Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [96]
He just had time to register Kirilenko’s presence, other people on the periphery of his vision, when he fired blindly. He was fixated on Kirilenko, who had thrown himself behind a table. He aimed and was in the process of pulling the trigger when he heard a deafening noise.
Blown violently backward by the bullet that entered his skull, Harry Martin was dead before he hit the floor.
TWENTY
“I HOPE you rot in hell,” Kirilenko said, spitting on Harry Martin’s corpse.
Jack wasted no time riffling through Martin’s suit. He found his cell phone, a wad of cash, passport, two credit cards, an international driver’s license, and little else.
“There’s nothing here to indicate this man was anyone other than Harry Martin,” he said.
“No surprise there.” Annika was busy going through the security guard’s uniform. “Ah, but look what I found,” she said, holding up a set of car keys.
At that moment there came a hammering on the door, along with querulous voices raised in mounting fear. Jack grabbed the chair on which Kirilenko had been sitting, wedged the back under the doorknob at an angle so the back legs were braced against the floor. At the same time Annika raised the blinds on the window, only to find that the glass was reinforced with wire mesh. The hammering became more insistent, they could hear someone calling for help or backup, they couldn’t distinguish which. Annika took a second chair and smashed it into the windowpane, then she repeatedly slammed it against the wall until one of the legs came loose. She gripped this, hacking away at the wire mesh to make a hole large enough for them to get through.
They heard a shot from behind them and the door lock exploded inward. Now the only thing between them and the officials in the corridor was the angled chair, which was already shuddering from the pressure being exerted on it from the other side of the door.
“Let’s go!” Annika said, helping Alli through the aperture she’d made.
Jack went next, then Kirilenko. Finally Annika herself climbed out. Without any other choice, they began to run away from the building, a route that took them directly onto one of the runways. A jet was just on the turn from the taxiway onto the head of the runway. They could hear its engine winding up to launch it along the runway and into its glide path up and away from the airport.
Behind them the office they had vacated was swarming with people, screaming and shouting. A shot was fired at them, and they broke into a ragged zigzag as they reached the runway itself. By this time the jet was already rolling along the tarmac, picking up speed with the firing of its four massive engines.
Over the mounting roar they could just make out the high-low sound of a police car siren, and then, as Jack threw a glance behind them, the car itself careened into view. They were so close to the oncoming jet they began to choke on the fumes, and Jack pulled Alli close to him, away from the nearest engine on the outside of the jet’s left wing. They bent over double as they ran awkwardly across the vibrating tarmac, the foreshortened sight of the oncoming plane making it look as large as an apartment building.
The careening police car, putting on speed, was heading directly for them, and Jack, realizing their only hope was to maneuver