Zero Alternative (34 page)

‘It’s half-term. And the security guards are old retired policemen, happy to stick to their booth at night.’ He shrugged and moved off through a scrub-infested backyard, with Layla just behind. They climbed a low wall and pushed on in the half-moon light, circling the bubbling waters, then sprinted onto a small bridge that led behind a classroom building, and ran on. Two hundred yards later they paused, crouching against the rear wall of the college auditorium. Walker glanced at Layla: her breathing was ragged, but she looked all right. ‘We’ll have to go around the corner over there, pass through a hedge and follow the bike track up the hill.’

He pointed towards the top of Montezuma Hotel, a few spotlights illuminating its conical turrets. ‘The bush continues almost all the way up – no one should be able to see us from below.’

Layla nodded and shadowed him as he made his way, sticking to pools of darkness before rushing beyond the thick bramble. It took them less than five minutes, walking fast and bending low to remain out of sight as they curved around some halls of residence, with only a couple of lights shining from the student rooms. Half a dozen turns later they reached the top of the hill, past a badly illuminated parking lot close to the entrance of the hotel.

Walker stopped and moved into the vegetation by the bike-track, whispering, ‘This is a side access, and the service area is very close. Mosha should be waiting for us in a nook of the grand ballroom but be careful – the planks could be rotten, and it was dangerous even twenty years ago. There are lots of tunnels and storage spaces underground, so mind your feet.’

He looked around, waiting for a few seconds to see if anyone had spotted them, but the night was quiet and still. Taking a deep breath he hurried through the pitted concrete and climbed some steps to the old doors. Swatting aside broken strips of yellow ‘Danger’ tape, he studied the handles.
The latch was broken and he pushed open a panel, holding his breath and shining his flashlight into a bare room.

The walls were fissured and peeling, with the remains of a table and chair still waiting in a corner. Layla followed him inside and they slipped around a soggy area in the middle of the floor towards the exit on the farthest side. A wide corridor led off into darkness, tall windows flanking it on the right, doorways opening on the other side. The glass panes were dirty and broken and Walker switched off his flashlight, whispering, ‘If I remember right, it’s just another few rooms ahe…’

A floorboard behind them creaked and Layla turned, quick as a cat, hand shifting to her left hip. Walker pivoted and clamped his fingers on her mouth, pulling her back and into one of the doorways. He slid against the wall, reaching a shallow corner and following it blindly, around another dogleg. The darkness was heavy, complete. He held on to her arm and stood still, straining his ears.

Nothing. Then more creaks from above, and a low squeaking sound somewhere ahead. Maybe the joints of an old building letting out some stress. Layla’s breath near his neck felt impossibly loud and Walker stepped a little further, hand creeping along the wall. Crumbling plaster, then a thin wooden post. Another door.

He leaned across, willing his eyes to adjust faster to the blackness. A couple of faint shapes, some mild bio-luminescence from mossy walls. A sliver of light shot through the room a few yards away, less than two inches wide. Then gone.

Walker swore inwardly, swung back behind the wall. Was someone walking around with a torch? Why? He checked his watch: they were late, and Mosha should already be waiting for them.

Unless the Serb had sold them away.

It would explain why he’d wanted to meet in such a remote place, perfect for Pienaar or Hackernym or…

Layla’s mouth came up to his ear. ‘What did you see?’ she whispered.

He held up his hand, breathed out and counted to five. Silence, again. Then more creaking noises that could have been anything, or nothing. He crouched, the rucksack digging into his back, and poked his head through the doorway, inches above the floor. Dust got into his nose, nearly made him sneeze. The beam of light was still there, not moving.

Something clanged nearby, wood against concrete. A shutter slamming in the wind.

The light vanished, then came back again. Maybe a broken window. And a paranoid brain. Walker bit on his tongue and stood up, going through the door. ‘Nothing. Just nerves, I guess,’ he whispered back.

Layla followed him and he ducked under a timber that had crashed through the ceiling, into the L-shaped room, stepping over the sliver of faint light. A window on the other side opened onto the night, the moon shining through the broken glass. A splintered blind swung back and forth in the wind.

Walker grimaced and passed underneath it to enter a larger hall, the ceiling sloping away into darkness. A floorboard creaked and gave way underneath his foot. He stumbled, almost losing his balance as the weight of the backpack dragged him down. Layla grabbed on his arm, helping him upright. ‘Fuck,’ he swore quietly.

‘Use your torch. I don’t want to get impaled by something.’

He nodded and risked a quick pass of the torch, trying to memorize the layout of the wide space ahead. He didn’t really know where they were: the hotel was huge and almost twenty years had passed since he’d last walked the place. But the moon was on their right, meaning they had to go around the other side, back towards the heart of the building. The grand ballroom started squarely at the centre of the ground floor, flowing to the farthest end where massive windows opened onto the mountains beyond. He was trying to decide which of the two doors in front of him to take when a distant coughing sound echoed from the rightmost corridor, before cutting off sharply.

Walker flicked the torch off, freezing, waiting for another sound.

‘Mosha?’ Layla asked.

‘I hope so,’ he whispered back. Though the world had tilted many times in the last few days, there was no way Pienaar could have tracked the Serb, or bought him. It had to be Mosha, probably starting to get bored and spooked as he waited. Walker took the door from which the sound had come, followed a couple of turns and a longer passage, more windows bouncing moonshine into the hotel, this time from the left. They were getting closer to the ballroom, travelling in the right direction now. His foot tilted forward and he felt another floorboard oscillate, then drop a few inches.

He swore and slid back before switching the torch on again. Several planks were broken and rotted, the entire aisle ahead sagging like an old hammock. He exhaled and tried to see further along, wondering if the floor got better a couple of yards on. It looked like it, and he considered
jumping across instead of doubling back.

Layla must have guessed what he was thinking. She took his arm and leaned closer. ‘It’s too dangerous, I think.’

He nodded, started to say something.

The window behind him exploded in thousands of shards. The noise was deafening and Walker felt little glass bullets smash into his jacket and the back of his neck and head, like painful wasp bites. Stunned, he pivoted and saw Pienaar climb through the shattered frame as his beam of light fragmented on the broken glass. He was swiveling a large pistol in his hands, the barrel impossibly elongated. A second man emerged behind him from the far corner, pointing another torch mounted on some submachine gun.

Walker glanced at Layla as he stepped back. She nodded and he lunged forward, pushing off his left foot, trying to get as much lift as he could. Light bounced off the ceiling and he saw the rotten floorboards slide backwards below him. The heavy rucksack dragged against him, slowing his momentum. He flexed his legs in the air, trying to gain extra inches like an Olympic long-jumper. Then his right foot touched down, the wood giving away. He could feel something fly through the air behind him and a gunshot exploded, whistling above his head.

The floorboard crumbled. Walker let go of his torch and bent, almost diving, emptiness below his feet. He landed on his hands and slid further, something heavy thumping to his right. Layla bounced up and twisted just as he struggled to his feet. A heartbeat later they had pushed on through the last few yards, off the corridor and behind a dogleg. Another gunshot echoed, spraying Walker with plaster. Then heavy running footsteps, as the hunters prepared to jump after them.

Walker pulled on Layla’s arm and steered her into a doorway on the left, past a couple of empty rooms. They hurried along a narrow passage and through a cloakroom, slipping past massive doors into some kind of foyer. Behind them steps echoed on the old wooden boards, quick but not running. Pienaar must have realised how dangerous the floor could be, and was following with care.

Walker slid to a stop in the centre of the enormous room, Layla just a pace behind. He swung the beam around, searching and praying the planks were sturdier here, then found the staircase he was looking for and ran to the broken steps, climbing sideways and keeping his back against the wall. They were about to disappear from view when the huge doors smashed open and Pienaar walked into the foyer, his torch sweeping around. Walker pulled Layla up and stopped still, trying
not to make any noise. A bright light circle slid up the staircase, stopping just a few inches short of her shoulder. Then it flowed back down.

Someone hissed angrily, footsteps retreated and the doors swung shut. Walker counted to ten in the deep darkness, still holding onto Layla. Her breathing was as ragged as his, and they were both shaking. He took a deep gulp of air and let go of her, rummaging in his pocket and finding his lighter. He risked a quick flick of the flame to get his bearings and pushed on along another service corridor, past a larger landing into one of the wings of the old hotel. Dozens of bedroom doors waited on their left, some shut, others splintered or hanging off rusted hinges. On their right a few widely spaced small windows opened onto the hills beyond, faint moonlight barely lighting the way ahead.

‘Where are we going?’ Layla whispered.

‘I think we can circle around from the third floor, to the main exit on the other side.’

‘Now?’

Walker shrugged, thinking. ‘Maybe not. Pienaar will be expecting that, and we don’t know how many men he has. I think we can stay hidden for a while – till daylight if we move about.’

He pushed on, turning a couple of corners, back towards the centre of the building and away from the windows. Eventually he found a door in perfect condition and tried the handle. The panel swung back into an empty windowless room and they hurried in, using Walker’s backpack to wedge the door closed.
What now?
He walked around with care, making sure the floor was safe. Layla sat down in a corner, exhaling. ‘Shit.’

‘How the fuck did he find us?’ Walker swore. ‘Do you think it could have been Mosha?’

‘No idea. I told you Pienaar’s good, though.’

He grimaced and flicked on his lighter again. The deep darkness split, revealing a second door on the far wall. ‘What do you think we should do?’

‘Isn’t there another way out somewhere?’

Walker thought for a second. ‘There is an old service tunnel that goes back past the hotsprings, but I’ve only walked it once. I don’t think I could find it again, it’s like a maze down there.’ He exhaled and went to check the handle on the second door, found it locked. When he turned he noticed a ghost of light from a mobile phone in Layla’s hand. ‘What…’

The doorframe exploded inwards, stinging him in a shower of splinters.

Smoke billowed from the opening and he coughed, unable to breathe. As it dispersed, bright
light flooded the room from a couple of torches and Walker was blinded for an instant. When his eyes readjusted he found himself staring into Pienaar’s grinning face, the Australian’s large pistol aimed at his chest. He almost considered jumping him, rage and fear boiling his blood, but a second man walked into the room and pointed a short rifle at Layla. It was the tall French guy who had bumped into her at JW airport and Walker’s heart sank – they had been running behind since then, at least. A part of him wondered what had happened to Mosha, and how badly it was going to turn out for them. He shivered. Very badly.

‘Look what we found here, two scared little sparrows…’ Pienaar’s voice resonated in the narrow space. ‘Hands on your head, fuckers. Let’s go.’ He gestured with the torch, still keeping his gun trained on them.

Layla glanced at Walker, then she shrugged and stood up calmly, heading out of the room. He followed her into the corridor where the Frenchman took up the tail position, sticking his rifle in Walker’s kidneys.

Pienaar barged past and grabbed Layla’s arm, chuckling. ‘Come on – there’s a friend waiting for you.’ He led them down a service staircase, back to a ground-floor room decorated with an arched ceiling. He paused for a second before taking them along a couple of corridors, skirting some debris and turning again through a wide passageway that Walker remembered well, into a cavernous hall.
The Grand Ballroom
. Shining his torch to the floor Pienaar shoved Layla forward, dangerously near a gaping hole in the rotten boards.

‘Careful, pretty one. You’re on thin ground here and we wouldn’t want…’

‘Stay on the right, Layla,’ Walker interrupted him. ‘I think it’s the first room past that window.’ He realised his voice was shaking and swallowed, just as Pienaar turned to him with a snarl. A torch swung at Walker’s head and he swayed back, but the rough plastic glanced his temple. He felt skin rip and blood dripped into his eye.

‘Shut up. You’ll speak only when I tell you to.’ Pienaar faked another swing, then he chuckled and glanced at the Frenchman. ‘Good job, Michel,’ he said. ‘Now go back out and keep an eye on the entrance. We don’t want any accidental company, not when the fun is about to start.’

Michel left and they skirted the damaged floor, entering a windowless suite illuminated by a weak light bulb. Walker saw another armed man, wearing a balaclava. He was pointing his gun at Mosha, who sat on a stained mattress next to a pile of old blankets. The Serb’s hands were tied but he held his back straight when he looked up with a grimace. ‘Not quite what we planned, Yours.’