Текст книги "Sandstorm"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

“If he’s wise to us-”

“I know.” He headed for the door. Zhang would have to be eliminated. They’d lose the files, but at least the weapons data wouldn’t make it back to China. That had always been their fallback plan. They had safeguards built upon safeguards. There was even a small EM grenade affixed inside one of the suite’s ventilation grates. At a moment’s notice, they could activate it, triggering an electromagnetic pulse that would activate the computer’s self-defenses to wipe the data. China must never gain the research.

Painter rushed down the hall and crossed back to the taped-off elevator. He ducked inside. He spoke into his radio’s throat mike. “Can you get me down there ahead of him?”

“Better grab your balls,” she answered.

Before he could take her advice, the elevator dropped from under him. He was weightless for a long stretch, stomach riding up into his throat. The elevator plummeted in a free fall. Painter fought down a surge of panic, along with a rise of bile. Then the car’s floor came crashing up. There was no way to hold himself upright. He fell to his knees. Then the slowing eased and the elevator came to a gliding stop.

The doors whisked open.

Painter stumbled to his feet. Thirty floors in less than five seconds. That had to be a record. He pushed through the doorway and out into the elevator lobby. He glanced to the numbers above the express elevator Zhang had taken.

He was only a floor away.

Painter took a few steps back, near enough to cover the door, but not close enough to arouse suspicion, posing again as casino security.

The doors opened on the main floor.

Painter spied indirectly, using the reflection of the polished brass elevator doors across from the express. Oh no… He swung around and crossed in front of the elevator. No one was in the cage.

Had Zhang gotten off on another floor? He stepped into the vacant elevator. Impossible. This was the express. There were no stops between here and the floor of suites above. Unless he had pulled the emergency stop, then forced the doors open to make his escape.

Then Painter spotted it. Taped to the back wall. A glinting bit of plastic and metal. The microtransceiver. The bug.

Painter felt his heart pound against his rib cage as he stepped into the elevator. His vision tunneled on the bit of electronics taped to the wall. He ripped it free, examining it closely. Zhang had lured him away.

Oh God…

He touched his throat mike. “Sanchez!”

His heart continued its heavy thudding. There was no answer.

He swung around and punched the elevator button, marked simply SUITES The doors closed too slowly. Painter paced the tiny compartment, a caged lion. He tried his radio again. Still no response.

“Goddamnit…” The express began its climb. Painter pounded a fist against the wall. Mahogany paneling cracked under his knuckles. “Move, you fucker!”

But he knew he was already too late.

02:38 P.M. GMT

LONDON, ENGLAND

STANDING OUT in the hall, steps from the Kensington Gallery, Safia could not breathe. Her difficulty was not from the stench of wood smoke, burned insulation, or the residual scorch of electrical fires. It was the wait. All morning long, she had watched investigators and inspectors from every British bureau traipse in and out. She had been barred.

Official personnel only.

Civilians were not allowed to cross the streamers of yellow tape, the cordons of barricades, the wary eyes of military guards.

Half a day later, she was finally being allowed inside, to see firsthand the destruction. In this final moment, her chest felt as if it were clamped in a giant stone fist. Her heart was a panicked pigeon, beating at her rib cage.

What would she find? What was salvageable?

She felt stricken to the core, devastated, as ruined as the gallery.

The work here was more than just her academic life. After Tel Aviv, she had rebuilt her heart here. And though she had left Arabia, she had not abandoned it. She was still her mother’s daughter. So she had rebuilt Arabia in London, an Arabia before terrorists, a tangible account of her land’s history, its wonder, its ancient times and mysteries. Surrounded by these antiquities, walking the galleries, she heard the crunch of sand underfoot, felt the warmth of the sun on her face, and tasted the sweetness of dates freshly picked. It was home, a safe place.

But it was more than all that. Her grief went deeper.

At her core, she had built this home, not just for herself, but also for the mother she barely remembered. At times, when working late at night, Safia caught the faintest wisp of jasmine in the air, a memory from childhood, of her mother. Though they couldn’t share their life, they could share this place, this bit of home.

Now it was all gone.

“They’re letting us in.”

Safia stirred. She glanced to Ryan Fleming. The head of security had kept vigil with her, though it looked like he’d had little sleep.

“I’ll stick with you,” he said.

She forced air into her lungs and nodded. It was the best she could manage as thanks for his kindness and company. She followed the other museum staff forward. They had all agreed to help with the cataloging and documenting of the gallery’s contents. It would take weeks.

Safia marched forward, both drawn to and fearful of what she would find. She rounded past the last barricade. The security gates had been removed by the coroner’s office. She was thankful of that. She had no desire to see the remains of Harry Masterson.

She stepped to the entrance and stared inside.

Despite the preparation in her head and the brief glimpse from the video cameras, she was not ready for what she found.

The bright gallery was now a blackened cavern system, five chambers of charred stone.

Breath caught in her chest. Gasps arose behind her.

The firestorm had laid waste to everything. The wallboard had been incinerated down to the base blocks. Nothing remained standing except for a single Babylonian vase in the center of the gallery. It stood waist-high, and while scorched, it had remained upright. Safia had read reports of tornadoes doing the same, cutting a swath of total devastation while leaving a bicycle resting on its kickstand, untouched in the middle of it all.

It made no sense. None of it did.

The place still reeked of smoke and several inches of sooty water covered the floor, left over from the deluge of the fire hoses.

“You’ll need rubbers,” Fleming said, placing a hand on her arm, guiding her over to a line of boots. She pulled into a set numbly. “And a hard hat.”

“Where do we even begin?” someone muttered.

Properly outfitted now, Safia stepped into the gallery, moving as if in a dream, mechanical, eyes unblinking. She crossed through the rooms. When she reached the far gallery, something crunched under her boot heel. She bent down, fished through the water, and retrieved a stone from the floor. A few lines of cuneiform etched its surface. It was a piece of an Assyrian tablet, dating back to ancient Mesopotamia. She straightened and stared across the ruin of the Kensington Gallery.

Only now did she note the other people. Strangers in her home.

Folks labored in pockets, talking in hushed tones, as if in a graveyard. Building inspectors examined the infrastructure while fire investigators took readings with handheld devices. A pack of municipal engineers argued in a corner about budgets and bids, and a few policemen stood guard by the collapsed section of the exterior wall. Workmen were already constructing a crude plank blockade to cover the opening.

Through the gap, she spotted gawkers across the street, held back by cordons. They were surprisingly persistent considering that the morning drizzle had turned into sleet by the afternoon. Flashes of camera bulbs flickered in the gloom. Tourists.

A surge of anger flamed through her numbness. She wanted to throw the lot of them out of here. This was her wing, her home. Her anger helped focus her, bring her back to the situation at hand. She had a duty, an obligation.

Safia returned her attention to the other scholars and students from the museum. They had begun to sift through the debris. It was heartening to see their usual petty professional jealousies set aside for now.

Safia crossed back toward the entrance, ready to organize those who had volunteered. But as she reached the first gallery, a large group appeared at the entrance. At the forefront strode Kara, dressed in work clothes, a red hard hat emblazoned with the insignia for Kensington Wells. She led a team of some twenty men and women into the gallery. They were identically outfitted, wearing the same red hard hats.

Safia stepped in front of her. “Kara?” She had not seen the woman all day. She had vanished with the head of the museum, supposedly to help coordinate the various investigative teams of the fire and police. It seemed a few billion in sterling garnered some authority.

Kara waved the men and women into the gallery. “Get to work!” She turned to Safia. “I’ve hired my own forensic team.”

Safia stared after the group as they tromped like a small army into the rooms. Instead of weapons, they carried all manner of scientific tools. “What’s going on? Why are you doing this?”

“To find out what happened.” Kara watched her team set to work. Her eyes had a feverish shine, a fiery determination.

Safia had not seen such a look on her face in a long time. Something had sparked an intensity in Kara that had been missing for years. Only one thing could bring about such fervor.

Her father.

Safia remembered the look in Kara’s eyes as she had surveyed the videotape of the explosion. The strange relief. Her one spoken word. Finally…

Kara stepped out into the gallery. Already her team had commenced digging samples from various surfaces: plastics, glass, wood, stone. Kara crossed to a pair of men carrying metal detectors, sweeping them along the floor. One pulled a bit of a melted bronze from some debris. He set it aside.

“I want every fragment of that meteorite found,” Kara ordered.

The men nodded, continuing the search.

Safia joined Kara. “What are you really seeking here?”

Kara turned to her, eyes ablaze with determination. “Answers.”

Safia read the hope behind the set in her friend’s lips. “About your father?”

“About his death.”

4:20 P.M.

KARA SAT in the hall on a folding chair. The work continued in the galleries. Fans whirred and rattled. The mumble and chatter of workers in the wing barely reached her. She had come out to smoke a cigarette. She had long given up the habit, but she needed something to do with her hands. Her fingers trembled.

Did she have the strength for this? The strength to hope.

Safia appeared at the entryway, spotted her, and stepped in her direction.

Kara waved her off, pointed to the cigarette. “I just need a moment.”

Safia paused, staring at her, then nodded and headed back into the gallery.

Kara took another drag, filling her chest with cool smoke, but it did little to settle her. She was too unbalanced, the adrenaline of the night wearing thin. She stared at the plaque beside the gallery. It bore a bronze likeness of her father, the founder of the gallery.

Kara sighed out a stream of smoke, blurring the sight. Papa…

Somewhere out in the gallery, something fell with a loud bang, sounding like a gunshot, a reminder of a past, of a hunt across the sands.

Kara drifted into the past.

It had been her sixteenth birthday.

The hunt had been her father’s gift.

The Arabian oryx fled up the slope of the dune. The antelope’s white coat stood out starkly against the red sands. The only two blemishes to its snowy hide were a black swatch on the tip of its tail and a matching mask around its eyes and nose. A wet crimson trail dripped down its wounded haunch.

As it fought to escape the hunters, the oryx’s hooves drove deep into the loose sand. Blood flowed more thickly as it kicked toward the ridgeline. A pair of tapered horns sliced through the still air as the muscles of its neck wrenched with each painful yard gained.

A quarter mile back, Kara heard its echoing cry over the growl of her sand cycle, a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle with thick knobby tires. In frustration, she gripped the handles of her bike as it flew over the summit of a monstrous dune. For a breathless moment, she lifted out of her seat, airborne, as the cycle bucked over the ridge.

The angry set to her lips remained hidden behind a sand scarf, a match to her khaki safari suit. Her blond hair, braided to the middle of her back, flagged behind her like a wild mare’s tail.

Her father kept pace on another cycle, rifle carried across his back. He had his own scarf dropped around his neck. His skin was tanned the color of saddle leather, his hair gone a sandy gray. He caught her glance.

“We’re close!” he yelled above the whining growl of their engines. He gunned his engine and sped down the windward side of the dune.

Kara raced after him, bent over her cycle’s handlebars, followed closely by their bedouin guide. It had been Habib who had led them to their quarry. It had also been the bedouin’s skilled shot that had first wounded the oryx. Though impressed with his marksmanship, shooting the antelope on the fly, Kara had become furious upon learning the wounding had been deliberate, meant not to kill.

“To slow…for the girl,” Habib had explained.

Kara had rankled at the cruelty…and the insult. She had been hunting with her father from the age of six. She was not without skill herself and preferred a clean kill. Purposely wounding the animal was needlessly savage.

She cranked the throttle, kicking up sand.

Some, especially back in England, raised their eyebrows at her up-bringing, considering her a tomboy, especially with no mother. Kara knew better. Traveling half the world, she had been raised with no pre-tensions about the line between men and women. She knew how to defend herself, how to fight with fist or knife.

Reaching the bottom of the dune now, Kara and their guide caught up with her father as his cycle bogged down in a camel wallow, a patch of loose sand that sucked like quicksand. They passed him in a cloud of dust.

Her father bulled the bike out of the wallow and gave chase up the next dune, a massive six-hundred-foot mountain of red sand.

Kara reached the crest first with Habib, slowing slightly until she could see what lay beyond. And it was lucky she had. The far side of the dune fell away as steeply as a cliff, ending in a wide plain of flat sand. She could have easily tumbled tail over head down the slope.

Habib waved for her to stop. She obeyed, knowing better than to proceed. She idled her bike. Stopped now, she felt the heavy heat drop like a weight on her shoulders, but she barely noticed. Her breath escaped her in a long awed sigh.

The view beyond the dune was spectacular. The sun, near to setting, tempered the flat sand to sheer glass. Heat mirages shimmered in pools, casting an illusion of vast lakes of water, a false promise in an unforgiving landscape.

Still, another sight held Kara transfixed. In the center of the plain, a lone funnel of sand spiraled up from below, vanishing into a cloud of dust far overhead.

A sand devil.

Kara had seen such sights before, including the more violent sandstorms that could whip out of nowhere and vanish just as quickly. Still, this sight somehow struck her deeply. The solitary nature of this tempest, its perfect stillness in the plain. There was something mysterious and foreign about it.

She heard Habib mumbling beside her, head bent, as if in prayer.

Her father joined them then, drawing back her attention. “There she is!” he said, panting and pointing at the base of the steep slope.

The oryx struggled across the open plain of sand, limping badly now.

Habib held up his hand, stirring out of his prayer. “No, we go no further.”

Her father frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Their guide kept his gaze ahead. His thoughts were hidden behind dark Afrika Corps goggles and a woolen Omani headcloth, called a shamag.

“We go no further,” Habib repeated thickly. “This is the land of the nisnases, the forbidden sands. We must turn back.”

Her father laughed. “Nonsense, Habib.”

“Papa?” Kara asked.

He shook his head and explained, “The nisnases are the bogeymen of the deep desert. Black djinns, ghosts that haunt the sands.”

Kara glanced back to the unreadable features of their guide. The Empty Quarter of Arabia, the Rub‘ al-Khali, was the world’s largest sand mass, dwarfing even the Sahara, and the fantastic tales flowing out of the region were as many as they were outlandish. But some folk still held these stories to be true.

Including, apparently, their guide.

Her father throttled down his bike’s engine. “I promised you a hunt, Kara, and I won’t disappoint you. But if you want to turn back…”

Kara hesitated, glancing between Habib and her father, balanced between fear and determination, between mythology and reality. Here in the wilds of the deep desert, all seemed possible.

She stared at the fleeing animal, limping across the hot sands, every stride a struggle, its path etched in pain. She knew what she had to do. All this blood and agony had started for her benefit. She would end it.

She pulled up her sand scarf and gunned her engine. “There’s an easier way down. Off to the left.” She rode along the ridgeline, heading toward a more gentle section of the dune face.

There was no need to glance over her shoulder to feel her father’s wide smile of satisfaction and pride. It shone on her as bright as the sun. Still, at the moment, it offered no real warmth.

She stared out across the plain, past the lone oryx, to the solitary spiral of sand. While such sand devils were commonplace, the sight still struck her as strange. It hadn’t moved.

Reaching the gentler slope, Kara tilted her bike down toward the flat plains. It was steep. She and her cycle skated and skidded down the face, but she kept the bike stable on the loose sand. As she struck the rough plain, her wheels bit with the firmer traction, and she sped away.

She heard her father’s bike at her heels. The sound reached their quarry, too. The oryx’s pace increased with an agonized toss of its head.

It was less than a quarter mile off. It would not be long. On level ground, their ATVs would ride the animal down, and a quick, clean shot would end its misery, end the hunt.

“She’s going for cover!” her father called to her, pointing an arm. “Making for the sandstorm!”

Her father shot past her. Kara gave chase, bent low. They pursued the wounded creature, but desperation gave it swift speed.

The oryx trotted into the storm’s edge, heading toward its center.

Her father cursed thickly but continued racing ahead.

Kara followed, dragged in her father’s wake.

Nearing the dust storm, they discovered a deep hollow in the sand. Both bikes braked at the lip. The dust devil rose from the hollow’s center, as if it were burrowing into the desert, casting sand high into the air. The dust column had to be fifty yards across, the bowl a good quarter mile.

A smoking volcano in the sand.

Traces of blue energy laced through the devil with unnervingly silent crackles. She could smell the ozonelike odor. It was a phenomenon unique to the sandstorms of the dry desert: static electricity.

Ignoring the sight, her father pointed to the bottom of the bowl. “There she is!”

Kara looked down. Limping across the floor of the hollow, the oryx made for the thicker dust, the twisting cyclone near the center.

“Loosen your rifle!” her father called.

She remained frozen, unable to move.

The oryx reached the edge of the devil, legs shaking, knees buckling, but it fought for the denser cover of the swirling sand.

Her father swore under his breath and dove his bike down the slope.

Fearful, Kara bit her lower lip, pushed her cycle over the edge, and headed after him. As soon as she dipped down, she felt the static electricity trapped in the hollow. The hairs on her skin crackled against her clothes, adding fuel to her fear. She slowed, her rear tires sinking into the sandy slope.

Her father reached the bottom and spun the bike to a stop, almost toppling it over. But he kept his seat, twisting around with the rifle on his shoulder.

Kara heard the loud crack of his Marlin rifle. She stared toward the oryx, but it was already into the dust storm, a mere shadow now. Still, the shadow lurched, falling.

A kill shot. Her father had done it!

Kara suddenly felt a surge of foolishness. She had let her fears control her and had lost her place in the hunt. “Papa!” she called out, ready to praise him, proud of his dogged pragmatism in this hunt.

But a sudden scream strangled any further words. It came from the sand devil, issuing as if from some dark hell, a horrible cry of agony. The dark shadow of the oryx thrashed in the heart of the devil, blurred by the whirling sand. The agonized wail tore from its throat. It was being slaughtered.

Her father, still straddling the cycle, struggled to get his vehicle turned around. He stared up at her, eyes wide. “Kara! Get out of here!”

She couldn’t move. What was happening?

Then the wailing cry cut off. A horrible smell followed, the stench of burning flesh and hair. It rolled up and out of the hollow, cresting over her, gagging her. She saw her father still fighting his bike, but he had wallowed his wheels. He was stuck.

His eyes found her still frozen in place. “Kara! Go!” He waved an arm for emphasis. His tanned face was deathly pale. “Honey, run!”

Then she felt it. A stirring in the sand. At first it was just a gentle tug, as if gravity had suddenly increased. Sand particles began to dance and tumble down, quickly becoming rivulets, flowing down in a curving path, heading toward the sand devil.

Her father felt it, too. He gunned his engine, wheels spinning in the sand, casting up flumes of dust. He screamed at her, “Run, goddamnit!”

This shout jolted her. Her father seldom screamed-and never in panic.

She kicked up her engine, strangling the throttle. She saw to her horror that the dusty column had grown wider, fed by the inexplicable currents in the sand. It stretched toward where her father remained bogged in the sand.

“Papa!” she cried to him in warning.

“Go, child!” He finally freed his cycle by sheer force of will. Straddling the bike, he chased the cycle around, chewing up sand.

Kara followed his example. She swung around, gunned her engine, and fled back up the slope. Beneath her bike, the sand sucked at her, as if she were in a whirlpool, being drawn backward. She fought the sands with all her skill.

Finally reaching the bowl’s rim, she glanced over her shoulder. Her father was still near the bottom, his face muddy with sand and sweat, eyes squinted in concentration. Over his shoulder, the swirling sand closed in, towering, sparking with traceries of static electricity. It covered the entire floor.

Kara found herself unable to look away. At the heart of the dust devil, a darkness grew, spreading wider and growing blacker, more massive. The spats of static electricity did little to illuminate it. The scent of burned flesh still tinged the air. The prior warning of their guide filled her heart with terror.

Black ghosts…the nisnases.

“Papa!”

But her father was mired in the deeper, stronger currents of the whirlpool, unable to escape. The column’s edge brushed over him as it grew and spread. His eyes met hers, frantic not for himself, but for her.

Go, he mouthed-then he was gone, vanished into the darkness that filled the devil.

“Papa…!”

A horrible scream followed.

Before she could react, the column of sand exploded outward with blinding force. She was ripped from her seat and tossed high in the air. Tumbling, she toppled end over end. Time stretched until the ground rose up and struck her. Something snapped in her arm, a flash of pain that was barely noted. She rolled across the sand, coming to a stop facedown.

She lay there for several breaths, unable to move. But fear for her father rolled her on her side. She stared back toward the smoking volcano in the sand.

The devil was gone, snuffed away. All that was left was a smudgy dustiness hanging in the air. She fought to sit up, gasping and cradling her injured arm. It made no sense. She stared in all directions.

The sands lay flat all around her, untouched by track or print. Everything was gone: no sandy hollow, no bloodied oryx, no sand-scarred cycle.

She stared out at the empty sands. “Papa…”

A cry from the gallery drew Kara back to the present. Her cigarette, forgotten in her fingers, had burned to the filter. She stood and stomped it out.

“Over here!” the call repeated. It was one of her technicians. “I found something!”

08:02 A.M. EST

LEDYARD, CONNECTICUT

PAINTERCROWEcrouched low on the elevator floor as the doors rolled open upon the top floor of the Grand Pequot Tower. Ready for an ambush, he had his Glock pointed forward, a round chambered, his finger resting on the trigger.

The elevator bay was empty.

He listened for a long-held breath. No voices, no footsteps. Distantly a television could be heard blaring the theme of Good Morning America. It wasn’t a particularly good morning for him.

Easing up, he risked a glance out the door, covering with his weapon. Nothing. He kicked out of his shoes and placed one so it would hold open the door in case he needed a fast retreat. In his socks, he took three fast steps to the opposite wall and checked the immediate area.

All clear.

He cursed the lack of manpower. While he had the backing of hotel security and the local police, who were already covering all the exits, any additional federal agents had been limited out of respect for Indian sovereignty.

Besides, the mission was supposed to be a simple nab-and-collar. The worst-case scenario was that they would have to destroy the research data rather than having it fall into Chinese hands.

Now it had all gone to hell. He had been duped by his own equipment. But he had a larger fear at the moment.

Cassandra…

He prayed he was wrong about her, but he held out no real hope.

He slid along the wall of the elevator lobby. It opened into the middle of the hallway. Numbered suites marched off in both directions. Keeping low, he swept both right and left. Empty. No sign of Zhang or his bodyguards.

He headed down the hall.

His senses sharpened to a razor’s edge. At the click of a door lock behind him, he swung around, dropped to a knee, pistol pointed. It was only one of the hotel guests. Down the far hall, an older woman appeared in a bathrobe. She picked up her complimentary copy of USA Today resting on the doorstep and retreated back inside, not even noticing the armed gunman down the hall.

Painter twisted back around. He hurried the dozen steps to his suite’s door. He tested the handle. Locked. He reached with one hand for his key; the other held his Glock pointed at Zhang’s door across the hallway. He swept his key across the electronic lock. The green light flashed.

He shoved the door open while pressed against the wall outside.

No shots. No cries.

He sprang through the door. He stopped five feet inside, legs splayed in a shooter’s stance. He had a clear view into the main room and the bedroom.

Empty.

He hurried forward and checked the bedroom and bathroom. No hostiles…and no sign of Cassandra. He returned to the bay of electronic equipment. He checked the monitors. They still showed various shots of Zhang’s suite across the hall. They had cleared out. The computer was gone. There was only one occupant still in the suite.

“God…no…”

He raced back out the door, abandoning caution. He crashed across the hall and fumbled out the security passkey that opened all the rooms in the tower. He forced his way into Zhang’s suite and sprinted through the main room and into the bedroom.

She hung naked from a rope attached to a ceiling fan. Her face had purpled above the noose. Her feet, which had still been kicking on the monitor, now dangled slackly.

Holstering his gun, Painter hurdled over a chair and leaped through the air. He yanked a dagger from a wrist sheath and sliced the rope with a single swift cut. He landed heavily, tossed the knife, and caught the body as it fell.

Twisting at the hips, he brought her down upon the bed, then fell to his knees. His fingers fought the noose’s knot.

“Goddamnit!”

The rope had snugged deep into her thin neck, but the noose finally let go of its victim. He pried the rope loose. His fingers gingerly checked her neck. Not broken.

Was she still alive?

As answer, a shuddering gasp rattled up her frame and out her mouth.

Painter bowed his head in relief.

Her eyes rolled open, panicked and lost. More coughs rattled through her. Arms fought an invisible enemy.

He tried to reassure her, speaking in Mandarin. “You’re safe. Lie still. You’re safe.”

The girl looked even younger than thirteen. Her naked body was bruised in places where a child should not be bruised. Zhang had sorely used her, and afterward left her behind, dangling by a rope, meant to delay him, distract him from the pursuit.

He sat back on his heels. The girl began to sob, curling in on herself. He didn’t touch her, knowing better than to try.

His LASH communicator buzzed in his ears. “Commander Crowe.” It was the head of hotel security. “There’s a firefight at the north tower exit.”

“Zhang?” He gained his feet and rushed to the balcony window.

“Yes, sir. Report is he’s using your partner as a human shield. She may have been shot. I have more men on the way.”

He shoved the window open. It was safety-secured and only opened enough to shove his head through. “We need those roadblocks up.”

“Hang on.”

The sound of squealing tires reached him. A Lincoln Town Car careened from the valet parking lot and headed toward the tower. It was Zhang’s personal car, on its way to pick him up.

Security came back on the radio. “He’s broken out of the north exit. He still has your partner.”

The Town Car reached the corner of the tower.

Painter swung back inside. “Get those damn roadblocks up!” But there wouldn’t be enough time. He had put in the emergency call less than four minutes ago. Law enforcement here mostly dealt with drunken fights, DUIs, and petty thefts, not matters of national security.