Shadow Maker by James R. Hannibal

Author:James R. Hannibal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 37

Nick and Drake pushed their way through the flood of suits pouring from the lobby. Periodic explosions still sounded from the sublevel—one every couple of seconds like artificial aftershocks. Smoke and dust billowed up through vents in the floor, and glass rained down from the bridges that crisscrossed the atrium above.

Nick spied an elderly man lying on the gray marble floor, bleeding from a deep gash in his thigh. He sent Drake to help and kept searching for wounded. Deeper in, a young woman in a white blouse and black business skirt stood frozen in fear, her knees pressed together and her hands spread out, trying to maintain her balance on the quaking floor. For a split second, she locked eyes with Nick. Then a final blast, an explosion that dwarfed all the rest, ripped through the floor, heaving granite tiles upward on a wave of concrete that launched the woman into the air. She came crashing down on Nick’s side of the fissure and screamed in pain. As the echo of the blast settled, there was a rending and cracking of stone. The gap behind the girl began to widen.

Nick ran toward her and dove flat out onto the broken floor, catching her hand before the cave-in swallowed her whole. Wasting no time, he pulled her up and hoisted her over his shoulder and then sprinted for the exit with the floor collapsing at his heels.

As he emerged from the thick cloud of dust into the haze on the plaza, Nick heard a strange command.

“Set her down, mate. Nice and easy.”

He slowed to a jog and then a walk, still a little disoriented. A dark-haired individual materialized to his right, tracking him with the short barrel of a Glock compact. He wore a suit and overcoat much like Nick’s and held up a badge with an eight-pointed star and a crown. The badge made him Metro Police. The Glock made him Special Branch, a superbobby. Regular bobbies carried Tasers.

Nick kept walking. The woman had lost her shoes in the explosion, and he did not want to set her down on the broken glass that littered the square in front of the building.

“I said set her down, mate.”

Convinced by the constable’s behavior that Nick meant her harm, the woman started to thrash, kicking her feet and pounding his back with her fists. Nick bore the abuse and the threat from the Glock until he reached clear ground next to the gaudy fake monument. As soon as he set her down, she turned and limped away into the growing crowd.

“You’re welcome,” Nick said flatly. Then he turned to survey what was left of the building. The dust cloud still hovered, obscuring the first floor. Every window on the second floor had shattered, along with several more on the floors above. A few more accountants and stockbrokers stumbled out over the piles of glass, beating the dust from their expensive suits and squinting at the sunlight.

“Oi! Mate! Hands where I can see ’em.

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