Part 3 Unknown Caller #3
Indeed, that would be too swift a death for them.
No, his drone would shoot the glass, shattering it, causing Ajax and Cassandra to fall seventy-plus floors to their deaths.
Suddenly, with a roar, the NYPD chopper dropped into a hover outside the windows.
Immediately, the military drone pivoted, rotating laterally in the air, and casually unleashed a burst of gunfire at the helicopter.
The chopper was hit several times in the tail.
It peeled away, flying off like a spooked animal.
Then the drone simply resumed its former position, with its guns aimed at the windows.
‘Goddamn . . .’ I breathed.
I returned to the problem at hand. ‘If we can’t open the windows, how can we save them?’
‘What about the blow-through floors?’ Garrett said.
‘They’re positioned every twenty-five storeys, so there’s one a couple of floors above us.
That’s where the abseiling rigs for the window washers are kept.
We go to the blow-through level two floors up from here and abseil down from there and rescue them. ’
‘You do that for Cassandra,’ I said. ‘I think Audrey and I can reach Ajax from here.’
‘Got it.’ Garrett took off, running hard.
I banged on the glass. ‘Ajax! Cassandra! Hang tight! We’re coming!’
75TH, 73RD AND 61ST FLOORS
As Merritt Garrett raced back through the apartment and bolted into the fire stairs, I stared at the floor-to-ceiling window beside Ajax’s one.
Then I raised my borrowed Smith it was more efficient to suspend cleaners on individual harnesses from the blow-through levels.)
He put on a harness.
Two minutes.
And then—with his harness safely on and its rope clipped to a stanchion a few yards inside the rim—Merritt Garrett lowered himself over the edge and down the side of the skyscraper.
By then I had grabbed the longest electrical cable I could find in the apartment: a twelve-foot cable from a Christmas tree with many lights.
I tied one end of the cable to the leg of a sturdy lounge chair—which Audrey held in place—and then the other around my wrist.
Then, using the cable as a tether, I leaned out the shattered window, high above the street, and got closer to Ajax King.
A few moments later, I saw Merritt Garrett—hanging from his rope like a mountain-climber abseiling down a cliff—arrive beside the terrified Cassandra, pinned by her neck to the exterior of the 73rd floor.
Cassandra was sobbing, hyperventilating.
Ajax was swearing.
The drone lurked menacingly, like a giant bird of prey watching us with its frowning red eye.
When Cassandra saw Garrett descend into place beside her, her eyes popped with surprise and hope.
Time check.
50 seconds.
‘Help us!’ she cried to Garrett.
‘Get me out of here!’ Ajax yelled to me.
‘Give me a second,’ I said.
With my left arm gripping the cable, I leaned my body further out the window, my right Hoka sneaker squeaking as it got a purchase on the exterior of the glass.
Behind me, Audrey peered anxiously out the window as she anchored the couch.
I scanned the suction cup attached to Ajax’s bondage collar.
‘What the fuck are you waiting for?!’ he shouted.
‘I’m making sure this suction cup isn’t booby-trapped. It might be set to detach if I touch it.’
‘Just unclip me from the fucking thing!’
Over at the other window, hanging from his window-washer’s rope, Garrett had the same issue with Cassandra.
40 seconds . . .
‘What do you think?’ he yelled to me.
‘I don’t see any booby traps!’
‘Me neither!’ Garrett called back. ‘That’s probably because the insane asshole who did this didn’t think anybody would be even more insane and come out on the side of this building to rescue them!’
‘We have no choice. I say we cut their flex-cuffs first, so they can hold on to us, then release the suction cups!’ I called.
‘Copy!’
30 seconds.
I’d have to do this with one hand—
A sudden gust of wind buffeted me and I almost lost my footing.
Twenty feet to my right, hanging from his rope, Garrett had planted his cowboy boots astride Cassandra. He drew a huge Bowie hunting knife from a sheath hidden inside his left boot and used it to slice through her flex-cuffs.
I drew my (comparatively tiny) Swiss Army knife.
20 seconds.
I leaned out again, gripping the small knife in my right hand while my left arm was now fully extended, clutching the electrical cable that stretched back to Audrey.
‘Okay, Ajax,’ I yelled. ‘I’m gonna cut the cuffs around your hands first. Then you wrap your arms around my waist and I’ll detach the suction cup, okay?’
12 seconds.
I reached awkwardly behind his body, extending my knife hand, inching the blade closer to the zip-tie binding his wrists.
Another gust of wind . . .
. . . and I was hurled away from Ajax . . .
. . . and dropped down the face of the building . . .
. . . while Audrey gripped the couch and—
Snap!
—the cable arrested my fall, but now I was hanging, one-handed, eight feet below the rim of my open window, too far away to be able to help Ajax.
Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .
‘Sam! You okay?’ Garrett yelled.
He’d cut Cassandra’s cuffs and her arms were now wrapped around his neck.
Garrett slipped his big knife back into his boot-sheath and grabbed hold of her suction cup, about to release it.
‘Yeah, but . . .’ I yelled back.
I had to get back to Ajax and cut his cuffs.
I started hauling myself up my cord to my window.
Seven . . . six . . . five . . .
I glanced at the attack drone looming a short way out from the windows.
‘Help me, you stupid fuck!’ Ajax cried.
‘Sam!’ Audrey yelled.
I crawled back in through my window.
Four . . . three . . . two . . .
With a sharp yank on its handle-grip, Garrett released Cassandra’s suction cup.
The young woman came free of the glass and hung with Garrett on his rope. Garrett kicked them both away, swinging to the side of the window.
One . . .
I leaned out my window, reached for Ajax again.
Too late.
Our time expired.
The drone opened fire.
The sound of the drone’s 7.62mm cannons firing was ear-
splitting.
Braaaaaack!
It fired a short burst, maybe only a half-dozen shots, but that was all it had to do.
The result was shocking.
The windows to which Cassandra and Ajax had been attached shattered and instantly transformed into a thousand tiny shards . . .
. . . and like a curtain being dropped, those shards just fell away.
Which meant Ajax dropped with them.
His face was only a few feet from mine when it happened and in that terrible moment, I saw the most primal emotion flash across it: the realisation that he was going to die.
He fell.
Plummeted away from me down the side of the building.
He screamed all the way down.
His shout ended with a ghastly thud seventy-three storeys below.
I hung there, leaning from my electrical cable out the adjoining window frame, struck mute.
Behind me, Audrey was also silent.
Over by the corner window, Merritt Garrett dangled with Cassandra King clinging to him. Her window had shattered, too, but they’d swung to the side just in time.
Garrett had saved her life.
But I’d lost Ajax.
Garrett’s eyes met mine.
His look said it all: shock, disbelief, empathy.
There came the distant ping of an elevator and moments later, Director Longmuir, Quinn McCade, Mia Kimura and an NYPD beat cop emerged from the vestibule, too late to be of any help.
I bowed my head.
At least we’d saved Cassandra.