Chapter Seven
The subtlest of visual cues jacked Blackburn to heightened alertness. He could not have expressed the feeling in words; it was instinctive, programmed into his neural circuits by long years of battle experience with the Special Air Service. And he trusted it no less than his eyes and ears.
The man who had triggered his reaction had been poring through a magazine as he waited at the bus stop — so why had his eyes flicked over the upper edge of the magazine as Blackburn walked by? And why the sharp look of recognition on his features, the abrupt stiffening of his posture?
Why, all at once, had Blackburn gotten the powerful sense of being watched?
Perhaps twenty yards ahead of him, Kirsten was starting down the stairs in front of the Hyatt's entrance. Max slowed his pace and pulled back his gaze. He ranged it from right to left across an area several feet away and parallel to him, then reversed direction, scanning a larger, farther sector until it once again encompassed Kirsten. His attention had divided itself, automatically and simultaneously keying into separate frames of reference: the particular and the general, the narrow and the wide, points and lines.
Blackburn marked the bodies of the people within eyeshot as stationary and moving objects, drawing correlations between their positions and the broader patterns of foot traffic. Scouting for any peculiarities in their interrelationships.
Several were readily apparent.
There was a man launching off the curb directly across the street to his left, beyond the pedestrian crossing, then weaving through traffic toward his side of the street — a rare sight in a country that punished jaywalking with steep fines. Another was advancing from a short distance up the sidewalk, shoving through the crowd. Two more were rapidly converging on the hotel from opposite sides of the entrance.
Blackburn snapped a glance behind him, felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle. The man he had passed at the bus stop was pushing toward him, the magazine he'd been holding no longer in evidence.
All four of the men were around the same age, Asian, and wearing the same basic style of clothing.
The entire surveillance took under eight seconds and left him with little to consider. He had learned to be aware of everything that happened around him and quickly digest what he observed. It was clear now that he had walked into a trap. A closing trap. He did not know for certain who his enemies were, how they were deployed, or even their total number… but he did know the positions of five of them.
He walked on, trying to control his nerves, making a tremendous effort to conceal the fact that he'd spotted his attackers. Kirsten was halfway down the steps now, the men nearest the hotel closing in on her. Which could only mean they — or whoever had sent them — knew something about the Monolith files. He had to to get her away from them. But how!
Scanning the area near the hotel, he came up with an idea.
Without wasting an instant, he reached into his sport jacket for his palm phone, flipped it open, thumbed the power button, keyed up one of the speed-dial numbers stored in its memory, and hit 'Send.' Hoping to God that Kirsten's cell phone was on, and that she would answer his call if it was.
Kirsten had almost reached the sidewalk when her cellular trilled in her purse. She paused, looked toward Max, and smiled. He had lifted his own phone to his ear. Was he going to mutter sweet nothings to her as he came up the street?
Moving against the handrail, she set her briefcase down on a step and got out the phone.
'Hi-ho,' she said into the mouthpiece. 'I see you're finally—'
'Don't talk. There isn't time.'
Confused, she looked across the short distance between them and saw that his face was as serious as his tone.
'Max, what's wrong?'
'I said to be quiet and listen.'
Her stomach clenched with tension. She swallowed, nodded, her hand squeezing the phone.
'There's a taxi stand up the block to your right. Walk over to it as fast as you can without running.'
She nodded again, looking at him with wide, questioning eyes. The stand was in the opposite direction from Max. What was going on?
Suddenly the emotion gripping her middle was no longer anxiety but fear.
The disk. God, this had to be connected to the—
'I want you to jump into a cab and get the hell away from here. I'll contact you soon. Understand?'
She gave him a third nod.
'Go!' he said.
Her heart knocking, she replaced the phone in her bag, snatched up her briefcase, and hastened down the remaining stairs to the street.
The two members of the strike team nearest the woman saw her stop and pull out her cell phone, then looked down the street at Blackburn, saw him talking into his phone, and immediately knew they'd been discovered.
One of them raised a hand to signal this to the others.
Bare seconds later he saw her resume walking, reach the bottom of the steps, and swing away from Blackburn toward the cab stand.
He and his companion increased their pace, pushing through the crowd, confident they were close enough to intercept her before she reached it.
Blackburn was still a few steps away from Kirsten when he saw the man turn his head toward her, turn his head toward him, and then give what was clearly a signal to his companions.
Not good, Blackburn thought. If the man had seen both of them on their phones, he wouldn't have to be a genius to conclude they were talking to each other, and that his group's little ambush was no longer any kind of secret.
The gesture would have warned his friends to hurry up and make their move.
Kirsten had reached the pavement, turned away from him, and started hastily toward the taxi stand, where a line of robin's-egg-blue Comfort cabs were waiting to pick up fares. The pair of men who'd been covering the door had veered off after her, right on her tail, blocking her from Blackburn's sight.
His teeth clenched, Max bumped quickly past a group of women with shopping bags hung on their arms, shuffled past some dark-suited businessmen, and then moved up behind the pair at a fast walk, using every available ounce of self-restraint to keep from actually breaking into a run. If he did that, it was a safe bet his attackers would do the same, and he had no way of telling whether he'd made all of them, or whether there might be someone he hadn yt identified even nearer to Kirsten than the two men in front of him — and in an easy position to outrace him.
He gained on the men, gained some more, and when he was almost on top of them suddenly swung around to their left, quickstepping off the curb, then stepping back onto it, passing them, putting himself between them and Kirsten. He was three feet behind her now, maybe less.
Almost close enough to touch her.
Almost…
He heard hurried footsteps coming up behind him, and lunged ahead with a burst of speed, no longer checking himself, knowing there wasn't any room left for hesitation. Reaching her at last, he hooked his right arm around her shoulder and swept her along toward the idling cabs, bracing her so she wouldn't trip head over heels onto the asphalt, using his body to shield her from their pursuers.
Rigid with shock, Kirsten stumbled along uncomprehendingly for several feet, trying to resist — then all at once realized it was Max and loosened up, letting him steer her forward.
She glanced over at his face as they approached the cab stand, her eyes bright with distress, their cheeks almost touching. 'Max, dear Heaven, Max, I thought you were one of them. I—' 'Shhh!'
Kirsten fell silent, her body trembling against him. She had no sooner registered that he was looking past her toward one of the standing cabs, than he reached out and tore open the taxi's door so violently she had the wild idea that its handle would come off in his grasp.
