Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1) (20 page)

I paused at the third floor. I heard slow, regular footsteps beyond. I cursed. It sounded like the guard on the top floor was walking his post. That spoke for his professionalism, but at the moment it complicated my life and put his in danger.

I waited until the sounds started to fade, then risked a quick look through the small, wired glass pane in the door. The guard was walking away, letting his heavy boots clomp in that bored, ambling gait familiar to anybody who has ever guarded what they thought was a perfectly safe place in the wee hours of the morning.

He was a burly, squarely built specimen, his flat-topped crew cut making him look even squarer. Indoors, he chose to eschew the ubiquitous trenchcoat for a black, ribbed turtleneck. I saw a weapon sling on his right shoulder. The weapon was obscured by his broad back, but any weapon that needed a sling was probably more firepower than my .45.

Since he was bigger and better armed than I, I waited until he turned the corner at the end of the hallway before quietly pushing the door open and skulking along until I came to the door conveniently marked “President”. It was locked, but my stolen ID card swiped me in.

If it hadn’t, I could have jimmied the lock. It would have taken about thirty seconds, given that this was a simple, interior office door, but the card was quieter, and less likely to set off any alarms. There was a chance that a computer logged which cards were used to access which doors at what times but there’d been no sign anyone was expecting me. Perhaps tomorrow the head of security would have to make the march of shame up to this same door to explain how a dead man’s badge had been used, but by then, it would be his head on the block, not mine.

Once inside, I shut the door. It swung quietly closed, which is to be expected of the door of the President.

The office was not what I expected. After the trenchcoats and accents I was prepared for steel and glass and abstract sculpture. Instead, it was all very old world. Finely carved wooden furniture, dark paneling, riding prints, fencing prints and a well used modern fencing foil hanging on the wall over a photo of the man himself: Doors himself.

The face in the photo was a few years younger than the man whose ankle I’d fixed, and less lined with pain, but it still radiated arrogance.

I turned my attention to the computer on the massive desk. It was on, in sleep mode. I moved the mouse and waited until the screen lightened. As expected, a password box popped up.

I reached into my pocket for the recovery disk.

I paused.

Could it be that easy?

The nameplate on the desk read “Joseph Doors”. The photo of the young fencer was inscribed to Josef Toren. Tor was German for
gate
, Tueren was
doors
.

I tapped the J key.

The username field populated itself with “jdoors”, and the password field filled as well, with the bullets that hid the actual password from outsiders. It seemed that Sarah was right. My foes appeared to have placed an inordinate amount of faith in Sleeping Beauty and his shotgun to keep anyone from getting this far. I smiled and pressed “Enter”.

The desktop loaded before my eyes. In keeping with the image of a corporate executive, the wallpaper was an artistically lit shot of a chessboard. I sat down, loaded a blank disk and opened up the main drive.

My run of good luck leveled off; there was no file named “secret identity”, so I just opted to copy all of them.

I sat for a few moments and watched the blue bar on the bottom of the screen slowly grow. It looked like I’d be here a while. This is always the hardest part of any infiltration, sitting and waiting while in a dangerous position. As long as you can be doing something, it isn’t so bad; but just waiting, trying to stay alert, puts a strain on your nerves.

I stood and paced in front of the desk, just to burn off nervous energy. I glanced at my watch, tried to slow my breathing and wondered if the way out would be as easy as the way in. I found myself toying with a paperweight, a heraldic beast in gold, suspended in a heavy glass globe.

The sound of the office door banging open shattered my reverie and the big, square individual I’d seen earlier burst into the room, a German submachine gun leveled at me.

Ah,
part of my brain registered.
An MP5
.
Should have guessed
.

‘Thank God you’re here,’ I said with relief, putting a touch of Hungarian in my accent. ‘He went that way.’ I pointed to a door in the back corner of the room.

Guards are generally ready for one of several predictable reactions. If I had started to duck behind some furniture or reach for the pistol in my jacket, he’d have emptied the clip into me. If I’d thrown up my hands and pleaded for mercy, he’d likely have thrown me down and held me for questioning. If I’d run, he’d probably have shot me and then thrown me down and held me for questioning.

He was utterly unprepared for me to be happy to see him.

The secret to bluffing is to project the impression that you really do belong where you are. It’s not easy, particularly when you have an automatic weapon pointed at you, but I’d had a lot of practice.

That said, it was a bluff with a weak hand, and not one that would stand up for very long.

He paused for a moment, his steely glare took on an edge of uncertainty, and his eyes flicked to the door I indicated. Even better, the muzzle of his weapon drifted that way, just a bit to the left of me.

Short as the distraction was, it was enough time for me to bring the paperweight around to smash into the side of his head, raising my left hand to deflect the gun if it should swing back toward me.

The blow drove him to his knees, but he kept hold of his weapon. I was behind him in an instant, an arm locked around his neck. He tried to twist the gun around to point at me, then tried to grab my arm and pull it free, but he was already weakening.

‘Take a nap. Take a nap,’ I urged. ‘Come on. Shhhhhhhh. That’s it.’

His body went limp and heavy. I held the choke for a few more seconds, just in case he was faking it. Playing dead is a good way to get someone to release a hold, but it’s hard to do, and hard to keep that fear down if the choke doesn’t stop.

The computer chimed, indicating that the task was finished.

I lowered the insensate guard to the floor and checked the screen. Files copied successfully. I ejected the disk, returned it to its case and slipped it into my pocket.

I could have taken the guard’s MP5, but I wanted to keep at least one hand free, and I have a long-standing reluctance to rely on a weapon I’ve never personally fired. I did take a moment to toss the submachine gun up on top of a high bookshelf. When he came to, he’d assume I’d taken it and, unarmed, he’d probably be less enthusiastic about chasing a guy with an automatic weapon.

I had no idea what had alerted the guard to my presence, but it seemed a good time to be somewhere else. I snuck a quick look into the hallway. Still deserted. I stepped out and made for the stairway, my .45 now clutched in my fist.

I had gone about five feet when the door to the stairs burst open and a man with a carbine surged through. I snapped off a quick shot and made for a side hall off the main passageway.

The man flinched as I fired, but I doubt I hit him. He was only about twenty feet away. If I’d taken a second to aim, I couldn’t have missed, but that would have given him a second to aim, and he had a bigger gun than I did.

As it was, my shot probably distracted him enough that I was around the bend before his reply blew holes in the sheetrock of the corner at the height of my chest. I dropped to a crouch, waited until I heard his steps approaching, then popped back out around the corner, low to the ground, my trusty Colt extended before me.

He was moving quickly toward me, his weapon still at the ready, but pointed too high. About where my head would be if I hadn’t crouched down before leaning out.

This time I did take a second to aim and shot him deliberately, twice, center mass. He jerked as the rounds hit, then flopped back to the floor. He fired reflexively as he fell, but it went high. Behind him, the door banged open and I saw more men swarming up the stairs.

I was running now, looking for a way down.

At the end of the short hallway I saw another door with a narrow, wired glass panel in it. More stairs. I heard footsteps pounding down the main hallway. I backed toward the door, my pistol aimed at the corner. At that moment I did regret not taking the MP5. Running around a corner into a hail of submachine gun fire at a range of fifteen feet would have been a nice object lesson for them.

As my left hand touched the handle of the stairway door, I saw a group of thugs round the corner. Probably three or four of them, but at that moment I’d have sworn there were thirty. I fired into the oncoming horde, which very impressively reversed course and took cover around the corner. If I hit any of them, they didn’t fall right away.

I tore open the door and barreled down two flights of stairs. On the landing, I paused for breath and to consider my next move. This should have me on the ground floor, but not in a place I knew. An older, rusted steel staircase continued down into the basement. Most of these old mills had some access to the canal. Maybe there was a way out below.

Yeah, maybe. Through freezing water filled with ice and rats and the hepatitis bug.

Beat getting shot, though.

If I was lucky, whatever guards there were in the building would still be swarming up to where I’d just come from. On the other hand, they might be smart enough to have already sealed the exits. Maybe the basement was the best idea. But what if the access to the water was sealed off? It could be one big dead end.

My indecision came to an abrupt end as the door burst open and yet another armed heavy rushed through. This one was a taller, leaner model, but otherwise pretty much like the rest. He obviously wasn’t expecting anyone to be there, which I attribute to just how stealthily I was waffling over my next move. He plowed right into me, knocking me back against the wall.

The good thing was that while he was too close for me to bring my pistol to bear, he was too close to bring his automatic weapon to bear, and both of his hands were full of gun, to my one. I grabbed him with my left hand and tried to get a knee in. He might not have been able to shoot me, but he managed to slam the toe of his gunstock into my ribs. I grunted as pain blossomed in my side, forcing air from my lungs. He hit me one more time, then I grabbed his weapon and slammed my forehead into his nose. I felt the crunch and took the opportunity to swing him around into the wall. I hit him with the .45, kicked his legs out from under him and shoved him toward the stairs.

Unfortunately, he grabbed a handful of my jacket as he stumbled back. Off balance from the cramp of my bruised ribs, I couldn’t break his hold, and we fell down the stairs together.

On the positive side, I managed to stay on top, using the guard like a well armed toboggan. On the negative, it was still falling down stairs. I felt jarring impacts on my knees and elbows as we tumbled down. My left hand, still keeping the muzzle of his gun away from my body, slammed into a steel baluster, sending a searing bolt of agony up my arm. My right foot hung up somewhere and my ankle wrenched painfully.

We came to rest at the foot of the stairs, tangled together on a dusty cement floor. I lay for a moment in a haze of pain. I shook myself, found that the guard was down for the count, and looked around the space.

The room felt spacious, wide open. I couldn’t see the full extent, unlit beyond the trickle of lights filtering through small, high windows at street level, but I did hear the gurgle of water.

I tried to stand, but as soon as I put weight on my right foot, I collapsed. Moving fast was out of the question. I considered his gun, but doubted I could control it one-handed, and the throbbing pain in my left wrist left me no illusions about my ability to use the hand. I crawled a short distance on knees and elbows, looking for refuge. There was a steel door maybe twenty feet away, maybe some shelves with what looked like paint cans on them back in the gloom, but beyond that, nothing I could easily identify.

The sound of a door opening above gave me the motivation I needed to get up. Gritting my teeth, I made for the door with a stumbling, hopping limp, mewling in agony every time my right foot came down.

Chapter 21

SO THAT’S HOW FIXING A BROKEN ANKLE led to lying holed up, injured and low on ammunition in a janitor’s office. The wages of virtue, to steal a phrase from P C Wren.

But that’s OK. He owed me one from Algiers.

I watched the door over the sights of the pistol, trying to control my breathing to reduce the rise and fall of the muzzle. Soft footsteps approached the door.

I concentrated on my sight picture, pushing all the pain and worry to the back of my mind. Wait for the target. Nothing exists but my target and I.

A shape appeared in the dim shadow in the corner of the room near the file cabinet. It took me aback. The door was still closed—no way anyone could have gotten through. I shook my head and refocused, half convinced it was a hallucination.

It wasn’t.