But the elevator door wouldn’t open fully because White Shirt’s body was jammed against it. Beck pulled him off the door, maneuvering him out of the way so he and Olivia could get out.
Olivia seemed frozen in the corner, but the hooker moved, deftly stepping over the Russians. She muttered a curse as she made her way out of the elevator, touching her face to feel for any blood spatter, intent on getting the hell out before hotel security arrived.
Beck shoved one of the inert bodies farther into the corner and pulled Olivia toward the open elevator door. He leaned out to see who was in the lobby. The blonde had already walked past the bank of elevators, turning toward the Fifty-eighth Street exit.
He spotted two men, one at each end of the elevator area. On the west side stood Gregor Stepanovich, with a large rolling luggage bag. At the east side, stood his partner.
Beck didn’t linger. He pressed the elevator button for the fiftieth floor, stepped off, and led Olivia toward the east corridor in the direction the hooker had taken, figuring she had momentarily distracted Gregor’s partner on that side. She had, but not enough to prevent Gregor’s man from seeing Olivia, clearly terrified, and Beck with blood smeared on the side of his face and chest.
He raised a gun in Beck’s direction. Beck had the Browning down against his leg. Beck stopped, pushed Olivia away from him, raised the Browning, knowing he would not get the first shot. His only hope was that the man would miss at ten feet. And then, Nydia Lopez appeared out of nowhere behind the gunman. She jumped to gain height and leverage, and came down with a smashing overhand blow across the back of his head. She hit him so hard that he flew forward and fell flat on the marble floor, out cold, his face smacking into the lobby’s marble floor.
Just then a gunshot shattered the two-o’clock-in-the-morning serenity of the Four Seasons.
Olivia ran toward Nydia. Beck dropped into a crouch, turning to face Gregor, who had already twisted around the corner, taking cover from Beck and his Browning.
Beck didn’t fire. He immediately turned back and ran around the corner for Olivia and Nydia. Nydia held Olivia’s arm with one hand and her compact Smith & Wesson M&P .40 with the other.
“Go!” Beck shouted, pointing toward the Fifty-eighth Street exit. Even if Gregor ran after them, they should be able to make it out the door.
Beck shoved the Browning into his coat pocket, ignored everyone and everything except Nydia and Olivia. He ran ahead of them toward the back of the hotel, sure that they would be running right behind him.
As they reached the far end of the hotel, he slid around the corner, and hustled down the steps to the ground floor exit. Outside, Beck could see a doorman and someone who looked like a hotel security guard struggling with a large man trying to get into the hotel.
There was a Cadillac Escalade parked in front of the hotel. The driver’s-side door was open. The SUV was empty. It had to be the driver fighting to get into the hotel. He had already tossed aside the doorman. The security guard, a young black man who nearly matched the driver’s size, was clearly have troubling grappling with what Beck figured was the last of the team sent to get Olivia.
Beck turned and told Nydia, “Get her into that SUV.”
Beck burst out of the exit door and jumped into the scuffle without breaking stride. He pulled the driver’s head back with his right hand and punched him in the throat with his left.
Beck didn’t even pause to see the result. If the security guard couldn’t take him down now, he didn’t deserve the job.
He ran out into the street and jumped into the driver’s seat of the double-parked SUV. Keys were in the ignition. He turned over the engine, shoved the gearshift into drive, and accelerated east on Fifty-eighth, tires squealing, the trucklike SUV fishtailing down the street.
Police sirens were already converging on the hotel. Beck turned left onto Park Avenue, blasting through a red light, just missing a cab.
The light ahead was green and Beck floored the accelerator. The four-hundred horsepower engine hesitated, and then the massive torque kicked in and he streaked through the intersection as the light turned red. He continued accelerating, catching green lights one after the other until the light on Sixty-sixth turned red while he was a half block away from the intersection.
He braked hard, hoping Nydia and Olivia had had time to get their seat belts on. He hadn’t, but braced himself on the steering wheel. They slid into the intersection. Luckily there was no cross traffic. Beck managed to wrestle the big SUV into a right turn and headed east on Sixty-sixth. He braked hard at Lexington, peered to his left looking for empty cabs. He didn’t see any, the light changed and he continued east at a normal speed, stopping at Second Avenue. He pulled the SUV into an empty space near a fire hydrant, shut everything down, took a deep breath, and turned to Olivia and Nydia seated behind him.
“Fuck. You two okay?”
Nydia said, “Yeah.”
“What’d you hit that guy with? Couldn’t have been your fist.”
Nydia pulled out a set of brass knuckles.
Beck pictured the blow. Thought for a second how hard that man’s face smacked into the marble floor when he went down.
“Thanks. You saved us.”
“No problem,” said Nydia.
“Olivia?”
“Yes?”
“You okay?”
“When I stop shaking. God, what happened back there?”
“You guys almost died,” said Nydia.
43
Gregor Stepanovich knew after missing with his first shot that he wouldn’t get another. He had to leave. There was no point. The police and hotel security would be on him before he could kill Beck, or capture the woman.
He had turned and walked out of the front entrance of the Four Seasons as fast as he could, nearly shrieking with frustration that Beck had gotten away from him yet again. It took every shred of his willpower not to chase after Beck, shooting at him until his gun was empty.