Ratio(75)
He threw up, barely keeping it off himself. He leaned against the wall for support, taking deep breaths. The worst of it had passed. Feeling a little better, he forced his mind to clear. The only choice left was to either take Kato out, or get past Kanezaki’s thugs and escape the city. The odds were stacked against him either way, but the latter option seemed more plausible.
All he needed was a distraction.
Jonny fumbled in his pockets for his cell phone. Found the program that activated the detcord. Stared at the screen.
No signal.
Shit.
He forced himself up onto his feet. Shaking a little, he stumbled over to the window. It overlooked the parking lot. Tried the latch. Locked. He held the phone up against the pane.
Come on, come on…
The detonators stuffed inside the pillows had a range of several hundred feet, but Jonny needed a cellular connection to send the command. He angled the screen toward him. Stared at the signal indicator in the top corner.
Just one bar. Just one Goddamn bar.
Movement below. The fire trucks were on the scene, holding a loose perimeter. The vehicles streamed past, heading for the main entrance. More sirens followed, police and paramedics. Jonny’s eyes flicked back to the cell phone. His heart skipped a beat.
Yes!
A single bar of signal was all he needed. Quickly, he activated the program and punched in the code Kanezaki had given him. For some reason, he’d insisted on a specific sequence of numbers. It hadn’t seemed important at the time.
Jonny sucked in a deep breath. Everything was going to work out. The detonation, even if it didn’t take out Kato, would distract everyone enough for Jonny to slip out one of the exits without the police or paramedics noticing. The escape route Mariel had mapped out for him led to one of the side alleys, where Kanezaki would never think to look. With all the pillows on the seventh floor stuffed with explosives, the combined noise would be audible all through the building. The fire alarms would go off, maybe the sprinkler systems too. There might even be a dead body to sweeten the deal. By the time the dust settled, Jonny would be halfway across Seattle.
His cell phone buzzed. The code had been accepted. All he needed to do now was confirm the command. He checked his watch. Three-fifty-seven p.m. A little earlier than planned, but no matter.
Jonny smiled and hit “send.”
Chapter 54
JUNE’S GUEST WAS waking up.
“How ya feelin’?” she asked.
The intruder blinked hard and groaned. “What’d you do to me?”
“Feeling some pain?”
“Screw…you.”
“Yeah, well, you hang onto that thought for a while,” she said, checking for messages on her phone. “I got news for you. While you’ve been out, someone discovered there’s a bomb somewhere in the hotel. Loaded up with sarin gas. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“Get me out…of here…”
“Not so easy.” She set her phone aside and smiled at him. “The hotel is in full evacuation right now. But, unfortunately, we’re stuck up here.”
His eyes rolled closed again.
She gave him a nudge with her good foot. His eyes popped open.
“Wh-what time is it?”
June checked her watch. “Three-fifty-six,” she said. “Why, you got somewhere to be?”
He coughed. “Not any more.”
“I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?”
“I’m injured. Help me,” he mumbled, spitting the last of the words out.
“You shot at me. What do you expect, a Valentine card?”
The intruder looked up. “All I wanted was Jack, not you.”
June took a few steps back, settled herself in the chair near the dresser. “Well, you go after Jack, you go after me,” she said. “Where I come from, we protect the people we love.” The words stung as she said them. She tried not to let it show.
“What’s that noise?” the man said.
“What noise?” June tilted her head.
“Some kind of beeping.”
“I don’t hear anything.” She stood up.
“I can hear something near my head. What the hell have you –”
He never got to finish. A blinding light filled the room and June hit the floor, clasping her hands over her ears as a deafening crack reverberated through the air. Head spinning, June crawled on her elbows and found cover underneath the bed, screwing up her eyes. Alarm bells sounded, a piercing noise that rattled June’s skull.
This is it, she thought. We’re too late.
The smell of plaster dust filled the room. Something else too, a chemical odor she didn’t recognize. June opened her eyes. A thin veil of smoke hung in the air. White feathers were falling to the carpet, drifting slowly. Some of them were tinged with red.