Private Beijing

Chapter 5

Jessie burst into the corridor and headed for the elevator lobby, almost sixty feet away. As she picked up speed, she fumbled awkwardly in the pocket of her jeans for her phone. She used her other hand to bang on every apartment door she ran past.

“Call the cops!” she yelled. “And stay inside. There’s a shooter in the building. Call the cops!”

She repeated the message over and over until a bullet whipped through the air inches from her head. She quickly glanced back to see the masked gunman sighting her, trying to get a good shot. He fired again, and the suppressor fitted to the end of the barrel gave a muted crack as the bullet zipped toward her. This one caught Jessie in the right arm. Blood sprayed everywhere as the bullet tore an exit wound. She stumbled and dropped her phone while she fought the excruciating pain burning up and down her arm.

She found her footing and barreled on as another shot cracked and a bullet whistled past her. She saw the stairs and pushed through the fire door, hardly breaking stride as she started down the carpeted steps on the other side.

She flew down the staircase, bouncing off the walls and the guardrail, gathering speed, running and jumping, going so fast she was on the verge of toppling over. Above her, the gunman burst into the stairwell. She heard him thunder down in pursuit.

When she reached the ground floor, she turned away from the lobby and instead burst through the fire door and sprinted down a long bare concrete corridor toward the emergency exit. She was a couple of yards from freedom when she heard another crack and felt searing heat in her left side. She heard the bullet strike the metal door ahead of her and looked down to see blood soaking into her T-shirt from a wound just above her hip. Hot panic flooded through her. She was experienced enough to know a bad wound when she saw one.

Death was close on her tail. She felt weak and desperately wanted to lie down, but knew that was just the prompting of her wounded body. She pressed on and fell through the fire exit. An alarm sounded the moment she spilt onto the busy street. On instinct she dodged to the right as another bullet whined past where she’d just been standing and shattered an apartment window. Someone screamed, and passers-by gave her a wide berth when they saw the blood spreading across her T-shirt.

“Help me,” Jessie said to a thin man in a baggy suit.

He took a bullet in the chest before he could respond, collapsing with a look of shock on his face.

She glanced round to see the gunman by the fire exit, pistol in hand, aiming at her. More people screamed and scattered as he shot again. The bullet flew past, inches away from her face. She looked around in desperation. She was growing weaker. Darkness gnawed at the edge of her vision.

She saw a city bus slowing as it headed south through the intersection with Central Park West. She ran for the corner, some fifty yards away. Fleeing passers-by provided her with some cover as they scattered in every direction, shouting and screaming, and the gunman struggled to get a clear line. Jessie made it to the corner and slammed her fist against the side of the bus as it was starting to pull away from the stop. The driver stepped on the brake, bringing the vehicle to a jarring halt.

Jessie ran to the passenger doors as they opened on a rush of air.

“Go!” she yelled, climbing aboard.

The driver, a bearded man in his fifties, looked perplexed, but that quickly gave way to shock when he saw her condition. He was about to say something when a bullet burst through one of the side windows, shattering it, before embedding itself in his windshield, creating a pocked crater of frosted glass.

“Go!” Jessie commanded once more, but the driver had already hit the gas. She was flung into a passenger’s lap when the vehicle lurched forward.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Jessie gasped out an apology to the passenger who’d caught her and rolled into the empty seat beside him. She eyed the gunman from the relative safety of the departing bus.

“Central control,” the driver said into his radio, “shots fired at the intersection of Central Park West and Seventy-fifth Street!”

He brought his dispatcher up to speed. Even though Jessie wanted to listen, the words didn’t seem to make any sense. Her body felt numb and distant from her; she just wanted to rest. People were fussing over her. Was someone tying a tourniquet?

She wasn’t interested in them or their frantic words. She kept what little focus she had on the gunman hurrying away from the intersection, west along 75th Street.

The last thing she heard was someone say, “She’s losing a lot of blood,” but she didn’t know which of the blurry, increasingly distant faces had uttered the words. Her vision was going. A few seconds later, her mind went blank.