Fleischer leaned closer to Jean, ‘Oh, we’ll make time,’ he said in reply to the other’s words. Suddenly he turned on Tayte and levelled the gun at his head again. ‘But first I’m going to take care of you.’
Tayte had been shot at and threatened at gunpoint before, although it wasn’t an experience he felt he’d learned anything from; he was just as scared now as he had been then. His senses were particularly heightened. He could feel the adrenaline begin to boil in his veins, preparing him for fight or flight. He knew if he didn’t do something, he and Jean were likely going to die, and the thought of what Fleischer and his gang might do to Jean before they killed her only served to fuel his determination to fight. He was thinking fast, looking for a way out. His eyes flitted around the room and settled on the muscular man again, and while Tayte had plenty of natural strength on account of his size, this man looked unstoppable. He knew he needed the gun—the gun Fleischer was pointing at him. He thought that if any of the other men had guns they would have drawn them by now. Whoever had the gun had control of the room.
‘You can’t shoot me,’ Tayte said. ‘I’m Volker Strobel’s grandson.’
He didn’t yet know if that was true, or whether Strobel would care, come to that. But right now he was happy to say anything he thought might buy him some time.
Fleischer laughed at him. ‘Is that so?’
‘You know otherwise?’
Fleischer shook his head, and Tayte thought he must have planted an element of doubt in the man’s mind. He could see it in Fleischer’s eyes—a questioning look that asked ‘What if it were true?’ Tayte helped Fleischer’s thoughts along in that direction.
‘What if I’m right?’ he said. ‘What if I’m right and you shoot me? How’s that going to reflect on you when Strobel finds out?’
‘Wir sollten sie mitnehmen.’ the knifeman said.
‘What was that?’ Tayte asked. ‘What did he say?’
‘He says we should take you to see him.’
‘Well, maybe you should. Maybe this isn’t your call to make.’
Tayte thought that if he and Jean were taken to see Strobel, it would at least postpone the sentences hanging over them. But while he had plenty of questions he wanted to ask Strobel, he preferred to do so on his own terms. These thugs had already said too much. They had admitted to knowing Strobel, and more importantly they had made it clear that they knew where he was. Tayte knew there would be no way back once they had seen him, if indeed there was any way back now. Getting that gun still seemed to offer the best chance of getting out of there. But how?
‘Bring them,’ Fleischer said, and the knifeman grabbed Jean as the muscleman came for Tayte.
Fleischer relaxed the gun a little then, and Tayte’s eyes fixed on the broken display monitor on the desk beside him. He didn’t think he’d be able to turn and pick it up in time to hurl it at Fleischer before he managed to squeeze a shot off, but he was all set to give it a go when an alarm bell started ringing, and suddenly the room was being showered with water from the sprinkler system. The building’s fire alarm had been triggered and Tayte could only think that Tobias Kaufmann had arrived and realised that Tayte and Jean, and his member of staff, were in trouble.
Tayte didn’t waste a second. As the alarm bells began to ring and the water came down, Fleischer momentarily turned away. At that moment, still high on adrenaline, Tayte grabbed the monitor and launched it at Fleischer, sending him crashing into one of the upturned desks. The gun went off, sending a bullet into the ceiling and Tayte leapt on top of Fleischer as he tried to get up again. He could see the muscle man still coming for him, but faster now. He had to get the gun, but where was it? Fleischer had dropped it in the fall.
A split second later, Tayte saw it resting among the strewn papers to his left. He leapt at it, aware that Fleischer had grabbed his legs in an attempt to stop him. But Tayte was tall and he had a long reach. He managed to curl a finger around the trigger-guard just before the muscleman arrived beside him. Then as Fleischer climbed on top of Tayte, he twisted around, and with both hands gripping the gun he shoved the muzzle into Fleischer’s chest.
‘Stop!’ he yelled, his eyes wide with fear, his heart now thumping at an alarmingly fast rate. He could see his hands shaking as he clenched them tighter around the gun.
The muscleman stopped in his tracks as Fleischer’s hands went up. There was no move either man dared make to disarm Tayte. With the gun pressing into Fleischer’s T-shirt, he would have known Tayte could pull that trigger and put a bullet in him as soon as he so much as twitched. Tayte didn’t know whether he could actually pull the trigger, but Fleischer seemed in no hurry to find out.
‘I didn’t have you down as the hero type,’ Fleischer said.
‘It’s called self-preservation. Now don’t try anything or I will shoot you.’
‘Calm down, cowboy,’ Fleischer said. ‘It doesn’t have to end this way.’