City of Endless Night

61

One floor above, braced against two wobbly beams with an exposed section of corridor visible through gaps in the floor below, Agent Pendergast waited for Ozmian. The fireman’s ax was slung over his left shoulder, the Les Baer grasped in his right. Either his pursuer would continue tracking and come into range on the second-floor corridor, in which case Pendergast would have at least a modestly reasonable shot; or he would sense a trap, stop, and wait.

The minutes ticked by and Ozmian did not appear. Pendergast wondered if, once again, he had been outfoxed. But no — not this time. Ozmian would follow him into Wing D; it was a challenge he would not be able to resist. Even though he couldn’t see or hear him, he knew Ozmian was out there, following his trail. He must be there, and very close. And evidently, he was waiting for Pendergast to make the first move.

The wind gusted outside, generating a chorus of creaks and a perceptible movement in the beams Pendergast was balanced upon. Wing D was a house of cards, a heap of pickup sticks, a wobbly stack of dominoes.

There was no point in waiting any longer. Sliding the Les Baer into his waistband, he grasped the fire ax with both hands, raised it above his head, focused his gaze on the point of impact, and swung it with tremendous force into one of the main load-bearing beams he was standing on. The massive blade bit deeply into the unburnt heart of the beam, charred bits spraying out, and a crack as sharp as gunfire signaled the breaking of the beam, instantly followed by the machine-gun fire of other load-bearing beams, supports, and concrete walls as they gave way in series. The floor lurched downward, not in free fall but in a sort of chaotic, semi-controlled descent, as Pendergast dropped the ax and whipped out his firearm; for a split second, as the debris heaved down, he had a clear field of fire at a suddenly exposed Ozmian, who was himself thrown off balance; Pendergast got off two shots before his own downward movement and the structure collapsing around him obscured everything in a great cloud of dust.

Leaping free of the slowly imploding mass, Pendergast projected himself out from the crumbling first floor, falling half a story and landing hard on the frozen ground, bricks and debris thundering down around him. The outcome was unpredictable…and that itself was its beauty, a dramatic transformation of the game. Ozmian was deeper in the building and thus more likely to be crushed — or so he hoped.

The rumbling collapse came to a halt. Incredibly, the rupture was only partial, the far corner of Wing D now a gaping hole directly in front of him, but the rest of the ten-story wing still intact — if barely. The entire edifice complained loudly, emitting a volley of cracks, screeches, and groans as the load-bearing walls and concrete pillars settled to accommodate the shifting burden of mass. Pendergast tried to stand, staggered, managed to get to his feet; he was battered but essentially sound, with no broken bones. The dust cloud billowed up around him, obscuring his view.

He had to get out of the dust and falling debris and into the open, where he could take advantage of the chaos and press the attack on Ozmian, if indeed the man had survived. Feeling his way through the chaos of rubble, moving away from the zone of falling debris, he emerged from the thinning dust cloud and into the moonlight, hard up against the chain-link fence that surrounded the building.

And that was when he spied Ozmian: unhurt, partway up the damaged façade, rapidly lowering himself from the gaping ruin by a fire hose. At the same time, Ozmian saw him. Dropping to one knee, Pendergast aimed and fired, but Ozmian simultaneously kicked himself away from the building, swinging sideways, even as Pendergast got off another round before Ozmian had released himself and dropped into the dust cloud, vanishing from sight.

Pendergast fired four quick shots into the cloud in a pattern surrounding the place where he judged Ozmian to have landed, knowing the odds were long but taking advantage of even this slight opportunity. The shots emptied his magazine.

Racing away, ignoring the pain, Pendergast sprinted alongside the outer building wall, leapt over a low windowsill and inside, then continued running down a corridor, which debouched once again into the arts-and-crafts room. As he ran he ejected the empty magazine, letting it clatter to the floor as he slapped in the second one, past the rotting tables, through a doorway, and down a nearby stairwell, heading for the basement.

He did not know if his four shots had caught Ozmian or not, but he had to assume they had not. His third plan had failed. He needed a fourth.