What followed would always be a blur in Kirsten's recollection. One instant they were together, she under his arm, Max practically carrying her along, and the next he'd shoved her into the backseat of the cab, and was standing on the street, standing there alone, leaning through the door from outside.
'Selangor!' he shouted at the driver.
The man behind the wheel jerked around to look at him through the safety partition, his shoulder rattling the clutch of religious trinkets dangling from his rearview mirror.
'Sorry, no long distance, lah' he said, shaking his head.
Blackburn jammed a hand into his pants pocket, hurriedly yanked out his billfold, and tossed it into the front seat.
'There's more than two hundred American dollars in it,' he said. 'Take her and it's all yours.'
Kirsten was gaping up at him with a kind of helpless desperation. The driver, meanwhile, had already lifted the billfold off the seat and was peering into it with astonishment.
'Max, I don't understand,' she cried shrilly. 'What's happening? Why aren't you coming?'
'Stay with your sister,' he said. 'If you don't hear from me in a few days, I want you to get in touch with a man named Pete Ni—'
Max felt a hand seize on his left elbow from behind. He tensed, trying to keep himself planted between the two attackers and the cab.
'Get moving!' he screamed into its interior, then pulled his head out of the door, slamming it shut with his right hand. He could see the reflections of the two attackers in the window — one still holding onto him, the other trying to scramble past him to the car.
For a seemingly endless moment the cab remained stationary, and Max was sure the driver wasn't going to bite at his offer. Then he saw him push down the lever of the meter to start it running, and expelled a sigh of relief.
Her face bewildered and terrified, Kirsten shifted around in her seat as the taxi angled from the curb, staring at him through the rear window.
Their eyes met briefly, his narrow and resolute, hers moist with tears.. and then the taxi joined the heavy flow of northbound traffic, and was gone.
It was the last they ever saw of each other.
Max heard a short, frustrated breath escape the man that had taken hold of his right forearm.
'You come with me, kambing,' he hissed, and tightened his grip. His lips were against Max's ear, his body pressing up behind him.
Max didn't budge. The man's partner had jogged after the cab for several yards, then been forced to get out of the way of speeding traffic, scrambled back onto the sidewalk, and turned around — but he hadn't yet returned to where they were standing.
Which left Max with a small but workable opening.
Moving with reflexive swiftness, he brought his left arm around in front of him, reaching across his middle, shifting his weight onto his right leg to pull his captor sharply toward him. As the man staggered forward with one hand still clamped over Max's forearm, Max put his free hand over it, gripped three of its fingers, and bent them back hard.
The man released him with a gasp of pain and surprise, struggling to regain his balance.
Max moved away from him and wheeled in a full circle, glancing up and down the street. A few nearby pedestrians had paused to gawk at the scuffle, but most were hustling past as if they hadn't noticed anything unusual. Maybe they really had not, or maybe they were just mindful that, however prosperous, Singapore was still a dictatorship where it was best to mind one's own business.
Either way, he had more urgent concerns. The magazine reader was coming at him from the left, and now he had the jaywalker for company. A third member of the strike team was hustling toward him from the right. Counting the man he'd just shaken off, and the man who had been chasing the cab — both of whom were behind Max — the odds against him were at least five to one.
The only direction left open was straight ahead, toward the hotel.
He ran across the sidewalk and bounded up the stairs to its entrance.
Max cut a line through the lobby without a backward glance. He was acquainted with its layout from his regular stays in UpLink's long-term guest suites, and he knew what he was looking for. To the rear of the desk and main lounge area was a bank of elevators and, on their right, a short, straight corridor leading to a service entrance. Beyond that, a stairwell that would presumably take him down to the basement and loading doors. No hotel security guards on duty, or at least none in sight… and he'd been hoping their presence might turn aside his pursuers. Still, if he could reach the service entrance before his pursuers caught up to him — a big 'if' since they'd been following right on his heels — he'd be able to shake them by ducking out the side of the hotel.
Max saw a clot of new arrivals making a commotion at the check-in desk, German tourists from the sound of them. Hoping for momentary cover, he plunged into the noisy, milling group, then moved on past the entrances to the hotel dance club and bar, past the elevators, and over toward the service entrance, still not looking back over his shoulder — no time for that, no time at all.
The gray metal door was slightly recessed from the wall and had a pane of wired glass set into it at eye level. No one was anywhere near it. Max turned the knob with his left hand, pushed the door open with the flat of his right, went through, and stepped from carpeting to bare concrete.
Blackburn took a hurried look around — narrow flights of stairs ran up and down from where he stood on a wide landing. He started toward the descending stairs, but got no further than the end of the landing before the door crashed open behind him, a hand clamped onto his shoulder, and he was pulled backward with tremendous wrenching force.
Max caught hold of the rail an instant before he would have gone stumbling off his feet. He whirled on whoever had grabbed him, found himself standing with a butterfly knife pressed against his throat.
'Come with me.' It was Jaywalker. Facing him from inches away, his fist clenched around the weapon's double handle. 'Now.'
Blackburn met his gaze and saw no hint of human emotion in it, only a sort of cold, vortical emptiness. Then he heard muffled footsteps and broke eye contact, switching his attention to the door pane. Magazine Man and two others were approaching from the outer hall. They would burst through onto the landing within seconds. And there was still nobody else around.
Blackburn stood motionless. His hands at his sides. The blade against the right side of his throat, less than an inch below the ear, where it could easily slice into his carotid artery. Blood trickled down from where its razor edge had broken his skin.
His mind raced. He was carrying a Heckler & Koch MK23 in a concealment holster against his waist, but his assailant wasn't going to give him the chance to draw it. He was in the most vulnerable position he could imagine, and the close quarters left precious little room to maneuver.
So what, then?
He didn't have a split second to waste debating it with himself. Sweeping his left arm up from his side, he slammed the outer part of his forearm against the back of Jaywalker's knife hand, knocking the blade away from his throat, then grabbing his wrist to keep him from bringing it back up. Caught by surprise, Jaywalker tried to tear free, but Blackburn held fast to him, bringing his knee up into his groin. Jaywalker doubled over, gasping for air, his knife clattering to the floor. Max moved in closer and followed with a rapid combination of punches to the head — left cross, right jab, left hook. Gasping for breath, his nose and lips bleeding, Jaywalker staggered back against the rail. Max didn't relent for a heartbeat. His chin tucked low in a boxer's stance, he hit his opponent with another smashing blow to the side of his face, putting all his weight into it, wanting to take him out before he could recover… and before his friends came to his assistance.
But he only got half of what he wanted. As Jaywalker dropped to the floor in an unconscious heap, the fire door winged open and the others bolted through onto the landing. The one in the lead was small and wire-thin, wearing a baggy tan shirt, chinos, and Oakley sunglasses. Running up behind him, Magazine Man was perhaps a head taller and a good deal bulkier.
It was Oakley that proved to be trouble of a sort Max never could have seen coming.
He was reaching for his gun when Oakley dropped into a low squat, and, spinning on one leg, snapped the
