MONOLITH (33 page)

The blast as the petrol exploded sounded like a muffled roar higher up inside the Crystal Tower.

Deep within the subterranean car park the sound was like a high pitched shriek as the petrol ignited but the higher up the building the sound became more subdued.

Such was the power of the explosion it still caused a slight shudder to run through the building as high as the fifteenth floor. Windows rattled in their frames and several on the lower floors cracked but didn’t break.

High up in the Penthouse apartment Andrei Voronov did not hear the blast but he was alerted to it only moments after it happened.

Two dark-suited security men hurried into the apartment, causing Voronov to look up irritably from the large wooden writing desk where he sat gazing at some papers and a laptop.

‘What is it?’ he snapped.

‘Someone is in the building,’ the first security man said. ‘There is a fire in the underground car park. It looks as if it was set deliberately.’

‘Is it contained?’ Voronov wanted to know.

The first man nodded.

‘Find whoever set it,’ Voronov said, flatly.

The two men hesitated.

‘And when we do?’ the second asked.

‘Deal with the problem,’ Voronov said, returning his attention to his laptop. ‘Do you understand me?’

They both turned and left, passing the man with the goatee beard who was on his way into Voronov’s room.

‘We have visitors,’ Voronov said. ‘Someone has started a fire in the underground car park.’

‘We should call the police,’ the man said.

‘We don’t need the police,’ Voronov told him. ‘Besides, are you going to explain to them what is happening?’

‘What if those who started the fire have already escaped?’

‘Then we will find them but I don’t think they have left the building. I don’t think they want to. Not yet.’

He looked evenly at the other man then hit one of the keys on his laptop. The screen was immediately filled with images, streamed from the dozens of security cameras on each floor. The floor Voronov had selected was the second floor and clearly visible in one panel were two figures. A man and a woman. Voronov hit another key and the image grew larger. The man with the goatee moved nearer, squinting at the pictures.

‘The journalists,’ he said, quietly.

‘In search of their story,’ Voronov said. ‘I knew they would come. Well, if it is an ending to their story they want they will find it is not a happy one. Not for them anyway.’ He glanced at the other man who nodded. ‘Tell security to isolate the second, third and fourth floor and then keep clear. For their own safety tell them to keep clear.’

The man with the goatee understood and nodded.

‘I want the building shut down,’ Voronov went on. ‘Close and lock every exit door, shut down the lifts too. No one comes in and no one gets out. No one. And turn off all the security cameras on every floor. It will save destroying the discs later in case anything is caught on film. These journalists will be dealt with tonight, once and for all.’

Again the man with the goatee nodded.

Voronov turned his attention back to the image on the laptop, a slight smile on his lips.

Jess ducked involuntarily when she heard the blast, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the stairwell from which they’d both just emerged.

She and Hadley found themselves in a long corridor that stretched away from them and then turned at a ninety degree angle about fifty yards further on.

It was from around this corner that the first of the security guards appeared.

Jess spun around, dragging Hadley with her and headed back into the stairwell, all too aware of footsteps pounding after them. She sprinted for the stairs and hurried up them, almost stumbling on more than one occasion but pulled upright by Hadley who jabbed a finger at another emergency door as they reached the next floor up. Jess shot a quick glance behind her and realised that the security men hadn’t reached the stairs yet. Then, like Hadley, she crashed through the doors to her right and onwards into another seemingly endless corridor.

‘In here,’ Hadley said, breathlessly, grabbing at the handle of the nearest door and tumbling into what seemed to be an office. Or would be one day. There was very little furniture inside it other than a couple of desks, some piles of boxes and some filing cabinets. Nowhere to hide, Jess thought, her heart thudding against her ribs.

Hadley obviously had the same thought because he glanced frantically around the room then looked despairingly at Jess and pointed at a pile of boxes stacked high against one of the far walls. They both moved towards it, ducked down behind the inadequate rampart and waited in silence.

Long moments passed then Jess took a couple of steps forward.

‘What are you doing?’ Hadley hissed, keeping his voice low.

Jess waved a hand before her then moved slowly towards the office door. She paused for a second then opened it a crack and peered out into the corridor beyond.

The corridor was empty.

Jess ducked back into the room and scuttled across to Hadley who was still crouched down behind the boxes.

‘I don’t get it,’ Jess whispered. ‘They were right behind us but there’s no sign of them now.’

‘Unless they know we’re in here and they’re just waiting for us to come out,’ Hadley offered. ‘Was this part of the plan?’

‘We never had a plan did we?’ Jess asked, raising her eyebrows.

‘Well, to get out of this without getting killed might be a good place to start,’ Hadley said, joining her as she moved back towards the office door.

He moved in front of her also easing the door open wide enough to see out into the corridor beyond.

It was still deserted.

He moved his head a little way out, glancing both ways, his attention caught by a security camera that was mounted at one end of the corridor. Hadley was about to duck back into the room when he noticed that the red light which had been blinking on the camera was now off. He stepped out into the corridor and still the light did not come on, neither did the camera move and track him as it would normally have done. He frowned then motioned for Jess to join him which she did.

‘The security cameras are off,’ Hadley whispered, pointing to the dormant contraption. ‘Why the fuck would they do that?’

Jess could only shake her head.

‘And if they called the fire brigade to put out the fire they’re taking their time getting here,’ she added.

‘Maybe they never called them,’ Hadley offered.

‘No fire alarms went off,’ Jess reminded him. ‘Fire doors are supposed to close automatically. Maybe there’s more unfinished than we first thought.’ She paused a moment. ‘Unless the building is trying to help us.’

Hadley merely raised his eyebrows then moved off down the corridor towards the bank of lifts, noticing that another security camera above the lift doors was also inactive. He hit the CALL button and waited.

Nothing happened. The button didn’t illuminate and there was no sound from inside the shaft beyond the closed doors. Hadley pressed again but still there was no response.

‘Looks like we’re walking up,’ he said, nodding towards the exit doors at the far end of the corridor.

‘Are they all out of action?’ Jess asked, scanning the closed doors and the unlit numbers above each one.

‘All except the private one that leads up to Voronov’s penthouse,’ Hadley told her indicating the panels before them. ‘And we’re not getting in that one.’

Jess nudged him, pointing at the illuminated numbers above the door of the private lift. The ones at the top were flaring into life.

‘Someone has,’ she said, breathlessly. ‘I think someone’s coming down.’

They both stood rooted to the spot for a moment watching the numbers lighting up in descending order as the private lift moved lower.

‘Let’s move,’ Hadley said and they both ran towards the far end of the corridor.

He reached the doors first and pushed against them, slipping his fingers beneath the bar that ran across them and trying to lift it. It wouldn’t move. The doors remained shut. Jess helped him, using all her strength to try and shift the recalcitrant bar but it was no use.

‘We’re locked in,’ she said. ‘Someone locked it from the other side.’

‘Let’s try the doors at the other end where we came in,’ Hadley suggested.

They both turned and sprinted down the corridor, glancing again in the direction of the private lift as they passed. They could see that it was still descending. It had reached the thirty-second floor by now and was still on its way down.

Jess and Hadley ran on, finally reaching the other safety doors.

They too were locked.

‘They know where we are,’ Jess said.

Hadley nodded.

‘We’ve got to find somewhere to hide,’ he said, breathlessly. ‘At least give ourselves a chance.’

They headed back up the corridor again, opening doors as they went, looking for any room that might offer sanctuary. Any room that might have a stick of furniture in it that they could conceal themselves behind. Or something that they could use as a weapon to protect themselves.

Every room seemed to be empty.

And the lift was still descending.

They both knew its destination was the floor they were now on.

‘Call the police,’ Hadley said. ‘Do it now, Jess.’

She reached for her phone, letting out a gasp as she looked at it.

‘No signal,’ she said.

The lift was at the twenty-fifth floor now and it was still descending.

Hadley knew they had no chance.

That unassailable fact was beginning to burn its way deeper and deeper into his mind. He had been apprehensive when they’d first entered the building, doubtful of their chances of pulling off what they come here for but now as he glanced up at the illuminated numbers above the lift he was even more certain of that eventuality.

Jess also watched the numbers, each one that lit up showing how low the lift was now going. It was on the twentieth floor now and still coming down. She estimated they had another ten or fifteen seconds or less before it arrived at the floor they were currently on.

And then?

She ran towards the door of another room and pushed it open not even knowing what she was looking for. Somewhere to hide? Something to fight back with? But why hide? It was only prolonging the inevitable. They might as well stand and wait for their fate, embrace it as a man who walks to the scaffold embraces the realisation and inevitability of his own demise. But something deep inside her, some faint and desperate voice told her that they could still find a way out of this seemingly impossible situation and it was that tiny spark of false hope and desperation that drove her to shove open another door a little farther up the corridor.

The door swung open and Jess looked inside.

There must have been workmen inside this very day she told herself because there were tools lying around. And tools, she thought, could be used as weapons. Where there were weapons there was a chance. Slim though it might be it was better than nothing.

She snatched up a hammer, hefting it before her and motioned to Hadley who joined her inside the room, enveloped now by the gloom. Blinds had been fitted to the windows and closed and they shut out any natural light from outside. It was almost impenetrably dark inside the room and Jess felt a little safer in the blackness that wrapped itself around her and Hadley. He ducked down and picked up something bulkier that Jess recognised as a nail gun. He held it before him like an oversized pistol for a second before pressing himself against the wall just like Jess was doing.

In the corridor outside they heard the lift finally bump to a halt.

Hadley gripped the nail gun more tightly, his finger over the trigger, his heart hammering against his ribs. Jess held the claw hammer in both hands, trying to steady it and also trying to stop herself shaking.

Then they heard the voices outside.

Whispered words spoken in an accent they had come to recognise.

Hadley looked across at her then down at the small strip of light beneath the door, creeping beneath from the blazing fluorescents in the ceiling of the corridor.

Shadows moved across this strip.

Whoever was out there was right beside the door.

Jess gripped the hammer more tightly and fixed her gaze on the handle.

There was more whispering then silence again. In that oppressive stillness Jess was sure that whoever was on the far side of the door would hear her heart beating it was hammering so hard against her ribs. She tried to swallow but her throat was as dry as chalk.

The handle moved and the door opened a fraction.

Hadley swung the nail gun upwards and waited.

If he’d believed in a God he would have said a prayer. For himself, for Jess and for any other fucker in this stinking world that he cared about and hoped he’d live to see again.

The man who stepped into the room was about five feet ten. Dressed in a dark suit that momentarily made him look like a portion of the shadow in the room had detached itself and gained some semblance of form. In that split second, Hadley could see that the man was holding a gun.

For milliseconds they looked at one another in bewilderment but it was Hadley who reacted first.

He pumped the trigger of the nail gun five times in quick succession.

Five nails, each one 90mm long, exploded from the gun and hit the man who stood before him.

The first caught him in the chin, tore easily into the bone and stuck there. The second shot past his ear, nicking the flesh on the way before burying itself in the door behind. The third hit him in the forehead, ploughing easily into bone as deep as the flattened head of the nail. The fourth nail also missed but the fifth tore into his right eye and onwards into his brain. There was surprisingly little blood. The man dropped like a stone, the gun falling from his hand as a second man now stepped into the room, his own pistol raised.

He swung it upwards, drawing a bead on Hadley but before he could pull the trigger Jess leapt from behind the door and brought the claw hammer down onto the back of his skull with as much power as she could muster. There was a sickening crack as the skull shattered, the force of the blow creating a coin sized hole just above the man’s left ear. Jess hit him again as he swayed uncertainly, his index finger spasming around the trigger of the automatic.

The weapon went off with a thunderous blast that seemed to fill the room and reverberated inside Jess’s head as it seemed to shatter her eardrums. She struck again at the second man who was trying to turn towards her now, raising his hand to protect himself from the rain of blows but it was useless. Jess caught him across the bridge of the nose and then the temple and again the crack of shattering bone was clearly audible. Driven by a mixture of desperation and fear she struck with a power and ferocity she herself had doubted she possessed. The man had no defence against such an attack. He pitched backwards with blood pouring from his wounds, his legs twitching slightly.

Hadley thought about putting the nail gun to more use but resisted the temptation.

Still gripping the implement he dashed out into the corridor, Jess right behind him.

What they saw before them stopped them in their tracks.

The Golem stood immobile before the doors of the lift its massive arms outstretched as if it were about to embrace someone.

Jess tried to speak but no words would come. She could only stand and stare at the clay monstrosity.

It turned its head and looked at them.