At the other end of the hallway, below a red Exit sign, a heavy door with a crash bar was pulled back. The figure of Prague stepped out, nodding at Marseilles. In his right hand was a long-barreled, heavy-caliber automatic, in his left what looked like… it was… a grenade. The thumb was curved, pressing on the lever; the firing pin was outl And if he had one grenade he had more than one. Prague was an arsenal. He would take whoever was in the area, as long as he took Beowulf Agate. A grenade hurled into a dead-end corridor, a swift rare into the carnage be-fore the smoke had cleared to put bullets into the heads of those surviving, making sure Scofield was the first. No matter what the American had thought of, he was cornered. There was no way out through the gauntlet.

  Unless Prague could be stopped where he was, the grenade exploding beneath him. Vasili pulled the GrazBurya from his pocket and pushed the swinging door in front of him.

  He was about to shoot when he heard the scream… screams from a man in panic.

  “Get out of herel For Christ’s sake, I’ve got to get out of here!” What followed was madness. Two men in hotel uniforms came running out of the corridor, one turning right, crashing into Prague, who propelled him away, beating him with the barrel of his gun. Prague shouted at Marseilles, ordering him down the corridor.

  Marseilles was no fool-any more than Amsterdam was; he saw the grenade in Prague’s hand. The two men screamed at each other.

  The elevator door closed.

  It closed. The light went off. It had been on Hold!

  Beowulf Agate had made his escape.

  Taleniekov spun back behind the metal doors; in the confusion he had not been spotted. But Prague and Marseilles had seen the elevator; it obviously prodded the immediate recollection of a second man in a dark red jacket, running straight ahead, without panic, knowing what he was doing… and carrying something under his left arm. Like Vasili, the two executioners watched the lighted numbers above the elevator door, expecting, as Taleniekov expected, the letter L to light up. It did not.

  The light reached 3. It stopped.

  What was Scofield doing? He could be running in the streets in seconds, finding safety in the crowds, heading for any of a hundred sanctuaries. He was staying at the killing ground! Again, madness!

  Then Vasili understood. Beowulf Agate was coming after him.

  He looked through the circular service window. Prague was talking wildly.

  Marseilles nodded, holding his finger on the left elevator button, as Prague ran back toward the staircase and disappeared beyond the door.

  Taleniekov had to know what had been said. It could save seconds—if he could learn in seconds. He put the GrazBurya in his pocket, burst through the swinging door, the gray silk scarf bunched high around his neck, the gray hat firmly down on his head, his face obscured. He shouted.

  “.41ors-vous avez dicouvert que1que chose par hazard?” In Marseilles’ excitement, the swiftness and the deception had their effect. The black overcoat, the gray blur of silk and fur and the French spoken with a Dutchman’s guttural inflections; they were enough to confuse the image of a man he had met only once, briefly in a coffee shop. He was stunned; he ran toward Taleniekov, shouting in his native tongue, the words so rushed they were barely clear.

  “What are you doing here? All hell has broken loosel Men are yelling in Beowulf’s room; they break down doors! He got away. Prague has.

  Marseilles stopped. He saw the face in front of him and his stunned expression turned into one of shook. Vasili’s hand shot out, gripping the weapon in the Frenchman’s hand, twisting it with such force that Marseilles screamed aloud. The gun was pried out of his fingers.

  Taleniekov slammed the man against the wall, hammering his knee into the Frenchman’s groin, his left hand tearing at Marseilles’ right ear.

  “Prague has what? You have one second to tell mel” He crashed his knee up into the Frenchman’s testicles. “Now!” “We work our way to the roof. Marseilles choked the answer, spitting it out between clenched teeth, his head thrown back in pain. “Floor by floor… to the roof.” “Why?” My God! thought Vasili. There was a metal airduct connecting the hotel to the adjacent building. Did they know? He rammed his knee again and repeated. “Why?” “Prague believes Scofield thinks you have men in the streets… at the hotel doors. He’ll wait until the police come… the confusion. He did something in the rooml In the name of God, stop!” Vasili smashed the handle of the Frenchman’s gun into Marseilles’ skull behind his left temple. The assassin collapsed, as the wound spat blood. Taleniekov propelled the unconscious body along the wall, letting it drop so that it fell across the intersecting corridor.

  Whoever came out of room 13 would be greeted by another unexpected sight.

  The panic would mount, precious minutes obtained.

  The elevator on the left had responded to the Frenchman’s call. Vasili raced inside and pressed the button for the third floor. The doors closed, as far down the hallway two excited men ran out of room 13. One was the hotel manager; he saw the fallen Frenchman in the center of a blood-soaked carpet. He screamed.

  Scofield took off the jacket and the cap, bunching them in a corner, and put on his coat. The elevator stopped at the third floor; he tensed at the sight of a portly maid who walked in carrying towels over her arm.

  She nodded; he stared at her. The doors closed and they proceeded to the fourth, where the maid got off. Bray reached over quickly and again pressed the button for the sixth floor; there were none above it.

  If it were possible, one part of the insanity was going to be over withl He was not going to run away only to start running again, wondering where the next trap would be sprung. Taleniekov was in the hotel and that was all he had to know.

  Room five-zero five. Taleniekov had given the number over the phone; he had said he would be waiting. Bray tried to think back, tried to recall a cipher or a code that matched the digits, but there were none he could remember, and he doubted the KGB man would pinpoint his location.

  Five-Zero—Five.

  Five-Death-Five?

  I’m waiting for you on the fifth floor. One of us will die.

  Was it as simple as that? Was Taleniekov reduced to a challenge? Was his ego so inflamed or his exhaustion so complete, that there was nothing left but speffing out the dueling ground?

  For Chrises sake, lees get it over with! I’m coming, Taleniekov! You may be good, but you’re no match for the man you call Beowulf Agate!

  Ego. So necessary. So tiring.

  The elevator reached the sixth floor. Bray held his breath as two well-dressed men entered. They were talking business, last-year’s figures the bothersome topic. Both glanced briefly, disapprovingly at him; he understood. The beard, his bloodshot eyes. He clutched his attach6 case and avoided their looks. The door started to close and Bray stepped forward, his hand inside his jacket.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “My floor.” There was no one in the long corridor directly ahead, four stories above 11 and 13. Far down on the right were two doors with circular windows.

  The service elevator. One panel had just swung shut; it still trembled.

  Scofield pulled his automatic partially out of his belt, then held it in place when he heard the rattle of dishes beyond the swinging doors. A service tray was being taken away; a man concealing himself with intent to kill did not make noise.

  Down on the left, toward the staircase, a cleaning woman had finished a room. She pulled the door shut and wearily began to roll her cart toward the next.

  Five-zero-five.

  Five-death-five.

  If there was a meeting ground, he was above it, on the high ground. But it was a high ground from which he could not see and time was running out. He thought briefly of approaching the cleaning woman, using her as a point somehow, but his appearance ruled it out. His appearance ruled out a great many things; shaving had been a luxury he could not afford; relieving himself meant precious moments given up, away from the sounds of the trap.

  The little things became so ominous, so all-important during the waiting.

  And he was so tired.

  Using the service elevator had to be ruled out; it was an enclosure too easily immobilized, isolated. The staircase was not much better, but he had an advantage; except for a roof-if there was an exit from the roof-it did not go higher. The sightlines favored the one above. Birds of prey swooped, they rarely attacked from below.

  Sharks did, however.

  Diversion. Any kind of diversion. Sharks were known to lunge up at inanimate objects, floating debris.

  Bray walked rapidly toward the heavy door to the staircase, stopping briefly at the cleaning woman’s cart. He removed four glass ashtrays, stuffing them into his pockets, and wedged the attach6 case between his arm and chest.

  As quietly as he could, he pressed on the crash bar; the heavy steel door opened. He started down the steps, staying close to the wall, listening for the sound of his enemy.

  It was there. Several stories below he could hear rapid footsteps slapping against the concrete stairs. They stopped and Scofield stood motionless. What followed confused him. There was a slicing sound, a series of quick movements -abrasive, metallic. What was it?

  He looked back up the steps at the metal door he had just walked through, and he knew. The staircase was essentially a fire exit; the crash-bar doors opened from the inside, not from the staircase, thus inhibiting thieves. The person below was using a thin sheet of metal, or plastic, stabbing the crack around the lock, pulling up and down to catch the rounded latch and open the door. The method was universal; most fire exits could be manipulated this way, if they were functional. They would be functional in this hotel.

  The abrasive slicing stopped; the door had been opened.

  Silence.

  The door slammed shut. Scofield moved to the edge of the steps and looked below; he saw nothing but angled railings, squared at the comers, descending into darkness. Silently, he lowered one foot at a time and reached the next landing. He was on the fifth floor.

  Five-zero-five. A meaningless number, a meaningless verbal complication.

  Taleniekov’s strategy was clear now. And logical. Bray would have used it himself. Once the chaos had begun, the Russian waited in the lobby, watching the elevators for a sign of his enemy, and when be did not appear, the assumption had to be that Beowulf was cut off, roving, prob-ing for a way out. Only after Taleniekov was certain that his enemy had not run into the streets, could he begin the final hunt from the staircase, lurching into the hallways, his weapon leveled for his moving target.

  But the Russian could not start the kill from the top, be had to begin from the staircase in the lobby. He was forced to give up the high-ground, as deadly a disadvantage on the staircase as it was in the hill country. Scofield put down his attach6 case and took out two of the glass ashtrays from his pocket. The waiting was about over; it would happen any second now.

  The door below crashed open. Bray hurled the first ashtray down between the railing; the smashing of glass echoed throughout the descending walls of concrete and steel.

  Footsteps lurching. The thud of a heavy body making contact with a wall.

  Scofield sprang toward the open space; he threw down the second ashtray.

  The glass shattered directly beneath; the figure below darted past the edge of the railing. Bray fired his gun; his enemy screamed, twisting in the air, hurling himself out of the sightline.

  Scofield took three steps down, pressing himself against the wall. He saw a thrashing leg and fired again. There was the singing sound of a bullet ricocheting off steel, embedding itself in cement. He had missed; he had wounded the Russian, but not lamed him.

  There was suddenly another sound. Sirens. Distant. Outside. Drawing closer.

  And shouting, muted by the heavy exit doors; orders screamed in corridors and hallways.

  Options were being cut off, the chance of escape diminishing with each new sound. It had to end now. There was nothing left but a final exchange. A hundred lessons from the past were summarized in one: Draw fire first, make the gun expose itself-which means exposing part of you. A superficial wound means nothing if it saves your life.

  The seconds ticked off; there was no alternative.

  Bray took out the two remaining ashtrays from his pocket and hurled them over the open space above the railing. He stepped down, and at the first sound of shattering glass, swung out his left arm and shoulder, jabbing the air, arcing in a half-circle, part of him in the Russian’s direct line of fire. But not his weapon; it was ready for his own attack.

  Two deafening explosions filled the vertical tunnel..

  The gun was blown out of his handl Out of his right hand! He watched helplessly as the weapon sprang out of his fingers, specks of blood spreading over his palm, the high-pitched ring of a still-ricocheting bullet bouncing from steel to steel.

  He had been disarmed by a misplaced shot. Killed by an echo.

  The Browning automatic clattered down the staircase. He dove for it, yet even as he did so he knew it was too late. The killer below came into view, struggling to his feet, the large barrel of his gun rising, directed at Scofield’s head.

  It was not Taleniekov, not the face in a thousand pboto,graphs, the face he had hated for a decadel It was the man from Prague, a man he had used so often in the cause of free-thinking people. That man was going to kill him now.

  Two thoughts came rapidly, one upon the other. Final summations, as it were. His death would come quickly; he was grateful for that. And, at the last, he had deprived Taleniekov of his trophy.

  “We all do our jobs,” said the man from Prague, his three fingers tightening on the handle of the gun. “You taught me that, Beowulf.” “You’ll never get out of here.” “You forget your own lessons. ‘Drop your weapons, leave with the crowds.’ I’ll get out. But you won’t. If you did, too many would die.” “Padazdit!” The voice thundered from above, no crash of a door preceding it, the man who roared having intruded swiftly, silently. The executioner from Prague spun to his left, ducking, swinging his powerful gun up the stairs at Vasili Taleniekov.

  The Russian fired one shot, drilling a hole in Prague’s forehead. The Czech fell across Scofield as Bray lunged for his gun, grabbing it off the step, rolling furiously down around the bend in the staircase. He fired wildly up at the KGB man; he would not permit Taleniekov to save him from Prague only to preserve his trophy.

  I’ll see you take your last breath.

  Not herel Not nowl Not while I can movel And then he could not move. The impact came and Scofield only knew that his head seemed to have split wide open. His eyes were filled with blinding streaks of jagged white light, somehow mingling with sounds of chaos. Sirens, screams, voices yelling from distant chasms far below.

  In his rolling dive to get out of Taleniekov’s line of fire, he had crashed his skull into the sharp steel edge of the corner railing post.

  A misplaced bullet, an echo, an inanimate shaft of structural steel. They would lead him to death.

  The image was blurred but unmistakable. The figure of the powerfully built Russian came running down the staircase. Bray tried to raise the gun still in his hand; he could not. It was being crushed under a heavy boot; the weapon was being pried out of his hand.

  “Do it,” whispered Scofield. “For Christ’s sake, do it now! You’ve won by an accident. It’s the only way you could.” “I’ve won nothing! I want no such victory. Comel Movel The police are here; they’ll be swarming up the staircase any moment.” Bray could feel the strong arms lifting him up, pulling his arm around a thick neck, a shoulder shoved into his side for support. “What the hell are you doing?” He was not sure the words were his; he could not think through the pain.

  “You’re hurt. The wound in your neck has opened; it’s not bad. But your head is cut, I don’t know how severely.” “What?” I “There is a way out. This was my depot for two years. I know every inch of the building. Come! Help me. Move your legs! The roof.” “My case….” “I’ve got it.”

  They were in a large, pitch-black metal enclosure, steady blasts of cold air causing the corrugated sides to rattle, the near-freezing temperature producing audible vibrations. They crawled along the ribbed floor in darkness.

  “This is the main air duct,” explained Taleniekov, his voice low, aware of the magnified echo. “The unit serves the hotel and the adjacent office building. Both are comparatively small structures, owned by the same company.” Scofield had begun to find his mind again, the sheer movement forcing him to send impulses to his arms and legs. The Russian had torn a silk scarf apart, wrapping one half around Bray’s head, the other around his throat.

  The bleeding had not stopped, but it was contained. He had found part of his mind, but there was still no clarity in what was happening.

  “You saved my life. I want to know why!” “Keep your voice down!” whispered the KGB man. “And keep moving.” “I want an answer.” “I gave it to you.” “You weren’t convincing.” “You and 1, we live only with Res. We see nothing else.” “From you I expect nothing else.” “In a few minutes you can make your determination. I give you that.” “What do you mean?” “We’ll reach the end of the duct; there is a transom ten or twelve feet from the floor. In a rooftop storage area. Once down I can get us out on the street, but every second counts. If there are people in the vicinity of the transom, they must be frightened away. Gunshots will do it; fire above their heads.” “What?” “Yes. I’ll give you your gun back.” “You killed my wife.” “You killed my brother. Before that your Army of Oocupation returned the corpse of a young girl-a child -1 loved very much.” “I don’t know anything about that.” “Now you do. Make your determination.” The metal-webbed transom was perhaps four feet wide. Below was a huge, dimly Et room that served as a miniature warehouse filled with crates and boxes of supplies. There was no one in sight. Taleniekov handed Scofield the automatic, and began forcing the metal screen from its brackets with his shoulder. It sprang loose and fell crashing to the cement floor. The Russian waited several moments for a response to the noise; there was none.