He pushed the trolley back to the janitor’s room, left it out-side and retrieved the rest of his explosives.
The eighth floor was the next calculated target location. Stratton considered taking the elevator, thinking he might need the trolley, but then decided to reduce the risk of running into anyone by using the emergency stairwell.
He walked back past the elevators to the end of the corridor where there was a heavy fire door with an emergency-exit sign above. He pushed it open: according to the plans the only fire door with an alarm was the one leading into the underground car park. He looked up through the spiralling stairs and banisters to the top. There were faint noises coming from above. They sounded like voices but he could not tell for sure.
Stratton moved quietly up the white-painted concrete stairs. The banister rail was made of simple tube steel. Each floor was clearly numbered, with an emergency light above the number, and as he reached the eighth he stopped at the sound of a cough that echoed from somewhere above. He carefully pulled open the fire door and poked his head inside to see that the floor was basically furnished but still un occupied.
He stepped into the corridor and made his way along to the central room. The design was similar to the fourth-floor one but obviously the dimensions were much smaller. He headed for the central pillar that was the same size as below and took four charges from the bag, which he then left on the floor with the remaining four charges in it. He climbed onto a desk, pushed a ceiling tile aside, pulled himself up and replaced the tile.
The process of placing the charges took a little less time since the length of the horizontal girders was shorter and he had now practised his technique. Twenty minutes later he was making his way up the fire stairs, again keeping his hands off the banisters and staying away from the centre in case someone was looking into the stairwell.
As Stratton reached the twelfth floor he paused as he heard another cough, still from above, and then what sounded like the rustle of a newspaper. It came again and he carefully peered up, catching sight of a foot on the banister rail as if the person was sitting back in a chair. He calculated it to be on the sixteenth floor, one below the penthouse. No doubt one of Skender’s guards was up there.
As he carefully opened the twelfth-floor fire door voices filtered from inside. Since they were not close by and sounded as if the talkers were in a room he lowered himself to his knees and ventured to peer inside. The plate- glass wall allowed him to make out several blurred figures in the larger central room, a half-dozen or so who, since they were not speaking English, he assumed were Skender’s thugs. Looking along the corridor and into one of the offices he noticed a camp bed. Further scrutiny of the distorted images of furnishings on the other side of the foggy glass walls suggested that the floor was being used as sleeping quarters for the large guard force that Skender had brought in to secure the building.
The elevators opened and Stratton let the fire door close enough to see through the gap. It was Cano and he let the door close completely.
Cano called out something that Stratton could not understand and a few moments later the voices went silent.
Stratton carefully opened the door to take another look but now the floor appeared to be empty. Then he pushed the door open and stepped inside, letting it close behind him. Being even closer to the top the floor area was smaller still, with space for only half a dozen offices.
He made his way along the curved glass-panelled corridor and stepped into the central room that contained a couple of dozen camp beds surrounding the main pillar. Here the column was tapered, narrowing towards the ceiling. He moved quickly, climbing onto a chair, and within a few seconds was pulling himself up into the ceiling space.
32
Cano stepped out of the elevator, followed by half a dozen of his men who dispersed to various posts inside and outside the building. ‘Klodi?’ he called out.
Klodi, his hand still heavily bandaged, was at the entrance, chomping on a purloined chicken leg which he put into his pocket as his boss called out. He hurried over to him.
‘Where’s Tony?’ Cano asked.
‘I dunno,’ Klodi said, looking around. ‘He was supposed to be on the elevators.’
‘That’s why I’m asking,’ Cano said, becoming irritated.
‘Hey,’ Klodi called out to one of the uniformed security guards. ‘Where’s Tony?’
‘Tony who?’ the Mexican guard asked.
‘The big guy. One of our people who was stood at the elevators,’ Klodi said.
‘Okay,’ the guard nodded, remembering him. ‘Last time I saw him he was taking out the trash.’
An image suddenly flashed into Cano’s head of Tony getting into the elevator with a man in a waiter’s uniform who had his back to him.
Cano unclipped a radio from his hip and put it to his mouth. ‘This is Vleshek,’ he said into the radio. ‘Anyone seen Tony Dosti?’
A moment later a voice broke over the little speaker ‘He ain’t on the fifteenth.’
‘Ain’t on the tenth,’ another voice said.
‘He’s in the lobby on the elevators,’ another voice said.
Cano gave up and called an elevator.
‘Shall I come with you, boss?’ Klodi asked.
‘Next person leaves their post I’ll cut their balls off. Make sure everyone knows that,’ Cano said as the doors opened. He walked inside, hit the garage-parking button and the doors closed.
Klodi nodded and turned to see the Mexican guard grinning.
‘You think he’s joking, ass-wipe? That goes for you guys, too,’ Klodi said.
The Mexican lost his grin and Klodi walked back to the main entrance.
Cano stepped out of the elevator into the garage and looked around the concrete vault. He walked to the dumpster cage, which was open, and stopped to take another look in every direction. The only sound was the faint hum from the air-conditioning plant in a room at the other side of the car park. Then a slight noise came from behind him and he turned to scrutinise the dumpsters. The noise came again. At first he thought it was a rodent but as he stepped cautiously into the cage it began to sound more like a moan.
Cano opened the first dumpster and looked inside to find it filled with trash. Then the surface of the garbage moved ever so slightly. Cano reached in a hand and pulled a bag aside to reveal the green-painted wooden planks that had made up boxes which had been used to pack the Albanian artefacts that decorated Skender’s penthouse. He lifted one of the planks to expose an extremely ill-looking Tony who was barely hanging onto life.
‘Klodi,’ Cano shouted into his radio. ‘I’m in the garage. Get down here and bring a couple of the guys. Now!’
A few minutes later Klodi and two others were hauling Tony out of the dumpster and onto the concrete floor where he lay prostrate.
‘He don’t look too good,’ Klodi said, kneeling over the man who appeared to be having problems breathing but was still trying to say something. Klodi lowered his ear to Tony’s mouth. ‘Anyone here speak Italian?’ Klodi asked.
Apparently no one did since there was no reply.
Cano was growing impatient and shoved Klodi aside. ‘Who did this?’ he asked Tony. ‘What happened?’
Tony mustered a breath then said something that Cano could not quite understand.
‘Say it again,’ Cano said, moving his ear closer.
Tony softly repeated the word.
‘A waiter?’ Cano repeated, not quite understanding.
‘English,’ Tony struggled to say.
The penny dropped with a clang and Cano stood, raising the radio to his mouth as he moved towards the elevators. ‘This is Vleshek. Close all exits. No one gets out of the building. Do you understand? No one!’
Stratton stepped through a fire-exit door into an alcove that led directly into the lobby. He paused to observe
