any worse than the alarm that was still ringing throughout the hotel. He pushed the door open, and, as promised, a second alarm went off. But it was merely an electronic bleep that could barely be heard above the din of the fire alarm.
Once outside, Quinn pushed the door shut behind them and looked around. The roof was a large flat space with vents and pipes sticking up here and there.
To their right was Leipziger Strasse. Quinn hurried over to the edge of the roof and peered down. Three fire trucks were parked in front of the hotel. Not far away, dozens of people were huddled together, trying to stay warm. A moment later Orlando was at his side.
'Who are they?' she asked, pointing to a group of three men standing off to one side.
Unlike most of the guests, the men were fully dressed in warm, dark clothing. Two of them seemed to be watching the building. The third was talking on a cell phone. They could have been with the fire department or hotel security. But where were their uniforms?
'Whoever they are, I don't think they're looking for a fire,' Quinn said. 'Come on.'
He stuffed his gun into the pocket of his jacket, then headed to the east end of the roof. Unfortunately, the Mandola was a stand-alone building and didn't butt up against any other structure. But the top floor of the hotel did boast luxury suites with open-air patios only ten feet below the roof. It was something.
'You first,' Quinn said.
Without a word, Orlando slipped over the edge and dropped to the patio below. As soon as she had scrambled out of the way, Quinn climbed up onto the elevated lip that surrounded the edge of the roof. He was just beginning to lower himself over the side when a voice called out,
Quinn let go.
His feet landed on the tiled deck of one of the patios, barely missing a chaise lounge. His pursuer was seconds behind him and knew exactly where he'd come down.
'He saw me,' Quinn whispered.
But it was unnecessary. Orlando was already on the move. She quickly climbed over the dividing wall onto the patio of the suite to Quinn's left.
Quinn was closer to the one on the right. So he climbed onto the wall at the edge of the patio, then tight-roped his way onto the next deck. He got down and ducked out of sight just as a dark form appeared over the edge of the roof.
Quinn watched the form from his hiding place against the wall that separated the patios of the suites. The man was speaking into a phone.
'I don't know,' the man was saying in German. 'He went over the side, but I don't see him.'
Quinn's pursuer removed the phone from his ear and slipped it into a pocket. He leaned over the edge, peering intently at the patio beneath him. As he did so, a faint light from the street illuminated his features. Quinn placed him almost immediately. He was one of the two men in the photograph Orlando had taken, the photo of the men who'd put the information from Duke under Quinn's door at the Dorint.
Above Quinn, Borko's man swung his legs over the edge of the roof. He dropped down onto nearly the same spot where Quinn had landed. The wall that separated the patios ran diagonally from the retaining wall at the edge of the building up to the roof. Good for cover, but it also now blocked Quinn's view of the man.
Quinn checked to be sure the suppressor was firmly attached to his gun.
There was a patio chair only a few feet away. Quinn reached over and gave it a push, then pressed himself tightly against the dividing wall as the chair scraped loudly across the tile.
Almost instantly he heard the man's steps rushing toward the dividing wall. A moment later the man's head popped over the top. He was looking deep into the recesses of the patio. Quinn crouched directly below him, unseen, gun in hand.
The man jumped up on the retaining wall, his left hand grabbing the diagonal wall between the suites to keep his balance. To his right was a drop of nine stories.
'You can stop now,' Quinn said in German.
His pursuer started to whip around, a gun in his free hand. 'I'll kill you before you have a chance,' Quinn said.
The man stopped, still gripping the dividing wall with his left hand.
'Drop your gun,' Quinn ordered.
The man remained motionless.
'Do it,' Orlando said.
The man jerked his head in her direction, nearly losing his balance in the process. She was standing only a few feet away from him on the patio they had all jumped down on.
'Careful,' she said. 'It's a long way down.'
The man looked from her back to Quinn, a rueful smile on his face. 'So you found each other,' he said.
'The gun,' Quinn said.
The man opened his hand and allowed the pistol to fall over the edge of the building toward the sidewalk below. So this one wasn't one of Duke's incompetent recruits. He was obviously a pro.
'Am I staying up here?' the man asked coolly. 'Or may I come down?' 'You can relax right where you are,' Quinn told him. 'For the moment.' 'Now what? We just wait here until my friends arrive?' 'So they can kill us?' Quinn asked. 'I don't think so.' 'Why would we kill you? Those were not our instructions.' 'Right,' Orlando said.
'You don't believe me?'The man started to reach
