As they approached the table and resumed their seats, Garnier smiled warmly at them. Nate smiled back and took a sip of his champagne. "Well, now that we're all here again, I suppose we should get down to business. I trust you retrieved the journal with no complications?"
"Not a hitch," Sully said with his tongue firmly in his cheek as he placed the slim book on the table. Feeling something bump his foot, he glanced over at Nate questioningly. Nate was not looking at him, but instead maintaining an unbroken gaze at Mathis and smiling as the Frenchman picked up the book and studied it. Then Sully noticed his friend's fingers drumming erratically on his knee, and watched carefully as Nate spelled out the word "trouble" in Morse code. His mouth momentarily formed a grim and hard set line before resuming a businesslike smile and facing his client.
"Ah, beautiful, beautiful," Garnier murmured as he flipped through the pages. "I will have the money wired to your accounts immediately. Beautiful, really beautiful..."
"Say, Mathis," Sully said casually, "been meaning to ask you- you never told me you owned a hotel?"
The scientist laughed. "My brother Pierre's. He lets me use it often for meetings. I hope it didn't come across as too egocentric."
"Not at all," Nate lied.
Leaning back in his chair, the Frenchman spoke again, "I really cannot thank you enough for obtaining this for me. It will be most helpful for my little scientific foray." Leaning back in his chair, he sighed melodramatically. "There was in fact one more thing I hoped you could obtain for me, but alas, it seems someone has- how you say- beat me to the punch?"
As he spoke, Nate noticed a trio of men on the far side of the roof that held a long banner stretched out between them, one on each end and one in the middle. He couldn't tell what the banner said but watched as they began to circle around the perimeter of the roof, coming slowly towards them.
"...a little trinket in Delphi. Really a pity." Garnier was saying. "You wouldn't know anything about it, would you?"
At the mention of Delphi Nate sat bolt upright and stared accusingly at the French scientist. "How do you know about that?"
"About what?" the man asked, feigning innocence. "You're not suggesting you retrieved it, are you?"
Heaving a frustrated sigh, Nate glanced quickly around to be sure they were still maintaining a low profile among the patrons and then leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. "Mathis, you're a scientist, not an actor. If I were you, I'd keep it that way. Now you tell us what you're up to, or this whole deal is off, journal and all."
"At ease, my friend, at ease," the Frenchman said softly. "I am engaged in some very important research in several different fields that could be groundbreaking, history-making even. I simply require these two things to be able to proceed. I am willing to pay very generously-"
"Yeah?" Nate interrupted tersely. " Well I'm not selling." The men with the banner were now only twenty yards away in their circuit around the roof.
"Ten thousand more for each of you," Garnier offered.
"Not, selling," Nate repeated.
"Twenty thousand."
Sully surprised them all by banging a fist on the table. "Damn it, Mathis, which part of 'not selling' do you not understand?"
"Oh, bullshit!" Garnier exclaimed, finally blowing his cool. "Everyone's selling, you just have to find the right price. Now," he said with a snake-like calm as he turned back to Nate, "what's your price?"
The sound of a gun being cocked made Nate look down. Through the glass table top he could see that Mathis was now holding a semi automatic pointed directly at him, or more specifically, at his crotch. Nate glanced back up to see that the men carrying the banner had stopped directly in front of their table, effectively blocking off all view of what was happening in their little corner from the rest of the patrons dining on the roof. Garnier smiled venomously at him.
Elena had now seen what was going on as well and inhaled sharply. Sully's eyes flicked between the gun, Nate, and Garnier. Thinking quickly, Nate stealthily pulled his pocketknife from his pants pocket and held it so just the very end of the metal casing protruded from his tightly balled fist. Looking the Frenchman in the eye, he suddenly shouted, "Sully, break left!". Bringing his fist sharply upwards, he struck the underside of the table top with the end of his knife, shattering the glass and causing all of its contents, including the journal, to fall to the ground. In the same motion he stood and flipped the table up, scraping the metal band that wrapped the edge of the table down Garnier's arm and knocking the gun out of his grip. The Frenchman fell over backward with a cry, the table landing squarely on his stomach before rolling away. Seeing Sully quickly retreating in the direction he had indicated, Nate used his foot to give the journal a shove and slide it across the roof to him, and Sully quickly scooped it up. Next Nate stooped and picked up Mathis' fallen weapon from amidst the shards of glass.
"NATE!"
Hearing Elena's scream, he quickly stood up to see Garnier charging at him, but did not have enough time to react. The slight Frenchman plowed into him full force, and the two men went sprawling through the banner, tearing it right down the middle. They rolled in opposite directions as they hit the ground while the gun skittered out straight ahead into the crowd, and the two men quickly scrambled to their feet to go after it.
The effect on the other occupants of the rooftop was electrifying and instantaneous. Men and women alike leaped from their tables, knocking over food and drink alike, and began scrambling toward the exit in panic. People were shoving, pushing, screaming, and tripping over each other in the sudden mayhem as the men rushed frantically toward the weapon. Nate reached the gun first, but as he bent to retrieve it Garnier smashed a bottle over his back and shoved him to the side. Nate rolled and recovered quickly, springing to his feet and shoving Mathis' gun hand aside before he could shoot. Grabbing the Frenchman by the collar, he tossed him onto a nearby table where he slid across it, cleaning off its contents before falling back to the roof.
"Watch your back kid!" Sully shouted.
Nate whipped around to see the jazz band breaking up and rushing at him, several of them throwing their instruments aside in favor of concealed firearms. As the first one was getting a shot lined up, Elena hurled a bottle of wine, smashing it into the side of his head and gaining Nate the seconds he needed to close the distance. Locking hands with the next one back, Nate rammed his knee into the man's groin and then headbutted him, laying him out flat. Sully met the trombone player with a punch to the jaw while Nate grabbed the gun off of his fallen opponent. Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, Nate turned his head to see a saxophone flying toward him and dodged it just in time. Blocking another attempted strike, Nate punched the man wielding the instrument in the jaw before doubling him over and kneeing him in the stomach. Ripping the saxophone from his grasp, Nate used it to deliver a finishing downward stroke to the man's back, the impact reverberating in the curved bell of the instrument.
"Hey, that thing was expensive!" Sully quipped.
"They can buy a new one," Nate said dryly, tossing the instrument aside.
"Where's Garnier?" Elena asked, coming up beside them.
"He's gone," Nate said grimly. "And good riddance. Let's get out of here while we still can. But here," he bent down and raided the unconscious forms of the band, producing two more guns. "Just in case," he said, handing one to Sully and one to Elena.
As they took in the sight of the dozens of hapless patrons still trying to flood the exits, the trio quickly regrouped and formed a plan. "This elevator's obviously out of the question," Elena said.
"And those stairs aren't much better," Sully added, nodding at the doors Nate and Elena had gone through earlier, which were packed with confused and panicked people.
"There's a staff entrance over there," Nate said. "Let's try that."
Using the service entrance, the three partners made their way down a set of bare concrete steps to an equally plain steel door with a small window in it. Nate peered through the window before cautiously opening the door and stepping through into some kind of a maintenance room. "This way, we'll take this," Nate said, motioning toward a freight elevator over to one side. He jabbed the button impatiently, and the doors opened up into a large rectangular car which they all stepped into. "Going down- ground floor!" he said smugly, pressing the button.
The three adventurers stood silently watching the light descend down the numbers, growing ever closer to their escape. Nate smirked and opened his mouth to make a joke, but right then the car stopped at floor number two and the doors opened into what was clearly a large commercial kitchen. The three people in the elevator looked wide-eyed past the slack jawed cooks who were turning to look in wonder at the gun-toting strangers, past the obvious head chef who was glaring at them from beneath some extremely bushy eyebrows, and even past Mathis Garnier, who turned to see the new arrivals along with everyone else in the kitchen. They looked past all of these, their eyes firmly fixed on the three dark-suited men with submachine guns who were currently raising their weapons to shoot them.
"OH CRAP!" Nate bellowed, shoving Sully to one side of the door opening while he pulled Elena to the other along with himself. Automatic gunfire plowed the opposite wall of the elevator as the three treasure hunters pressed themselves as tightly as possible into the front corners of the car and squeezed their eyes shut against the maelstrom of bullets. Elena furiously jabbed at the button to close the doors, but finally gave up and shouted to her husband over the noise of the guns to tell him that it wouldn't budge. Finally Nate ventured to put his hand out around the edge of the door and blind fired into the kitchen, praying that any innocent people had long since fled the vicinity. After several rounds from Nate, the machine gunners ceased firing and Nate risked a glance around the edge. Seeing the gunmen nowhere in sight, Nate crawled out behind the end of a counter and peered around the edge of it. He was immediately greeted with another volley of gunfire and ducked back. "These guys are relentless!" he muttered to himself. He blind fired a few more bullets their direction but stayed huddled low behind the counter.
Suddenly, a pair of strong hands grabbed him by the back of his suit jacket and yanked him up and over the counter. His attacker looped their arms up under Nate's armpits, firmly restraining him, and jerked him around until he was face to face with a tall man in a waistcoat brandishing a chef's knife. "Gah!" Nate cried, his eyes round as saucers, and he quickly lifted both feet and kicked the knife-wielding thug backward into the kitchen island, causing a great clatter of pots and pans, and then immediately threw his head back, striking the man holding him on the bridge of his nose and causing him to release his grip with a cry of pain. Nate hit the ground and rolled as another spray of machine gun fire pinged off a line of hanging skillets like wind chimes, coming up near the thug he had just kicked. Staying low behind the shelter of the metal island, the two opponents shared a quick exchange of blows while Sully and Elena kept up cover fire in the direction of the machine gunners. Soon they had dispatched the two gunners, while Nate had his man laid out unconscious on the floor.
The three partners gathered, breathing heavily. "Nice work," Nate panted.
Just then a set of double doors on the other end of the kitchen crashed open and in walked three more thugs, fists raised, and followed by Garnier. "We're not out of the woods yet," Sully rumbled.
"Get the journal!" Garnier shrieked, pointing at them.
Fists and curses flew as the trio met the new wave of opponents. Sully was quickly singled out by Garnier himself, while Elena sparred with one of the thugs and Nate was quickly backed against a butcher block by the other two. For a few moments he held his own, but then one of the thugs wrenched his arm behind his back and shoved him down on the counter, upsetting an open bottle of liquor as he did. The contents spilled out in a stream down the wooden surface, slowly trickling toward the gas range at the end.
"Hey, c'mon," Nate growled, trying to squirm his way out of the hold the man had him in. "That was some good stuff you just wasted." As he struggled, his eyes followed the stream of alcohol on its path, and suddenly he realized he was in trouble. "Oh, no, not good."
The little river spilled over onto the stove top and hit the pilot light, immediately flaring up. Nate watched in horror as the line of flames shot along the top of the spilled liquor coming straight towards him, his eyes getting progressively wider as it came nearer. "AhhHHH!" Suddenly a meat cleaver embedded itself in the butcher block several inches from his face, cutting across the stream of alcohol and momentarily arresting the spread of the flames. A split second later there was a loud, metallic clang, and the thug holding Nate down released him and collapsed on the floor. Nate shoved himself away from the counter as the flames leaped over the wide blade of the meat cleaver and ignited the rest of the stream of alcohol, and he turned to see Elena holding a large frying pan low and to her side with both hands, obviously at the end of the arc that had put the utensil in contact with the goon's head. He grinned a crooked grin, but quickly his expression changed to one of horror as he saw the other thug he had been fighting coming up behind her with a knife. "Elena!" he squeaked.
In a flash she swung around, smashing the heavy pan across the other thug's face with an equally jarring twang as the one that had sounded a moment earlier. A look of punch-drunken stupor briefly washed over the hapless man's face before he crumpled to the ground.
Nate chuckled as he wiped the sweat from his brow. "Heh, thanks."
Elena looked at him and smiled in that way that Nate had grown to love, to adore even- that way that only Elena could- before slinging the pan across her shoulder like it was a baseball bat. "No problem," she said softly.
As Sully strutted across the kitchen toward them, Nate called out, "Hey, slugger! How'd you fare?"
Sticking an unlit cigar between his teeth, Sully replied, "Well, Frenchy there learned a thing or two about fighting with Victor Sullivan. Unfortunately, before I could really teach him a lesson, he slipped away through a side door, but-" he held up a finger and then reached for his jacket pocket. "He didn't get-" Sully's smug look suddenly morphed into one of shock. "The journal! Goddammit, he got the journal!"
As the two men of the group bemoaned the turn of events, Elena stood aloof to one side. "Sooo... what?" she asked. "It's just an old book, right?"
Nate frowned and shook his head. "No, you don't understand. It's- it's important... I can explain everything later, but we have to catch up with Garnier somehow."
A crackling noise behind them caused the three of them to turn and see that the fire that had started on the stove had spread to a nearby wastebasket, and smoke was beginning to billow up. "Oh no," Elena said. "We gotta get that thing put out before-"
With a whoosh the flames suddenly caught the grease covered dishes on the counter next to it, almost instantly tripling in size. In another moment the snapping, spitting inferno had spread to a pile of linens sitting nearby, and began rapidly growing in size.
"C'mon, let's get out of here!" Nate cried. The three burst out of the kitchen into a hallway and then through another set of double doors back out onto the main floor of the hotel. As they raced down the hall past neatly numbered guest rooms, Nate yanked a fire alarm on the wall and a shrill whine split the air, adding to the already growing pandemonium in the building. On hearing the unmistakable drone of the alarm, several straggling patrons shrieked and dove into their rooms to collect their valuables. The trio of treasure hunters pressed on, rushing up first one hall, then down the next, looking for any sign of the contemptible scientist.
After a good fifteen or twenty minutes of searching the surrounding floors, all while dodging panicked guests that were scrambling for the exits, Sully finally growled in frustration, "He's not here kid. Probably made for the exit as soon as he had the book in his possession."
Nate let out an defeated sigh. "You're right. We should head for the ground."
Elena, still feeling very much left out of some crucial information, gave a nervous chuckle. "That is typically the best thing to do when you're in a building that's on fire."
They rounded the next corner to see a the next hall engulfed in flames. "Shit!" Nate cursed. "This is really getting out of hand!"
"Come on!" Sully shouted. "This way!"
They bolted down the stairwell until they finally reached the ground floor and burst into the lobby. The room was swarming with people, all being herded out the front doors by firemen standing just inside, calling out over the chaos. Eying the front desk, Nate had a sudden idea.
"The valet records!" he exclaimed. "We can find out where Garnier's parked! That will give us a better chance of getting to him before he's gone."
"Good idea," Sully agreed.
They began trying to work their way to the desk, but it involved cutting directly across the flow of people, and proved to be nearly impossible. Stepping out into the crowd was like stepping into a fast flowing current- you were instantly swept along in the direction it was going, with little chance of escape. "Excuse me, excuse me, ex...'scuse me," Nate said loudly as he tried in vain to make his way through the frantic crowd. Soon they had been hustled out the front doors, with no chance of slipping past the firemen to get back inside. As the wild-eyed patrons dispersed in every direction around them, Nate grabbed his wife and Sully by their shoulders and pulled them to the side.
"Well, that didn't work," Elena said, unhelpfully.
"No," Sully agreed. "People were trying to get outside like it was going out of style."
Nate glanced up at the hotel they had just left. Flames shot from the widows in multiple places, and loud crashes could be heard from inside as parts of the interior collapsed. "I can't say I blame them," he said dryly. "Let's keep going, the parking garage is this way."
The quickly found it off the back side of the hotel, and began cautiously walking down the lines of cars. As they walked, Nate could hear a familiar voice echoing through the garage, and motioned for them to stay low as they approached. Ducking between vehicles and staying close to the edge, they were soon within a couple of parking spaces from Garnier as he paced back and forth, talking on his phone in an agitated tone of voice. Nate was tempted to jump him right then and there, but decided to wait and listen to what he was saying, so instead stayed crouched behind the car they were using for cover, his gun held at the ready.
"...that's what I said. Yes..." The Frenchman scrubbed a hand over his face, which was glistneing with sweat. "You got it? Good. Yes, get us the next available flight to Reykjavik, We will proceed with plan 'B'." As he hung up the phone, a woman screamed, causing him, as well as the three treasure hunters hidden nearby, to turn and look.
Just outside the garage, a middle aged woman was practically hanging from a fireman's arm as she screamed hysterically, "You don't understand! My child is in there! On the top floor! You've got to do something!"
With tremendous self control and professional calm, the fireman proceeded to explain to her that they would get to her child as soon as possible, but that they had not even been able to get trucks close to the building with the amount of people that were still pouring out of it. The woman broke down sobbing on the ground as the fireman did his best to console her.
"Oh my god," Elena breathed.
Nate glanced at the burning hotel with a grim realization. "She said her child's on the top floor... That building's tall- the ladder's won't reach high enough! They'll never get there in time!"
The screech of tires made the three turn to see Garnier driving away in a black Porsche, still not having spotted them in their hiding place. The scientist swerved to get around the woman and the fireman, earning himself a dirty look from the latter, and was gone.
"What an asshole," Sully muttered.
Gritting his teeth, Nate made his decision and stood. "I've got to help that lady."
Elena looked shocked. "What? Nate, how? Why? You don't have any of their equipment, what makes you think you'll be able to do what the fire department can't?"
Nate looked at his wife with compassion, but also with unwavering resolve. "It's like I said, at best their ladders only go up seven floors, and that's after they manage to get all the people out so they can even get close to the building. There's no way they'll get there in time. Besides," he added grimly, "it's my fault this even happened. It's the least I can do-"
"This-" Sully gestured to the burning hotel, "is not your fault. It's that son-of-a-bitch Garnier's fault."
"But it never would've happened if we hadn't been here today," Nate said. Then, in a voice soft and pleading, he added, "Please, I just can't see an innocent person die because of me. I have to do something."
Elena and Sully returned a sober gaze. Giving another look at the building, Nate said, "I'll be back. I promise," then jogged over to the blazing hotel.