CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Desert Eagle in hand, Bolan charged into the room, followed by Jayne Bahn and Ed Scanlon.
“The window!” Bahn shouted.
“I saw him!” Bolan yelled.
He bolted to the window, ignoring Philly Lambrosia, who remained atop the bed, covering herself with the torn remnants of her teddy.
“It’s not what you think!” she cried. “He was just some guy I picked in the bar. It was consensual—”
Jayne cut the woman off. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, cupcakes,” she told her. “We’re not Vice, okay?”
Bolan braced himself, then leaned out the window. Even though they were on the third floor, the South Tower had been built into the hillside, so it was only a two-story drop to a bed of flowers encircling a small park area located directly below the window. Cho Il-Tok had landed amid the azaleas and, unharmed, was already back on his feet, sprinting across the thin sward of grass separating the tower from the Riverwalk. Bolan was taking aim at the Korean when Cho suddenly whirled around and drove the Executioner back with a round from his Glock.
Behind Bolan, Bureau agents Pearle and Thompson had crowded into Lambrosia’s room. The prostitute, realizing her life and livelihood were no longer in danger, had shed her fear almost as quickly as Cho had rid her of her teddy.
“What is this, a convention?” she exhorted. “I don’t do groups.”
“Put a sock in it, sister,” Bahn told her.
Agent Scanlon keyed the walkie-talkie linking him with the other Bureau agents posted on the ground floor.
“He’s out on the Riverwalk!” he reported.
“We’re on him,” came the crackling response from Agent Howland.
Bolan tried the window again. Cho had bounded over the inner railing and was shoving his way through a throng of startled tourists mingling on the Riverwalk. There was no way for Bolan to get off a safe shot, so he climbed up to the windowsill and pushed off. He bypassed the flower bed and landed in the grass, rolling on impact and then quickly scrambling to his feet, gun still in hand. He raced diagonally across the park strip in hopes of gaining ground on the Korean, who by now had reached the concession area just off the dock that serviced the water taxi. In addition to refreshment kiosks, there were booths where guests could rent anything from personal watercraft and mountain bikes to window-view seats on one of the twice-daily helicopter excursions to Lake Havasu or the Grand Canyon.
“Out of my way!” Bolan shouted to the tourists as he vaulted over the railing and onto the Riverwalk. As he gave pursuit, the people he scattered weren’t sure what to make of the fracas.
It was only when Cho fired at Bolan and clipped one of the tourists that people began to realize they were caught up in something other than free entertainment. The moment the first victim went down, howling that he’d been shot, people saw blood and the first screams of terror began to sound along the Riverwalk. By then, Jayne Bahn had jumped to the ground and Scanlon’s backup agents were spilling out of the rear entrance to the casino.
“Everybody down!” Bahn shouted as she sprinted across the parkway. Her command was lost in the cacophony, however, and only a few of the tourists heeded her warning. Others were fleeing in all directions, and those racing for the casino immediately blocked the progress of the Bureau agents.
Cho was slowed down as he made a point to keep himself surrounded by as many pedestrians as possible. The ploy worked in terms of keeping the authorities from firing at him, but Bolan and the others were gaining ground. The Korean knew he had to change tact. Abandoning the Riverwalk, he veered to the dock and stiff-armed his way through a small crowd queued up to board the water taxi, a glorified barge that could carry up to forty people at a time to the other casinos. There was a second, shorter line to the right for those who’d rented pontoon boats or Jet Skis and were waiting for their turn on the water.
The combined noise of the water taxi and the personal watercraft had drowned out the earlier sound of gunfire and, when Cho started elbowing his way to the front of the second line, people began to grumble, mistaking him for a drunken crasher. The man who’d been at the head of the line—a vacationing football linebacker—took particular offense and grabbed the Korean by the arm.
“Not so fast, asshole!” the linebacker shouted. “Wait your goddamn turn like everybody—”
The man’s voice dropped off when Cho twisted around and pointed the Glock at his face.
“Asshole? Is that what you called me?”
Before the linebacker could fully realize his mistake, Cho fired a point-blank shot through the linebacker’s forehead. The man’s head snapped back and his brains splattered the tourists behind him as he pitched to one side, then toppled over the railing and into the water. The same panic that had gripped the Riverwalk now spread along the dock. Cho ignored the pandemonium and clambered down the steps leading to a floating platform where a worker had been showing a teenage boy how to use the personal watercraft he’d just rented. The worker quickly realized what was happening and just as quickly stepped aside, throwing his hands in the air.