Temple of the Gods - Andy McDermott [37]
Fiftieth floor, a brief rest . . . then on to the top.
He climbed to the doors, shining his torch over them. No alarms that he could see. A closer look revealed a locking bar; he pulled it downwards. A clank, and the door shifted slightly. He worked his fingers into the gap between the two sliding sections and forced them apart.
Like the maintenance hub, the skyscraper’s uppermost storey was sparsely lit, but Eddie could see well enough. In common with many tall buildings, the topmost level was dedicated to mundane but vital functions such as supplying air conditioning and water to the floors below. He moved deeper into the maze of humming machinery, sweeping the torch beam from side to side. What he needed was an access panel, some way into the crawlspace between this and the penthouse . . .
A hatch was set into the floor beside an air conditioning unit. He opened it and shone his torch inside.
The space below was cramped and dusty, about two feet high and a nest for numerous snaking ventilation hoses serving the penthouse. A squeeze, but he had been in much tighter confines. He climbed down and crawled towards the nearest air vent.
He found on reaching it that it was too small for him to fit through, but a quick survey with his light revealed fatter hoses nearby – presumably serving larger vents. He followed one of the larger lines until it curved down to attach to a slatted grille set into the floor. That was more like it! Once he disconnected the hose, he could either unscrew or simply kick out the grille and drop down into the penthouse.
Voices reached him as he arrived at the vent. Someone was in the room below. This particular entrance wasn’t a good choice, then, but there would be others. He was about to move on when he realised the speakers were talking in English. Curiosity got the better of him, and he peered through the slats. He was above a rather spartan lounge, a young Japanese man in an expensive suit addressing someone out of sight. ‘That should not be an issue,’ said the man. ‘We are all working for the same goal, so there’s no need to be concerned about details of overall responsibility.’
‘Being concerned about details is how I stay alive,’ said another voice.
Eddie froze, a sudden surge of anger and adrenalin rushing through his body. Stikes! There was no mistaking the measured, arrogant tones of the former SAS officer.
Scarber had told him the truth: his enemy was here, right now. He felt the weight of the gun inside his jacket, and almost without conscious thought reached for it. One shot through the grille would see his enemy dead . . .
He forced himself to stay his hand. Yes, he could kill Stikes, but he didn’t yet have an escape route short of grovelling back through the crawlspace and climbing down fifty floors. Besides, he now had an obligation to Scarber. The ex-CIA agent had lived up to her side of the bargain by giving him Stikes’s location; he should do the same by trying to destroy the statues.
He shifted position to get a look at his target. Stikes sat nonchalantly in a leather armchair, a glass of whisky on a small table beside it. His haughty, smug expression as he spoke was just as Eddie remembered – though the Yorkshireman took a small amount of satisfaction from seeing that his aristocratic features were disfigured, the vivid scar of a grazing bullet wound running from his forehead up through his blond hairline.
Stikes had made himself comfortable, so Eddie guessed he would be here for a while. Good; that gave him time to locate the statues before settling old scores. He started to move away to find another vent—
‘Dr Wilde is with Takashi-san at this moment,’ said the