‘Stop.’
They faced one another across the breadth of the balcony, a distance of perhaps twenty feet. Pope leant forward, gulping, trying to drag in air. Purkiss clenched his teeth against the nausea he felt, the blurring of his vision.
The voice had been Ramirez’s.
Purkiss glanced to the right, even the eye movement sending his head reeling again. She was pressed against the full-length wall separating the balcony from the one next door.
In her hands, pointed at Purkiss’s chest, she held the Glock.
*
‘Please.’
Purkiss took the first sideways step towards her, extending his right arm to reduce the gap further.
Her eyes were white and wide. She lifted the gun jerkily, finding its weight unexpected, as was the case with most people who held a gun for the first time.
He was fifteen feet from her, Purkiss estimated.
In front of him Pope was beginning to breathe less raggedly, to straighten up. Purkiss saw his hand move inside his jacket.
‘No.’ The woman swung the gun across, again jerkily. Pope stopped moving but kept his hand in his jacket.
‘Nina,’ he said.
‘Take your hand away. Don’t take your gun out.’
Pope lowered his hand. He said, ‘Nina. Thank you.’
‘Don’t speak.’ Her eyes darted from Pope to Purkiss.
Purkiss edged another step closer. Once more she brought the gun across. Pope’s arm moved and she swung the gun back yet again to cover him.
‘Nina.’ Purkiss was closer and could afford to speak more quietly. ‘He’s going to let you die. He’s going to blow up the building opposite and it’s going to collapse. You’ll die, and so will lots of other innocent people. They haven’t finished evacuating yet.’
‘You know that’s not true.’ Pope’s voice too was calm. ‘You’ve trusted me. And I’ve shown that I deserve that trust.’
Ten feet between Purkiss and Ramirez now. The next time Pope goes for his gun, Purkiss thought. That’s when I move.
‘Step back,’ she said to Purkiss, the gun still aimed in Pope’s direction.
‘Nina — ’
‘Back.’
Purkiss watched her lips moving even after she’d said the word. Her eyes flicked up and to the side, as though she was listening.
‘Go away,’ she said, glancing to her left.
‘Nina,’ said Pope. ‘Shoot him.’
Pope’s arm moved.
Purkiss hurled himself at Ramirez, his hand grasping for her wrist.
She stepped back, brought the gun across to bear on him, and fired.
Forty-Eight
‘She’s confused.’
The snide man’s voice.
‘She doesn’t know why Daddy warned her.’
The hateful, hateful woman’s.
‘Did he want to protect her from the man from above?’
‘Or did he want her to get out the way so the man could kill Pope?’
‘She doesn’t know if any of them are on her side.’
‘She thinks they might all be against her.’
The gun was cold and huge and heavy in her grip. She needed both hands even to raise it to shoulder height. She’d had to let go of the violin, which was propped against the wall beside her.
Both men were hurt. Over to the right, Pope was breathing with difficulty. His hair and his face and hands were speckled and streaked with blood from the tiny cuts he’d suffered going through the glass door.
In front of her along the balcony wall, the other man, the tall one with dark hair — yes, the one from the gas station earlier, who’d tried to take her away — had a broken nose and blood all over his face and front.
Nina was aware of the men saying things to her, their voices overlapping; and of herself replying, though she didn’t know what her words meant.
‘She’s wondering if she should shoot them both.’
‘She doesn’t think she can shoot either of them.’
‘How could she ever use a gun?’
‘She must be mad.’
Laughter from both.
‘Which one will she choose?’
‘Pope or the other?’
‘The other or Pope?’
‘Pope will take her away and free her.’
‘The other man’s working for Daddy.’
‘She needs to decide.’
‘Pope’s going for his gun.’
‘The other man’s going for her.’
The gun roared and bucked in her hands, flinging itself upwards and driving backwards painfully against her palm like a horse being broken in. The shock of the noise and the force from the gun sent her staggering back against the hard stone wall.
The dark-haired man dropped.
*
Later the scene would play itself out again and again in her memory:
The dark-haired man sprawling prone at her feet.
Pope coming forward, his own gun emerging from his jacket.
The dark-haired man grabbing the violin case by her legs and swivelling and bringing it up.
The flash from Pope’s gun followed by the blast, and the jerking of the violin case.
The dark-haired man rising to his feet and meeting Pope and swinging the violin down and across and down again, wood splintering and the strings shrieking their agony.
*
No, she thought, falling to her knees on the hard surface.
Forty-Nine
Purkiss flung the wrecked instrument to one side, the contents of the leather case flopping about like broken bones within an outer skin.
Pope faced him, clutching his upper arm. Purkiss thought it was probably broken. Pope’s gun lay six feet away where it had spun after the blows from the violin had knocked it free.
With his good hand Pope reached inside his jacket once more, wincing. He held up a phone.
‘Back off.’
The link to the detonator.
Purkiss stepped back. Behind him and off to one side, Ramirez crouched, rocking. She’d dropped the Glock.
Purkiss’s own phone buzzed. Keeping his eyes on Pope, who was backing round and sideways towards the balcony wall, he fished out the handset. Risked a quick glance at it.
He put it away.
At the wall, Pope squatted and picked up the phone he’d been holding when Purkiss had dropped on him from above, wielding it awkwardly in the same hand as the other phone. He thumbed it and spoke into it.
‘Giordano? It’s time.’
Pope turned his back on Purkiss for the first time, staring across at the Loomis Building. He held the first phone high and pressed.
Pressed again.
He turned back to look at Purkiss. Purkiss shook his head.
The text from Berg had read: You’re right, it was in the truck. Bomb guys have disabled it. What’s going on up there?
Pope dropped both phones.
‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s finish this.’
*
Pope moved with the speed and ferocity of the terminally wounded animal with nothing to lose.
His right arm was useless so he used his legs, spinning towards Purkiss with a reverse kick that would have broken Purkiss’s neck if he hadn’t been ready for it. Purkiss ducked forward into the blow, blocking the kick with his forearm and wrapping the arm under Pope’s raised leg and running him forward so that he lost his balance and crashed back against the glass panels that formed the top half of the outer balcony wall.
The panels gave way, slowing Pope’s momentum so that he didn’t pass straight through them but was caught on the edge, slumped across the low wall, half hanging out over the drop below. Purkiss followed him, grabbing his ankles and heaving him further over the rim. Pope’s good hand grappled at the top of the wall and caught it as he swung over.