Armageddon Heights (a thriller) (20 page)

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning the man looks to have been made to hold it. He can’t throw it away because of his bindings. My guess is he’s been left out here to die by whoever tortured him. Either the sun fries him, or night comes and the creatures savage him, or he drops the grenade and ends it all.’

‘Christ – not a good choice. Who’d do such a thing?’

Wade shook his head. ‘Keep back. I’ll try and prise this thing from the man’s hands…’

‘It’ll go off.’

‘I’ll have time to throw it far enough away. Hopefully.’

‘It’s too risky…’

‘This guy might know where we are. He might be able to get us out of here.’

Wade licked his lower lip, but it was ineffectual because the heat and the tension had made his mouth too dry. He sucked in a settling breath and reached carefully forward, his fingers attempting to prise apart the man’s iron-hard grasp around the grenade. The man stirred, his mouth falling open. A fly buzzed around the dried blood at his lips and crawled inside, investigating his broken teeth.

Then his eyes flicked open. Wide, fearful. For a second he stared straight into Wade’s eyes, uncomprehending. His expression changed at once from one of terror to unbridled hope.

And in that instant he died.

A loud crack, like the snapping of a branch, rang out across the desert and a gaping red wound, showering Wade with blood, opened up in the man’s upper chest as a bullet hit home and killed him outright.

Wade instinctively threw himself to the ground, his hand going to his gun. Bolan did the same. But Wade saw the grenade slip slowly from the dead man’s hands and fall to the ground with a dull thud two feet away from Wade’s face.

‘Get back!’ he screamed to Bolan, who scrabbled around in the dirt, his shoes trying to find purchase in the loose sand and dirt as he ran away at a stoop.

Wade managed to get to his feet, his legs pounding the earth in an effort to put as much distance as he could between him and the lethal sphere of metal. But the grenade exploded behind him, throwing both body and chair cart-wheeling into the air. Wade felt something forcibly strike the side of his head and he tumbled to the ground, rolling over and seeing a large plume of smoke, dirt, pieces of chair and the dead man’s body raining down before the pain hit him and unconsciousness followed soon after, creeping insidiously over him like a flood of black oil.

Adrian Levoir was in a state of agitated confusion. He was in a mess.

The killing of Roland Fuller, right there in front of him, had affected him badly. Sure he was ambitious and he’d do just about anything to get to the top, but murder? The images would not go away, no matter how much he drank to help blur their edges. He noticed his hands shook, too, and his reflection in the mirror looked haggard and grey. He was an accessory simply by not reporting it. But what could he do? If he did tell anyone he’d be dead. He’d tried to pull himself together to carry on with his work, telling himself it would all be worth it in the end, that his undisputed loyalty would be rewarded, but even that wasn’t enough to assuage his guilt.

Then, as he worked hard on trying to retrieve the data from the CSL hard drives, seeking to drown out his milling thoughts by submerging himself in the desperately difficult task, Lindegaard’s security had flooded into his workshop and put a stop to everything his newly assembled small team and he were doing. Just like that. Put everything down, stand away from the computers. Why? he asked, perplexed. Electrical fault, said the large guy in a stiff black suit, a plastic name badge reflecting the harsh glow of the strip lighting overhead. A name badge that didn’t have a name on it. Where’s the fault, exactly? Levoir didn’t like the way the white-uniformed security guards almost pushed his team members away from their desks, over which they’d been hard at work for many long hours. Can’t say exactly, the nameless guy in black told him coldly. But it wasn’t safe. They’d be allowed back inside when the necessary checks had been done. And when would that be? I have urgent work to do, Levoir protested. But it was no use. He was ushered from the room, saw the door being closed and securely locked, a security guard being posted outside. He was separated from his team and escorted downstairs to the lobby. Here he was told that there would be no more work for him today and that Mr Napier had insisted he take the rest of the night off, but informed him that Mr Napier will be visiting him later that evening.  On no account was he to leave his room until Mr Napier had visited him. Had he got that?

Finally, he was told a car was waiting outside for him ready to take him to his hotel. Levoir protested, a light, perfunctory affair, but did as he was told. He knew better than to offer any resistance. That’s when he really began to shake. Something did not feel right.

Something did not feel right!

He got all worked up as he sank into the sumptuous leather of the car seat and let the black Bentley whisk him away from Lindegaard’s Power Tower. What if they planned to take him somewhere and kill him, too? He now knew too much. He’d seen the CSL man tortured and killed. He began to tremble like it was freezing cold.

The driver was silent – they always were, under strict instructions never to speak to their passengers – and that had the effect of troubling him further, so much so he arrived at his hotel far sooner than he expected, his mind so focussed on what had just happened that he’d taken no account of the journey through London’s crowded streets. In a daze he vacated the Bentley and tramped into the hotel, frowning when the driver took the time to escort him from the car, through the swing-doors and into the plush lobby. Curiously, the man even stood with his hands behind his back and watched him as he took the elevator up to his room.

Something did not feel right.

He broke open a bottle of scotch from a fully-stocked cabinet, pouring himself an uncharacteristically large one, and, uncharacteristically, he downed it pretty fast and poured another. He felt too perturbed to go down to eat, or order room service, so he turned on the TV and tried to listen to the news to take his mind off things. But he was a stranger in a strange land, and most of it didn’t mean a thing to him. Tiredly, telling himself not to get so overwrought, he ran the shower and stripped, observing his reflection in the mirror growing fuzzy with the spreading condensation.

It was as he was about to step into the shower cubicle that the hotel’s fire alarm went off, a shrill, irritatingly frightening noise that made him start. Oh Christ, he thought, not now!

He waited a few seconds to see if it was a false alarm, then hearing people tramping urgently in the corridor outside his room, a steady buzz of voices as they streamed by, he thought it best to vacate his temptingly warm bathroom and join them. He carelessly threw on a few clothes, cursing as he did so, the alarm seeming to scream louder as if to hurry him on. He opened the door; a steady flow of people tumbled by like a gurgling stream over rocks. He joined them, but was brought up short by a large man in a black suit and tie.

‘Excuse me, Mr Levoir, this way, if you please,’ he said, his expression one of fixed calm, his hand indicating the opposite direction.

‘But the rest are going this way…’ Levoir said, people brushing by him as more rooms emptied of disgruntled guests threading arms into coats, shouldering bags, and grasping other possessions they thought fit to take from their rooms before they left. Mostly mobiles, tablets and laptops, Levoir noticed.

‘This way, please, Mr Levoir,’ the man reiterated with firm patience. He took a gentle hold on Levoir’s sleeve and led him down the corridor against the general flow.

‘Where are we going? I’m assuming we all have to gather out front.’

‘This way is safer.’

‘So there
is
a fire? It’s not some kind of practice?’ A note of alarm rang in his voice.

The man nodded. ‘Yes, sir. A real fire. But you’ll be safer going this way. Mr Lindegaard has seen to it that we take personal care of you.’

‘Mr Lindegaard?’ he said. Levoir started to grow panicky all over again. He wanted to turn and run in the opposite direction but the man’s stern, no-nonsense expression tested his resolve and he was found wanting.

They threaded quickly down the maze of corridors, the man taking the lead, his quick steps creating a sense of urgency in Levoir’s as he struggled to keep pace. Passing through a number of doors, the sounds of scampering people fading away, they began to descend a flight of bare concrete stairs.

‘Where does this lead? Out back?’ Levoir ventured breathlessly.

‘That’s right, sir. You’ll be safer here.’

‘And the other guests, what of them? Wouldn’t they be better off coming this way?’

‘You are not an ordinary guest, Mr Levoir. Please, do not hang back – the fire is spreading quickly.’

Levoir didn’t need to be told a second time. He counted three flights of stairs before the two men pushed through an alarmed fire door that would ordinarily have set off an alarm, had there not already been one blaring away at them like a screaming banshee at their backs. They emerged into a dark, narrow back alley lit only by two half-hearted streetlamps. A row of large refuse bins and a skip full of plasterboard and masonry were pushed against the wall. A black car was waiting opposite the door, beads of rainwater sitting like iridescent pearls on its glossy paintwork. The exhaust puffed out a cloud of fumes that hung in the still cold air, but Levoir could not hear its engine.

The man escorted Levoir over to the car and opened the door for him, gesturing inside. Besides the driver sitting up front there was another man occupying the rear seat. He encouraged Levoir in with a wave of his fingers.

‘Do hurry, Mr Levoir,’ he said, his face in shadow.

Something did not feel right.

‘Where are we going?’ Levoir said, stopping dead before the door and taking a step backwards. ‘Where’s your ID?’

The man by the car’s door lunged forward, clutched Levoir’s arm in an iron-hard grip, and before he knew it, Levoir was tumbled headlong into the car, protesting and struggling as best he could, the man throwing himself into the car beside Levoir and slamming the door shut. The car set off at a pace as Levoir’s body was pinned down.

‘Hold him steady!’ said the second man.

Levoir’s fear-wide eyes saw the glint of something thin and metallic being held up. A syringe. He fought against his captor, but the man’s muscled arm around his neck defied any effort to dislodge it. He felt a sharp pain in his thigh as the needle was plunged in. At which point he was released.

‘Who are you? Let me out of here!’ Levoir demanded. ‘I won’t tell anyone about the murder! I won’t! I won’t!’

He tried to push by the man to reach the car’s door, but his head began to swim and a warm sensation gradually engulfed his body, his legs going weak till he felt he’d lost all control over them. They buckled beneath him and he fell against his captor. In seconds he was asleep.

The car turned onto the main road, crept sedately past the crowd of hotel guests as they spewed out of the hotel doors and onto the rain-glossy street.

‘What the hell is going on?’

Robert Napier leapt from the car before the driver had chance to properly stop outside the hotel.

A member of the hotel staff, standing before the sea of unhappy-looking guests out in the cold, a clipboard in one hand and talking animatedly on a phone, turned to the sound of Napier’s voice.

‘It’s the fire alarm, Mr Napier,’ he said, rather pointlessly, as the alarm still rang out like a tormented spirit.

There came the strident call of sirens as a fire engine rounded the corner, its blue lights blazing.

‘Do you have Adrian Levoir out here yet?’ he asked, scanning the faces of the crowd of guests.

The man shrugged. ‘We haven’t done a proper check yet, Mr Napier. They’re not all out of their rooms.’

Napier didn’t see Levoir among the people and signalled quickly to the three men inside the company car to follow him. He spoke to the staff member as he passed. ‘You see anyone by the name of Adrian Levoir you hold him here for me, understand?’ He didn’t wait for a reply and instead pushed through the press of bodies and through the doors into the lobby.

‘Excuse me, sir, you can’t go in there!’ someone shouted at his back.

‘I can go where I like,’ he returned. ‘Two of you take a lift each; you take the main stairs, I’ll cover the other flight,’ he ordered the men. ‘Do
not
let him get by you.’

‘Sir, there’s a possible fire. We cannot let you go in there.’

It was the desk manager. ‘There isn’t a fire,’ Napier said. ‘You were told to keep an eye on Levoir.’

‘And so we have been, Mr Napier. He’s not downstairs yet. The men watching his corridor will bring him down presently.’

‘I’m not so sure about that. If he’s slipped by you there’ll be hell to pay from Mr Lindegaard.’ He stormed by the worried manager and headed for the door to the stairs. His men fanned out on all sides. The firemen burst through the doors of the hotel and yelled out for Napier to stop, but he ignored them and dashed up the stairs.

When he reached the third floor, pausing briefly to catch his breath, he pounded down the corridor to Levoir’s room. One of his men was already there, waiting outside.

‘Where are the guys who were watching over him?’ he demanded to know.

‘No one is here watching him, Mr Napier,’ the man responded quickly.

‘What are you waiting for? Get in there. Break down the door if necessary.’

The man slid a card in the lock and swung the door open, letting Napier into the room. It was plain to see Levoir wasn’t there, but a thorough check was carried out nevertheless.

‘No sign of him taking the stairs, Mr Napier,’ said the second of his men coming into the room.

‘Then he’s made a break for it out the back way,’ snarled Napier. ‘Check it out, quick.’

Napier was left alone as the men went about their duty. He made a call.

‘Mr Lindegaard – Adrian Levoir is missing,’ he said. There was silence at the other end of the line. ‘Mr Lindegaard, did you hear me?’

‘I hear you, Robert.’ His voice as cold as granite. ‘Is that an alarm I hear?’

‘Yeah. Looks like he used the fire alarm and confusion to cover his getaway. Somehow the morons who were supposed to be keeping tabs on him let him slip by them. He can’t be far away. I’ve got my men onto it. We’ll have him soon.’

‘Now do you believe in his guilt, Robert? A guilty man never runs.’

‘If he ran…’

‘Meaning?’

‘I’d like to know how he slipped by his two guards.’

‘However he did it, he did it, and I find I’m extremely disappointed in you, Robert. Extremely disappointed. You failed to spot him. Failed to spot the CSL mole in our midst. How is that even possible?’ said Lindegaard.

‘I performed two thorough checks on the man. He appeared clean…’

‘You find him soon – understand? And when you do I want him taken care of. I’m
so
disappointed in you, Robert,’ he reiterated.

The line went dead.