The Mozart Conspiracy

Chapter Sixty

Jack Glass had been shot before, plenty of times. As long as he was still functional and on his feet, he was still in the game. It was going to take more than a bullet from a woman’s gun to stop him. He knew his collarbone was broken, but he was prepared to ignore the pain if he could do what he wanted to do now.

He pounded up the stairs, his hand pressed hard against his shoulder to stem the blood. He reached the third floor, leaned against the banister rail and looked down. He could see a dark shape two floors below, moving fast up the winding staircase. Hope was after him again. Fucking blood trail was giving him away. Nothing he could do about that. He had to keep moving. Forget the pain.

He grinned. Him and Hope in the running together. It was like SAS selection all over again. But this time he had an edge, and he meant to use it. The old man was fucked, the ship was going down. But there was no way Jack Glass was going down with it.

He made it to the top floor and thundered stiffly along the corridor, soaked in sweat and blood. The doors to the garret rooms were on his left. Paper was peeling off the walls and the carpets were threadbare. It was cold up here, cooling the sweat that was pouring off him. He ripped open one of the doors to his right and staggered into the room. He found what he was looking for and tucked the small leather case under his arm.

‘Boss, you OK?’

It was the Swede. His dull face registered mild alarm as he saw the blood on Glass’s shirt.

Glass turned. ‘Never better,’ he grunted painfully.

He had to look down at most men. But the Swede, Björkmann, towered over him by nearly three inches. That made him a very big man indeed. His neck was wider than his head, as thick as Glass’s thigh. Three hundred pounds of solid muscle with an arrowhead haircut and very little brains. The kind of man Glass loved to have on his team. The big Ruger revolver was dwarfed in his meaty fist.

‘Everybody’s going apeshit down there,’ Björkmann said in his broken German. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Somebody crashed the party,’ Glass replied. He wiped the cold sweat out of his eyes and felt the ends of his broken collarbone grate. He clenched his teeth. ‘I need you to watch my back, Christian. There’s a guy on his way up here. You know what to do. I’ll come back for you. OK?’

The gigantic man nodded slowly. ‘Sure, boss.’

Glass watched Björkmann lumber down the corridor. He grinned and left the outline of a bloody hand on Clara Kinski’s door as he shoved it open.

The child was crouched in the corner, pressed against the wall, looking up at him with terror in her eyes. Glass took the syringe out of the leather case. He plucked the cork off the end of the long needle and fired a squirt of the lethal poison into the air. ‘Your Uncle Jack’s going to take care of you now,’ he said.

Clara started to scream as he walked into the room.