“Is this Tec-9 converted?” I asked, holding up a submachine gun slightly bigger than one of the Sigs.
“Full auto,” Fleming said. “Squeeze the trigger and it fires a thousand rounds a minute.”
I didn’t see any thousand-round magazines, but I found some thirty-round sticks. I put the Tec-9 and the mags in the sack. I also strapped a wicked-looking Mercworx VORAX double-edged combat knife to my right calf under my pants leg, using a Velcro holster. On my left leg went a retractable police asp. It weighed about half a kilogram, and when fully extended, was over two feet long.
“You’ve got a full case of M67s back here,” I said, eyeing a crate of hand grenades.
“Leave them. If one explodes on the ninety-sixth floor, it would blow out windows, and the cross breeze could sweep us outside. Or worse, it might cause some structural damage.”
I left them. A moment later, Fleming hit a pothole, making the crate bounce. I winced.
“You sure it’s safe to drive like that when you’ve got all of this ordnance back here?”
“If you’re worried, you could sit up here where it’s safe.”
If the Humvee blew up, I doubted anywhere within a hundred meters would be safe. But I climbed into the passenger seat just the same.
“Maybe I can drive on the way back?”
“Sure. And there’s an extra key in the trailer hitch in back, under the tow ball, just in case.”
I knew what just in case meant. Just in case Fleming didn’t make it.
I didn’t like that scenario at all.
We arrived at the Hancock Center a few minutes later. As we drove up the spiral ramp to the parking levels, my thoughts drifted to Kaufmann. Earlier that day, we’d escaped the men in the black SUV on this ramp. It seemed so long ago.
So much had changed since then.
And yet, everything remained the same.
The Instructor once told me that the game never changes, only the players.
Poor Kaufmann. Poor goddamn Kaufmann.
The sixth-floor parking lot was closed, so Fleming parked on the fifth, the wide Hummer taking up two spaces. She crawled into the backseat with me, opened the rear door, and set her wheelchair onto the concrete. As she lowered herself into it, her right foot snagged on the door handle.
“Ow…”
“You can feel that?” I asked.
She shot me a look. “I’m maimed, not paralyzed.”
I wondered what the true extent of her injuries was. “So, can you walk?”
“Walking is for suckers,” Fleming said. “But I can swim like a son of a bitch.”
“Can you—”
“Enough about me. Get your mind on op. We take separate elevators. I cover them. You get the transceiver. If things go sour, we’ll rendezvous in the lobby of the Congress Hotel at eleven hundred. Oh, and I almost forgot.” She pulled something from her pocket and dropped it in my hand.
It was a cell phone and an accompanying Bluetooth earpiece no bigger than my pinky.
“How far we’ve come,” I said. “Remember those big radio headsets?”
She nodded and pulled a matching set out of another pocket. “These are trac phones, never used before, bought them at a drugstore. I already synced the earpieces.”
Pushing my hair back, I screwed mine into my ear and watched Fleming call me. A moment later I heard the ringing.
“Tap the button to answer.”
I did. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
Fleming made a face. “Of course I can hear you. I’m standing right in front of you.”
She attached her earpiece and rolled a few meters away.
“What’s Hammett’s position?” her voice said in my ear.
I checked the PC blips. One was moving in a straight line toward us. “She’s seven blocks away, approaching fast. We have a few minutes at most.”
“Then let’s move.”
I stuck the tablet in the rucksack, and we took the parking elevator down to the lobby. The place still smelled like dusty marble, but now the scent was overlaid by the odor of human stress. Several cops dotted the lobby, talking to a handful of people, and the Best Buy
was closed off.
The building had been a hotbed of activity today, and after the mess I’d caused earlier, I expected extra security. Of course, Hammett and Victor had just left. I could only guess what they’d been up to.
I circled to the tiny express elevators to the top floors, Fleming rolling behind me. We ran into more cops before we reached them. A man with short blond hair and the black suit of the Signature Room held up a hand, his gaze hovering somewhere to the side of Fleming, as if too uncomfortable to look directly at the woman in the wheelchair. “Sorry ladies. The upper floors are closed.”
“But we have a reservation,” Fleming said.
“The restaurant and lounge are closed for the evening. We are very sorry. If you’d like, I can rebook a table for you, say for tomorrow night?”
“What happened?” I asked, shifting the rucksack behind me and hoping he’d just think it was the latest style of oversized handbag. I had no doubt that whatever had closed the top floors was Hammett’s doing.
“There was a bomb threat earlier.”
“Don’t worry.” He shifted his gaze up to me, whether trying to be polite and address us both or avoiding the handicapped woman, I couldn’t tell. “It seems the threat was bogus, but…” He narrowed his eyes.
Oh, hell.
“You look familiar.”
“I have one of those faces.”
I turned to push Fleming’s chair, but she was already heading in the other direction. I hurried to keep up.
I remembered the women I’d followed this morning when I’d been looking for a place to stash the phone. I was fairly certain the elevators they’d first approached had led to residential floors, the floors immediately under the restaurant and observation deck. I motioned to Fleming. “This way.”
We ducked behind a planter just in time to avoid two officers, then made a dash in the direction of the residential elevators.
A short, squat woman wearing a black vest and pants stood in front of the elevator banks. From first glance, she seemed to be armed with a radio, a name tag, and nothing more. Noticing our approach, she glanced up. “May I help you?”
“I got this,” Fleming said out of the side of her mouth. She tapped her right ear, referencing the earpiece we each wore. “Meet you at the Congress.”
Then she rolled up to the security guard, hit the brakes on her chair, and flopped onto the floor. She began to writhe around and moan, a definite Oscar-worthy performance.
As the guard rushed to her aid, I slipped past. I hit the up button and stepped into an open lift. The buttons went up to ninety, so that’s the one I pressed.
I caught one last glimpse of Fleming, lying on the ground, her eyes rolled back in her head, and then the door closed. The elevator lurched, then took off on its ascent.
I forced myself to breathe, to concentrate. I took out the tablet PC and saw that Hammett had arrived. Once she entered the building, I wouldn’t be able to tell which floor she was on. The computer would be all but worthless to me. I stowed it back in my rucksack and strapped the Tec-9 across my shoulders. I stuck extra magazines for that, and the .45s, into every available pocket of my jeans, and then jacked a round into the Sig and held it alongside my body.
Watching the numbers climb, I focused on slow breaths and equalizing the pressure in my ears. This elevator was much slower than the express, and I hoped it wouldn’t stop before reaching my floor. My appearance would probably unnerve a civilian.
Luckily, the car took me all the way to the ninetieth floor. The bell chimed, the door parted, and I stepped into the hall, gun at the ready.
“When we get there, Chandler is mine. I don’t want you messing things up.”
Victor ignores Hammett and feeds the full magazine into the Brügger & Thomet MP9. Aware of the glitzy shops of the Magnificent Mile whizzing outside the van, he longs to open up on unsuspecting shoppers at nine hundred rounds per minute. He’s been living in America for too long, and he’s had enough. Americans are lazy, ignorant pigs who think they are entitled to all that is good in the world. More than anything, he has thirsted for this moment, his chance to set them straight.
Too bad he can’t start with Hammett.
“I’ve provided money and men,” he says, a temple of infinite patience. “I’ve done my part. You promised to deliver the transceiver.”
“Your part? What was your part? Fucking my sister?”
“She’s a better fuck than you are. Apparently she’s better at everything else as well.”
He says it to get her to shut up, but realizes it is true. Hammett, sexy as she is, doesn’t even seem to realize he is in the same room as her when they make love. She uses him like a piece of gym equipment. At least Chandler seemed to want to please him.
Of course, he doubts that would be the case now, especially after the whole torture thing. But if she comes out of this alive, he’ll take her along with the transceiver. He could have fun with her, at least for a little while.
Hammett, he’ll dump in the lake as soon as the prize is in hand.
In the back, his men pretend they didn’t hear, but Victor can feel them grin.
He is going to enjoy killing her.
“Let us out here,” Hammett orders. She turns to Victor. “I’ll go after Chandler. You watch for the police. Try not to fuck it up.”
Victor clenches his jaw and doesn’t answer. He is the one giving orders. He is the one who found the investors. He is the one who gets the transceiver when it’s all over. Somehow the bitch always forgets she depends on him.
The van stops. He, Hammett, and his men jump out. Best case, they find Chandler, find the transceiver, and escape without a shot being fired.
Worst case, they’ll draw attention to themselves, and people will have to die.
Victor smiles privately, his hand gripping the MP9.
Worst case doesn’t seem bad at all.
Leading with the Sig, I stepped out of the elevator and into a wide hall. Various prints depicting Chicago hung on the walls, and my feet sank into plush carpeting. The air smelled of lavender and money. No telling how much it cost to live in a landmark like the John Hancock building, but my nose told me the people who made this their home rarely stooped to do something as middle class as cook dinner.
The sound of strings filtered into the hall from the closest condo. “The Jupiter Symphony,” if I remembered my Mozart. No one was in the hall. Hopefully the late hour would keep it that way, at least until I could find the stairs.
Picturing the layout of the Signature Room above, I headed left. Sure enough, the third door I passed was marked Fire Exit. I ducked inside, the alarm ringing briefly. Springing on the balls of my feet, I started up the remaining five flights.
I reached the top, my heart rate slightly elevated, and pushed into the restaurant.
A man around my age stood near the maître d’ stand. “Ma’am, I’m sorry but we’re…” His voice trailed off and mouth froze open as his stare alternated between my face and my weaponry.
“I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. It’s for your own safety.”
“Again?”
It took me a second to realize he was probably reacting to an earlier run-in with Hammett and assumed I was her. Wouldn’t he be surprised when she turned up, which I was sure would happen soon.
“Get the fuck out,” I said, pointing my weapon at him.
He got the fuck out.
“I’m in on the ninety-fifth floor,” I said to Fleming.
Then I went to find my cell phone.
After flailing around and looking appropriately pitiful for the time it took Chandler to get into the elevator, Fleming allowed the security guard to help her back into her chair. A small collection of gawkers had gathered, and even though Fleming had been faking her helplessness, she still felt a small sting of humiliation.
One more indignity to add to the list.
She listened to Chandler announce her arrival, and for a brief, self-indulgent mome
nt, Fleming pretended she was up there instead. After the fall, and the countless surgeries and hellish failure that was rehabilitation, Fleming had sworn off feeling sorry for herself. She refused to allow tragedy to limit what she could do. As a result, she’d worked harder and accomplished more than she probably ever would have if her legs had still functioned.
But that was all behind-the-scenes stuff. Even the encryption code for the transceiver—a brilliant combination of mathematics and programming—was for someone else to use. Fleming longed to do something active. To be viable again. But instead of taking the lead, she wheeled back into the lobby and played the backup role, watching for Hammett.
She didn’t have to watch long.
Hammett strolled in, wearing an ankle-length brown duster, a beige top, and black leather pants. Fleming had always flirted with the notion of buying leather pants, and seeing them on Hammett, decided they were a bad idea. Hammett was flanked by six men, walking in groups of two, looking very much like a military unit even though they were in civvies. Slung over each of their shoulders was a duffel bag, and judging by their weights Fleming guessed they held automatic weapons.
Keeping her head down, she backed around the corner and watched as they approached the bank of express elevators. One of the men began to speak to the maître d’ they’d run from a moment earlier.
Hammett reached inside her duster, no doubt putting her hands on a gun.
Fleming gripped the arms of her chair, but she didn’t fire. This was not ideal. Hammett and Victor stood between her and the cops. If she stayed in position and tried to take Hammett out, she might hit the innocents behind her. If she did nothing, Hammett would likely get through, and if everything went to hell, she could kill those same innocents on her way to interfere with Chandler.
Footsteps sounded to the side of Fleming. Two more officers.
She took her fingers from the triggers and gripped the wheels. Where shooting at Hammett’s men didn’t bother Fleming in the least, the thought of getting in a firefight with police officers who were just doing their jobs was another story. She’d have to find a different position and figure out another way to keep Hammett and the men from reaching the restaurant, at least until Chandler had a chance to get the phone and get out.
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 19