Blackout

CHAPTER 3

Robert MacCabe folded the international edition of USA Today and put it in a side pocket of his computer case. He glanced at his watch, his mind far away as the hotel elevator opened on thirty-two. Forty-five minutes had been ambitious, he concluded. He’d have to hurry to pick up Katherine Bronsky on time.

He shot through the elevator doors and almost collided with a large man in his path. “Sorry,” Robert mumbled, as he turned down the long hallway, belatedly aware that he hadn’t heard the elevator doors close. He was thirty feet down the hall when a sudden compulsion to look back overwhelmed him. He stopped and turned.

The dark, heavyset man was still there, a lit cigarette in his hand. Watching. One hand held the elevator door as the other clutched a plastic shopping bag with a Mercedes-Benz logo emblazoned on it.

The man made eye contact for no more than a moment before turning without a word and stepping out of sight into the elevator, letting the doors shut behind him.

Strange, Robert thought, reminding himself that, although he was considerably short of being a celebrity, his face had become public when he’d won the Pulitzer.

He stepped around a service cart in the middle of the hallway and nodded to the maid as he fished out his card key, wondering almost in passing why the door would swing inward before he’d turned the handle.

What the…? He stood in confusion for a few seconds. He’d checked the door when he left, hadn’t he? He was always careful about such things.

Of course. The housekeeper! She must have just opened it.

Robert looked around, but the housekeeper and her cart were gone, which was curious. He turned back with a growing feeling of unease and pushed the door open. He moved inside slowly, flipped on the light switch, and came to a sudden halt.

Everything was in shambles. Drawers had been pulled and dumped. The contents of his bag were everywhere. The seams of his gray suit had been ripped open. His computer disks were spread over the bed, several of them bent and destroyed.

Good Lord.

The scene in the bathroom was no better. The room reeked of his cologne; the remains of the green bottle lay strewn on the bathroom floor.

He placed the small computer briefcase on the edge of the bed and moved to check the closets before slamming the door to the hallway and bolting it. His heart was pounding, apprehension driving his blood pressure through the roof.

As the door clicked closed, the phone rang, causing him to jump. He moved to it immediately and lifted the receiver, but there was only an open line — followed by a deliberate hang-up. He replaced the receiver and the phone rang again almost instantly.

Once more he answered. Once more someone listened without a word for nearly fifteen seconds before deliberately breaking the connection.

The chill that had crept up his back when he walked in returned as a virtual ice storm of apprehension, as if someone were watching him with malevolent intent. Whoever had searched his possessions knew he was back in his room.

There was no time to call security. Robert yanked his upended roll-on bag back to the bed and began piling his possessions inside as fast as he could. What if someone knocked? There was no other way out. He was on the thirty-second floor.

The telephone began ringing again, each repetition a malignant presence.

The gray suit was a total loss and he decided to leave it. He dumped his shaver into the mound of clothes in his bag and struggled to close the fabric top, working the zippers and kneeling on the bag to compact it, succeeding at last. The room was too warm suddenly, and he found himself perspiring, whether more from effort and apprehension than atmospheric conditions, he couldn’t tell.

The telephone continued to ring as he rushed to the door and pressed his eye to the peephole to survey the distorted version of the hallway on the other side.

It was empty.

He threw open the door and entered the hall, carrying his roll-on in one hand and his computer case in the other, feeling like a panicked child leaving a haunted house. The elevators were a hundred feet distant, and he broke into a run, the roll-on bag banging painfully against his shins along the way. He could still hear the telephone ringing in room 3205.

He reached the elevators and jabbed at the DOWN button. The rancid aroma of cigarette smoke still hung in the air as his eyes took in the furniture of the elevator lobby: a small table, two end chairs, a potted plant, and a plastic shopping bag someone had left propped against the wall.

A bag with a Mercedes logo.

Blind panic washed over Robert as he recalled the bag in the hand of the heavyset man at the elevator ten minutes ago. The man had obviously come back, or never left. Probably the one who trashed my room, Robert concluded. He recalled the brief, cold moment of eye contact, and the man’s hesitation at the elevator door suddenly made sense.

There was no sign of the elevator, but there was an emergency stairway a dozen yards back and Robert dashed in that direction, throwing open the door and hefting his bags through the opening to race down the staircase, relieved to hear the heavy fire door slam shut above him.

He stopped on the twenty-ninth-floor landing, out of breath, wondering if it would be safe to try for the elevator again. The air in the stairwell was musty, with a disorienting hint of garlic mixed with the dust of a seldom-used enclosure. But this is better than walking down twenty-nine flights with these bags.

He reached for the doorknob to the hallway and found it locked. He tried it again several times, but it wouldn’t budge.

There was a sound from somewhere above. A fire door being opened, followed by the footfall of heavy shoes on the landing.

Once more the feeling of unfocused panic welled up in his stomach, this wave more sustained and unyielding. He struggled blindly with the locked door, his face plastered against the little wire-mesh-embedded glass window as he rattled it and struggled. But it was immovable, and the hallway beyond was empty.

The footsteps above began moving down the stairs with an ominous, confident, unhurried gait. Whoever it was knew there was no way out for the quarry.

Robert dashed as quietly as he could down another flight to the twenty-eighth floor, finding that door locked as well. As he turned, a small sign caught his attention, warning that there were no exits from the stairwell except on the ground floor.

He plastered his back against the door and tried to think. Calm down, dammit! How do I know whoever’s coming is a threat?

His trashed hotel room and the ringing phone answered the question.

Once more he lifted the bags and ran on the balls of his feet down the stairway as fast as he could go. The footsteps from above sped up suddenly.

Robert’s heart was pounding, his mind focused only on escape, his feet slipping every few steps as he tried to accelerate the descent. He scrambled around the landing of the twenty-second floor, calculating his leap to the next set of steps, when the fire door flew open and knocked him off his feet. His roll-on bag flew out of control into the wall with a loud crash that reverberated in the concrete shaft.

“Oh! So sorry!” A feminine voice reached him through the fog of panic. Two young girls, probably fifteen, were standing in the doorway, holding the door open and wondering what to do for the wild-eyed man they’d decked with the door.

Robert picked himself up quickly, grabbed the roll-on, and dashed past the startled girls into the safety of the hallway to head for the elevator. He heard the girls reenter the hallway behind him and let the door close.

“You all right, Mister?” one of them asked, some thirty feet behind him, as he moved to the elevator and jabbed at the DOWN button.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he shouted. “But don’t let anyone else in through that door.”

“I… not understand,” one of them said.

The bell chimed above the elevator. The elevator doors would be opening in a second, and whoever was chasing him in the stairwell would be approaching the hallway door, which was now locked.

He turned toward the girls again. “Don’t let anyone out of that stairwell, okay? Do not open that door. No one’s supposed to come through there.” Their blank stare and startled expression told him it was a losing battle.

The elevator doors were sliding open, the car blessedly empty, and he launched himself inside before repeatedly punching LOBBY and DOOR CLOSE.

The doors remained motionless.

The unmistakable sound of the fire door being opened reached his ears. A male voice was drowning out the girls’ startled reply.

Finally the elevator doors began to close, but there were heavy footsteps now running in his direction. The doors moved in slow motion, now halfway closed. Robert tucked himself into a forward corner to stay out of sight just as the footsteps reached a crescendo and a male hand thrust into the remaining crack, grabbing the door and struggling to reopen it. The doors kept closing relentlessly, and the hand was withdrawn.

The elevator began its descent, the soft noise drowned out by the pounding in Robert MacCabe’s head. He quickly secured the computer case on top of the roll-on bag and extended the handle. If he could lose his expression of panic and move into the lobby like a normal guest, maybe he could meld into the crowd and find a taxi.

The lobby! He’ll radio down and have someone waiting!

He punched MEZZANINE just in time, stopping the elevator one floor above the lobby level, and stepped out as soon as the doors opened. The lobby was visible from the upper railing of the balcony, and he moved quickly toward it, surveying the crowd and spotting two dark-suited men leaping onto the escalator and taking the moving steps two at a time, both of them holding walkie-talkies.

Another surge of adrenaline coursed through his system, propelling him down the nearest hallway, through a pair of double doors, and into a large service bay behind the convention and ballroom areas. He could hear employees on both sides of the large hall talking, but no one was paying any attention to him as he ran the length of the hallway and down two flights through another set of doors into the steam-filled hotel laundry, racing past startled employees to a small stairway on the far wall. There were several angry shouts, but no one moved to stop him.

Robert yanked open the door and stepped into a dark, wet alleyway behind the hotel. He slammed the heavy metal fire door behind him, feeling deliverance in its reverberation.

The alley ran to an adjacent street, and he raced the entire length, moving into the flowing crowd and blending with it before realizing that it was carrying him back toward the main hotel entrance.

A surge of guests spilled from the interior of the hotel through the main entrance doors, tangling with the city crowd as they moved onto waiting buses, each of them happily chatting with friends, and each of them carrying a familiar shopping bag.

He looked more closely at one of the bags, recognition coming as a shock. There were hundreds of them, each emblazoned with a Mercedes-Benz emblem.

Robert MacCabe stopped in his tracks, shaking his head. The Mercedes bag he had seen on the thirty-second floor could have belonged to anyone. They were all over the hotel. He’d panicked for nothing.

But what about the pursuer in the stairwell? Hadn’t he come through a locked stairway door…

Good grief! Of course! Robert thought, wincing. He had a key because he was hotel security! I probably set off an alarm when I opened the stairwell door.

He felt like an idiot as he took a deep breath and began walking calmly toward the main doors, adrenaline making his legs wobbly. Obviously no one had been chasing him. He’d allowed his imagination to get the best of him, building on what had probably been a simple burglary unconnected with terrorism or Cuban crashes or potentially overheard conversations with FBI agents.

I’d sure make a lousy spy! Robert thought. Jumping out of my skin every time the phone rings.

The aromas of Hong Kong began to awaken his other senses, the pungent smell of various seafoods and the essence of fresh garbage mixing with a delicious smell from a steakhouse grill. The street was glistening with moisture from a passing shower, the lights reflecting from the surface of the street in a kaleidoscope of colors.

He looked at the hotel entrance and checked his watch. He’d have to hurry to report the burglary and check out by phone. There was barely enough time to get a cab.

The hotel driveway where the taxis were waiting was incredibly crowded, and Robert had to push into an incoming group of conventioneers, several of whom seemed to be pushing back — one on his left and one on his right — pressing in on both sides and herding him away from the main entrance door as he struggled to hold on to his bag and computer case.

It was no use. Their rudeness was ridiculous, and Robert stopped suddenly to let the two men go ahead. But both of them stopped, too, and at the same moment he felt something hard and metallic poke into his right rib cage.

“That’s a gun barrel,” the man on the right said quietly.

“What… what do you want?” Robert managed.

“Keep walking. Keep looking straight ahead.”

Robert tried to twist away, but firm hands clamped down on his arms as his hand was ripped from the handle of his bag. The voice was in his ear again. “I have a silencer, Mr. MacCabe.”

American accent, Robert concluded, the thought scaring him even more.

“It’s aimed very accurately at your backbone. One more try to wiggle away and you’ll hear a small pop as a nine-millimeter bullet bores in and efficiently severs your spine, and we’ll simply disappear. Or you can cooperate and keep your legs.”

“Okay, okay. I’m walking. Who are you?”

The barrel was thrust harder into his side. Robert winced with pain. “Shut up,” the voice said.

“Look, I don’t…”

“I SAID SHUT UP!” It was more an intense snarl right in his ear than a shout, but the effect was the same.

Looking ahead, Robert could see a dark sedan waiting at the curb and the heavyset man from the thirty-second-floor elevator emerging from the passenger side to open the rear door, his face devoid of expression.

“Where are the bags?” the man by the car asked.

“Got ’em,” the gunman replied. The man on Robert’s left released his arms as the one with the gun pushed him toward the backseat.

Robert felt time distend. Whoever they were, if he got in the car he was dead. Of that he was sure. He had less than a few seconds to act, and no idea what to do.

The gun barrel was withdrawn from his right side as one of the men started around to the other side of the car. The burly one climbed into the passenger seat, leaving only the gunman between Robert and a slim chance of escape.

Robert turned to his right to look at the gunman, a sudden move that startled the man and caused the barrel to rise again.

“You did get my computer, didn’t you?” Robert asked.

The man smiled an evil smile, not caring that his face was fully visible. It was obvious he didn’t expect the reporter to live long enough to identify him, a confirmation of Robert MacCabe’s death sentence.

“How good of you to ask, Mr. MacCabe. That’s precisely what we were looking for, as a matter of fact. Pity you didn’t leave it in your room.” He held up the computer case with his left hand as he let the aim of the pistol in his right hand drop toward the pavement, its barrel clearly visible to Robert.

There was no silencer.

The energy behind the sudden kick of Robert MacCabe’s right leg encompassed every ounce of his will to live. His aim was perfect; the toe of his size-eleven shoe catching the gunman squarely in the crotch and literally lifting him into the air. A piercing cry of pain punctuated the air, followed by the roar of the gun firing wildly as it left the injured man’s flailing right hand. The crowd cringed and turned in his direction to see what was happening.

The force of his kick propelled Robert backward against the car, but he lunged forward instantly, diving to catch his computer case as it fell from the gunman’s hand. Robert grabbed the computer in midair and fell to the pavement, rolling once before leaping up and regaining his feet. He ran for his life, literally, past the hotel entrance and across the crowded street beyond, ignoring the commotion in his wake. The screech of brakes and honk of horns accompanied his frantic, broken field run as he darted left and then right. He spotted what looked like an alley a hundred feet away, dodged between and behind everyone he passed, and skidded around the corner through a loose stack of cardboard boxes into the middle of a bazaar full of startled people.

He could hear running footsteps and shouts behind him, but he had the advantage of surprise, if only for a few seconds — along with the horrid certainty that his paranoia had been justified. Someone really was out to kill him for what they thought he knew.

A jungle of handcarts and tables full of wares were spread like an obstacle course in front of each of the tiny shops that opened into the street. A cacophony of music from Asian rap to the Beatles filled the street as he wove back and forth, his computer case flapping alongside. He darted beneath colorful awnings and through myriad aromas of food and smoke as he eyed first one entryway, then another, trying to decide which might have a rear exit.

Toward the end of the second block he shoved too hard past an angered merchant, and the man caught him by the sleeve to yell at him in Mandarin. Robert twisted away, apologizing in English. He looked back at the crowd and tried to spot his pursuers. He knew they would be following him, or even waiting for him on the other end.

He had to disappear, and quickly.

A small shop full of exotic fabrics appeared on his right and he hunched down behind a row of wares to dash through the entrance. He ran straight for the back, bursting through beaded curtains into the presence of a surprised man and woman hunched over their evening meal.

The man came to his feet, his eyes wide, his chopsticks held out like a weapon.

“Quick!” Robert said, gasping for breath. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I need a back way out of here.”

“What?”

“A back door. Do you have a back door?”

“Why?” the old man asked with suspicion, chopsticks at the ready.

“Because I’m being chased. Not by the police or the army. But by someone who’s trying to kill me, okay?”

“She come now?”

“What?”

“Chase you?”

“Yes!” Robert said, confused.

The old man brightened and nodded. “I understand. Come this way!”

He pushed through another beaded curtain to a small door, which he opened, stood aside to let Robert pass, then caught his arm, speaking urgently in his ear, his breath reeking with garlic. “Two blocks that way, go into shopping mall, down one level. Buy ticket for movie, go inside, then slip out back exit near screen. You come up on street two blocks away. Big secret. Never fails.”

Robert paused and looked at the man quizzically. “This… happens a lot?”

The man shook his head. “No, no, no. But when my wife chase me, that how I get away!” He grinned, showing a mouth of imperfect teeth. “She like to chase me down the street, yelling and carrying on. Family tradition. All our friends laugh.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No, no, no. Just a game, but when that woman get angry, she scary.”

“Women,” Robert said with a smile.

The old man nodded with the same wide, toothy grin. “Women.”

The movie theater was fairly new, and Robert tried to blend into the crowd as he pushed through the turnstiles, then moved quickly through the exit the old man had described. There was a long underground hallway leading to steps and, as promised, an exit to the street above.

Robert opened the door to find a taxi sitting at the curb in front of him. He yanked open the taxi’s rear door and dove in, giving the address of Katherine Bronsky’s hotel as he hunched down out of sight.

“Only the hotel?” the driver asked, calculating whether this strange intruder was worth the small fare.

“No. Then to dinner, then to the airport. Big fare, big tip, no more questions.”

The driver nodded and gunned the car down the street.