Frameshift uc, p.29
Frameshift (UC), page 29
Up one half-flight, around the corner, then up another. He was now opposite the door labeled "40." But—damn it, he wasn't thinking straight—the heliport was on the roof, another two staircases above him. And all his efforts were predicated on the assumption that there was an exit to the roof at the top. If not, he'd have to come back down to the fortieth floor and try to find the correct way up to the helipad.
He yanked himself up, step after agonizing step. The footfalls below sounded closer; the Justice agents had perhaps made it as high as the twentieth floor by now.
Finally Pierre reached the top. There was a door here, painted blue instead of gray, with the word ROOF stenciled on it. Pierre turned the knob, then pushed on it, and the door swung outward, revealing the wide concrete top of the Condor Health Insurance tower. After all that time in the dim stairwell, the late-afternoon sunlight, positioned directly in front of him, pierced his eyes. Pierre held on to the doorjamb for support. High winds whipped by him, their sound masking that of the door opening.
Marchenko was standing about twenty meters away, his back to Pierre, waiting by a small green-and-white metal shed that presumably held tools for helicopter maintenance. There was no helicopter in sight, but the rooftop near Marchenko was painted with a circular yellow landing target, and the old man was impatiently watching the skies.
The wind shrieked as it went down the stairwell. Pierre stepped out. The rooftop was square, with a meter-high lip around its edges. Gulls were perched in a neat row along the southern lip. Nearby were two cement enclosures, presumably housing the elevator equipment. Three small and two large satellite dishes sat at one corner of the roof and a microwave relay jutted up from another. There was a rotating red light mounted on top of one of the elevator houses, and two searchlights, both off, on top of the other.
Marchenko hadn't noticed Pierre's arrival yet. The old man was holding a cellular phone at his side in his left hand—doubtless he'd used that to call for a chopper to come and get him.
Pierre tried to assess his chances. He was thirty-five, for God's sake. Marchenko was eighty-seven. There should be no contest. Pierre should be able to simply walk up to the old geezer and haul him back downstairs into the arms of justice.
But now—now, who could say? Pierre leaned on his cane. There was a good chance that Marchenko could kill him—especially if he was armed. There was no indication that he had a gun, and, indeed, a lead pipe had been Ivan Grozny's favorite weapon half a century ago. But even unarmed, Marchenko might well be able to take Pierre.
Maybe he didn't have to do anything. He looked up, scanned the sky again. There was no sign of an approaching copter. Avi's agents would be up here soon enough, and—
"You!" Marchenko had turned around and spotted Pierre. His shout startled the gulls into flight; their cries were faintly audible above the whipping wind. The old man started moving toward
Pierre with a slow and ancient gait. Pierre realized he should move away from the open door leading to the stairwell. All it would take for Marchenko to defeat him would be a good, swift shove down the stairs.
Pierre hobbled to the north. Marchenko changed course and continued to close the distance. Pierre thought of the Pequod and Moby Dick, wallowing in high waves, each ponderously maneuvering around the other. Marchenko continued to circle in.
He tasks me, thought Pierre, and I shall have him. With an Ahab-like gait, his cane substituting for the peg leg, Pierre moved forward as quickly as he could. He knew that retreating would be stupid. If he allowed himself to be backed up against the meter-high wall around the edge of the roof, Marchenko would have little trouble pushing him over the side to plummet forty stories to a splattering death. Pierre moved toward the center of the roof, wind whipping his hair, cutting through him with fingers of ice.
Marchenko's broad face was contorted in fury—not just at him, Pierre guessed, but also at whomever he had called to come and get him. There was still no sign of an approaching chopper, although several jet contrails crisscrossed the sky, like lash marks on a prisoner's back.
Just five meters separated them now. Marchenko's bald head glistened with a sheen of sweat, looking, in the ruddy late-afternoon light, almost like a film of blood. The climb up the stairs had been hard on him, too; whatever secret exit he'd had from his office had apparently given him access to the stairwell rather than the elevator lobby.
Marchenko stretched his arms out, as if he expected Pierre to try to slip past him. Pierre wanted to lift his cane high enough to use it as a weapon—something he could only do, he realized, if he were backed up for support against the toolshed or elevator houses. He started crabbing sidewise, moving toward the closest of the concrete structures.
Marchenko narrowed the distance between them. He was still holding the phone in his left hand, but swung out with his right. His fist hit Pierre on the shoulder, but it wasn't hard enough to really hurt. Marchenko apparently realized that; his right hand dug into his hip pocket and came out with a set of keys, which he proceeded to intertwine between his skeletal fingers—just as Pierre had done more than two years before when Marchenko's henchman, Chuck Hanratty, had tried to kill him.
They were now about three meters from the elevator house. Pierre thought he heard another gunshot coming from the still-open door to the stairs. The OSI men were apparently being held at bay by security guards on one of the upper levels. Still, Avi would have doubtless called for reinforcements by now.
Pierre got his back against the elevator house's wall. He lifted his cane high and smashed it down as hard as he could. He'd been aiming for the top of Marchenko's head, but his arm had shaken coming down and the impact had been on Marchenko's right shoulder instead. There was a loud cracking sound. Pierre hoped it was Marchenko's scapula, but it turned out to be the cane. As Pierre pulled it back, he saw that it was partially broken in the middle, at the point that had taken the brunt of his weight during his earlier tumble down the stairs. Still, the impact had knocked the cellular phone from Marchenko's gnarled hand. It hit the concrete and its black battery pack popped loose.
More gunshots in the background. Pierre looked beyond Marchenko and now saw a helicopter on the horizon, but it was impossible to tell if it was coming toward them. Marchenko started to back away. He was unaware of the copter, but apparently realized he was putting himself at a disadvantage by letting Pierre have both hands free.
"Come on, you piece of shit," taunted Marchenko in his reedy, accented voice. "Come and get me, you fucking piece of shit." He swiped his hand out, the keys glinting in the sunlight. "Come on, you—"
"Morceau de merde," supplied Pierre, pushing off the el-evator house's wall with his left hand and leaning on his damaged cane, hoping it would continue to support him as long as he only put pressure straight down on it.
Marchenko was dancing backward now, baiting Pierre closer to—to the toolshed, it looked like, where the old man could probably find a better weapon than a set of keys. Pierre hoped Marchenko would trip as he walked backward. Pierre might not be able to club him into submission, but he still outweighed the geriatric by at least ten kilos. Just sitting on him might be enough to subdue him.
Marchenko looked behind him to make sure the way was clear, and saw the helicopter, now only a couple of kilometers away. Pierre stole a glance behind himself, too, but there was no sign of anyone emerging from the stairwell.
They continued creeping across the roof, wind slapping them like invisible hands. Finally, gathering all his strength, Pierre jumped forward. It wasn't much of a jump, but he did succeed in slamming into Marchenko's chest, and the old man tumbled backward onto the hard concrete. Pierre straddled Marchenko. The hand with the keys lashed out, and Pierre felt them biting into his cheek. He arched his back and tried a roundhouse punch aimed at Marchenko's face. It connected, and there was a cracking sound. Marchenko's mouth opened to yowl in pain, and Pierre saw that his top teeth were all off-kilter—Pierre's punch had knocked his upper denture loose.
Pierre tried to swing again, but this time he missed and the movement threw him off-balance, allowing Marchenko to push him off and struggle to his feet. Pierre could see that the back of Marchenko's bald head was scraped raw from where it had hit the concrete.
Marchenko hobbled to the toolshed. It had a padlock on its door, but one of the now bloody keys in his hand unlocked it. Pierre, lying on his back, fought to catch his breath and struggled to bring his legs, which were dancing wildly, under control. Marchenko ducked into the shed and emerged a moment later holding a long black crowbar, presumably used to open crates shipped by helicopter. He came over to stand above Pierre.
"Before you die," said Marchenko, as he raised the crowbar above his head, "I have to know. Are you a Jew?"
Pierre shook his head slightly.
Marchenko sounded sad. "Too bad. It would have made this perfect." He swung the crowbar down. Pierre rolled aside just in time, the crowbar's splayed end taking a divot out of the roof.
The sound of the helicopter was now quite clear above the wind. Pierre glanced at it. It wasn't the same yellow-and-black chopper he'd seen all those months ago. No, this seemed to be a private, civilian bird, all silver and white. Marchenko had probably called for one of his Millennial Reich cronies to come rescue him.
The old man swung the crowbar again. Pierre rolled to the right; the crowbar sparked against the concrete. Pierre rolled onto his back again, and, praying he could maintain a steady grip, lifted his cane high. But Marchenko parried with the crowbar, and the wooden stick split in two, one part pinwheeling high into the sky.
Marchenko brought the crowbar down in a gillooly on Pierre's knees. He screamed as his left kneecap shattered. Marchenko lifted the crowbar again, this time trying to bring it down on Pierre's head. Pierre squirmed on the ground. His arm reached out, undulating like a snake, and locked onto Mar-chenko's ankle, yanking the old man down, the crowbar landing with a cracking of brittle ribs on Marchenko's side.
Pierre looked up. The copter was now hovering over the scene, preparing to land, its rotor kicking up grit and debris on the rooftop. The man in the right seat, flying the helicopter— Christ, he was even wearing the same aviator's jacket and mirrored shades as on Hard Copy. Felix Sousa. The fucking guy wasn't just a Nazi in his thinking; he was an actual card-carrying member of Ivan Marchenko's Millennial Reich.
The copter was descending now, the wind from its rotor slicing into them. Pierre hoped its downward force would keep
Marchenko pinned to the ground, but the old man was soon scrabbling to his feet. The copter touched down.
Pierre glanced back. Another helicopter was approaching. It was hard to see anything in all this wind, but—way to go, Avi! The new copter was clearly marked SFPD—San Francisco Police Department.
Marchenko loomed over Pierre, clearly wanting to finish him off, but Sousa was gesturing frantically for him to hurry up and get aboard his copter; the police helicopter would be there within minutes. Marchenko's round head split in a horrible, lopsided grin, his denture still askew, and he spit a contemptuous bloody gob onto Pierre's face. He then hobbled, holding his cracked ribs, toward the copter, bending low to clear its rotor, which was still revolving counterclockwise at a reduced speed.
Suddenly Avi Meyer appeared at the top of the stairs. He was panting horribly and red as a beet after climbing forty stories. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a gun, and tried to shoot at Sousa's copter. But Marchenko was already aboard, pulling the curving door shut, and the copter was lifting up off the roof.
The SFPD helicopter had closed the distance, though, and was now trying to force Marchenko and Sousa to land by flying directly above them, the downward wind sending grit flying everywhere. Sousa pulled his copter to the north, and it moved sideways a few meters above the rooftop, its body tilted to the side, its rotor barely clearing the lip around the edge of the roof. The police helicopter followed.
Pierre squinted, trying to watch but also trying to shield his eyes. Avi moved out of the stairwell entrance, and two of his men appeared behind him, also gulping for breath. One was holding his side and grimacing in agony. After a moment, Avi staggered to the south edge of the roof, as far from the noise of the helicopters as possible, and pulled out his cellular.
Pierre, meanwhile, picked up the crowbar and, using it as a short cane, keeping all weight off his destroyed left knee, hobbled over to the north edge, the pain almost unbearable, fighting nausea and dizziness with every step. When he got to the meter-high lip around the roof, he collapsed against it and brought both hands to his knee. He could hear the pounding of the helicopter blades, out of sight below him, next to the building.
"This is the police," said a female voice from a bullhorn on the second copter; the voice was all but lost in the noise from the dueling rotors. "You are ordered to land."
Pierre forced himself to his feet, using the lip to support himself. He almost blacked out from the pain; his body shook with agony and chorea. Looking down was dizzying: forty stories of sheer glass, leading straight to the asphalt parking lot. Five SFPD squad cars were pulling up outside the building, sirens blaring. A few meters to Pierre's right, and about ten meters below, wras the silver copter with Marchenko and Sousa in it. Marchenko could probably see directly into Craig Bullen's office, with its redwood paneling and priceless paintings.
The cockpit was only a short distance away from the side of the tower. The SFPD copter had moved alongside it now, as if trying to get a bead for a shoot-out. Pierre could clearly see the female pilot and her male companion, both uniformed, in the bubblelike cockpit. They seemed to be arguing with each other, and then the police copter started moving away, whichever one of them who felt flying this close to the building was dangerous having won the fight.
The rotor on Sousa's copter was a circular blur below Pierre. The noise was deafening, but it would be only a matter of seconds before Sousa would head away from the building. He could make a beeline out into the Pacific, out over international waters, beyond the SFPD's—or even the DOJ's—jurisdiction, perhaps landing on a boat and sailing down to Mexico or beyond; surely there was more to Marchenko's escape plan than just the helicopter.
Pierre hefted the crowbar, gauging its weight. It probably wouldn't work—probably would just be deflected away. But he wasn't about to stand by and do nothing—
Pierre closed his eyes, summoning all the control and all the strength he had left. And then he threw the crowbar as hard as he could, spinning it vertically end over end, down into the helicopter's twirling blades, aiming for the outer edge of the rotor disk.
He was prepared to stagger back, in case the crowbar was sent flying up toward him.
It hit with a horrible clanging sound. The helicopter began vibrating, tipping toward the building, and—
—the blades touched glass, sending a shower of sparkling shards down toward the ground below—
—and then the blades began slicing through the metal frame of the curtain wall between two windows, dicing the metal into small fragments, sparks flying everywhere as each successive pass brought the blades into contact at a slightly different angle.
The copter was traveling forward now, and the rotor disk hit the wall between adjacent offices, the tips of the blades splintering the redwood paneling with a buzz-saw sound, then digging into the concrete firewall behind. The tips of the rotor were immediately ground off, and more and more of them sheared away with each revolution, the blades shortening, metal bits flying like confetti.
Then the jagged edge of the rotor dug into the concrete, sending powdery chunks of it airborne until, with a shriek of tortured metal, the rotor came to a dead halt.
The copter tipped forward again, the bird itself now rotating slowly clockwise, its tail rotor swinging into the side of the building, more windows shattering and office furniture splintering.
The copter's turbines were screaming; smoke poured from the engine compartment and flames shot from the exhausts. The cockpit tipped forward, and the whole vehicle began to drop, story after story after story. Pierre could see people far below scattering, trying to get out of its way.
Pierre heard footfalls, all but drowned out by the thunder of the police copter. Avi was running across the rooftop.
Sousa's chopper continued to fall, almost as if in slow motion, its foreshortened blades now revolving lamely, providing a small amount of lift. It passed floor after floor, diminishing in apparent size, until—
Hitting the pavement like an egg, metal and glass splashing everywhere—
—and then, like a flower opening, flames expanding outward from the crash as the copter's fuel exploded. Soon a pillar of black smoke rose up to the fortieth floor and beyond.
The SFPD copter circled around, surveying the scene, then descended for a landing in the far parking lot.
Pierre looked down at the inferno below, ringed by spectators, illuminated by low, red sunlight and roaring flames reflecting off the windows, and by revolving lights on the police cars. At long, long last, Ivan Grozny was dead.
Pierre staggered back a step, turned around, and collapsed in agony against the short wall around the roof's edge.
"Are you okay?" asked Avi, leaning in to look at him after seeing his fill of the carnage below.
Pierre's hands were on his shattered knee again. The pain was incredible, like daggers being jackhammered into his leg. Wincing, he shook his head.
