into the lobby.
Two of Skender’s men lay dead behind the doors, killed by a dozen steel balls that had penetrated the wood. The marble floor was covered in shards of glass from the shattered windows on the balcony above where Klodi’s body and those of his colleagues lay bloody and broken.
Stratton walked to the elevators and pushed the call button. One of the doors opened. He stepped inside, hit a button and the doors closed behind him.
A few seconds later they opened on the tenth floor. Stratton stepped out into a strong wind blowing through the building, unchecked now that the win dows and virtually every glass partition on the floor had been smashed by the ball-bearings.
Lying dead were three of Skender’s thugs. Stratton hoped that a similar fate had befallen the rest of the guard force.
He walked to the fire exit and opened the door. As soon as he stepped onto the landing the sound of running footsteps came from below. He looked down through the spiralling banisters to see a mob of Skender’s men heading up in support of their boss.
Stratton pulled back his jacket, grabbed hold of the rail to brace himself and pushed the second and third buttons on the transmitter. The explosions, almost simultaneous, were deafening as the entire building rocked violently. The lights went out and Stratton almost lost his balance as a huge crack appeared in the outer wall in front of him. Dust and shards of concrete fell all around.
The main spars radiating from the central pillar to the outside corners of both the fourth and eighth floors buckled and dropped, the supports disintegrating as large sections collapsed. As Stratton had calculated, the sides of the pyramid were compromised at this point and they bowed inwards, reducing the overall structural strength. But the umbrella effect remained intact, maintaining the configuration of the floors above.
Stratton regained his balance as the rocking subsided and the thunder gave way to shouts and screams from below. When that ceased all he could hear was falling debris. He looked down to find the metal banisters twisted awkwardly and long stretches of the staircase broken off, with daylight coming in through a massive hole. There was a hand sticking out into the well but it was not moving, the rest of the body having been flattened beneath a large chunk of reinforced concrete.
Stratton looked overhead, unable to see beyond the next floor due to the dust, and made his way up the stairs.
Skender was holding on to a piece of furniture to steady himself while the entire penthouse gradually stopped shaking. It had been whiplashed by the blast travelling up the central pillar and expending itself through the top, sending ornaments flying from shelves and pictures off walls. Several windows cracked and tiles and debris fell from the ceiling, a large chunk landing on Skender’s model village and flattening a row of luxury apartments. Skender was stunned, and not just physically, as the real impact of what was happening struck him. He was under serious attack and by just one man. Stratton was indeed not a bluffer. Yet the building remained standing and Skender was alive: he could not help wondering if that was because Stratton had failed or because it was not yet over.
Skender looked for Josh, the reason for this assault, and saw him cowering in a corner, holding his knees against his chest and looking terrified. Then a sudden thudding outside the window startled Skender and he spun round to see that it was a helicopter flying past. Then it came around and hovered, a sign on its side declaring it to be from Channel 7 News. A cameraman sat in the doorway, aiming his camera at the building.
Skender wondered where Stratton was at that moment. No doubt he was watching from a rooftop somewhere or perhaps even catching it all on television. Then Skender looked back at Josh as he con sidered holding the kid up in front of the window to let Stratton see, the obvious drawback, of course, being that the Feds would also know that he had the boy. But as the dust settled he warned himself not to be too hasty. Perhaps it was indeed over and, if so, it was now Skender’s turn. He promised that Stratton and anyone to whom he was remotely related would pay for this day. And the first victim would be the boy.
Josh never took his stare off Skender, afraid of him now, the more so because of the way the man was looking at him. The explosions had scared Josh witless and his thoughts had been constantly of Stratton since Skender had said that he was coming. He wished that his godfather would soon appear and take him away from this nightmare. But the doubt grew steadily stronger that his hero was not going to save him now.
Vicky sat in her office, looking at a file on her desk but unable to concentrate. She’d been like this since Josh had been kidnapped and Stratton had left her standing in the street. She fought to focus herself and started reading the page from the top again. After a couple of sentences Dorothy walked in and Vicky sighed heavily at this latest interruption.
‘I got something to take your mind off things,’ Dorothy said, a bandage around her head covering a wound she had received from Josh’s kidnappers.
‘So have I but I need some peace and quiet to do it,’ Vicky said, a little testy.
‘Excuse me for livin’,’ Dorothy said, turning around to leave.
‘Dorothy,’ Vicky called out, regretting her rudeness.
Dorothy stopped and looked at her, wearing a fake frown.
‘Sorry,’ Vicky said, but not entirely meaning it. ‘What is it?’
‘You’re forgiven,’ Dorothy said. ‘Some new building in Culver City is getting blown to hell by some crazy guy. He blew out all the windows and now he’s setting explosives off inside. Can’t beat the news for entertainment these days.’
‘Thank you,’ Vicky said, going back to her file. ‘I’ll catch it tonight. I’m sure they’ll repeat it.’
‘That the same file you’ve been reading since this morning?’
Vicky put down the file and looked at Dorothy who rolled her eyes and walked away. ‘Okay, okay, I’m going,’ she said.
Vicky picked the file up again but was now distracted by something that Dorothy had said. The word ‘explosion’ reminded her of Stratton and their last night together when the car blew up in the alley behind his apartment, and also of the FBI agent who had asked her several questions about Stratton and bomb-making.
She pushed it out of her mind and started to read the file once again. But it was now impossible. She put the file down, got up, walked around her desk and out of the office.
Dorothy and two other staff members were in the recreation room watching the television and Vicky stood in the doorway where she could see it. A banner across the bottom of the screen declared breaking news as a recent tape was replayed showing the initial explosion that shattered most of the windows of the pyramid building. It then flicked back to the live scene from the roof of a building overlooking the square where a correspondent was standing in front of the camera, the building in the background.
‘Moments ago we heard another explosion, possibly two explosions together, this time inside the building itself. We’re told this is not the work of terrorists but of just one man who police think could actually be in the building. Police gave no details about the man, who he is or why he is doing this. The building here in Culver City belongs to Albanian billionaire Daut Skender. Why he is under attack remains a mystery.’
Vicky’s mind raced when she heard the word ‘Albanian’. Stratton had said something about Albanians being involved in Josh’s kid-napping and that he was going to face them. But surely this was a co incidence.
The next view of the building came from a media helicopter circling it. Vicky left the doorway and sat down on the couch beside Dorothy.
‘Told you it’d take your mind off things, didn’t I?’ Dorothy said.
Stratton arrived on the fourteenth floor, walking carefully up the stairs to reduce the noise of the glass underfoot. The building constantly creaked and groaned as supports complained about the added stress.
He stepped through the fire exit, checking the floor as he made his way into the central room, and went to the massive pillar. He had reconsidered the dangers of blowing the twelfth floor, the final explosion, because the upper floors might completely collapse. But another part of his mind urged him to keep to his plan and have confidence in his initial calculations that although the floors might sag they would hold together since the weight on the spars radiating from the pinnacle would be far less. Whatever happened structurally, the safest place to be was close to the central pillar since it was the strongest part of the building and would not collapse.
