LITMIR.BIZ

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acrid scent of gunpowder assaulted her. With their feet pounding in rhythm, she and Cardone reached the reception desk together. Stivsky and company were close behind. The nurse lay facedown over her records, unconscious or dead.

      The doors to the two hospital rooms gaped wide. Nova wanted to stop, to check the rooms—the witnesses were priceless—but high-pitched screams still warbled from the mouth of a young volunteer dressed in pink and white. The girl looked with horror into Nova’s eyes as she pointed toward the exit door next to the elevator.

      Nova was closer to the door than Cardone. She yanked it open, peered inside the stair shaft to see if anyone was there, then burst onto the landing, Cardone at her heels. From below came hollow sounds of someone running down metal stairs. She and Cardone poked their heads over the handrail. She glimpsed the back of a dark-haired man dressed in white as he exited from the stairwell onto the next floor down.

      Wordlessly she and Cardone bolted down the steps, their headlong descent sending metallic echoes clanging up and down.

      She trailed Cardone through the fourth-floor door into the corridor and saw the man in white halfway to the double doors at the corridor’s end, walking fast. They gave pursuit. Nova guessed that Stivsky would be on his way to the first floor to secure the exits. The man in white heard her and Cardone. Without looking back, he sprinted for the doors, overturning a cart.

      “Watch out, idiot!” the surprised orderly yelled.

      Side by side she and Cardone streaked after the suspect, avoiding the cart and people hugging the walls. They barged through the double doors. The corridor diverged.

      “Split,” they said simultaneously.

      Cardone took off to the left. She sprinted right and burst through the second set of double doors, nearly flattening a pregnant woman against the wall. Rooms lined the hallway on both sides, but it was unlikely the man would hide. He wanted out.

      Halfway down the hall she passed another stairwell. The door was just closing. The assailant would be heading for a first-floor exit. An elevator stood four strides beyond the stairwell. The door yawned, revealing a skinny, bearded kid. Jeans. Plaid shirt. He moved with glacial slowness toward the opening. Nova leaped inside, shoving the kid out the door with one hand and hitting the first-floor button with the other.

      “What the hell!” he protested.

      She could have cooked a five-course gourmet dinner in the time it took the door to crawl shut.

      Her mind said that if this elevator moved like the one they’d taken up, chances were good, very good, she would descend faster than the bastard could run. She flexed the fingers of her right hand, wishing her gun was nestled in it. Unfortunately the Walther was at home, snugly tucked under her mattress.

      At last. A final moan from the elevator and a slight bounce. The doors retracted with agonizing slowness. She bounded into the hall and from inside the stairwell heard a clanging of running feet. Good! She was ahead of him.

      The stairwell door flew open. The man in white bolted into the hall twelve feet away and headed right for her. His hands were empty: apparently he’d holstered his gun. He looked as big as a pro linebacker. I’ve thrown bigger many times, she told herself.

      Upstairs he hadn’t seen her. He’d probably think she was just a civilian in his way. She set her feet, bent her knees. He swept past. She grabbed his right wrist, twisted it out and back, letting his momentum add to the force that should bring him to the floor in a hammerlock.

      He pivoted on his right foot with the direction of her movement and with his left fist, delivered a forward punch. She dodged it, but his arm wrenched free.

      Now he faced her—stubby black hair, amazed dark eyes, thick lips open. She was clearly an unexpected obstacle in his path to the exit. He followed up with a smooth, left-footed roundhouse kick. Right at her face.

      She blocked it—barely. His foot slid off her shoulder. Cold prickles raced up her back. He was equally skilled—and much stronger. Sure, he was bigger, but there was something abnormal in his strength.

      Before he could set his left foot squarely, Nova lunged and grabbed his left wrist. She wouldn’t get another chance. Kicking out at his right foot, she prayed he’d go down.

      The unstoppable bulk anticipated her. He finessed her kick and used his weight as leverage to twist his wrist free. He planted his left foot, swiveled his back to her and, with his right foot, back-kicked her in the solar plexus. She felt as if she’d been hit by a rocket. Breath whooshed out from her lips. Pain streaking through her belly, arms flailing, she lifted astonishingly, unnaturally, high off the floor as if in a Kung Fu movie, and flew backward toward the wall.

      Chapter 5

      Heart pounding like a jackhammer, Joe rammed open the double doors. The fourth-floor corridor was empty: no terrorist, no civilians. Logic argued that his new partner had drawn the full house and was this instant on the hot trail.

      Still, there must be exits leading outside that had to be checked. And sure enough, three-quarters of the way to the hallway end he found a stairwell and an elevator—coming up. He sucked in his breath, flattened against the wall, slammed the stairwell door open. Nothing in sight. No sounds. He pounded his fist against the wall.

      He swiveled to backtrack and Jacobson crashed into him. Stabilizing the Fairbanks’ detective, Joe muttered, “Bastard went out the other wing.”

      Still furious he’d been dealt a busted flush, he sprinted to where he and his new partner had split up, Jacobson lumbering behind him. At the other wing’s stairwell they galloped down, two and three steps at a time. Agent Nova Blair lay stretched flat on her back on the ground-floor corridor, those big eyes closed. As he’d feared, no sign of a terrorist.

      Three panicked civilians and Duncan, the Alyeska man from pipeline security, clustered around her. God, she looked so fragile. A halo of red blood framed a fan of black hair spread over ivory linoleum.

      Duncan looked up at Joe from a kneeling position beside her with frightened eyes. He said, “Stivsky’s gone after him.”

      “Blair…?” Joe snapped. The rest of his question stuck in his suddenly dry throat.

      Duncan read his mind. “Just unconscious.”

      Relief muddled with fear and anger. Joe felt his jaw muscles tightening. He was going to be taking orders from a part-time agent. Whatever her talent might be, it wasn’t capturing terrorists.

      Duncan could take care of Nova Blair. Joe waved for Jacobson to follow. Together they bolted toward the exit.

      Outside, two hospital security men ran with guns drawn through what was now a light rain toward a part of the parking area hidden behind the hospital wing’s shoulder. A burst of gunfire erupted from the same direction. With Jacobson at his heels, Joe dashed after the guards. He skidded around the corner, heard another triple burst of fire.

      A couple hundred feet away, the FBI man, Stivsky, gun drawn, squatted behind a yellow school bus, peeking around its fender. Stivsky waved to the guards, indicating they should flank the target left and right. The terrorist fired again, another triple round. Joe took off to the left, Jacobson close behind him.

      Stivsky shouted, “Keep him pinned down. I radioed for backup. I located him behind the big blue van.”

      Cardone and Jacobson found cover at opposite ends of a black Cadillac. The lieutenant gave him a look of amazement. “Shit, man,” he muttered, “you’ve got no weapon.”

      “Afraid not. But our friend doesn’t know it. I can still draw fire. Let’s get closer.”

      Jacobson nodded. Together they raced another fifty feet fast and low. A quick burst from the terrorist’s automatic riddled the air. A bright green Plymouth provided cover. Joe clenched his teeth, wryly cursing his misfortune that IBM reps weren’t required by law to travel armed.

      He figured

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