stairwells.
The hit men continued toward the door where the hot spot existed, seeing smoke rising from the bottom and sifting through each side. Suddenly the door burst open, flames bursting out at the phony agents, burning their eyes, faces, hands they'd thrown up for protection with their guns extended when suddenly they were each engulfed in a shooting flame.
People had begun to pour from the rooms, racing past Bishop and into the elevator, taking it. Others screamed and ran for other exits. Through the commotion, the flame and smoke, Bishop saw the two hit men had caught hell, their eyes fried, each man flailing like a spiked tarpon, each going to the hallway floor, scurrying to place some distance between themselves and the shadowy figure that suddenly burst from the room, wearing a gas mask, holding a butane torch with the wand out, a dark bag tucked below his arm.
Bishop raised his gun to fire but one of the hit men suddenly found his feet and stood between him and the fleeing figure on the other side of the flames. Bishop steadied his weapon and dropped to one knee, choking on the smoke. He aimed and wanted to fire but the other two men remained in his way as they fought their own frenzied battle before him. Their clothing aflame now, smoke masking the killer, the dark figure in gas mask disappeared through a door marked stairwell.
Bishop smashed his gun into a glass containing a water hose. He pulled the alarm and turned the water on as furiously as he could, the hose getting away from him, spraying ceiling and floor until he got control of it and aimed the spray on Lorentian's two men, dousing them and the fire in the hallway.
Each man was hurt badly with serious burns to the face, arms, and body. Others had come up behind Bishop now, however, and they were helping their supposed comrades with words of encouragement.
'Ambulance is on its way!' Bishop assured the men he knew only as Steve and Rollo. He couldn't help but feel great pity for the two. Their faces were seared red, their eyes scorched, hair and skin falling away with the smoke that curled from them. 'Hang in there, you guys,' he said to their suffering screams.
Bishop dialed 911 for assistance on his cellular phone, but paramedics came rushing onto the floor even before he could get out his request. 'Over here,' he called out to them.
Firemen with hoses rushed past Bishop and the injured men, into the flames, beginning their battle with the room fire. Bishop knew what they would discover inside. He also knew the room number for Chris Dunlap's room in the building. Was the killer foolish enough to return there?
Bishop grabbed the elevator when it opened, carrying more FBI and police. He took the car down two flights where he glimpsed a killer, no longer wearing a gas mask but the distinct odor of smoke-choked clothes seemed to be rising off him, although the entire building now seemed permeated with smoke. The same stench had filled the carpeting and Bishop's own soggy clothes, so he could not be sure. The other man was about to dart into the room supposedly being used by Chris Dunlap this night, when Bishop leveled his gun at him.
'Hold it, right there, Mister Dunlap!'
'What?' The man jumped. 'My name's not Dunlap. It's Sorensen, Thomas Sorensen.'
'FBI,' Bishop shouted, his gun extended at the harmless-looking little man before him. ''Put your hands where I can see them.'
'Me? FBI? What's this all about? Is this a stick-up?'
'Drop the case, you fire freak, and put your hands against the back of your head, or I blow your freaking head off where you stand.'
'All right, all right… Jesus, what's Martha going to say when I tell her about this?'
The man was unremarkable, plain, without any single outstanding characteristic. He wore a dark business suit and didn't look to be a touring tourist. He stood perhaps 5'6' or 7', weighing in around 170, the size of their suspect, small in stature, like a Lee Harvey Oswald, Bishop was thinking when suddenly the black case dropped with a bang to the floor, thundering out its weight in a clear code.
''Hands behind your fucking head, now!''
The little man gulped while lifting his hands behind his head, then he turned full around to face Bishop straight on.
'That's more like it.'
'I wish you would tell me what in God's name this is all about.'
'I just witnessed your coming out of a murder scene two flights up, Mr. Phantom. Charon, is it? I've been chasing you since Vegas.'
'Vegas? Charon? But I've never been to Vegas, not yet. Our bus won't arrive there for another two, three days.'
''Then you are on the bus tour? So, what's in the case?'
'I sell life insurance-First Continental Casualty; have since '87. One of the couples on the bus wanted to buy some security after the near accident we had today coming down the highway into Salt Lake.' The man's mild manner was off-putting, and he had a ready answer for everything, and for a split second, Bishop wondered if he hadn't gotten the wrong man, and Bishop worried that if he had the wrong guy here at gunpoint, that the killer could be escaping the hotel through the underground parking lot or someplace else in the hotel. Yet this guy stood outside the door marked 522, and so it followed… so, he knew this must be the man posing as Chris Dunlap. Unless the desk or the stupid tour guides had gotten some number transposed.
'You're posing as Chris Dunlap, aren't you?'
'Posing? An impostor? Me? Dunlap… Dunlap… Why isn't that the unmarried, eerie fellow who sits in the back of the bus and talks to himself and no one else? Martha gets angry with me 'cause I talk too much to everyone. I'm Thomas G. Sorensen.' He brought one hand down as if to offer it in a handshake, but Bishop gestured with his gun for the man to keep his hands up, and he did.
'Open the door and let's talk to Martha then,' suggested Bishop who wondered now if the tour guide had gotten the room number wrong. This fellow had no red hair, and he saw no red rash along his neck as reported by the clerk in Vegas.
'Martha's not going to like this.'
'Fuck Martha! Fish out your keys and do as told. Open the fucking door.'
'All right, all right.' The man fished into his pocket for the electronic key the size of a credit card. Unlocking the door, he was saying through it, 'Martha, it's me and we have company. Are you decent, dear?''
Bishop took a step closer and when he did, the suspect raised his keys and sprayed Bishop's eyes with mace, causing Bishop to backpedal and scream. Bishop heard the gunshot, thinking his own weapon had gone off, when suddenly he felt the blood dripping down from his chest. He'd been shot by the suspect; and his head went in a dizzying spiral, and he realized only now that he was lying flat on his back, paralyzed, his life's blood draining from him.
He heard the footsteps of the Phantom as he raced away. Bishop sent up a hue and cry for help. 'He's here! Somebody stop him! The murdering bastard's getting away! Damn me! Damn me to hell if I didn't let him get away!'
What few people who hadn't evacuated their rooms began to reluctantly peek from behind their doors, and the sound of a man in obvious distress convinced some to step out of their rooms while others telephoned the desk to ask for medical assistance, and still others dialed 911.
SIXTEEN
The thing we run from is the thing we ran to.
Jessica literally threw the bills at the cabbie, grabbed her valise, and raced into the Hilton, where she found FBI men had scattered in all directions, one agent taking her aside for her own safety, thinking her a civilian. 'I'm FBI!' she shouted, unable to produce her badge and ID while he had her hands in his grasp. She pushed and pulled away from the man when suddenly she saw that several men were being rushed out on stretchers, two of them
