Hyde heaved at his seemingly laden body, drawing it up towards the skylight and the rain blowing in. His arms shrieked with cramp and the pain of his effort. Slowly, his head came through the skylight into a windy night, ragged clouds being scuttled and bullied across gaps of stars and the sliver of a new moon. His shoulders passed his elbows, and he kicked with his legs. The wood of the window frame groaned loudly, and he scrambled through, leaving the skylight empty, a hole through which Wilkes's cry of surprise pursued him.
The roof sloped away from him. Splinters of wet wood pained his fingers and palms. Other shouts below him now, and the concussion of two shots striking the corrugated iron of the roof, their impact shuddering through his hands and the soles of his feet.
Quickly, quickly, his mind bullied, echoing Wilkes's cries from inside the warehouse. He scuttled down the slope of the wet, ice-cold iron roof towards the guttering. He extended his legs, using his heels as brakes. The guttering coughed in protest, and shifted, but held. Hyde lay back for a moment, pressed against the roof listening. Running footsteps, shouted orders, pauses of intent silence — the hunt. He sat up, and leaned his body over the narrow alley that ran between the warehouse in which he had been trapped and its neighbour. Empty. Ten feet—?
He lowered himself over the gutter, clinging to it, wincing at every groan and squeak of protest it uttered. His legs dangled for a moment, and then he dropped.
'Here!' someone yelled, only yards away. 'Come on—!'
Inexperienced, some cold and previously unused part of his brain informed him. The man was slow, undecided, afraid.
Hyde was on his haunches, absorbing the impact with the ground, and he fought the momentary weakness after effort and the trauma of surprise and shock. The pistol was in his hand with only a fractional delay — kill it — danger — trap closing, insisted the cold, now-admitted, now-controlling part of him. Kill it.
Hyde fired twice, and the body to which the voice had belonged, the body that had prompted vocal chords to utter a cry for help, bucked away against the wall of the warehouse, then slid into a patch of deep shadow, losing shape, identity, volition. Then Hyde pushed himself to his feet and ran.
Broken wooden slats over a glassless window. He clambered up onto the sill, and kicked at the rotten wood. It gave inwards, instantly disintegrating into wet sawdust. He hesitated for a moment, hunched and staring into the interior of the dark, wet-smelling warehouse, and then he jumped, colliding almost immediately with cardboard that gave soggily, and rolled and tumbled through a stack of boxes and cartons.
No way back, another part of his brain informed him. The icy part had retreated momentarily. This part was nervy, feverish, close to panic. He had killed one of his own. Now, he was no longer one of their own, one of them.
They were going to kill me…
No way back. It's over. You're out. You're dead. He could smell the recently-fired gun in the damp warehouse air. He thrust it, warm-barrelled, into his pocket.
He scrambled out of the wreckage of old packing-cases and empty cartons, arms outstretched, and blundered across the warehouse. He could hear footsteps, then silence, then a curse. The elimination order on himself was now precisely defined and endorsed. There was now no possibility that they would not kill him if they had the opportunity.
Gate—
A minute, perhaps two, and then they would guard the gates against him. The only direction in which he could be certain there was not a blind alley lay towards the gates through which he had followed Wilkes. Perhaps he had less than a minute.
His claw-bent fingers collided with the opposite wall. Now he could almost see the faint gleam of its whitewash. Direction—? There were no noises from outside the window, from the kneeling group around the dead thing slumped in the shadow. Door, then—?
This warehouse was closer than the first to the gates, he would not have to cross their line of fire, they would be behind him from the start of his run.
He moved slowly, carefully towards the doors. To his adjusted night-vision, the warehouse now possessed a pallid gleam. The floor space was empty. He reached the double-doors, touching them with the urgent delicacy of a blind man. One huge, rusted bolt above his head and below it the doors rested slightly ajar from one another. One bolt—
He listened. His advantage was draining away. He touched the bolt, trying to ease it. It squeaked, then grumbled. He let it go, as if it contained a charge, held his breath, and then jerked at it. It slid noisily out and he heaved open the.drunkenly-leaning doors.
Voices—?
Traffic, then his own footsteps beating across the slippery cobbles, splashing noisily in puddles. Other footsteps, then the first shot. He began to weave in his running, slipped once, regained purchase. The gates ahead of him wobbled in his vision, but he could discern no one outlined against the street-lamps beyond. He collided with them then propelled himself through the gap he had left. A shot struck one of the scrolled ornamentations, and careered away. Then he was in the wide, cobbled street, and a trarn flashed sparks at him like a signal of assistance. He dodged one car and ran across the street, just as the tram stopped.
A very old woman was climbing painfully aboard, helped by a younger woman. Hyde, his breath escaping and being recaptured in great sobs, watched in a fever of impatience — left foot, stick, hip swung, right foot, totter, the young woman's arm braced against the weight that threatened to topple back off the platform. There was a figure at the gates, then a second shadow.
The old woman heaved her centre of gravity forward into her habitual arthritic hunch again, and then tapped a step forward. The younger woman placed her left foot on the platform. Someone — a tall figure, not Wilkes — was pointing towards the tram.
He had to clench his teeth to keep the words in. The tall figure began running across the road. The younger woman had both feet on the platform. Through the lighted glass of the rear of the tram, two figures were moving across the road like fish in a bowl; black, shadowy fish, hunting.
Three steps, and the old woman had still hardly mounted the lowest of them.
Trap,
Hyde turned his head wildly, realising his stupidity, his meek acceptance of the first assistance he had recognised. On the tram, he was trapped. There was nowhere else -
Trap, safe — trap — safe…
He pushed past the two women as gently as he could, squeezing past the surprised malevolence of the old woman's face and her hunched, tottering form. He passed down the tram. Now he was the fish in the lit bowl. Timing, timing. He could take them all the way on the tram, but they'd still be there when it emptied. They could wait. It had to be timing, but he was already beginning to realise that the information was erroneous. Its origins were fictional.
Two men hopping on and off the New York subway — a film, Christ, nothing but a film—! Wires crossed, not training, just a bloody film—!
He should never have got on the fucking tram—!
Standing opposite the centre door of the tram, he watched the door by which he had entered. Both doors were open. Wilkes's face, lighting up and hardening in the same moment, bobbed into view behind the two women, still not seated. Where was the other one? Wilkes's expression promised him full retribution; malevolent, full of hate, full of pleasure. Where was—?
Wilkes's smile was broadening, and the tall man was standing on the pavement opposite the centre door. They'd seen the film, too. Hyde let his shoulders slump. The tall man stepped onto the platform, raised a foot to the step.
The driver waited. The tall man stepped back. He'd follow in the car, having blocked Hyde's escape. The driver pressed the bell, and the door moved fractionally. Hyde went through without touching it and the Heckler & Koch's barrel struck the tall man across the forehead. He staggered back, blinded by pain and sudden blood.
Inside the lit glass bowl of the tram, Wilkes's mouth opened like a fish's. Hyde stepped over the tall man's still form, and ran, at first as if to catch the tram, then into a narrow, ill-lit street, guessing it headed towards the
