\376\377\000T\000h\000e\000 \000S\000i\000g\000m\000a\000 \000P\000r\000o\000t\000o\000c\000o\000l by \376\377\000s\000s\000i\000n\000e\000w

Author:\376\377\000s\000s\000i\000n\000e\000w
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Sigma Protocol

He noticed a shape, a silhouette! The figure of a man outlined against

backlight from the open bathroom door. The man was crouching down,

pointing a long-barreled gun toward the door!

The man turned, and his face became visible. It was the assassin who'd

tried to kill him a few hours ago in front of Jurgen Lenz's villa! The

assassin in the Swiss auberge.

The man who killed his brother.

The porter screamed, "No!" and ran away down the hall.

For a moment the killer was confused he'd expected Ben, not a uniformed

hotel employee. The hesitation was long enough for Ben to take off.

Behind him came a series of muted spits, then the much louder explosions

of bullets pocking the walls. The porter's screams became even louder,

more frantic, and the gunfire came closer, and then came the racing

footsteps of the gunman, and Ben put on a burst of speed. Straight ahead

was the door to the stairway, and he quickly rejected it he didn't want

to be a prisoner in a stairwell with an armed killer after him. Instead

he whipped around the corridor to the right, saw an open room door, a

housekeeping cart in front of it, and he leaped into the room, swinging

the door shut behind him. His back pressed against the door, he gasped

for breath, wondering whether the killer had seen him enter the room. He

heard muffled footsteps racing by: the killer had passed. He heard the

porter shout, calling someone; he didn't sound as if he'd been wounded,

which was a relief.

A cry from inside the room! He saw a small, dark-skinned maid in a

light blue uniform cowering in the corner of the room.

"Quiet!" Ben hissed.

"Who are you?" the maid gasped, terrified. She spoke in heavily accented English. "Please don't hurt me!"

"Quiet," Ben repeated. "Get down. If you keep quiet, you won't get hurt!"

The maid flattened herself against the carpeting, whimpering in abject

terror.

"Matches!" Ben said. "I need matches!"

"The ashtray! Please the desk, next to the television!"

Ben found them and located the smoke heat detector mounted on the

ceiling above him. He stood on a chair, lit a match, held it to the

coil. In a few seconds he could hear the Klaxon of a fire alarm

sounding in the room and in the corridor outside a rasping metallic

shriek caterwauling at regular, rapid intervals. The sound was

everywhere! Shouts and screams came from the hall as hotel guests ran

from their rooms. In another few seconds, water began spraying from the

sprinkler system in the ceiling, drenching the carpet and bed. The maid

screamed again as Ben turned and opened the door, quickly looking out in

either direction. The hall was chaos: people running about, some

huddled in bafflement, gesturing this way and that, yelling to one

another as water spewed from the sprinklers all along the ceiling the

length of the corridor. Ben ran out of the room, joining the frenzied

crowd in a rush to the stairwell. He knew, from the height of the main

staircase that led into the hotel's front entrance, that the stairwell

had to have its own exit onto the street or back alley.

Page 203

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