The Payback Assignment (42 page)

Still groggy, Morgan missed most of Felicity’s comment, but his eyes were riveted to Monk’s waving arms.
 
Still dazed, Morgan crawled out of the way as Monk turned and staggered toward the only loud, continuous sound in the room, Seagrave’s hysterical screams.

           
Adrian Seagrave was shouting for Monk to stop, but the maddened, blinded behemoth lumbered on.
 
Seagrave backed away as far as he could.
 
He hardly seemed to realize the he had run out of room.
 
His feet continued to move, pressing him backward, crunching on the window glass shattered earlier by the concussion grenade.
 
Frozen with terror, the businessman’s fingers dug into the crushed velvet of the heavy drapes behind him.
 
While Morgan and Felicity stared, Monk’s huge frame wrapped itself like a flaming shroud around Seagrave’s body.

           
Morgan saw Felicity turn away, nausea showing on her face.
 
The smell, he guessed.
 
Human hair and flesh did burn with a distinctive stench.
 
He also saw that a few of the building security guards had regained consciousness.
 
Their eyes were locked on the scene in front of the window.

           
Morgan clenched his teeth, anticipating the end.
 
Seagrave’s pudgy hands poked out pathetically on either side of Monk’s flaming frame as their combined mass tilted away.
 
Wind whipped in through the already shattered window, fanning Monk’s body into a giant pyre as it leaned outward.
 
Morgan watched the two bodies, now fused together as one, pivot down and out of sight as if in slow motion, leaving a gaping hole where a wall-sized window had so recently been.
 
A fierce flame lined that black hole, fanned by the suddenly noticeable breeze.

           
Morgan turned to see a small stampede headed toward the door, and it came as no surprise to him.
 
The man who signed their paychecks was out the window.
 
The group of hired guards, now all awake, could see the handwriting as well as the fire on the wall.
 
Morgan was having similar thoughts.
 
He scooped up his pistol on the run and moved to follow the pack out of the room.
 
Felicity’s hand on his arm stopped him.

           
“Wait,” she said.
 
“We can’t go.
 
Seagrave’s wife is upstairs.”

-33-

           
Morgan stared past Felicity, who was backlit by a wall of flame.
 
This was no time for conversation, but the strain on her face demanded a response.

           
“Red, you’ve got to be kidding.
 
Seagrave didn’t sleep through that firefight and neither could anyone else.
 
She probably took a back way out of here long ago.”

           
“I gave her a shot,” Felicity whined.
 
He had not heard her whine before.
 
“She couldn’t wake up.”

           
“Fortunes of war, Red,” he said grimly.

           
“No, damn it.
 
I gave her a shot!
 
If we leave her there, I will have murdered the girl.”

           
Morgan stared into those pleading, deep green eyes, just for a moment.
 
He did not debate further.
 
He knew he would lose and time was depressingly short.
 
He shook his head and ran back to the elevator.

           
The tiny elevator car was stifling, but the ride was short.
 
The smell of smoke was already seeping into the luxury flat.
 
He found the bedroom easily enough, and could see its only occupant was still sleeping, a deep drugged sleep thanks to Felicity.
 
When he hefted Mrs. Seagrave’s satin-draped form, his left shoulder screamed into his brain.
 
He had all but forgotten the sprain.
 
It hurt like a fishhook was jammed into the joint, but he did not drop his burden.
 
With steely concentration he rolled the pain into a little ball and tucked it away in a corner of his mind, completely blocked off.
 
Then he slowly returned to the elevator.
 
The woman in his arms moaned as if in the throes of a nightmare.
 
If she only knew, he thought.

           
At the bottom of the shaft, the elevator door slid open and the heat burst in.
 
That end of the room was what firefighters would call fully involved in the blaze.
 
Was this building too old to have a sprinkler system?
 
Or did Seagrave pay someone off to get around fire safety code violations?
 
Well, it hardly mattered now.
 
Felicity stood by the open door, waving him on.
 
The woman in his arms groggily mumbled, “What’s going on?”
 
He shifted her up onto his right shoulder and started across the floor in a crouch.
 
The woman’s perspiration dripped onto his back, blending with his own.
 
He focused his attention on Felicity’s face and the desperation he saw there.

           
Morgan had just stepped into the relative cool of the hallway when he heard a moan.
 
It was not from Mrs. Seagrave.
 
It was a deeper voice, and it came from behind him.
 
Turning, his eyes were at first seared by the brightness of the flames.
 
Heat washed over his face making it harder to breathe.
 
Squinting, he sighted in on a figure on hands and knees, following a long shadow across the floor, but much too slowly.

           
Paul.
 
Shit.
 
Can’t just leave him, Morgan thought.

           
Before he could put his thoughts into words, Felicity brushed past him.
 
While he looked on, his mouth agape, she took the arm of the man who had kidnapped her and helped him regain his feet.
 
After pulling Paul’s left arm across her shoulders, Felicity shuffled toward the door.
 
Morgan could see the pallor of blood loss and the extra creases of pain on Paul’s face, but there was no time for additional first aid now.
 

           
“I can make it,” Paul said in answer to Morgan’s unvoiced question.
 
He tried a smile of thanks.

           
Felicity passed Morgan in the hall and banged the call button.
 
A long, tense minute passed before the private elevator door opened.
 
The quartet hurried aboard for the short ride down three flights.
 
When the doors opened again, the air was clearer, allowing everyone a deep breath.

           
“Okay, gang, let’s go.”
 
With that, Morgan spun his load and headed down the hall.
 
“Elevators are suicide in a burning building, I’m afraid.
 
We had no choice before, since Seagrave had the stairs closed off from here up.
 
But from here down we’ve got to take the safer choice.”
 
He pulled the steel door open and started downstairs.

           
“Wait!” Felicity shouted.
 
“There’s a wire.
 
Six steps down.”
 
In the darkness Morgan managed to pick out the trip wire and carefully stepped over it.
 
Felicity continued talking as they moved steadily down the stairs.

           
“It’s an old habit,” she said as they moved through the smoky gloom.
 
“Whenever I go up stairs on a caper I leave a wire.
 
If I have to exit quickly, anyone following me gets slowed down some.”

           
Morgan’s breathing got deeper after each flight of stairs, but the smoke also got thinner and the oven like warmth felt farther and farther away.
 
He could feel Seagrave’s wife beginning to fidget, fighting the drug still coursing through her veins.
 
Paul, on the other hand, was less able to support himself, despite heroic effort.
 
It was increasingly obvious that his weight was almost too much for Felicity to handle.
 
Morgan wanted to help her, but he knew time was escaping them.
 
He didn’t know what businesses occupied most of the building, but Seagrave’s business floors were warehouses filled with shipping materials, enough cardboard and paper to fuel a blast furnace.
 
Beyond the stairwell he could hear the roar of the fire climbing down the building.
 
If it ever got ahead of them, the stairwell itself could become a swirling blast furnace if any of the lower doors had been left open.

           
Morgan’s thighs were burning as he proceeded downward, and his eyes burned with the sweat he didn’t have time to wipe away.
 
On the nineteenth floor landing Mrs. Seagrave’s legs jerked in an awkward spasm.
 
Thrown off balance, Morgan slumped against a wall.
 
His eyes wandered up the stairs, focusing on the line of red spots Paul was leaving behind.
 
Felicity’s face was ashen and streaked with gray tracks left by her perspiration.
 
Her hair hung in a clump, tangled under Paul’s arm, and her eyes were vacant with concentration.
 
Paul’s face was ominously blank.

           
Morgan would not have left Paul behind, out of respect.
 
He was still surprised that Felicity, unasked, had tried to rescue him.
 
She had not dropped him yet, but it was obvious that she could not continue for long.
 
He feared they would have to abandon someone, unless providence intervened.

           
“I think I can walk now.”
 
The woman’s voice behind him took Morgan completely by surprise.
 
Marlene Seagrave squirmed off his shoulder and smiled a woozy smile, trying to square her own proud shoulders and regain some dignity in her silk nightgown.

           
“Thank God,” Felicity said, barely above a whisper.
 
“This one’s just passed out.”

           
“Yeah, and I’m smelling more smoke,” Morgan added.
 

           
“It is getting warm in here, isn’t it?”
 
Felicity said, nodding with her dramatic understatement.
 
Morgan took three deep breaths and pulled off his light windbreaker, handing it to Marlene.
 
“It is warm, but I thought you might want to cover up some.”

Marlene nodded her thanks and accepted the jacket.
 
Her reaction to his shoulder holster and knife was barely perceivable.
 
Morgan noticed it, and he saw that Felicity did too.
 
Marlene pulled the jacket on without comment.
 
It hung past her hips and covered her hands completely.

Paul replaced Marlene in a fireman’s carry across Morgan’s shoulders, and the group continued descending the long vertical tunnel at a somewhat better pace.
 
Morgan led, with Felicity close behind and Marlene Seagrave following.
 
With each step, Marlene’s mind seemed to become clearer.
 
No one would mistake her for an athlete, but she was working hard to keep up, and to catch up in another sense.

           
“I have to ask you people something,” she said in a breathless tremor.
 
“I’ve been able to piece together a little of what’s been happening here.”

           
“I can imagine your confusion, eh...”

           
“Marlene,” Mrs. Seagrave replied to Felicity’s unvoiced query.
 
“Thanks for verifying that we haven’t met before.
 
I don’t recognize either of you.
 
I know you don’t work for my husband.
 
He makes sure they all know who I am.
 
On the other hand, you hardly behave like police or emergency personnel or anything like that.
 
So the most confusing thing to me I guess is why I’m here.
 
I mean, my husband’s staff all left me behind.
 
Why didn’t you?”