Part 12 (1/2)

He shook his head. ”I can't. I still have work to do.” She sighed. ”Look, Phil, be straight with me, okay?” He opened his mouth to cut her off, but she talked right over him, the words flowing in a sudden rush. ”I can tell that you're unsure about this. I am too, if you want the truth. But I don't invite strange men into my house a good reason, and I think I've reason enough 11 the years we've worked together. If you don't we sh ould take our relations.h.i.+p any further, then SO.”

stare d at her, stunned into silence by her RON&, He had avoided romantic involvement by ”M for five years after that distant night in Sydney, _'F '”WL of necessity for the rest of his life. The habit A ingrained. t' not that,” he said finally, not entirely certain s U it was true.

you sure? Don't make me use the 'I'm a big girl; io- handle it' line.”

[email protected]* My heart. You've just taken me by surprise, all.”

Her eyes searched his. -Keally.” Lowering his voice until it was barely Wlt;; and speaking directly into her ear, he added: ”If weren't being followed, I'd be in like a shot.” She managed to stop herself looking over her ”Followed?”

she echoed. ”How can you tell?” ”A hunch; the same hunch I had before Blindeye, and what happened then.” He shrugged, prepared to 45M that he still might be wrong. ”I'll just duck back [email&#160;protected] see. If there is someone, I'll come back after I've <4o them.=”” i=””>

”Are you sure you'll be okay?” she whispered back, [email&#160;protected] lips hardly moving.

One hand touched his chest.

you want me to come with you?” ”No. It's harder to follow one than two.

Besides, you need the rest.” The crow's-feet around her eyes . but he wouldn't change his mind. He didn't ,want Barney involved, if he could avoid it - not because she wasn't capable, but because it wasn't her problem. ,.Don't worry, Barney. I'll be back before you know it.”

9fil”I hope so.” Before he could pull away, she kissed him firmly on the lips.

With a tight smile, she added: ”You f.u.c.king heroes. . .”

He watched her go into her house, waited until she had locked the door, then headed back the way they had come. The street was, as far as he could tell, completely empty - yet a sixth sense still told him that there was someone nearby. Until he was certain whether the sensation was illusory, or not, he wasn't prepared to take any chances.

He had ignored the itch at least once before when it had proved to be right, when it had warned of Cati's presence in the KCU grounds prior to Blindeye. He couldn't afford to take the chance that the itch was wrong this time.

Turning left off the main access road between B and C rings, he headed for his own home. No footsteps followed him; no shadows moved in the yellow halflight - ahead, behind or above him. The night was perfectly still. Only the occasional streetlight broke the darkness.

Without breaking step, he lit a cigarette with his left hand. Beneath his overcoat, through a hole in the pocket, his right hand unclipped the holster of his gun and lifted the weapon free. He gripped it tightly without allowing it to be seen. If Cati was following him again, he, vowed not to be the easy tail he had been before.

Five minutes after leaving Barney's doorstep, he reached the corner leading to his building. Instead of turning into his street, however, he continued past.

A hundred metres on lay a narrow alley that led to the entrance to an old restaurant, long abandoned. The ground floor was empty, apart from dust and spiders; an external fire exit linked the second floor to the rear of his building, hidden from the front. He had prepared the 631IN years ago as a means of making a hasty but knew that it would work just as well the y. 4. .Ti4, he reached the alleyway, he stopped to light ,,4 cigarette and study the street. Still no sign. He 4to five, then dropped the cigarette at his feet.

[email&#160;protected]

into the alley, he brought the pistol out of Tz, The first twenty metres, until he reached the MV4-1 of the restaurant, were the most dangerous.

7 in by damp, brick walls, he was acutely @161 141M Of his inability to dodge. The entrance to the bored like a giant eye into his retreating back. MIA41 he reached the restaurant, he ran inside, u checked. The darkness was complete, but he n r IV hesitate, hurrying up the stairs, along a corridor and into what had once been an A door on the far wall had a sign saying ”Fire” in -1-74 letters upon it.

'There he stopped, breathing deeply and evenly.

he listened. rorn far away came the sound of a siren, the sigh of and a whisper that might have been someone I IL But no breathing, no brush of fabric on skin, no boards. Nothing. No-one was following him. He allowed himself to relax slightly, and crossed to or;; door. To a casual glance, the lock appeared intact a quick tug on the rusty metal had it open. The door sighed softly inward.

Still cautious, he waited a moment tMot;- looking through it.

A metal walkway connected the restaurant's building 71 with his. A flight of narrow steps led down to street- level. Six metres below, the floor of another alley was littered with old crates. Behind a pile of rubble - 90.3He froze. Behind the rubble were two men watching the entrance to the alley.

From the angle of their heads, he could guess why they were there: anyone trying to sneak into his building either along the alley or across the walkway would be seen immediately.

He retreated back into the building, thanking his sixth sense for making him cautious - even though, in essence, it appeared to have been wrong about the details. He wasn't being followed at all; the a.s.sa.s.sins had been waiting for him to come home.

He had two choices: to make his escape, or to continue onward, somehow. If he fled, then the a.s.sa.s.sins would simply try again at another time, or even track him down to Barney's. He would have solved nothing. But if he kept going, he could get what he wanted from his home and possibly even learn who had put the price on his head as well.

Deciding quickly, he scrabbled through the detritus on the floor of the office until he found a piece of plastic building material about the length of his forearm. Hefting it, he returned to the doorway.

Opening the fire exit a second time - and praying that neither man would choose that moment to glance upward - he threw the stick as far as he could along the alley.

It clattered to the ground, horribly loud in the silence. The heads of the two men turned to face the sudden noise. One crept out of the shadows to investigate.

Roads ran swiftly across the metal walkway. A voice whispered behind and below him, thick with static. The words were faint, barely intelligible: ”Everything okay back there?”

Roads carefully opened the fire exit of his building and eased through it.

clear,” replied one of the men. ”Just a f.u.c.king radio fell silent. ik held his breath in the darkness of his building, to Will his heart quiet. It had been a long time #T.-- had done this sort of thing, but not long enough w-- forgotten the excitement of physical danger and sl(** surge of adrenalin it prompted. He had to himself to take it slowly, to remember that this -as simple as Blindeye had been. There were two in the alley behind him, plus, he a.s.sumed, an @,IA-Ovjf- number watching the front - and no security a.s.sembled en ma.s.se to cover his back. He had to every step as slowly as possible; one mistake could he was ready, he stalled a second longer to 41+1-- his contact lenses. The difference was slight, but T-1 every advantage he could get. *M rooms were one floor down. As he crossed to the he noticed footprints in the dust. They didn't 0, his own, and appeared to have been left by bare Thu, last time he had checked his emergency exit been three days earlier, and it had been clear.

:ci; felt safe to a.s.sume that his mystery caller had since Blindeye, or even more recently. Perhaps 4ts the last few hours; perhaps he was still in the -Gripping the gun tightly, he descended the stairs one one until he reached his floor. From there, he could Irm see the building's main entrance - but not Charlie. M k- cursed his luck. A call for attention was too risky. IR; would have to warn the elderly guard on the way if there was time. The door to his apartment swung open when he IT-W it: unlocked. The hallway beyond was dark andsilent, and smelled slightly of dust. Someone had definitely been inside within the last few hours.

He entered the first room in a running crouch, ready for anything.

The room was in turmoil; books lay on the desk with their spines broken; data fiches had been scattered on the floor alongside the frames of ripped paintings. The next room, his bedroom, was similar. The kitchen had also been ransacked.

But the apartment was empty. Whoever was responsible for the break-in had left some time ago.

The a.s.sa.s.sins, he wondered, or the man with bare feet? Or were they one and the same, as strange as that seemed?

Ignoring the mystery for the moment, he bolstered the gun and went back into the bedroom. In the dusty darkness under the bed was a loose floorboard; he felt for it and lifted it free. From the shallow airs.p.a.ce below the floor he pulled a slim, leather case and put it on the bed.

A sports bag lay in the ruins of the cupboard. He put the case into it, followed by a change of clothes and a few other necessities.

Barely had he finished when he heard a door open downstairs. He ducked through the apartment with the bag in one hand and his gun in the other, and peered down the stairwell.

Charlie had opened the door to let someone in. The streetlight cast a dull glow across the man's back and head, but a shadow across his face. The elderly guard said something that sounded like, ”Evening,” and the man turned to nod in reply.

Moustache, receding brown hair, snub nose: The Mole. Roads crept up the stairwell and back to the second floor, thinking furiously as he went. The thief had sonated Roads, and Charlie had let him in. That med how the Mole had been able to gain access to oms so often in the past. But why had he come The only possible explanation was that the Mole been following Roads - that his first instincts had right after all. the fire exit, he paused and slipped the bag onto shoulder. Opening the door an inch, he listened fully for movement outside.

ight,” said the voice on the radio. ”He's in. Get to positions.” The two men in the alley below moved, their feet ling through the rubbish. The fire escape creaked as y climbed it.

sank quickly back into the room: the a.s.sa.s.sins ”..like Charlie - obviously thought the Mole was him, I7_1d that their wait was over.

The two en stopped just outside the fire exit, their athing faint but clear. A minute pa.s.sed. Roads could ink of no other exit from the building apart from rough a window. He felt his ribs; the pain was better, ,51ut he didn't trust them to withstand the impact of a twenty-foot fall.

The voice on the radio spoke again. ”We're on. You get inside and keep an eye on the back while the rest of us deal with the old fart.”

Roads' stomach turned to ice. Caught as he was between the Mole and the a.s.sa.s.sins, he could do little to warn Charlie of what was about to happen.

The fire exit opened, and Roads. .h.i.t the first man in the face with a clenched fist. The second man - a short caucasian with long, blond hair - gaped as his partner went down. Before Long-Hair could yell for help, Roads punched him in the throat and pushed him back through the exit.