As he started to turn away to do just that, he again made eye contact with the blonde behind the column by the hot tub. She had taken off her high heels and risen to a crouch; it looked to Court as if she was about to try to make a run to the relative safety of the changing area.
Quickly he put a hand up, commanding her to stay where she was.
The gunfire was bad enough when Court made the dash to the column and back, but now the additional guns in the room meant even more rounds were pocking the walls. If any of the women tried to make a break for it, either to the doors to the left or the right of the pool, or back here to the changing room and the employee exit, Court felt certain they would be cut down from one side or the other.
Their best bet was to sit right where they were and wait out the battle.
Just as he motioned to the other women, imploring them to stay where they were, a long spray of automatic fire ripped hunks out of the pedestal on which the lion above them sat, sending marble chips all around the girls.
“Stay down!” he shouted.
And then he saw the smoke. From the air ducts here in the changing area, a few big puffs of black smoke belched into the room, and this told Court that there must be a sizable fire somewhere in the building.
Oh… fuck me.
The smoke began pouring in steady and thick, and Chamroon saw it now, too. He started to crawl away, but Court just rose and moved to him and put his foot in the back of the man’s wounded knee, sending him into convulsions of pain.
Court chanced another look out into the pool area, saw flashes of suppressed gunfire, flashes accompanied by the sound of small arms, and determined that there had to be more than a dozen men ducked down in a dozen different locations in the big room in the middle of a protracted gun battle.
To his surprise the blonde who had been hiding behind the column had now turned in the other direction, and she ran under fire to the lion on the pedestal. This put her with the other four girls, and farther away from the changing area, but there was another door on the far side of the pool. Court didn’t know if she was trying to get to that exit or if she just wanted to die with her friends. Either way, he thought her plan to be idiotic. Her friends were in much more danger than she had been, and there was no way in hell any of them were going to make it fifty feet to the side door, which was right at the epicenter of the fight.
All five women looked his way now, and he turned away. He had Chamroon. He had a brief window of opportunity where he could get to a back stairwell, down to the third floor, and out to the fire escape, then down to the street. He had his own car just two blocks away.
Success in this mission had seemed so improbable when he realized he was following the Russians to the target, just minutes earlier, but now mission success was all but assured.
But to succeed in his mission, he’d have to leave these five innocent and helpless women behind in the middle of a gun battle and at the center of an inferno.
Nope. He couldn’t do it.
Court lay down flat, then reached out past the doorway and grabbed a twelve-inch square of marble that had fallen from the wall. It was chipped on one corner but otherwise intact. More importantly, it was a half inch thick. He knew it would stop most rounds from a handgun or a submachine gun, and it sounded to him as if everyone around here was firing one or the other.
Quickly he untucked his shirt and his undershirt, slid the cold marble under both and against his skin, and tucked everything back in. The tile would serve as a bulletproof vest to protect his chest cavity, but it wasn’t much solace to him considering what he was about to do, and how many times he’d have to do it.
Court slid the Glock into his belt, knelt down, and ran for the lion.
CHAPTER
FORTY-TWO
Court Gentry slid like a baseball player stealing home, then up to his knees, and he put his back against the lion pedestal to shield himself from the three-way gun battle raging across the pool. He looked at the five women with him here behind the big statue. They all looked back at him, some with unrestrained terror in their eyes. He shouted over the gunfire, “English? Everybody speaks English?”
He saw looks of shock on some faces, and he was pretty sure a couple of the girls were high. The platinum blonde with the long bangs and the Middle Eastern eyes nodded first, and then some of the others said yes.
He drew his gun just as a Thai man rounded the shallow end of the swimming pool on his right, carrying a silver .45 caliber pistol in his hand. He was obviously looking for his boss, and he was braver and more loyal than he was competent.
Court shot him in the side of the head before he even noticed the group standing behind the statue next to the hot tub.
Some of the ladies screamed.
Court realized he couldn’t shepherd all five of these women to safety at once. They would present a massive target, and everyone in the room would lock on to them during the forty-foot run to the changing area.
He shook the auburn-haired woman to stop her from screaming, and he spoke to the group over the gunfire. “Listen up! I’m taking you through that doorway over there, one at a time. When I get you there, run straight to the back. There is a stairwell. Find it. Don’t wait on the others, just go!”
He heard an “okay,” a “da,” and a few other noises, maybe not a response from everyone, but they all seemed at least to understand he was trying to help them.
The girl with auburn hair sounded Russian. She looked up towards the ceiling, where the smoke poured into the dark room through the air ducts. Already the phony starscape on the ceiling was completely obscured. “There’s a fire! There’s smoke!”
Court looked around the side of the pedestal quickly, making sure no one else was approaching his position. While he did this he said, “We have to hurry. Go down one flight of stairs, then get into the hallway. There is a window that looks out on a fire escape. Take that down to the street.”
A busty redhead wearing only a bra and panties cried openly. Court sized her up as the most unhinged of the group and decided he needed to move these women in ascending order of levelheadedness.
He took the busty redhead by the wrists. “You come first. Put your hands on me here.” He turned away from her and put her behind him, placed her hands on his hips. “Move with me, understand?”
She sniffed and cried. Just then, a bullet snapped the tile floor just inches from where the group stood.
“Shit!” shouted Court in surprise, and this brought the redhead behind him to the edge of hysterics. “It’s okay,” he said, although it clearly was not.
“Just stay behind me and you’ll be fine. Ready?”
And with that, Court moved across the open space, walking backwards and to his left, facing the threats of the room, covering the woman behind him.
It took just a few seconds to cross the forty feet, but it felt significantly longer.
When he got to the changing room, he saw that Chamroon was trying to stand. Court pointed his pistol at him. “I’ll blow your other knee off if you try.”
The young man stopped moving, and Court pushed the redhead on her way. He doubted she’d make it to the stairs before the next woman caught up to her.
Seconds later Court slid back behind the lion again. He stood back up, evaluated the remaining four, and took the auburn-haired Russian with him to the changing area, because she was clearly in shock. Still, she followed his commands, staying roughly behind him with her hands on his hips, and he traversed the area between the lion pedestal, passing behind the hot tub and the columns and finally through the door to the changing area. Here she ran off towards the back, and Court noticed that the smoke was now thick enough to affect his breathing, because the ceiling was lower here than in the pool area.