The security door opened and a well-groomed Anglo woman pushed through with a big bag of rubbish.
‘Hi, love,’ said Mac with a smile and wink. ‘Need a hand with that?’
‘I’m okay, but thanks,’ said the woman in an American accent.
Turning to Tranh, Mac continued the charade: ‘So, I’m sick of this prick by now, right?’
Holding the door open, Mac jabbered away to Tranh while the woman dumped her bag and hurried back to the held door.
‘Thank you.’ She smiled at Mac as they all moved into the courtyard, a leafy area of about twenty square metres with a central pond and high shrubs and lighting in the undergrowth. Apart- ment balconies looked down on the garden and Mac moved to the shadows in the lee of the south wall. The glass door slowly moved back towards a locked position as the American woman disappeared into the foyer and around the corner to what was probably the elevators. As she moved out of sight Mac lunged at the slow-motion door and stuck the toe of his sandal in the gap before it could shut.
Pushing into the light of the foyer, Mac looked back to check that Tranh had his Ruger out.
Moving to the stairwell door marked ‘G’, Mac drew the Colt, clicked off the safety and took a deep breath. He pushed down on the door handle as Tranh leaned in close, the handgun held cup-and-saucer behind Mac’s head. Upstairs, a door slammed; moving further in, the light was strong and the stairwell was empty. Mac scoped the stairwell with his Colt by making a box with his aim. Nothing — the stairwell looked clean.
The elevator dinged and light flooded into the foyer as the lift doors opened.
Turning to his left Mac saw only Tranh’s widening eyes and watched the pupils flash dark as the Vietnamese pulled the Ruger down and let a shot go, roaring in Mac’s ear.
There was movement from the elevator and instantaneously the foyer was filled with the flash of automatic gunfire.
Throwing himself into the stairwell, Mac rolled on the concrete, his ear screaming from Tranh’s gunshot at such close range. The bullets flew behind the door and Mac leapt off the ground and smashed the stairwell light bulb with the Colt, plunging the space into blackness.
Opening the door two inches, Mac took shelter around the corner and shot left-handed in the direction of the elevator, using four shots. The foyer floor was covered in glass and Mac couldn’t see Tranh through the darkness and gun smoke.
‘Tranh!’ he yelled, but fell back as rifle fire chewed the doorframe, blasting a cloud of concrete shrapnel into his face.
Pulling back into the darkness of the stairwell, almost dropping his gun in the process, Mac’s hands came up to his face. He couldn’t see. He was sure he hadn’t taken a bullet but the concrete dust had penetrated his eyeballs with such force that he felt like they were on fire.
‘Faaaark!’ he screamed as the gunfight raged on the other side of the door.
Feeling with his hands Mac climbed the stairs with no vision, in a blind panic. Turning at the first landing, he pushed too hard and slipped on his bad knee, dragged himself to his feet and kept climbing as his eyes burned deeper, creating swirling patterns of red and orange and bursts of pain behind his forehead.
Panting as he crawled and clawed his way up the stairs, Mac worried that the tears flooding down his cheeks was blood — what if the exploding cinder block had taken out his eyes?
The gunfire had stopped by the time Mac had ascended to what he estimated was the fifth-floor landing. He got to his knees and clawed for a door handle, but the stairwell doors required security keys to open them.
Pushing himself back on his arse into the corner of the stairwell landing, Mac coughed a chunk of concrete out of his throat and tried to control his breathing as he checked the Colt by feel.
Listening for approaching boots, he considered his options: they had assault rifles, they’d already killed Jim Quirk and Tranh, and now they were coming for him. Mac had three shots of .45-calibre loads left in the Colt and he was going to wait for them to come, take three random shots and let God decide.
His face ran with tears and his eyes hurt so much that all he could do was whimper as he awaited execution. He was vaguely aware that he was sitting under a light bulb but he still couldn’t see.
And then the door at the base of the stairwell opened and he could hear a low whisper — more than one of them. They were coming — the fight he should have settled back in Saigon when he had the chance had come back to haunt him. He thought of those dark, piercing eyes, goading him as Jim Quirk was executed.
Gulping down his panic, Mac held the Colt at a point where he thought they’d come from, blinking as high and hard as he could to regain some sort of vision. He thought about Jenny and he thought of his beautiful girls, Sarah and Rachel. He thought about a life doing others’ dirty work and he decided it wasn’t too bad — if all he could go out with was one more kill on the bad guys, he’d take it. They could write what they wanted in his obituary; he’d take payback right now.
He heard another whisper and a boot sliding on concrete — still two floors below. A woman screamed. Mac gasped for air and waited, and then suddenly there was a hand on his gun wrist and a steel object pushed against his cheek. The click that accompanied it was unmistakable.
His throat dry, Mac waited for death. But what came was a male American voice.
‘Drop it, McQueen, and you might live.’
The waterworks were running out of control down his face as Mac dropped the Colt, which clattered on concrete.
‘Stand,’ said the voice.
Sliding himself up the wall, Mac was led up the stairs to the top floor. More light flooded into a faint glow behind his marred vision as a door was opened and Mac was pushed along what sounded like a corridor. Then another door opened and he was shoved through it so hard he lost his feet and sprawled onto carpet.
A muttered conversation occurred close by, and then he was being rolled onto his back and his head was placed on a cushion.
‘Keep ’em open,’ came another American voice, and Mac felt a warm liquid wash across his eyeballs, making his eyelids flutter up and down.
‘The fuck’s that?’ said Mac, croaking as the briny fluid ran down his tear ducts and into his throat.
‘Saline solution,’ said the voice. ‘Just relax and we’ll get you cleaned up.’
‘Cleaned up?’ said Mac, blubbering through the fluid, not knowing if he was laughing or crying. The absurdity of it caught him by surprise and he laughed. ‘You’re cleaning me up?’
Heaving for air as he giggled like a pot-smoking undergraduate, Mac began to cough concrete dust from his bronchial tubes. The fit got worse and worse until he was dry-retching in agony.
As his sight slowly returned, Mac’s wrists were cuffed behind his back and he was seated on a comfortable sofa. He could make out two men in the room; they looked Chinese. The stocky one — Mac realised it was the Chinese agent they’d been tailing — stood in front of him and moved a finger back and forth.
‘I see it,’ said Mac.
‘Good,’ said the Chinese agent in his Midwestern accent. ‘Let’s start with the basics: when did you start working with the Israelis?’
‘Israelis?!’ said Mac, surprised.
‘Drop the games, McQueen,’ said the stocky guy. ‘Tell us where the girl is and this can end with smiles all round.’
‘The girl?’ said Mac. ‘Which girl?’
‘McHugh,’ said Stocky. ‘Hand her back and you can go home.’
‘Geraldine McHugh?’
‘I need her address, smart-ass,’ said Stocky. ‘Not her fucking name.’
Chapter 26
The tall Chinese stood at the side of the street-facing window and scoped the action outside. The eerie wash of red and blue lights illuminated the ceiling of the apartment.