“Vacation,” he replied.
“Alone?” she pressed.
Stamp didn’t respond.
“A colleague of ours was abducted,” Mo-bot said. “The people who took her attempted to blackmail another colleague, trying to force him to do something to ensure her safe return.”
Stamp remained impassive.
“I think I saw something about a kidnapping on the news,” he replied at last.
“So, you’re not traveling with anyone?” Sci asked, and for a split second Stamp’s strained smile wavered.
“No,” he said. “I’m alone.”
“Your wife is called Angela, right?” Mo-bot remarked. They’d found details of the couple on Angela’s social media feeds. “Goes by Angie.”
Stamp tried not to glare at Mo-bot, but he looked wounded.
“She not with you?” Mo-bot asked.
Stamp shook his head. “I told you, I’m alone.”
“Because if anything has happened to her, we can help,” Mo-bot told him. “If she’s being used to coerce you, we can support you. Don’t trust these people if they’re—”
“I said I’m alone,” Stamp interrupted. “I hope they find your friend who was kidnapped.”
“Oh, we found her and she’s safe,” Mo-bot replied, registering her words hit home with him. “That’s what we’re saying. We can do things to help you. Real, practical things, like recovering people who’ve been taken. But we can only do those things if you tell us what kind of help you need.”
Stamp hesitated.
“None,” he said finally. “I don’t need any help.”
He signaled Mo-bot to draw near, and she leaned forward.
“You should go,” he whispered. “They’re watching me. It’s not safe for you here.”
Chapter 67
Stamp took a step back.
“I don’t need any help,” he said loudly for the benefit of an unseen audience. “Good luck with whatever you’re involved in.”
He shut the door and Mo-bot looked at Sci.
“What did he say?” he asked.
“That he’s being watched,” she replied.
An elevator chime sounded. Mo-bot looked at Sci nervously.
“Let’s take the stairs just in case,” he said.
They started toward a door marked “Escaliers,” a few feet away and had only taken a few steps when a trio of men in dark urban wear emerged from the elevator lobby.
“Hey!” one of them yelled, producing a pistol from inside his jacket.
“Run!” Mo-bot pushed Sci forward and he burst through the stairwell door as the man started shooting.
Bullets zinged through the air behind Mo-bot as she joined Sci, and the two of them barreled down the stairs as fast as their legs would carry them.
People would sometimes tease Mo-bot for hardly moving from her computer, but this was why. The digital world offered her control. If bad things happened, they generally didn’t involve gunfire and the threat of death.
The gunman was first through the door, but he couldn’t get a clear shot and he and his two accomplices raced down the stairs in pursuit of Sci and Mo-bot, who bounced off the walls, taking the descent at a hazardous pace.
Mo-bot stumbled at the top of the final flight, but Sci caught and steadied her and together they raced toward the exit.
They burst into a corridor that led to the lobby and saw another pair of hostile eyes on them. They belonged to a man Mo-bot had noticed on the way in. Unshaven and wearing casual sportswear, he’d been unremarkable at first but now was clearly identifiable as an enemy.
He made straight for them through the crowded, opulent lobby. Mo-bot and Sci turned and ran the other way.
They raced along a short corridor to a busy bar and restaurant and flashed past a startled hostess standing beside a menu station. Mo-bot glanced behind them to see the trio led by the gunman burst through the stairwell door. The three angry, hostile men joined their accomplice in pursuit of Sci and Mo-bot.
They danced around tables, servers and ornate floral displays, running toward the kitchen doors.
They hurtled through one marked “Entrée” and found themselves in a huge, frantically busy catering kitchen, where staff were sweating their way through the afternoon service and prepping for dinner on the busiest week of the year.
Mo-bot spotted an open door on the other side of the kitchen, which appeared to lead to a service corridor.
“Come on!” she told Sci, and they ran toward the opening, ignoring yells from angry chefs whose fury intensified when the band of pursuers burst into the kitchen.
Mo-bot heard the buzz of alarmed chatter from the dining room as the door swung back and forth, and she had no doubt hotel security and police would already be on their way.
A gunshot rang out and a bullet ricocheted off a pan rack. The cries of anger from the kitchen staff turned to exclamations of fear. The chefs and their assistants hurried to escape the danger and fled into the dining room.
Another shot, this one close by, but Mo-bot and Sci were near the doorway now and she could only focus on the light shining through. They had to make it! They were almost there...
“Move!” Mo-bot shouted, as she and Sci bundled through the open doorway to the safety of the corridor beyond.
Chapter 68
Mo-bot and Sci stumbled into a service area. Above their heads, a large duct ran the length of the corridor. As they dashed on, breathless and exhausted, they saw doorways to their right. They sprinted past a series of offices before reaching an intersection with another corridor. They turned as their pursuers entered the corridor behind them, and the gunman took a few potshots. The bullets hit the wall behind them as Sci led them down a branching corridor, which opened out into a wider space.
To their left was an office, to their right a huge industrial laundry full of large washing machines and steaming presses. Ahead of them was a loading bay, and beyond the vehicle area was a raised roller shutter that opened onto the street.
“Come on!” Mo-bot told Sci, pushing him toward the loading bay.
She glanced back to see the four gangsters enter the corridor. She and Sci ran through an archway into the vehicle area. She pushed him to the right and followed him, out of the path of the gunfire that whined through the air around them.
“Jeez!” Sci exclaimed, jumping down from the loading platform into one of the vehicle bays.
Mo-bot followed, and the two of them sprinted across the bay toward the roller shutter and the street beyond. They were inches away from escape. Mo-bot could see the Avenue de Grande Bretagne at the end of the alleyway that accessed the loading bay. They were going to come out very close to the cab rank that served the hotel.
“Nearly there,” Mo-bot told Sci breathlessly, and he nodded.
There was another shot, but this time there was no ricochet or rush of whipped air as the bullet failed to find its mark. Instead, there was a quiet grunt from Sci and a misstep that sent him lurching forward as they cleared the shutter.
He stumbled and fell into the alleyway. Mo-bot realized he’d been shot in the back, near his right shoulder. The bloodstain was already spreading across his T-shirt.
“Don’t you stop on me!” she yelled, grabbing him. “Get up, Seymour!”
She slipped her arm under his and was grateful when he pulled himself up. She couldn’t have carried him.
He smiled thinly, his face as pale as a cloud-covered winter sky.
“I’m still here,” he said, and together they staggered to the end of the alleyway.
Mo-bot guided Sci toward the cab rank a short distance away, supporting him as they stumbled to the first vehicle.
“We need to get my friend to hospital,” she told the driver, who looked startled and afraid.