Chapter 10
The last manager left the office after eight. Sam spoke with everyone in a leadership position, spending some time to first get to know them and determine what were their strengths and weaknesses, both personally and professionally. Then he gave each one a new job description and list of tasks that Marissa helped him develop. In the past, Elsa demanded that the managers bring every issue to her instead of trusting them to handle it. Now, Sam had given them the freedom to take care of problems as they arose, untying their hands from behind their backs. When she sat at her desk again, Sam was sure that Elsa would find herself with a lot less stress and she wouldn't have to resort to quickie get aways with him up in the penthouse. They could leave for days or weeks at a time and the hotel would run smoothly without her.
Because he was too tired to go home, Sam went up to the penthouse for dinner in and planned to hit the sack shortly afterwards. He entered the suite and turned on a light, cautiously looking around. His instincts were telling him to be careful. He checked the entire place, every room, keeping his eye out for anything that might be wrong. Maybe weariness and paranoia were playing tricks on his mind. A good night's rest would take care of it.
In his dreams, Sam replayed the day, the good and the bad. Daniel's face appeared, his snide voice taunting Sam. He would not let himself be shaken by the guy. Behind all his bravado, he was just an insecure little man. But Sam had his own insecurities, especially when it came to Elsa. Today, however, he saw that there was hope for him as far as she was concerned. He used that as ammunition against the other side of his psyche that wanted to do battle.
A sound like an explosion interrupted his dream and the bed shifted slightly, waking him. He sat up and looked around, wondering if he'd imagined it. Seconds later, the fire alarms went off.
"Oh crap. I hope it's a false alarm." Sam jumped out of bed, slipped into a pair of khakis and a shirt and stuck his feet into a pair of shoes before heading for the door. He checked it for heat. It was warm. "Great."
He peered through the peephole and saw that the entire elevator lobby was engulfed in flames and the sprinkler system didn't activate. He retreated from the door and picked up the phone to call the front desk, but he got a quick beeping. Someone cut the phone lines. The cell phone had no signal. Snapping his fingers, Sam rushed to his laptop, turned it on and waited for the wifi to come up. He sighed, knowing it was a long shot. No wifi either.
Until someone responded to the alarms, he was stuck on the fourteenth floor. Too high for a ladder truck. Sam hurried to the bathroom, plucked two large towels from the rack and threw them into the tub. He turned the faucet. A little water came out, but then it only dripped.
"Sonofa... they cut off the water, too. That explains no sprinklers working. Fine, let's see what we've got in the fridge." He found a few bottles of water in the refrigerator and used them to soak the towels. Then he placed the wet towels at the crack between the doors and the floor. One more towel for his face when the smoke got too bad, and he was as ready as he would ever be for whatever came next.
He hoped to hear sirens soon, but in the meantime, he wondered if anyone occupied the other penthouse suite. It was bad enough for Sedgewick to try to kill him this way, but to put innocent lives in danger was too much. He imagined people on the other side of that door, trapped and scared. Sam couldn't take it; he had to do something.
He went out on the balcony that wrapped around the suite. It ended at a wall that separated it from the other suite's balcony. Sam went to the end, grasped the rail, and craned his neck around the wall. There were no lights on in the other suite. Hopefully that meant it was unoccupied. While he stood on the balcony, Sam looked down to the street. People walked past with no clue of what was happening above.
A sudden inspiration hit him. He wrote a quick note, rigged a little parachute with a handkerchief and dental floss, and used a hotel pen as a weight to help it descend. He went back out on the balcony, held the parachute by the center, and let it drop. A wind current took it closer to the hotel.
"No! Go back, out! Out!" He let out a deep breath as it floated away from the building. He lost track of how much time it took to land. A pedestrian watched it fall in front of him, and he grabbed it before it hit the pavement. He unrolled the note from the pen, read it, and looked up.
Sam grinned and held a lit flashlight in his hand, sweeping it over his head to signal to the guy on the ground. He couldn't see the man's expression, but the body language was one of horror. He pointed, and other people stopped and looked. Sam knew they were seeing smoke, because the apartment was now full of it. It was almost time to use the wet towel. A woman got on her cell phone, or tried to. Someone ran down the street to another place to call for help, and the man who caught the parachute went inside the hotel.
He turned off the flashlight and dropped down to the sit on the balcony with his back against the railing. The smoke billowed through the open sliding doors. He had to do something about that. Now that the smoke had gotten attention, he needed to prevent the fire from accessing an unlimited supply of oxygen. Sam went inside long enough to retrieve the wet towel. Flames were licking up the door. The stop-gap measure served its purpose for awhile, but no more. If help didn't come soon, the whole suite would be involved.
With his wet towel, Sam returned to the balcony and closed the sliding doors. He coughed when fresh air hit his lungs. Out of options, but still looking for more, Sam sat in a chair near the balcony rail and waited. Sirens wailed in the distance, increasingly louder. Several police cars raced to the scene with fire trucks. He heard something explode inside the suite. The flames must have broken through the doors. If he was lucky, maybe he had five or ten minutes.
Sam tried his cell phone again, hoping that whoever did this would have some mercy and let him find a working signal. He would call Elsa, tell her again that he loved her, just like he did the last time he thought he was going to die. Unless the emergency workers called a chopper, he had to resign himself to the fact that this time it was most likely for real.
No signal. He sighed and fought the urge to throw his phone across the balcony. Instead, he closed his eyes, sat back, and waited for the end.
A phone rang, startling Michael from a deep sleep. He shook his head, realizing that it was his cell phone on the night stand. He snatched it up, hoping that it didn't wake Fiona. He slipped out of bed and walked across the loft as he answered it. "Hello?"
"Michael! It's terrible!"
"What are you talking about, Ma?"
"I couldn't sleep, so I was watching the late news, and they had this breaking story." Her words came out fast and her voice was scratchy. "Michael, the Regency's top floor is on fire. They're saying someone is up there."
"Sam?"
"I don't know! I tried calling him but I keep getting his voicemail!" She sniffled, her voice rising to a panic. "They're saying it's too high for the rescue equipment to get to him, and the water to the sprinklers was cut, so they can't fight it until the water is restored."
"Ma, it's okay. They'll get it done, and then they'll get the fire out."
"But Sam is probably up there, Michael! I'm afraid it'll be too late."
A sick feeling invaded Michael's stomach. "Ma, Fi and I are going over there in a few minutes. I'll keep you posted."
"The reporter said someone blocked the cell phones, so people couldn't call for help when they figured out what was going on."
"Don't worry, Ma. Everything will be okay." He said goodbye and hung up, turned to the bed and found Fiona half sitting.
"What's happening?"
"The Regency is on fire, and Sam might be trapped in the penthouse suite. Come on, let's get dressed and go."
Fiona didn't have to be told twice. Her own memory of being trapped in a burning building spurred her on. She threw on some clothes, stepped into her shoes, and rushed out the door with Michael. He broke the speed limit and other traffic laws to get them to the hotel. With all the rescue personnel and equipment standing by, unable to do anything, he had to park several blocks away. The couple trotted to the police line.
"Where is he? I don't see him, Michael. Maybe Sam wasn't really up there."
"There's a guy up there alright." One of the bystanders told them. "He sent down a note on a rigged parachute. According to the TV reporters, it said the elevator lobby was on fire and he's trapped on the balcony. There's no water, no cell, no regular phone. It's totally nuts, man."
While Michael listened to the younger man tell the story, he scanned the crowd. He expected that if Daniel Sedgewick had something to do with this, he would most likely be watching in satisfaction from somewhere nearby. A muffled explosion got his attention, along with screams from the crowd. He looked up.
"What happened, Fi?"
"I don't know. Probably the fire caused something to blow up." She glanced at him and spoke low. "I wonder how much ammunition Sam had up there. That could cause problems."
"That's the least of his worries right now, I think." Michael also spoke low. He looked up again and saw that a spotlight from a television remote truck was trained on the balcony, and Sam stood in the middle of it. He waved a towel over his head, then brought it down to cover his face as he bent and leaned on the rail.
"Where is the air support," Fiona mumbled. "They should pluck him out of there with a chopper. What are they waiting for?"
Over all the chaos and noise, Michael heard a distinct pop of gunfire. Sam jerked back from the railing. Michael's eyes widened and he held his breath, realizing that someone really wanted Sam dead.
"Sniper."
"Yeah, Fi. But where..." He tore his eyes away from Sam's situation and scanned the buildings nearby. "It must have come from the building next door. That roof is lined up in such a way that a good sniper could fire up at Sam and make a shot."
"Michael!" Fiona called and ran after him. He pushed through the clusters of people blocking his way and made it into the competitor's hotel lobby. With everything going on outside, no one paid attention to a couple racing toward the elevators. On the top floor, Michael and Fiona split up and quickly covered the floor.
Michael found an access door that led up to the roof. "Fi, down here!"
He ran up the staircase and opened the door in increments to avoid being detected by the shooter. Fiona was behind him by the time he opened it all the way. The roof consisted of tar and gravel, which would make sneaking up difficult but not impossible. The shooter was too busy taking shots at the balcony again, so he was unaware that someone was behind him. The concussions would mask their moves, so Michael took a chance and sprinted toward the shooter, and Fiona covered him with a gun.
The sniper let out a resounding oof as Michael tackled him from behind and twisted him away from the edge of the building. With surprise on his side and support from Fiona, it didn't take much to stop and subdue him.
"Who are you," Michael asked as he used the cuffs Fiona gave him to secure the man's hands.
He cursed at them, and Fiona looked down at him, tsking. "You shouldn't say things like that to someone holding a gun." She put on a rubber glove and picked up the rifle the sniper used. "Let's take him down to the cops. They can deal with him."
Michael grasped him by the shirt collar and said, "Tell us who your boss is. Maybe they'll go easy on you. And maybe Fiona won't shoot you if you cooperate."
"Some guy I never met before. His name is Sedgewick."
"Thank you. That wasn't so hard, was it?" Fiona smiled.
At that moment, two officers busted through the door with guns raised. "Hands up everyone!"
Fiona set down the rifle and her handgun, and Michael set down his gun. Good thing they had permits for those. She and Michael stepped back from the sniper. "He's the one you want. He's been taking the shots, and if you check the prints on that gun, you'll see."
More police flooded onto the rooftop, taking away the sniper and the evidence. After a short interview with Michael and Fiona, the first officers who responded let them go. Not sure what happened to Sam in that time, the two rushed outside to see if there had been any progress in rescuing him.