PART TWO: TO HELL AND BACK
Chapter Seven: The Heart of New York
AvaMed's HQ was one of the newer buildings in the Manhattan business district. Not the most impressive, or the largest, but certainly adequate.
I left the stolen car in an alleyway and walked the empty streets, letting the warm summer breeze clear my head. This one would be tough. Simon West was protected by an army of security guards and a mass of high-tech security devices. I'd been here before, sure. I didn't like the way time was overlapping itself. Didn't like the way this stroll reminded me of a long ago winter's night, when I'd gone after another nemesis in another lair. Out here in the soulless, steel corporate world, the heart of New York. And lying at the centre of it like a cancer, AvaMed, pumping their noxious germs into the city's system for nothing but financial gain.
I stepped into the brightly lit plaza and stared up at the building. It sat at the end of a small plaza with a few benches surrounding a fountain. I imagined this place would be full of lunching employees in the daytime, employees who were lying safe in bed now, unaware of the evil brewing in the heart of their corporation. Beyond it, AvaMed HQ was a pillar of white light. The building consisted of two white concrete walls, flanking a huge, twenty-storey wall of glass. West's penthouse office loomed like a snarl over this glass. The lights were on. Grant was in.
I wandered through the empty marble plaza, to the revolving doors. Beyond them lay the marble lobby, the huge marble core of the building. In its centre, watching over everything, was a towering three-storey statue of a snake entwined around a syringe. Two security guard's booths on the other side of the door. No gun scanners. I breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing I needed was Grant flying off in his helicopter before I reached his office. There could be no turning back now. I was running out of time.
I pushed open the doors and stepped into the lobby. Alone now, with nothing but my footsteps. The air in the lobby was cold, but the lights were warm. Above me the building stretched up twenty storeys to Grant's penthouse office. I pulled out my Beretta.
A security guard stepped out of a side door, dressed neatly in an expensive black suit with headphones clamped around his mouth. He was spouting codes and military junk into the phone below his mouth.
"Lobby area clear, over," he cried without sparing me a glance.
I wasn't about to let him hear the response. I stepped forward into the bright lights of the lobby. He glanced up, met my eyes, and they widened in horror. One hand plunged into his jacket. I shot him twice in the chest. Blood flew out of his back and he stumbled backwards, slumping dead against the snake. He gave me one last look of horror before the lights went out in his blue eyes.
I raised my Beretta and strode across the marble floor, the echo of my footsteps bouncing off the twenty storeys of space above me. The late goon's headset gave out bursts of muffled static. I ignored it and walked towards the staircase on the other side of the room. Two of them, both pointing up to the first floor elevator.
Keeping my gun close to hand, I began to climb the stairs. The area was horribly silent, like a crypt. I tread carefully as I stepped out on to the faux-wood laminate flooring of the first floor, nothing but a dull transition level with two elevators.
As I watched one rumbled and clanged like a monster, then began to slide open with a soft ring. I pushed up against the wall and watched as three security guards exited.
"We lost Donald in the lobby," one, a butch man with short blonde hair and sunglasses, announced loudly. "Spread and find him."
"Affirmative," a man with dark curly hair, also short, replied. All three wore expensive black suits. All were armed with Desert Eagles. I didn't doubt for a second that there were more around the building. No time to waste.
I leapt out and pulled the trigger.
A bullet shattered the blonde man's shin and he screamed, slumping to his knees. The other two reached for their guns. I fired another shot and my heart collapsed. Nothing but an empty clack. Damn. No luck at all.
One goon got a lucky shot in, straight to the chest. Fire roared up through my gut and exploded in my heart. I hitched in a sharp breath and slumped to my knees. Another fired another shot, sending my arm flying backwards and thudding against a wall, knocking the bone out of its socket and sending pain like a thunder strike straight up into my chest.
I fell backwards against the wall, in excruciating agony. Blood ran in warm streamers between my fingers. There were footsteps advancing, loud and harsh. One of the goons slammed some bullets home in his gun.
Come on Max, I thought, reaching into my jacket. Another clip and you can blast your way out of here. Come on.
My fingers probed my inner pockets. I grabbed a handful of painkillers and slipped them into my palm. A clip. Just one damn clip.
Getting closer.
Panic tore through my body like a flaming shell. Empty. No guns. No escape.
Nothing else for it.
I choked back the painkillers just as the goon turned the corner, Desert Eagle at hand. Then, biting back the roaring agony, trailing blood, I leapt to my feet and grabbed the goon's wrist, just as he fired a shot. Behind me part of the neat plaster wall was blown to flaming dust. My ears rang.
I kneed the goon in the gut, winding him and sending him to his knees. Squeezing his other wrist, I yanked it down hard, pointed his gun at the other advancing guard, and squeezed the trigger. Three shots and he slumped face-first to the ground. Finally I head-butted my goon and he collapsed unconscious.
"Oh god," the goon with the shattered shin mumbled from behind me. "Oh god, no, please…"
I forced the Desert Eagle out of the unconscious goon's hand and advanced on the final security guard. He sat in a pool of blood, horribly black beneath the bright white lights, and stared up at me hopelessly.
"Please don't…" he choked. "Please. I'm just a security guard. Please no."
I gently placed the gun against his forehead. He burst into tears.
"Say goodnight," I whispered, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit the steel elevator door. The guard fell face first in his blood, crying and gibbering. He'd live. But he'd learned a lesson he wasn't about to forget.
I hit the elevator button, stepped inside, and headed up to Grant's office.
To be continued…