Charlie fielded Grudzev’s AK-74 on the run. The bullets in its big banana clip could barely dent the firewall. The armor-piercing grenade in its underbarrel, however, might blow the thing down.
He slid to a stop in the stairwell across the subbasement, slamming his hip against the stout handrail. He couldn’t afford to think about it. The stairwell was far enough from the firewall that the grenade, while in flight, could have the time it needed to arm. The stairwell also looked solid enough to serve as a shield against the lethal shrapnel that would fly at him if the grenade did its job.
He raised the rifle to his shoulder, found the firewall in the rungs of his front sight post, said a silent prayer to all comers, then absolutely pulverized the trigger.
Nothing happened. The grenade didn’t budge.
Was it a dud?
Had Karpenko supplied Grudzev with a neutered AK-74?
Ninety-seven point eight pounds of penthrite and trinitrotoluene would turn Drummond to mist in less than a minute.
Take an extra second, Charlie urged himself.
Check out that little lever just in front of the trigger.
The safety, maybe?
He flicked it downward, raised the rifle, and tried the trigger again. The underbarrel responded with a disheartening sproing, like that of a spud gun.
The grenade flew out. It hurtled through the hundred feet or so of subbasement and punched the firewall, creating a colossal, magnificent explosion.
Charlie closed his eyes and still could see the fiery flash. His ears shut down. Pressed flat against the inside wall of the stairwell, he felt a hard gust from the hail of passing shrapnel. He had no idea whether the shrapnel included bits of firewall.
Once the gust subsided, he crept into the subbasement. He couldn’t see what damage, if any, the grenade had done. The firewall area was blocked by a mass of dust and smoke.
He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and plunged into it. The air smelled and tasted like a spent match. He felt his way toward the firewall. Then he felt the firewall itself-where he’d hoped to feel nothing.
He opened his eyes. Through a burning haze, he saw that the firewall remained anchored to the surrounding concrete walls and ceiling-unfortunately, the blast-proof frame had lived up to its billing. The metal slats themselves had puckered outward, however, leading to a cavity at its base big enough for a midsized dog to squeeze through.
Charlie tried, an act of contortion. A steel shard cut into his neck. Another ripped into his sleeve and dug into his arm. At the cost of two strips of skin, he made it through.
In the tunnel, the dust kicked up by the grenade had grayed the air. Using a hand as a visor against it, Charlie made out the forms of two men standing together halfway down: almost certainly Drummond and Fielding-had Drummond revealed he’d triggered the bomb, Fielding would have fled, at the least. Charlie couldn’t see enough of their shapes or features to tell who was who. Except for a small circle glowing faintly.
The lit end of a cigar.
Charlie fired the AK. The cigar hit the floor along with Fielding, the splash of sparks momentarily illuminating his rifle and the rage on his blood-splattered face.
One of his bullets sparked the wall inches from Charlie’s head. Charlie didn’t hear it; he still couldn’t hear anything. He countered by spraying more of his own bullets, sending Fielding staggering in retreat. He disappeared into the smog, perhaps into the complex itself, allowing Drummond to run to Charlie.
Drummond shouted something. Charlie couldn’t hear what, but Drummond’s urgency made it clear he wasn’t suggesting they stick around. Charlie estimated forty seconds remained for them to get out of the tunnel, feel their way across the subbasement, climb two flights of stairs, and exit the building through the Perriman offices. He wasn’t sure whether it was possible. But trying beat the hell out of the alternative.
He ran with Drummond for the firewall. Along the way, he emptied his banana clip at the shards around the hole, effectively enlarging it, then cast the spent rifle away. At the end of the tunnel, Drummond stepped aside, allowing Charlie through first. Charlie pulled Drummond out on the other side. Together they raced across the subbasement and into the stairwell.
They were halfway up the stairs from the basement to the ground floor when the detonation came. The stairwell filled with white light so intense that Charlie couldn’t distinguish any single object-not Drummond at his side, not even his own hand in front of his face. Although he couldn’t hear, he heard the blast, and he felt it in his stomach and his knees and his teeth. The blast current hit like a bludgeon. It snatched him, and in its hold there was no telling up from down, until he came down chin first onto the edge of a stair.
The white light dissolved into swells of hot gray dust and blue-black smoke that stank of burned rubber, inflaming his lungs, and revealed that the walls of the stairwell were buckling, the ceiling was raining chunks of concrete, and Drummond was gone. Utterly vanished. Possibly he’d fallen into the sooty abyss where the bottom five or six stairs had been a second ago.
As Charlie peered into it, the remaining stairs, including those beneath his feet, cracked apart into nothing.
He flung a hand at the stout handrail. Because the lower mooring had fragmented, his weight caused the rail to pop free of the wall. The upper mooring held, enabling him to climb the rail while it swung.
He belly flopped onto the landing, then scurried on scorched-and possibly broken-hands and knees into the Perriman offices.
Other than the billows of white dust, tinted red by the illuminated exit signs, all was as before. Except, of course, the building might come down at any second.
If Drummond had made it out of the stairwell, Charlie figured, he would have headed down the hallway to the front vestibule, which opened onto West 112th Street.
There were no footprints in the fresh coating of dust there.
Charlie felt like slumping into one of the plastic workstations and crying. He hauled himself toward the vestibule. Halfway, he sensed motion behind him. He spun around, his hope reignited, all of his parts feeling like new again.
It was water, spraying from fire sprinklers.
His hearing had begun to return. He could make out the howl of a smoke alarm, though barely. To his ears, it was a drone.
Still he could hear Drummond. At least he thought he could. From the office next to the stairwell, the one whose door said D. CLARK, DEPUTY DISTRICT SALES MGR, N. ATLANTIC DIV. “Is there a fire?” Charlie thought he heard him say.
Charlie bounded down the hallway and threw open the door. Drummond swiveled sharply in his desk chair. A coating of white dust made him look like a baker. He seemed irked that there had been no knock. Taking in Charlie, his demeanor shifted to puzzled.
“Charles, what are you doing here?” His eyes settled on Charlie’s Perriman uniform. “Are you working here now?”