Dropping the remnants of the boomerang, Gabriel threw up an arm to block a jab that would otherwise have given him an impromptu tracheotomy. Then he swung his other fist into the man’s gut. But the man didn’t fold up in pain; on the contrary, he took the punch without reacting at all, not surprising given the rockhard solidity of the abdomen that had met Gabriel’s knuckles.
Pressing with a forearm that had none of the showy bulk of a weightlifter’s but all the strength, the man forced his knife closer and closer to Gabriel’s face, millimeter by millimeter. With his free hand, Gabriel grabbed the man’s injured wrist. The man squealed in pain and Gabriel took the opportunity to lunge in and deliver a headbutt to his forehead.
If the man’s abdomen had been hard, that was nothing compared to his skull—Gabriel’s vision swam for a moment and his ears rang with the sound of the impact. But the strength went out of the other man’s arms, and he dropped to his knees amid the shards of the mirror. Gabriel lifted one of his own knees into the man’s chin and the guy slumped to one side, unconscious.
“Not so fast,” a voice said.
Gabriel looked up into the twin barrels of the shotgun.
“I reloaded it,” the man in the black windbreaker said, looking less like a bear now than a wolf, his eyes narrowed to slits, a vicious, hungry expression on his face. “In case you had the idea that maybe I hadn’t.”
Gabriel put his hands up, annoyed. Had his own shots hit no one at all?
“I always assume,” Gabriel said, “that any gun that’s pointed at me is loaded.”
“That’s smart,” the man said. “Now step back—over there by the couch will be fine.”
Gabriel stepped backwards toward the couch where he’d kicked the gun earlier. Looking over, he could just make out the shape of the barrel in the shadow by one leg. If the guy allowed him to sit down at that end—
An enormous clang sounded, like the ringing of a churchbell, and looking back Gabriel saw the man go down, shotgun and all. Sheba was standing above him with a newly dented brass coal scuttle clutched between her hands.
“Thank you,” Gabriel said.
“No problem,” Sheba said, tossing the scuttle aside. It clanged again when it landed. “I owed you one.”
“You owed me two,” Gabriel said, “but who’s counting. Come on.”
He led her back to the stairs. Before they made it one flight down, though, they heard a clatter of footsteps racing up toward them.
“Other way,” Gabriel said. They turned around and pounded back up, past the fifth floor, to the heavy metal door that led out onto the building’s roof. Even with the door shut behind them they could hear the footsteps and shouts of the men coming closer.
“Fire escape,” Gabriel said and pulled Sheba along.
At the edge of the roof they both leaned over the side, looked down at the topmost fire escape balcony some dozen feet below. Some old buildings in New York had metal ladders connecting the fire escape to the roof, but this wasn’t one of them. Some also had wide, modern fire escapes with protective railings to keep you from slipping off, but this wasn’t one of those either. The only way down from here was to climb over the edge of the roof, dangle, and let go—and if you slipped, you slipped five stories to the pavement.
“Oh, Jesus,” Sheba said. Her face had gone pale, much the same as it had in Hungary; sixty feet wasn’t three hundred, but a fall would be just as fatal. “Gabriel, I don’t know if I can—”
“Of course you can,” he said. “Here, I’ll lower you.” He wedged himself up against the stone wall at the edge of the roof and held tightly to her forearms as she carefully climbed onto the ledge. She extended one leg over the edge, then moved the other off, and as he suddenly found himself bearing her entire weight, Gabriel lost hold of one of her arms.
“Gabriel!”
“It’s okay, I’ve got you.” And he did, if only by one arm. He bent at the waist and carefully lowered her as far as he could. Her feet were still some distance from the platform. “Ready? I’m going to let go.”
“One second,” she said, and kicked off her heels again. One landed on the fire escape—the other slipped between the widely spaced metal laths and plummeted to the concrete below.
“Ready?” Gabriel said again.
“Wait—”
The door banged open behind him then, and Gabriel let go. He heard Sheba’s scream and a clatter as she landed, but he couldn’t spare a glance to see how she was doing. Not with three men pouring through the doorway onto the roof, three men who all matched Gabriel’s six-foot height but topped him in breadth and whose revolvers were probably not as lacking in bullets. That’s what he had to assume, anyway.
He quickly ran through some options in his head. There wasn’t any place he could run—it was a small roof. There wasn’t much for him to take shelter behind, just a single roof fan in a metal housing, and if he tried that they could split up and pin him down from both sides. Maybe if he could somehow make it past them to the stairs—
Gabriel turned and vaulted over the side of the building.
There was no second cable waiting for him this time. No first cable, for that matter. Just a narrow fire escape and a five-story drop.
For an instant, as he fell through the air, Gabriel found himself thinking about how much of his adult life he’d spent jumping from high places with people who wanted to kill him close behind. It was a topic, he decided, that might reward reflection sometime, when he could think about it at his leisure. But as his feet hit the fire escape and his legs buckled under him and he slid toward the edge, his mind was drawn sharply back to more pressing matters.
Scrabbling with one arm, he caught hold of the last of the laths just as he plunged over the side. He held on tight and found himself swinging from it in a great arc, back and forth, like a kid on a jungle gym. At the inner end of one swing he let go, dropping onto the next balcony down.
Glancing between the laths at his feet, he saw Sheba two flights below him, a shoe in one hand, descending as quickly as she could manage. Glancing up, he saw the men on the roof looking back down and then the barrels of their guns as they extended them toward him.
Three triggers were pulled simultaneously, and three bullets went spanging off various bits of metal between them and him.
Gabriel got his legs under him and, staying low, hurried down the metal steps. From overhead he heard the sound of first one, then another, of the men landing on the fire escape. The third attempted it but missed. A moment later he fell past Gabriel, arms windmilling desperately; their eyes locked for an instant and then he was gone. The sound when he hit the ground was wet and terrible.
Gabriel chanced another look down and was briefly concerned when he didn’t see Sheba below him. Then he realized it was because she’d already reached the bottom. He caught sight of her running along the sidewalk toward Park Avenue, both shoes in her hands now, bare feet pounding against the pavement.
Another bullet flew past him, this one within inches of his face. He saw Sheba stop and look back. “Go!” he shouted. “Don’t wait for me. Just go!”
She turned again—and ran head-on into the arms of a man who’d stepped around the corner into her path.
He was at least a foot taller than her and quite a bit heavier; despite the warm weather he wore a heavy overcoat and black leather gloves. And when she tried to back away, he wrapped his long arms around her and lifted her entirely off her feet.