Backfire

46

Fairmont Hotel

California Street

Xu left his Audi with the valet. He’d be back in ten minutes, he told her, pressing a ten-dollar bill into her hand. Pretty girl. He walked through the elegant hotel lobby, with its yellow granite columns, scattered huge palm trees, and sculpted seating arrangements spread throughout, and arrived at the elevators. He punched the button for the sixth and top floor. There were two couples in the car with him who obviously knew one another, the men carrying shopping bags, the women flushed and happy and chattering about lunch.

Both couples got off at the fifth floor. He wondered if they had views as incredible as his. He’d miss seeing the Golden Gate in the distance, and the downtown beneath him to the east, a tight knot of multifaceted buildings shining with reflected light in the bright afternoon sun.

He got off the elevator and walked down the beautifully carpeted hallway to his suite at the end of the wide corridor. He didn’t see a soul except a maid standing beside her cart in front of the door across from his suite. He didn’t recognize her, and he always made a point of knowing who was around him when he was in an unfamiliar place, staff included.

She looked up at him, smiled and nodded, then said, “Is there anything you need, sir?”

He shook his head and thanked her. He watched her sort through a stack of towels. There was something about her he couldn’t quite pinpoint that was a bit-off. Was she new? Was it simply because she was working a different shift? Or had he simply not seen her before? He smiled back at her. “You having a good day?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, it’s splendid today, after the rain,” she said, and turned her back to him to open the room across the hall.

Something was definitely off, but what was it? They couldn’t have found him, simply couldn’t have. But he hadn’t stayed alive for the past twelve years by taking chances. He carefully eased a small canister out of his jacket pocket, slipped his finger through the ring and pressed it against his thigh. When he slid his key card down the slot, the green light flashed and the door opened, quiet and smooth, as it always did. He let the door open a crack.

He stepped into the very modern living room of his suite, with its view of the city spreading out before him.

A man’s voice yelled, “FBI! Hands in the air! Now!”

“Don’t shoot me!” he yelled. He flung his hands into the air, and let the safety ring remain on his finger as the canister crashed to the floor. There was a deafening blast, and thick smoke billowed like a black curtain in front of him. A sheet of flames burst out hot and high, and Xu was down, rolling. He’d closed his eyes as he’d hurled the canister and turned his head away, but he still saw lights, felt his eardrums throb from the deafening noise.

He heard shouts, heard bullets flying around him through the flames and smoke. He knew they couldn’t see him any more than he could see them, even less if they were still blinded by the light with their ears ringing. But they’d know if they didn’t do something fast they’d burn to death. He felt a bullet sting his arm, ignored the shot of pain, crawled to the front door, and rolled out into the hall. His last view of his suite was through a wall of flames, the FBI agents yelling to one another from the other side.

He jumped to his feet to face the maid, who was raising her SIG. “Freeze!”

A shout and three more bullets came through the smoke, striking the wall behind her close to her head, and she flinched. He kicked the SIG out of her hand, backhanded her face, knocking her to the floor, and took off down the nearest stairs. His left arm hurt like the devil, but he took two, three steps at a time, hoping he wouldn’t go flying on his face. With his useless arm, he’d break his neck if he did. He forced himself to slow and straighten his clothes before he reached the lobby, and took a second to regain his breath. He saw blood had soaked through his jacket sleeve. It was a dark material, thankfully, it wouldn’t be all that apparent at a glance, but it hurt, really hurt. He knew he should be applying pressure, but there wasn’t time.

He forced himself to walk, not run, across the lobby and toward one of the smaller front doors. The fire alarm went off, the people in the lobby started looking around uncertainly, wondering what to do while the staff took their places to usher them to the doors. Very soon there would be pandemonium, he would see to that, enough craziness that even the FBI agents would be too busy trying to save their own butts and protect all the innocent bystanders to care about catching him. He heard a shout from behind him over the alarm bells. “It’s Xu! Stop, FBI!”

He kept walking as he reached into his pocket and pushed a preset number on his cell phone. There was a loud explosion, and soon there were screams and the sounds of people running-the chaos was beginning, and the FBI agents waiting for him in the hotel lobby would be drowned in the stampede.

He held his arm as he walked quickly to the valet station. He saw his car, but the girl wasn’t there, no one was, none of the bellmen, none of the valets. He saw her then, but she was dashing back into the lobby, yelling something to the doorman. Where were the keys to his Audi? He didn’t see them, and he couldn’t wait. He had to get out and grab a taxi, and where was a taxi stand?

He didn’t register the dark van parked across the street until the van door slid open and a redheaded woman jumped out. He saw a gun pressed against her side. Another fricking FBI agent, he thought, and she was running right at him.

Xu took off, weaving through the growing crowd of panicked people clogging the sidewalk. He heard sirens in the distance. How had the FBI found him? How? Cindy, he thought, she’d been able to talk.

He could hear her, knew she was gaining on him. She was a woman, and if she made the mistake of getting too close, he could kill her in an instant. He could nearly smell her now. He heard angry, panicked voices as she shoved people out of her way.

–

Sherlock heard an explosion. Her heart stopped as she looked up to the top floor and saw a window flying outward, sending shattered glass raining down, smoke and flames gushing out after it.

It was Xu’s room. What had he done? Eve, Harry, and Griffin Hammersmith had been in that room waiting for Xu, and Agent Willa Gaines outside in the hallway, dressed as a maid. Were they still there?

Sherlock couldn’t believe it was Xu she saw coming out through the luggage door of the hotel. She saw people running out of the hotel behind him, heard yells, felt the rising panic.

She jerked open the van door and jumped down. Two agents monitoring the hotel exits shouted after her, but she paid no attention. She ran full speed after Xu. He was fast, but there were so many people around, all of them excited and looking up, wondering what had happened.

He disappeared for a moment. She stepped around a couple of tourists, saw a blood trail on the sidewalk. Good, he was hurt. Who else was hurt? Stop it. Focus. Sherlock saw him again, holding his arm as he ran. She took a flying leap past two civilians who stood in the middle of the sidewalk gaping up at the flames and landed on his back, her arms around his neck. The force drove him to his knees. He was larger than she was, and stronger, even wounded, but she was well trained, her adrenaline level off the charts. She had to flatten him, get his face against the sidewalk.

She struck her fist as hard as she could against his wounded arm, and he howled. He fell to his belly, yelling in fury and pain, cursing, trying to flip her off him. With his good arm, he tried to grab her to pull her beneath him, but she didn’t let that happen.

People were standing around them now, looking to see what was happening, but not understanding. “Keep back!” she yelled. “FBI! This man set the bomb in the hotel!”

Sherlock raised her SIG, shoved it against the back of his head. Xu froze. Sherlock leaned down beside his ear. “Give me an excuse, Xu, come on, twitch or move your finger, anything. Let me blow your brains out.”

“How did you know?”

“We’re FBI. You’re not.” She leaned back and clipped a handcuff around his right wrist. “And it turns out you’re not as good as you thought you were. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to-” She grabbed his wounded arm and was pulling it back, Xu yelling in pain and fury, to fasten them together, when her brain registered the sound of a shot and a spear of sharp bright light before everything went black.