Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [120]
But the second bullet had the effect Manfield was after. The other three came to their senses, stopped, reached for the two staggering men who were shot, one collapsing to the floor. The others scrambled to get away from Manfield, pulling the second wounded man with them, shouting obscenities at him. In all the tumult they blocked the assassin’s view of his targets though, so Manfield moved forward and to the side of them.
The Russian woman, he realized, had been hit, but not fatally. She was on her feet, one hand to her bleeding head, swaying to stay upright, looking like a drunk who’d just been in a bar fight. The two Americans were moving quickly away from him down the hallway, their backs turned. Manfield pointed the pistol to kill them when one of the now fallen Russian men tried to rise up. From the floor a powerful hand seized his arm. He’d put the men completely out of his thoughts in his single-minded desire to kill and had moved too close to them. One of those he’d shot, half-sitting, half-lying on the floor, had hold of his arm and was twisting it down and out of its socket in a practiced move, forcing Manfield to bend nearly to the floor. He screamed in pain as the Makarov dropped from his hand. He let out a cry, the words springing from his childhood, coming out in Chechen. “Help me!”
The other man he’d shot grabbed for the gun, aimed at the assassin, then emptied the clip into his body. As Manfield crumbled to the floor with a look of disbelief, the one who’d grabbed his arm spit on him, then said in Russian, “Chechen scum!”
* * *
Outside, in his idling taxi, Vakha saw none of this. Instead, he spotted the young Russian woman stagger out of the building, holding one hand to her head, blood streaming down her clothes. She managed to get into her car and drive off quickly just as the American couple exited the building. They paused, looked for the car, spotted his taxi, and ran toward him.
“Do you speak English?” the woman said.
“A bit,” Vakha answered, watching the building for the Englishman out of the corner of his eye.
“Take us to the Metropol Hotel. Hurry!” The couple scrambled into the rear seat.
Vakha hesitated, still waiting, but no one else emerged from the building. Then he heard the wail of militia cars and engaged the clutch. By the time the police arrived, he was well clear of the area and had decided he’d done enough for the Cause for one night. If the Englishman was still alive, he was on his own.
62
MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION
METROPOL HOTEL
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5
9:06 A.M.
Jeff climbed from the shower, his skin dripping with hot water, and angled his body so he could see the wound without its bandage. It was an angry red, but had stopped bleeding. Since it hadn’t been stitched, there’d be an ugly scar, but they’d not risked a doctor. Instead, when they’d arrived back at the hotel Sunday night, Daryl had retrieved their key from the desk and taken him directly to the room.
Leaving him alone, she’d gone to the hotel shop, where she bought cotton, bandages, and tape. Back in the room she used an airplane-size bottle of vodka from the minibar in the room to sanitize the wound, then bandaged it. “It doesn’t look serious,” she’d said, “but I’m no expert. It’s up to you.”
“No doctor. We can’t risk it.”
“Here,” she said, handing him two pills. “Take these. They’ll help with the pain and let you sleep.”
Jeff hadn’t asked what they were. He’d taken them with gratitude, cleaned up in the bathroom, then stretched on the bed. Eighteen hours later he awoke. Daryl ordered room service for him, gave him two more pills, and he’d promptly slept all night again. Only now, after he dried himself and left the bathroom, was he beginning to feel normal. He’d had no idea how exhausted he’d been.
He opened the curtains to