“Welcome to the city of the future.”
In the center of this madness the men with guns looked suddenly nervous. The ones on the perimeter stepped back a few paces, their hands tightening on their weapons.
“You have come here to see your future.”
The flickering of the screens was disorienting in the darkness.
“What the hell is this?” one of the thugs asked.
Their leader remained calm.
He grabbed one of the hotel staff and shoved the pistol in the man’s face. “Where’s the control room?”
The man pointed to the east hall.
The east hall again.
Ponytail shoved him back to the floor, waved two of his people over, and stormed off the dance floor, heading for the darkened recess of the east hall.
Hawker held Sonia’s hand as the two of them slipped out the back door of the control room and entered the west hallway. The setup was simple: a big horseshoe with the ballroom in the middle, the east hallway coming out of one edge and the west hallway on the other side.
With the sound system raging and the plasma screens bathing the main room in an ever-changing flicker of light, it would be hard to notice two people sneaking around. Though that cut both ways.
Hawker stared down the hall. “All we need is a little fog and we could make a rock video,” he mumbled.
As the light brightened he caught sight of something more usefuclass="underline" a janitors’ closet. He pulled Sonia toward it and opened the door. Buckets and mops, tarps, and all kinds of supplies filled the small space. Perfect.
“Get in the back,” he said, pushing her inside. “Lie on the floor behind all that crap and make it look like this room is empty in case they look for you. Whatever happens, wait here. Don’t make a sound, no matter what. Just like in Africa. Understand?”
She nodded tearfully.
“Relax,” he said, smiling. “I’ll be right back.”
He shut the door, wondering if he would indeed be back. First he needed a weapon.
As Ponytail and his two men moved down the east hall, the cacophony of sound and voice diminished slightly but the flickering screens lit them up like a strobe. It gave him a sense of danger he’d not expected to feel.
“Go slow, boys,” he said, ghosting the left wall with his gun raised.
The others did likewise, but no one challenged them and they reached the AV room unhindered. One of them pushed on the door.
“Locked.”
Ponytail fired away at the handle until the doorjamb and the handle were blasted to splinters. One of his men kicked it in and the door swung open to darkness.
Stepping inside they saw nothing.
A rear door beckoned. He waved his men on.
“Find her!”
As the men went out the door, Ponytail looked around the room, checking the nooks and crannies. “Sonia!” he called.
No response and he found no one hiding. He stepped to the audiovisual controls, raised his rifle, and unloaded on it, shredding the entire panel.
“You’re going to piss me off, young lady,” he mumbled to himself.
When the echo of his shots died, the eighty-first floor went silent once again. Ponytail checked his watch. They were running out of time.
Hawker inched his way down the hall, hands up in case anyone saw him. The chaos seemed to be keeping everyone interested, at least until the sound of rifle fire overrode it and the speakers and plasma screens went dead.
So much for plan A.
He stared through the suddenly complete darkness for something, anything.
He found what he was looking for under a glowing sign: the fire alarm.
He elbowed the glass and yanked the handle down.
A piercing wail went out across the floor. A long blast, followed by four short blasts and accompanied by flashing strobes and emergency lights.
As the alarm shrieked, a figure appeared down the end of the hall. Hawker dove just as the man opened fire.
Booming gunfire and the sharp sound of ricochets mixed with the piercing tone of the alarm and the flashing lights.
Seconds later another man fired. But this time from the rear of the hall. In the madness and the dark, the gunmen were shooting at one another.
The man near the ballroom went down.
Hawker glanced back and then took off running. He launched himself toward the injured thug, hammering him with a forearm as he landed. More gunfire snapped; bullets tore holes in the walls and skipped off the marble floor. Hawker wrested the thug’s gun loose and fired back down the hall, lighting up the guy at the far end.
With confusion now reigning and gunfire all over the building, some of the hostages had panicked. Without waiting, they made a break for the stairwells; others remained where they were. One of the terrorists opened fire on the crowd and Hawker saw a couple of people fall.
He aimed and pulled the trigger, dropping the man. But another one found Hawker and fired back.
Hawker dove away, hearing the bullets whiz by. All hell had broken loose and the remaining terrorists were fleeing, running toward the east hall and firing back into the crowd as they did.
Hawker knew they were heading for the stairwell and back to the helicopter on which they’d come. He let them go and raced back around the corner into the west hall, fighting his way through a crowd.
He reached the janitors’ closet where he’d hidden Sonia and pulled the door open.
“Sonia, it’s me,” he said.
Silence.
“Sonia?”
He stepped inside, but she was gone.
CHAPTER 24
An hour after dusk, Danielle stepped out of the silver Mercedes SUV and into the geographic center of Beirut. Ahead of her was a building that had been bombed, shot to pieces, flooded, and then had become a home of refugees and wildlife during the decades of sorrow. It was now reclaimed and fully restored. The National Museum.
Next to the museum a nascent hospital sprouted on one side, while the other side was home to the new government library, also freshly reconstructed. Its façade was a mix of old stone walls and modern tinted glass. All three buildings looked spectacular lit up for the night and fitted out for a ball.
Security was heavy. Cameras, bomb-sniffing dogs, and Lebanese soldiers with rifles seemed to be everywhere.
The valet drove the SUV away and Danielle stepped forward. Lights, music, and a red carpet beckoned. She climbed the stairs in a charcoal-colored gown of smooth, shimmering material. It flowed smoothly as she moved and accentuated her tan skin.
Najir and his bodyguards flanked her, each of them in a tuxedo.
It almost made her laugh. During her early years with the NRI, she and Moore had attended many functions, conferences, and charity balls. You went where the contacts were, and in the high-tech world of industrial espionage, that meant following the money, the investors, the inventors.
For years her closet had been filled with gowns like the one she now wore. And then a funny thing had happened. Beginning with the Brazil project, Danielle had traded in her cocktail dresses and makeup for boots and mosquito repellent.
The mission to Brazil took them deep into the heart of the Amazon. Later it was Mexico, from the Gulf Coast through the jungle to the mountains. The fanciest outfit she’d worn was a simple cotton dress, and that had been borrowed. Most of the time it was cargo pants, T-shirts, and backpacks. Despite the stares from the men around her, Danielle felt a little awkward dressed to kill once again. A square peg in a round hole somehow.