The Day After Tomorrow

114

I WOULD like the key to room 412, please,” Remmer said pin German to a gray-haired woman behind the desk. She wore thick glasses and had a brownish shawl pulled up over her shoulders.

“That room is taken,” she said indignantly, then looked up to McVey, who stood behind him to the left of the elevator.

“What is your name?”

“Why should I answer that question? Who the hell do you think you are?” ?

“BKA,” Remmer said, flashing his I.D.

“My name is Anna Schubart,” she said quickly. “What; do you want?”

McVey and-Noble stood halfway between the front door and a stairway covered by a worn burgundy carpet. The lobby itself was small, painted the color of dark mustard. A wood-framed velvet couch sat at an angle to the desk, while behind it, two faded and unmatched over I stuffed chairs faced a fireplace where a small fire was burning. An elderly man dozed in one of them, an open’ newspaper across his lap.

“The stairway goes all the way to the top floor?”

“Yes.”

“That and the elevator are the only ways in and out?”

“Yes.”

“The old man sleeping, is he a guest?”

“He’s my father. What’s going on?”

“You keep quarters here?”

“Back there.” Anna Schubart tossed her head, indicating a closed door behind the desk.

“Take your father and go inside. I’ll tell you when to come out.”

The woman’s face turned red and she was about to tell him to go to hell, when the front door opened and Littbarski and Holt came in. Littbarski carried a shotgun. An Uzi submachine gun dangled at Holt’s side.

That was enough for Anna Schubart’s pride. Reaching to a wall box behind her, she took out the key to room 412 and gave it to Remmer. Then, walking quickly to the old man, she shook him awake. “Komm, Vater” she said. Helping him up, she walked him, blinking and staring, around the desk and into the back room. With a sharp glance back at the police, she closed the door.

“Tell Holt to stay here,” McVey said to Remmer “You and Littbarski take the stairs. The old men’ll take the elevator. We’ll wait for you at the top.”

Crossing to the elevator, McVey punched the button and the door opened immediately and he and Noble stepped inside. The door slid closed, and Remmer and Littbarski went up the stairs.

Outside, in the back alley, Kellermann thought he saw a light brighten in the room next to Cadoux’s, but even with the binoculars it was hard to tell. Whatever it was, it seemed too insignificant to report.

The elevator banged to a stop on the top floor and the door opened. Thirty-eight in hand, McVey looked out. The hallway was dimly lit and empty. Putting the elevator on “lock,” he stepped out. Noble followed, carrying a matte black .44 Magnum automatic.

They’d gone about twenty feet when McVey pulled up and nodded to a closed door across from them.

Room 412.

Suddenly a shadow ran up the ceiling at the far end of the hallway, and. both men pressed back against the wall. Then Remmer turned the corner, gun in hand. Littbarski I was at his heels. Stepping out, McVey pointed at the 412 doorway and the men came toward it from either end of the hallway. McVey and Noble from the left, Remmer and Littbarski from the right.

As they came together, McVey motioned Littbarski into the center of the hallway so he could take up a position that would give him a clear shotgun blast at the door.

Shifting the .38 to his left hand, McVey stood to the side of the door, then eased the key into the lock and turned it.

Click.

The dead bolt slid back and they listened.

Silence.

Bracing himself, Littbarski aimed the shotgun directly at the center of the door. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of Remmer’s face as he pressed back tight against the wall on the far side of the door Noble, two hands on the Magnum military style, stood at the ready, a foot behind McVey on the near side.

Taking a breath, McVey reached out and grasped the doorknob. Twisting it, he shoved gently. The door opened several inches and stopped. Inside they could just make out part of a dimly lit rococo floor lamp and the corner of a couch. A radio, at low volume, played a Strauss waltz.

“Cadoux,” McVey called out loud.

“ Nothing. Only the sound of the waltz.

“Cadoux,” he said again.

Still nothing.

Glancing at Remmer, McVey gave the door a hard shove and it swung open far enough for them to see Cadoux sitting on the couch facing them. He was wearing a dark corduroy sport coat over a blue shirt, and a narrow tie was knotted loosely at his throat. A crimson stain had spread over most of what was visible of the shirt, and the tie had three holes in it, one right over the other.

Straightening, McVey looked up and down the hallway. The doors to the five other rooms were closed and no light showed beneath them. The only sound came from the radio in Cadoux’s room. Bringing the .38 up, McVey stepped into the doorway and eased the door all the way open with the toe of his shoe. What they saw was a double bed with a cheap nightstand next to it. Beyond it was a partially open door to the darkened bathroom. McVey looked over his shoulder at Littbarski, who tightened his grip on the shotgun and nodded. Then McVey looked to Remmer on the far side of the doorway, then to Noble at his left shoulder.

“Cadoux is dead. Shot,” Remmer said in German into the microphone at his collar.

In the lobby, Holt moved back, covering the front door with the Uzi. In the back alley, Seidenberg blinked his eyes to clear them and pulled deeper into the shadows behind the oak tree, covering both the rear door and the alley. Kellermann refocused his binoculars on the window.

“We’re going into the room.” Remmer’s voice came I through all the radios again. The men tensed as if they had a sudden and universal premonition something was going to happen.

Littbarski stood his ground in the hallway as McVey led the way into the room. Abruptly it lit up brighter than the sun.

“Look out!” he screamed.

There was a thundering explosion. Littbarski was blown off his feet and the entire window of room 412 erupted outward into the alley, casing and all. Immediately, a huge rolling fireball roared skyward pulling with it a trail of heavy black smoke.

At the same instant, the door of the hotel clerk’s living quarters was jerked open and Anna stepped into the lobby.

“What was that?” she snapped at Holt in German.

“Get back inside!” he yelled, looking up as dust and plaster rained down from the ceiling. Then it occurred to him she was no longer wearing the thick glasses. He looked back too late. A .45 caliber assault pistol was in her hand, a silencer squirreled to the barrel.

PTTT. PTTT. PTTT.

The gun bucked in her hand and Holt stumbled backward. He tried to get the Uzi up, but couldn’t. His lower jaw and the left side of his face were gone.

McVey was flat on his back on the floor. Fire was everywhere. He heard somebody screaming, but he didn’t know who it was. Through the flame, he saw Cadoux above him. He was smiling and had a gun in his hand. Rolling over, McVey raised up and fired twice. Then he realized the only thing left of Cadoux was his upper torso the gun in the hand was part of something else but it was something he couldn’t see.

“Ian!” he cried out, trying to get up. The heat was un-bearable. “Remmer!”

Somewhere off, over the roar of the flames, he thought he heard a burst of automatic weapons fire followed abruptly by the heavy boom of Litfbarski’s shotgun. Pushing himself off the floor, he tried to visualize where he was and where the door was. Someone was groaning and coughing nearby. Putting up an arm against the heat and flame, he moved toward the sound. A heartbeat later he saw Remmer, gagging and coughing in the smoke, on one knee trying to get up. Moving to him, he threw an arm under his elbow and lifted.

“Manny! Get up! It’s okay!”

Grunting in pain, Remmer stood, and McVey started them off through the smoke, in the direction he thought the door ought to be. Then they were out of the room and into the hall. Littbarski was on the floor, blood oozing from a close pattern of bullet holes in his chest. Partway down the hall was what was left of a young woman. A machine pistol was on the floor nearby. Littbarski’s shotgun had decapitated her.

“Christ!” McVey swore. Looking up, he saw the flames had broken out into the hallway and were climbing up the walls. Remmer had slumped back to one knee and was grimacing in pain. His left forearm was bent backward, his wrist dangling at an unnatural angle.

“Where the hell is Ian?” McVey started back into the room. “Ian! Ian!”

“McVey.” Remmer was using the wall to help him stand. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here!”

“IAN!” McVey cried out again into thick smoke and roaring inferno inside the room.

Then Remmer had McVey by the arm and was tugging him down the hallway. “Come one, McVey. Jesus Christ! Leave him! He would!”

McVey’s eyes locked on Remmer’s. He was right. The dead were dead and the hell with them. Then there was a sound at their feet and Noble crawled through the doorway. His hair was on fire, so were his clothes.

Two shots from a Steyr-Mannlicher telescopic rifle, fired from a rooftop across the alley, had taken down Kellermann and Seidenberg. And now Viktor Shevchenko, having discarded the Steyr-Mannlicher for a Kalashnikov automatic rifle, was rushing up the stairs to the lobby to help Natalia and Anna take care of any unfinished business. The trouble was there was one person he hadn’t counted on, and neither had Anna—Osborn, who’d come running at the sound of the explosion, Bernhard Oven’s Cz in his hand.

His first encounter had been with an old man who had I been right outside the car just as he’d opened the door. The startled moment between them had given Osborn the split second he needed to see the automatic in the old man’s hand and to shove the Cz into his stomach and fire. Then he’d run the half block to the hotel and raced into the lobby at full speed at the moment Anna put a just-to-I make-sure shot into Holt. Seeing him, Anna swung the gun, firing in a fan pattern toward him. With no other choice, Osborn had simply stood his ground and squeezed I the trigger His first shot hit her in the throat. His second grazed her skull, spinning her around and throwing her face-first onto the chair above Holt’s body.

Ears still ringing from the blast of the gunshots, Osborn had the sense he’d better turn around. As he did, Viktor I came through the door swinging the Kalashnikov from his I waist. He saw Osborn but wasn’t quick enough, and Osborn pumped three shots into his chest before he crossed the threshold. For a second Viktor just stood there, totally surprised that it was Osborn who had shot him, and that anything at all could happen that fast. Then the look faded to disbelief and he stumbled backward, tried to catch himself on the handrail, then fell headfirst down the stairs.

With the acrid smell of gunsmoke still hanging in the air, Osborn looked down at Viktor, then stepped back in side and looked around. Everything seemed strangely off-angle, as if he’d walked into the middle of a bizarre and bloody sculpture. Holt lay on his side near the fireplace where he had fallen. Anna, his killer, was facedown, half kneeling on the chair next to him. Her skirt, obscenely hiked up over her rump, exposed a tight-fitting half stocking, and above it, a white fleshy thigh. A soft breeze washing in through the front door worked at cleansing everything, but couldn’t. In the space of no time, Osborn had killed three people, one of them a woman. He tried to make sense of it but couldn’t. Finally, in the distance, he “ heard sirens.

Then, real time lurched back.

A grinding sound to his right was followed by a heavy thud. Swinging around, he saw the elevator door start to open. Heart racing, he stepped back, wondering in the same instant if he had any ammunition left. Abruptly a figure started out.

“HALT!” he yelled, trying desperately to think of the ‘German, his finger closing on the trigger, the ugly snout of the Cz coming up to fire.

“OSBORN! JESUS CHRIST, DON’T SHOOT!” McVey’s voice rang out at him. They staggered forward out of the elevator, retching and coughing, trying to suck in fresh air. McVey and Remmer, bloody, tattered and reeking of smoke, with Noble, painfully burned and semiconscious, somehow propped between them.

Osborn rushed to them. Seeing Noble up close, he grimaced. “Get him down in a chair. Easy!”

McVey’s eyes were bright red from the smoke and they came up to Osborn and hung on him. “Pull the alarm,” he said carefully, as if making absolutely certain he was understood. “The whole top floor is burning.”