The rifle barked again. Abby scrambled half upright and flung herself into the deeper darkness of the hall until she was out of Hickle's line of sight.
Not Travis's, though. The hall was illuminated suddenly with a fan of light from the flashlight in his hand. Three shots crackled behind her.
Small arms fire.
Travis had unholstered his Beretta. She spun and snapped off two rounds, then ducked into the nearest doorway.
She found herself in a dark, windowless inner office.
From what she'd seen in the sweep of the flashlight, she believed that the office was situated at the intersection of two halls, the short hallway from the stairwell and another, wider corridor running perpendicular to it. Somewhere along the far wall there might be a second doorway, which would open onto that other corridor. She groped her way toward it, her hands sliding blindly over sheets of gypsum wallboard.
She had messed up. She should have made Travis head downstairs sooner, should have anticipated that Hickle might leave his firing site and approach the stairwell. If she died tonight, the fault would be hers.
Okay, blame assigned, responsibility accepted. Now shut up about it and stay alive.
She advanced in darkness, feeling her way toward an exit that might not even exist, and then outside the office there was movement. Two sets of footfalls pounding hard. The beam of a flashlight flickered through the doorway she had used. Travis and Hickle were coming after her, hunting her together.
Huddled against the wall, she lifted her.38. If they were reckless enough to burst into the room, she would open fire.
They didn't enter. She saw the flashlight's glow slide past the doorway, and a new brightness dawned a few feet from where she crouched.
There was indeed a second exit, and she'd been close to finding it, but Travis, aided by the flash, had found it first.
She pressed her ear to the wall. It was cheap plywood screwed into wooden studs, and it conveyed sound fairly well. She heard faint whispers, the words unintelligible. The two men evidently had stationed themselves at the outside corner of the office, where they could cover both halls and both doorways. If she tried to leave via either exit, they would gun her down.
It was two against one. They had her trapped. Now they were discussing strategy.
Abby liked to think of herself as an optimist, but right now she had to admit that things did not look good.
'Where the hell is she? Where did she go?'
'Calm down.'
'God damn it, where is she?'
'She ducked into that office. We've got her boxed in.
Just breathe easy, Raymond. Breathe easy.'
Hickle's ears were still ringing from the flurry of gunshots, his own and Travis's. Every report had been amplified in the echo chamber of the stairwell, the sounds reverberating off the steel staircase and the concrete walls. Even now, in the aftermath, he could hardly hear Travis's low voice over the din in his ears.
But he knew the man was right. Keep calm-yes, that was the right thing to do. Keep calm and kill Abby.
They stood together at the intersection of two hallways, where Travis had led him on the run. Instinctively Hickle had yielded to Travis's expertise in this situation, but he couldn't resist pointing out that Travis had not always been in command.
'She had you, man,' Hickle whispered.
'I saved your ass back there.'
'Yeah, you saved me.' Travis's face, lit harshly by the flashlight, was all hollows and crevices and bright, staring eyes.
'I owe you for it. Maybe later I can buy you a beer. At the moment we have more immediate issues to deal with. Abby's trapped but not defenseless.
She carries a thirty-eight Smith, five shots, and a five-shot speed loader in her purse.'
'How do you know what she's got in her purse?'
'Because I know her. It's what she always carries.
She's wasted two rounds already, so she's got eight left. How's your ammo holding up?'
'Eight rounds to go.'
'No spares?'
'Not with me. I left my duffel upstairs.'
'Eight shots is plenty. Just conserve ammo. My Beretta was fully loaded-sixteen rounds in the clip, plus one in the chamber. I fired three times, so I've got fourteen shots left. Between us we have twenty-two shots, and she has eight. If we play this smart, we can get her to use up her remaining ammunition. Then she's helpless, and we move in and put her down.'
Hickle licked his lips.
'Okay, how do we do it?'
'Cover the first doorway. I'll cover the second. We take turns firing one shot apiece into the office. If we're lucky we might nail her.
There can't be much cover in there; from what I can tell, it's an empty room. Even if we don't hit her, she'll have to fire back. We count her shots. When she's used all eight, she's history.'
'Why not go in after she's fired three shots? She'll be reloading.'
'Probably she's already replaced the rounds she wasted. Play it safe.
Don't take any chances. Not with her.' Travis switched off the flashlight, darkening the hall. His voice reached Hickle like the whisper of a ghost.
'Remember, one shot at a time. Save your ammo. The whole point is to outlast her.'
'I got it, I got it,' Hickle breathed, teeth gritted. He was impatient to get started. Here and now he hated Abby more than he hated Kris. It would be so damn good to make her dead.
Working by feel, Abby had found the speed loader in her purse and fumbled two rounds out of it, dumping the two expended shells in the Smith's cylinder and tamping in the replacements. She had five shots again, but five shots didn't amount to much against two armed men.
Her purse also contained a cell phone, but calling for help was not an option. If her pursuers heard her voice, they could pinpoint her position in the office and fire through the wall. Anyway, the police would never get here in time to save her. She was on her own.
Ordinarily she valued her independence, but not tonight.
In the hall the flashlight winked off. She heard movement outside. It sounded as if her two adversaries were splitting up. She listened, bent almost double to make a smaller target, her heart beating in her ears.
She wished she had light. The wish was irrational, since she couldn't use any light without exposing herself to enemy fire. She wished for it anyway.
She didn't want to die in the dark.
Through the first doorway, a purple muzzle flash and a cough of rifle fire. Hickle, coming in. She fired twice at the doorway and scrambled across the floor to a new hiding place as Travis's handgun spit out a single shot from the second doorway. She whirled on him and fired once more, then bolted to another corner and waited, the gun shaking in her hands.
They hadn't entered. She had been sure they were mounting an attack.
Now she saw it differently.
They'd fired in order to panic her into using ammunition.
It had worked. It would continue to work. She had to return fire, keep them out of the doorways, or they could shoot at will until a lucky hit took her out.
She removed the three cartridge cases from her Smith and replaced them with unexpended rounds from the speed loader Five shots, all she had left.
From the first doorway the rifle cracked again. This shot landed close.
She heard it puncture the drywall a yard from where she knelt.
She scurried to her left and fired once, not at Hickle but at the second doorway.
