Hands shaking, June slumped into a chair.
So much for waiting to be rescued, she thought.
Chapter 50
KANEZAKI HEARD THE announcement through the PA system. They were evacuating the hotel, getting everybody out. The police were on their way, the announcer said. In the meantime, everyone was to make their way calmly to the exit doors. Kanezaki swore and ducked through one of the double doors leading out of the lobby.
He looked up and down the corridor. Plush carpet, beige walls. Some inoffensive pastel-colored paintings hanging at head height, spaced at regular intervals down the hallway. A sign pointing toward the stairs, leading up to the guest rooms. Kanezaki glanced toward the elevators. No doubt they were shut off.
He pulled out his cell phone and then dialed a number.
“Moshi Moshi,” a voice answered.
“Isa, you in position?” Kanezaki said.
“Yeah. Engine still running. What’s going on?”
“They’re calling in the cavalry.”
“Yamada?”
“No sign,” said Kanezaki. “He’s got less than ten minutes to pull this off.”
A paused. “And if he doesn’t?”
“Two ways this goes down. Both end with him dead.”
“You need to get out.”
“I need to find Yamada first.”
“You know what’s going to happen if you get caught,” Isa said.
“Just be ready.” Kanezaki hung up. He stuffed the phone back into his pocket. Turned back to the doors behind him and peered through the glass window. The lobby was crammed full of people, jostling and wrestling each other out of the way. They were headed for the main doors. A porter was holding them open. Two police cruisers were parked outside, a handful of officers setting up a temporary cordon. The few people who had managed to squeeze through were being ushered out of sight, probably to have their IDs checked.
Kanezaki swore again. He needed to find Yamada before the bakayarou slipped out one of the rear exits. His baita girlfriend probably had them all mapped out. Yamada had to be present when the shit hit the fan, had to get noticed. The police were already here, a fortuitous turn of events Kanezaki hadn’t predicted, but it was all for nothing if Yamada escaped.
He checked his watch. Nine minutes left. If he didn’t get the hell out of here before then, none of it would matter. He and Yamada would be dead anyway, along with everyone else in the hotel. And it wouldn’t be a pleasant death, either. Not if the Korean chibis had done their job properly. Dumb assholes thought they were doing their Supreme fucking Leader a good turn; they sure as hell wouldn’t have risked screwing up.
Kanezaki broke into a run and headed for the stairs.
Chapter 51
“LESS THAN NINE minutes.”
The words were lost in the noise from the generators, but Leopold already knew what Harper was saying. He stared blankly at the detonator, a mess of circuitry hooked up to the particulate filtration unit, a digital timer counting down second by second.
“Can’t we just disconnect it?” Harper knelt down next to Leopold, her words barely audible.
He looked over. “Sure, we could risk it. I could pick one of these wires,” he gestured at the tangled cables weaving in and out of the circuit board, “and we can all hope to hell I don’t accidentally set the damn thing off.” He sighed. “Or we can use what little time we’ve got to figure out how to deactivate it safely.”
“Any bright ideas?”
Leopold peered in a little closer. “It looks homemade. Skillful, no doubt, but made using everyday components. Your suspect could have picked these up from just about any hardware store.”
“So?” Harper squinted at the detonator. One of the agents angled the flashlight a little higher.
“So, whatever failsafes are built in will be pretty basic. Probably just a code, entered here.” He pointed at a keypad. It looked like it had been fashioned from an old cell phone, hooked up to the main board.
“Great. That’s just great,” Harper said. “Even if we’re assuming a four-digit code, that’s over ten thousand combinations. And no way of knowing if an incorrect input will set the whole thing off.”
“It’s a start.”
“It’s a dead end, Blake.”
“No other choice. We can’t get a bomb squad here in time. Not with the roadblocks, not with the hotel locked down. They’ll never get through.”
“So we get out of here.”
“In less than eight minutes?” Leopold checked the timer. “The exits are jammed. How many people are stuck down in the lobby? A hundred? Two hundred?”
“We can’t save everyone, Leopold.” Harper looked at him. Her expression softened. “Even if we wanted to.”