The gunmen ran; Grant and Morgan gave chase. She yelled for someone to intercept them at the rear entrance of the hotel, but it was far too late. Colchev’s men were already out the back exit.
Grant approached the glass door cautiously, sidling up next to it with his back to the concrete wall. He poked his head out to see through the door and was met with a hail of gunfire that shattered the glass.
He dropped to his knee and took five quick shots through the broken glass. The men ducked around the corner of a building, and Grant’s rounds pinged off the brick.
“Watch where you’re shooting!” Morgan shouted. “We need them alive.”
“They started it!” Grant had been a soldier. Trained to kill, not to maim, not to read someone their rights.
He and Morgan burst through the gaping doorway and sprinted after the gunmen, who were fifty yards ahead. Morgan called into her phone. “They’re heading down a diagonal street. Somebody cut them off before they head under the bridge.”
The steel span of the Harbour Bridge began just a hundred yards ahead. If the gunmen got out of sight, they could easily disappear in the wharfs on the other side. They must have had a car parked around somewhere, but the hotel’s offsite lot was in the opposite direction.
A police car came to a stop and blocked off the road ahead. The tac teams were busy setting up a perimeter in a ten-block radius around the hotel. Grant thought the Russians were cut off until he saw them shoot at a locked door and duck through.
“Where’d they go?” Morgan said.
“I don’t know.” It looked like it was in the foundation of the bridge. But as they got closer, Grant saw the sign next to the door.
BridgeClimb. The tourist entrance for the guided walk up the spine of the bridge.
The gunmen would be taking the bridge over the roadblocks set up on the streets underneath it. If they got onto the bridge’s vehicle deck, they could carjack someone and get away into the northern suburbs.
Grant and Morgan reached the door and stopped.
“You want to wait for the tac team?” Grant said.
“No,” Morgan said. “I’m not letting these bastards get away. You stay here.”
Grant shook his head. No way she was going by herself. “If you go, I go.”
She didn’t hesitate. “All right. You pull the door open. One. Two. Three.”
Grant yanked it wide, and Morgan went in crouched, ready to take the shot if she had to.
“They’re on the catwalk.” She darted through the door and up the iron stairs. Although he was fast for his size, Grant had to dig deep to keep up with her.
Once they were up to the catwalk level that ran the length of the span underneath the bridge, Grant could make out the shadows of two men pounding across the steel grating. They were too distant to take clear shots, but that didn’t stop them from blasting away. Rounds pinged off the girders.
Not very effective, Grant thought, but they might get lucky just by sheer quantity.
Morgan never hesitated. She charged headlong down the walkway, not even flinching when bullets whizzed past.
Grant made sure to keep his balance as he ran. The street was now a hundred and fifty feet below. If the bullets weren’t fatal, the fall would be.
They reached a massive stone masonry pylon that served as the southern anchor for the bridge. The catwalk passed through an opening bored through the center of the pylon. Out the other side of the tunnel, Grant saw the two gunmen approach an intersecting catwalk and split up. One went straight ahead toward the northern terminus of the bridge while the other took a perpendicular path toward the opposite side of the bridge.
When Grant and Morgan reached the same point, she nodded at the man heading for the northern terminus. “You take that guy. Make sure he doesn’t get to the other end of the bridge before the police set up their roadblocks.”
“But don’t kill him.”
“Right.” She didn’t even sound out of breath.
“Easy enough,” Grant said, wondering how he’d do such a thing.
Without another word, she took off.
Though Morgan didn’t like leaving Grant on his own, she felt she’d had no choice other than to let him chase the second gunman. Given how well he’d handled himself so far, she thought it was an acceptable risk.
If she didn’t catch up with her target soon, he might be able to escape in the maze of steelwork that made up the bulk of the bridge. Built as an arched span of girders between the masonry pylons, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was the main connection linking north Sydney and the business district. Eight lanes of street traffic and two rail lines made it one of the busiest stretches of road in the city. If he got to the vehicle deck, the gunman would have multiple options for his getaway.
Morgan’s target headed for the set of stairs used by the BridgeClimb tourists as they descended from the main arch. Because the last tour group had come down hours ago, at least she didn’t have to contend with bystanders getting in her way.
The Russian climbed the stairs leading up to the vehicle deck two at a time. The steps were so steep that it was nearly a ladder, with switchback platforms every five yards.
Morgan reached the stairs, holstered her pistol, and began climbing after him. She could see that her quarry had made the mistake of trying to climb without holstering his weapon, so he was hampered enough for her to be able to make up the distance.
She was just one platform below him when he turned to fire. He got off two shots that caromed off metal before the slide locked back, indicating he was out of ammo.
She had him.
He hurled the pistol at her, catching her in the shoulder, but she ignored the blast of pain.
As he reached the vehicle deck, which still bustled with cars and trucks, she lunged for his feet. He kicked, barely missing her hand, and kept going.
On the next platform, she could take the shot that would disable him. Then it would be an easy task to haul him in.
At the vehicle deck, the stairs were wrapped with a ten-foot-high steel mesh cage to keep the BridgeClimb hikers from exiting onto the sidewalk. Instead of continuing up, the Russian grabbed the top of the cage, intending to vault over it and onto the sidewalk. If he did that, he might get into a car before Morgan could stop him.
She leaped up, but she didn’t try to latch onto him. She pushed the exposed soles of his feet, toppling him over the side of the cage before he was ready.
He somersaulted over the edge, tumbling off the sidewalk and onto train tracks.
Morgan climbed up, drew her pistol, and aimed down at him, covering any possible escape.
With her free hand, she dialed her police contact to tell him that she had the subject ready for apprehension near the south pylon.
The Russian, seeing that he was caught, stood and put his hands over his head.
Her contact answered, but before she could make her report, the squeal of metal brakes interrupted her.
The Russian must have realized what was coming a split second before it happened. His mouth made a silent O just as a train roared through the pylon and smashed into him.
Grant wondered where in the hell this idiot thought he could go.
They were running up the arched spine of the bridge, and Grant wasn’t afraid to admit he was starting to get winded. The guy he was chasing was wiry, with more of a runner’s body, so Grant could do no better than keep pace behind him.
For some reason, the man had forsaken the chance to go over the metal cage they’d passed and onto the bridge deck. He just kept climbing until he was padding up the inclined walkway, only a thin steel railing on either side between him and a long and lethal drop to the road deck below.