Collision(30)

He tested the idea. Only his fingers, wrapped around the metal of the railing post, were exposed. He held the Glock in his right hand; he couldn’t see the landing, but the gunmen, if they came through, would be standing just so—he pictured the positions in his mind—and he screamed, in hysterically tinged Arabic, “I give up, I surrender, truce, let’s talk.”

They would know he was on the landing, and they’d fire suppressing rounds to clear him off the landing before they set a foot inside.

He heard the broken door kicked open, a spray of bullets hitting the steps where a man would stand. If they saw his fingers gripping the bottom inches of the post they would simply blast the bones of his fingers away and he’d fall. The stairwell went dark, the lights blown out.

The shooting stopped.

Pilgrim raised the gun above the lip of the landing, emptied the clip at an angle he hoped would catch the knees. Bullets pocked against skin and bone, and screams echoed against the concrete. He released his hold as a bullet smashed against the post he’d been gripping, the screams fading, and he landed, feet hitting the railing below, bouncing from the rail to land like an awkward cat on the steps.

Pilgrim scrambled to his feet, drew the gun he’d taken from Kidwell, and ran to the landing. The punk-blond gunman lay dead, guts ripped, heart hollowed. The one in the cheap wraparounds had caught shots in the chest and the groin. He cupped one hand around the blood welling from his jeans while reaching toward the blond’s gun.

Pilgrim shot him in the hand and the man shrieked.

“Where is the woman you took?” he said.

The man cussed him and Pilgrim answered in Arabic, “I will get you a doctor and promise protection for you if you tell me.”

“She is dead,” he screamed. He drew his knee up to his bloodied crotch.

“You wouldn’t kidnap her just to kill her. Where is she?”

He mumbled an answer, gasped in exquisite pain.

“Who do you work for?”

One of the lenses on the man’s sunglasses was shattered, either from the crease of a graze or from falling on the floor, and it resembled an empty eye staring back at Pilgrim. The man grimaced and frowned, and shuddered a final breath.

Then a shot thundered on the roof. Pilgrim remembered the person he needed to keep alive.

The roof door opened and Ben bolted for the cover of the closest AC unit. He was down and hidden before whoever came through the door had closed it.

Ben crouched against the metal of the unit and tried to breathe silently. He listened, trying to hear which way the man moved. Instead he heard the hubbub of the ordinary world: brakes on the street, music rising from the festival nearby, a car honking, the hiss of the air-conditioning system.

Then he heard a footstep. Close. As though the hunter were taking the measure of the wind, breathing the scent of Ben’s fear.

Ben had no weapon. Nothing. He had the clothes on his back, shoes, a belt . . . He stopped and carefully slid the belt free from his pants. He grabbed the end of it, opposite the buckle. The silver buckle wasn’t heavy but it would hurt if it hit a face, a nose, a mouth.

Fighting a killer with a belt? He was an idiot. He tried not to shiver.

“You’re not the one I want,” a voice, accented, called.

Ben didn’t move. No point—the man knew where he was. He just didn’t know if Ben had a weapon, was trying to urge him out rather than fight.

“You tell me where Pilgrim is, and I’ll let you live. I have no gripe with you. Him I want. He killed my cousins.”

The man stepped around the corner of the unit, a heavy gun in his hand. Ben swung the belt overhead, as hard as he would swing an ax. The buckle cracked against the wrist bone, the shot blasting into the ground, close to Ben’s foot.

The man—Ben saw heavy shoulders, a mole on his chin, a snarl of teeth—instinctively grabbed at his wrist, more surprised than hurt, and Ben barreled into him before he could lift the gun into Ben’s chest.

Pilgrim ran up the roof stairs. The shot probably meant Ben Forsberg was dead. Jesus, he needed someone still alive to tell him what the hell was happening. He went through the door low, gun out, and halfway across the expanse of roof he saw Ben struggling with another man. The gunman was trying to shoot Ben in the head, but Ben fought hard, if not well, keeping the man’s gun aimed upward. But Ben was quickly losing the battle.

Pilgrim lifted his gun, aiming to shoot the gunman in the shoulder as the two men fought.

Then the gunman saw Pilgrim and head-butted Ben. But Ben didn’t release his grip on the gunman as he fell backward, and the bigger man toppled. The two of them vanished behind an electrical unit.

Pilgrim ran to the mechanism. The gunman cradled Ben Forsberg in a headlock, the gun aimed at his temple, a thick arm around Ben’s throat. He held Ben up as a shield. Pilgrim aimed at the man’s head. “Let’s talk,” he said in Arabic.