Memoria (24 page)

Maggie shook her head.

"Then we just might make it to the parking lot."

He stepped to
ward
the rough wall, barely
visible
in
the pale emergency lighting.
"We'll climb down."

Maggie came closer
and peered
down.

"You can do it," Frank pull
ed
off his jacket.
"We're at an advantage at the moment. We can escape before they get to us. Come on, let's go."

"On one condition. I'll go first."

Frank turned and looked into her huge eyes, filled with determination.

"Why?"

His throat went dry. He couldn't let he
r go first. Too risky for her.

"Because you ha
ve the
attaché
case
," s
he stepped to
ward
him. "Come on now."

Before squeezing himself between the
wall and the cabin, Frank pulled the handle
on the
elevator's
roof, blocking the
hoist mechanism.

"To make sure they don't squash us
...
accidentally," he explained.
"The temptation might be too much."

They could descend by one of two
routes. They could either use the
slapdash
steel ladders welded into the
beams
. Alternatively, they could use the cables.
Not the elevator cables but those that snaked along the shaft walls providing seismic reinforcement.
This was a much faster way but also much more dangerous.

Below, not every
story
had elevator doors.
Frank
peered into the dark void
. He couldn't care less why some levels didn't have elevator access. They had to
act fast, that was all that mattered.

He chose the latter escape route. He ripped
the
sleeves out of his jacket and
wound them around Maggie's wrists. For a second he wondered if letting her go first was a good idea. But she was right: if she needed help,
then for him to
climb
up,
attaché
case
in hand, would prove much harder than
to
descend to
ward
her.

This time he didn't use his tie to secure the
attaché
case
handle on
to
his wrist. Instead, he
dre
w his
trouser
belt tight and
attached
the
attaché
case
to it.
The belt dug into his waist.
Frank
passed the en
d of his tie under the belt and secured
the ends
around his neck.
This way it was more secure, but also easier to breathe.

"Ready?" Not waiting for her to answer, he
grasped Maggie's shoulders and helped her to get hold of one of the cables. "If you need to stop,
squeeze
your legs around it."

"Okay," slowly, the girl
started to descend.

Frank
looped
the remains of his jacket-turned-waistcoat around the cable.
He wrapped the loose ends around his wrists, breathed out and followed Maggie.

He feared that they would switch off the
emergency lighting in the
shaft
. That would
prevent them from seeing the large painted floor numbers on the walls
and, basically, would stop the descent
.
But the light stayed on. Their cha
sers only appeared in the
shaft
several minutes later
. By that time, Frank and Maggie were far below.

The girl got the hang of it and was sliding down
confidently,
paying no attention to the voices overhead. Frank slowed down to glance at the torch beams cutting through the dark above, and whispered breathlessly,

"How much left?"

"Fifteen storie
s,"
Maggie answered without stopping.

The pain in his left leg grew. After yesterday's fight, his ribs ached. The trouser belt dug into
his stomach. If only he could loosen it up, let go of the weight and
grab
a breath of air.

"Stop," Maggie whispered and
froze.

A cramp shot through Frank's hip. He swore under his breath and clasped the cable tight just over the girl's head. They'd stopped opposite
the elevator doors, and he didn't like it.

"Why did you stop?" he winced with
pain. "We only have a few floor
s left
...
"

"There's somebody down there."

Frank pulled himself to the wall and
lowered his body onto a steel beam circling the
shaft
. "I can't see anyone."

"I assure you. I heard someone speak."

He looked at the doors. They could open at any moment. T
hen they couldn't escape their pursuers any longer.

"We have no other way," Frank said. "We've got to move."
But h
e didn't
really
believe
he
could do it.
He had no energy left.

"We could get out here and use a
normal
elevat
or," underneath, Maggie placed a foot onto a
beam and, pressing her back to the wall,
moved closer to the doors.

A powerful beam of light hit them.

"There they are!" a voice
growled
.

"Everyone to level three!" another one ordered.

Hadn't Maggie said they still had fifteen floors to cover? What did the voice mean, then?
Or did they mean
by levels
the distances between those floors where the service elevator stopped?

The girl pulled a lever
overhead
.

"Help me!" she snapped.

Frank managed to get down. Together they
prised
the doors open and fell into the opening.

"Get up," Maggie
croaked
in his ear. "They'll be here in a minute."

Frank rolled over to his side and opened his eyes. The hallway swam before
him
. The pain in his leg rose and filled his ribs, stabbing his lungs.

"Get up," Maggie pulled his elbow.

Frank undid the trouser belt, picked up the
attaché
case
and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hold on to
me," Maggie offered him her shoulder.
Leaning on her arm, he limped along the corridor.

"Now
," she glanced back, "why are we lower than I thought we were?"

"Don't
...
know,"
Still
exhausted
from
his sliding
down the cable,
Frank gasped for air. He
clenched his teeth and forced his feet to walk, hoping against hope that
Max
was still waiting for them.

"There," Maggie pushed a door to their right. They found themselves
in a stairwell. "Hurry up. There are
only two flights left."

"Go find
Max
," Frank grabbed at the railing.

The girl hurried
ahead
.

When Frank reached the parking, he nearly walked und
er the speeding limo. It braked.
Max
leaned from his driver's seat and opened the passenger's door for him. Maggie jumped out from the back seat and helped him into the car.
As soon as she got back in,
Max
turned on the headlights, drove to the
ramp exit at
the back of the building and stepped on the gas.

The Maybach gained momentum on the slope and sped out into the deserted street flooded with light. For a split second all four wheels lost
traction with the ground. The front bumper smashed the
lowered
barrier
into pieces. In the back, Maggie tumbled off her seat and screamed. Yet unbuckled, Frank hit h
is head hard against the roof,
then
jarred
his jaw
on
the dashboard
before
momentum pushed him back into his seat.
Without slowing down,
Max
locked the wheel
to the right
manipulating the gas and
brakes until the car stopped skidding
and sped away from the corporation building.

'Buckle up!"
Max
yelled. "It's not over yet!"

Finally, Frank
located the safety belt buckle above his right shoulder, pulled it across his chest and buckled up.
He looked b
ack. Maggie had scrambled back i
nto
her
seat and was
now desperately
pushing the
clasp
in
side
the lock.

"Wrong lock!"
Max
glanced at the
flashing buckle-up pictogram on the dashboard.
"The left one!" He sent the car to the left. With
a scream, Maggie tumbled over her
seat. "Buckle up!"
Max
growled.

Frank heard a click in the back. The pictogram turned to green.

"Where're we going?" Frank stared in front of him, the
breakneck
speed making him forget the pain in his legs and ribs.

The coach didn't yet answer when a massive shadow covered the sun. A chopper whirred
over the Maybach, turned around over an intersection
a
head
and froze, descending and blocking the way.
Masked armed men in black uniforms a
nd helmets sat in the cargo bay. Memoria's orange flower marked the chopper's side.

Without hesitation, the coach turned the car onto the empty sidewalk, clear of people and cars because of the President's arrival. The limo smashed into a
s
hop
window
and
crossed the store
knocking over a few mannequins inside
. The
car's
left wing
hit
the side of an enormous display wardrobe
, collapsed the sales counter and rammed through the opposite glass wall into the adjacent street.

Frank glanced b
ehind his shoulder. The chopper whirred
over the intersection, turning. It raised its
tail boom, gained speed and started to catch up.

"They're coming!" Frank shouted.

"I know," the coach said looking in the mirror.

At
the next intersection,
he took a sharp turn and rammed a patrol car.
The massive Maybach threw it back
wards
, squashing the
patrol car's
hood
: its windscreen cracked and the
light
bar
went tumbling off the car roof.
The patrol car
jumped the curb, hit the
wall
of a building
,
then rolled out into the street blocking the way.

Max
locked the wheel and stepped on
the
gas in o
rder to avoid it when the
low-flying
helicopter
advanced from behind a
nother
building
.
To avoid a collision,
Max
jumped on the brakes. The chopper pilot
tried to maneuver
h
is way around but miscalculated.
T
he chopper
's
rotor hit a building and t
ore
through its side
,
smashing the tiled wall
.
Unheard
in the roar
of the engines
, the windows
started
burst
ing
.
Bank
ing to the right, the helicopter sped forward, overtook the limo and
turned around, swaying mid-air over the smashed police vehicle.
Black smoke bel
ched from its sparkling rotor.