LITMIR.BIZ

       SIXTEEN

       Amalfi Casino and Hotel Resort

       18th March - 12.08 a.m.

      Kicking their stools out from under them, people began to run, half-drunk cocktails collapsing to the floor and neatly stacked piles of chips swooning on to the baize as gamblers clambered over each other like calves trying to escape a branding pen.

      Tom fought his way across to Jennifer’s side, Ortiz only a few feet behind him. She was still alive, thank God, her eyes wide with shock, but still alive. He ripped her blouse open, saw the blood frothing from under her left breast.

      ‘It’s okay,’ Tom reassured her, leaning close so she could hear him. She nodded, lifted her head as if to speak, then fell back.

      ‘Where’s she hit?’ Ortiz fell on to his knees next to him as the fire alarm sounded.

      ‘Get an ambulance here,’ Tom shouted back over the noise, ripping his jacket off and folding it into a makeshift pillow. ‘Press down -’ He grabbed Ortiz’s hand and jammed it hard against the wound, then leant across and snatched his Beretta out from under his arm.

      ‘Where the hell are you going?’ Ortiz called after him.

      ‘To find the shooter.’

      He leapt up on to the roulette table, knowing from the location of her wound and the direction she’d been facing that the gunman must have been positioned somewhere ahead of her. Scanning the floor, he suddenly noticed an unexpected shimmer of glass under the stampeding crowd’s feet. He glanced instinctively up at the ceiling and saw that a single mirrored panel was missing from its reflective surface, the empty black square as obvious as a decaying tooth in an otherwise perfect smile.

      ‘He’s in the ceiling void,’ Tom breathed.

      He leapt down and grabbed a passing security guard who seemed more intent on saving himself than in stewarding anyone else to the exit.

      ‘The observation deck,’ Tom shouted. ‘How do I get up there?’

      The guard paused, momentarily transfixed by the gun gripped in Tom’s left hand, then pointed unsteadily at a set of double doors on the other side of the floor.

      ‘Through there,’ he stuttered.

      Snatching the guard’s security pass off his belt, Tom fought his way through to the doors he had indicated and swiped them open. He found himself in a long white service corridor lit by overhead strip lighting and lined on both sides by a series of identical red doors. Cowering under the fire alarm’s strident and persistent echo, a steady stream of people were half walking, half running towards him - casino staff ordered to evacuate the building, judging from their identical red Mao jackets and the confusion etched on to their faces.

      Tom walked against the flow, scanning for a pair of shoes, or a uniform, or a face that didn’t quite fit. Ahead of him, about two thirds of the way down the corridor, a door opened and a man wearing a baseball cap stepped out. Tom noticed him immediately. It was his studied calmness that gave him away. His calmness and the detached, almost curious expression on his face, as if he was taking part in some bizarre sociological experiment that he couldn’t quite relate to.

      He seemed to notice Tom at almost the same time because, grimacing, he turned and retreated back inside, locking the door behind him. Tom sprinted down the corridor after him, tried the handle and then stepped back and pumped four shots into the locks. With a firm kick, the door splintered open.

      Carefully covering the angles above him, Tom made his way up the stairs into the shadows of the observation deck, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. He felt the shooter before he saw him, the metal walkways shuddering under his heavy step as he sprinted along the gantries away from him. Tom took aim and fired three times, then twice more, a couple of the bullets sparking brightly where they struck the steel supports. But the man barely broke his stride, turning sharply to his left and then to his right.

      Tom set off after him, trying to guess where he’d turned, so that he wouldn’t end up stranded in a different section of the deck. Up ahead the gunman paused and then in an instant was over the side of the gantry and dangling down over the suspended ceiling below. Tom again took aim, and fired twice, this time catching him in his shoulder. With a pained yell he let go, crashing through the mirrored ceiling and vanishing from sight.

      Tom sprinted across to the same point and then lowered himself down as far as he could before letting go and dropping through the hole on to a blackjack table scattered with chips and fresh blood.

      ‘Where did he go?’ Tom asked the dealer, who was staring up at him open-mouthed.

      The man pointed dumbly towards the exit. Tom looked up and saw the gunman almost at the door, his jacket burst open at the shoulder where the bullet had passed through him. Tom again pulled the trigger, the bullet skimming the man’s head and shattering a slot machine deliberately positioned to tempt people into one final roll of the dice before heading outside. Next to it a bearded man in a ‘Remember Pearl Harbor’ baseball cap carried on playing, gazing at the wheels as if he hated them.

      Tom leapt down and followed the gunman outside, determined not to lose him. But rather than melt away into the panicked crowd that had swamped the forecourt, the man seemed to be waiting for him, backpack hitched over one arm. For an instant, no longer, they stood about twenty feet apart, their eyes locked, the swollen human flow parting around them like a river around two rocks. The gunman, clutching his shoulder, studied Tom with a detached curiosity; Tom, his gun raised, finger tested the trigger spring’s resistance. But before he could take the shot, a powerful hand gripped his arm and pulled him back.

      ‘Not here, for Chrissake,’ Stokes yelled. ‘Are you fucking crazy? You’ll hit someone.’

      Tom angrily shook him off, took aim and fired. The gun clicked, empty. With a wink, the killer turned and dived into the frothing sea of people.

      In an instant, he was gone.