Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller (12 page)

Storm looked at the walls, spying an original Modigliani that was staring back at him with that distinctive face—sad and warped. It had to be valued in the millions of dollars. Volkov clearly hadn’t known the painting’s value. It wasn’t like him to pass up an opportunity to enhance his payday. Or maybe he just knew it would slow his getaway unnecessarily.

“So that’s about all I know for now, at least until the labs come back and tell me more,” Walton said. “Is there anything you can tell me?”

Storm decided that there was nothing more for him at the scene, and that therefore he might give Scotland Yard a little parting gift. His gaze drifted out to the London skyline as he spoke.

“Your killer is a Russian national named Gregor Volkov. The ripped-out fingernails are sort of his signature. He is about five-foot-four, powerfully built. He wears an eye patch and has burn scars on his face. My people can provide you a recent picture, but it probably won’t do you much good. He more than likely entered the country under a different name and is almost certainly now gone. He is not the type to linger.”

“I see, and why does Mr. Volkov wish ill on…”

Storm was no longer listening. His eyes stopped on a solitary figure, dressed in black, gripping the side of a column in the unfinished skyscraper next door. It couldn’t be a construction worker or anyone with an authorized reason to be there. The site was inoperative. Whoever it was, he was long and lean and, from the looks of things, not afraid of heights. Storm couldn’t see the man’s feature’s because his face was obscured by a camera with a big chunk of a long lens attached to it.

Walton was still talking when Storm interrupted: “Was Mr. Wormsley famous in some way?”

Storm had already looked away, so the photographer wouldn’t know he had been spotted.

“No, just rich. Not famous.”

“Is there any reason why the paparazzi would be interested in this case?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Look quickly next door, at roughly our height. There’s a man with a camera taking pictures. Don’t look too long. I don’t want him knowing we’re aware of him.”

Walton did as instructed, then said, “That’s not paparazzi, mate.”

“How do you know?”

“After Princess Kate’s bits showed up in print, we finally cracked down on that sort of thing. Part of the crackdown was making sure the paparazzi didn’t tread on private property. The fellow over there is clearly on private property—the angle the pictures are being shot at would make it clear he was close to the
same level as us, and it would be impossible to achieve that in a public place around here. If he tried to sell them, he’d be looking at a big fine. So would any media outlet that bought them. He wouldn’t be one of the paparazzi. That said, I don’t know who he is or what he’s doing.”

Storm was already on the move. “Well,” he said. “Then perhaps I should find out.”

Storm rode the elevator back down and crossed quickly out into the street. This could be a fool’s errand, he knew. For whatever Walton said, it could just be a paparazzo, looking to shoot pictures of a sensational crime scene. Or it could be some kind of weird thrill-seeker who mixed a fascination for gruesome killings with a thing for heights.

Or it could be that the Chinese Ministry of State Security had sent someone to make sure Volkov had done his job right.

Whatever it was, Storm was going to figure it out by having a polite conversation with the man. Or a not-so-polite conversation. That part really depended on how forthcoming the photographer felt like being.

Storm reached the construction site and surveyed the outside. It was surrounded on all sides by a razor-wire fence. It was not insurmountable, but it was just imposing enough to give Storm pause.

How had the photographer gotten in? Storm did a quick lap around the building and found what he was looking for on the far side. Someone who was apparently handy with bolt cutters had clipped away a narrow section of razor wire. Storm took advantage of the gap, vaulting himself over the fence in that spot.

From there, the path was easy to follow. The ground was soft, and the only fresh footprints led directly to the building. A glass skin covered the first three floors—as far as they had gotten before the money ran out—and Storm tracked the footprints through some front doors.

The inside of the building was completely unfinished—just the steel columns leading up toward the sky. In the middle of the structure there was a lift that led to the crane that was still in place, fifty or so stories up, where someday it would perhaps finish the top floors of the building.

Storm went to the lift and pressed a large green button. Nothing happened. He pressed the red button above it. Still nothing. The lift car was just sitting there, idle, inoperable, same as everything else in the building. Obviously, the power had been cut off.

Storm looked up at the photographer. He counted beams. The man was ten floors up, still firing away from behind his telephoto lens. He must have climbed there.

Storm knew he would have to do the same. The only good news was that the photographer was more or less trapped. That there were no quick ways up meant there were also no quick ways down—at least not any ways that wouldn’t have a sudden, painful end. Plus, Storm had the persuasive powers of the Beretta to aid his cause.

Storm walked to the nearest column and started working his way upward. The climbing was not especially difficult, at least not for a man of Storm’s strength and fitness level. The columns had enough notches that they were easy to scale. Storm gained quickly on the photographer, who was so engrossed in documenting the crime scene that he didn’t notice he was about to have company.

As Storm made his silent ascent, he stayed directly below the photographer so the man wouldn’t see him. Storm allowed himself occasional glimpses upward. The photographer was dressed in all black, from his boots to his one-piece suit to his ski mask. A classic cat burglar. He was not as tall as Storm thought. His thinness just made him appear so.

Storm was now one floor below, still out of the photographer’s line of sight. He paused to consider his next move. He did not want to approach from directly below the man. The man would
be able to kick him in the head, which Storm needed like, well, like he needed a kick in the head.

With that in mind, Storm decided he’d have to walk to the next column, about thirty feet away. He could climb that one, get on the same level as the photographer, and pull out his gun. Then he’d have the guy exactly where he wanted him.

Storm looked at the distance, trying to get his mind in the right set. Storm wasn’t particularly acrophobic, but he was as aware as any other human being that a fall from ten stories up would probably hurt a little. Really, it was just a trick of psychology. After all, if you placed the beam on the ground and told him—or anyone else with a reasonable sense of balance—to walk those thirty feet, he’d be able to stroll along, even sprint it, without a second thought. Put the same beam ten stories up and it was heart-in-throat, shuffle-inch-by-inch time.

So the trick was to convince himself that the beam was really on the ground. Yes. It was on the ground. What did people always say? Just don’t look down. Great advice. It ranked right up there with telling a man who was being chased by a grizzly bear to run a little faster.

Nevertheless, it was all Storm had. He left the safety of the column and, without looking down, began calmly walking.

Ten feet. No problem. Fifteen feet. The wind gusted a little. He didn’t let it rattle him. Twenty feet. A bird flew by—below him. He willed himself not to be bothered by it. His sole focus was that next girder.

He was perhaps twenty-five feet in—five feet to safety—when disaster struck. His foot hit something. He couldn’t see what, but it felt like a thin piece of metal. Automatically, Storm looked down. It was a T square. Some worker or engineer or someone had left it there, except now it had been kicked free and was hurtling earthward. Storm watched it fall and hit the concrete floor ten stories down with a tremendous clattering.

The photographer’s head snapped immediately in the direction
of the sound, which naturally drew his eye downward—and directly at Storm.

Storm drew the Beretta. “Freeze,” he ordered.

Without a word, the photographer slung the camera around his neck and started climbing the column. Storm had a shot at the man, but not an especially good one. There were beams in the way. Plus, what if he actually hit the guy? You couldn’t interrogate a dead man.

Then there was Storm’s worry about the gun’s recoil knocking him off balance. A 9mm didn’t have a lot of kick, but it would give him a little push, and Storm wasn’t braced on anything.

As it was, Storm felt his balance starting to go. Looking down at the T square then up at the photographer had disoriented him. The awareness that he was 120 feet in the air, perched on a foot-wide piece of metal, crashed into him.

He lurched to one side, then the other. His stomach did a somersault. He was going to fall. He threw his arms out to try and steady himself, as with a tightrope walker’s rod.

It didn’t work.

Storm felt himself going over.

In a last-ditch effort at saving himself, he flung himself toward the next column. He caught it with both hands, then pulled himself to it, hugging it as if it were the waiting arms of his mother. He allowed himself a moment to feel safe, then he cursed loudly when he heard something heavy striking the concrete far below.

The Beretta. He had dropped it.

There was no going back for it now. The photographer had gained a full story on him, and was apparently intent on going higher. Why was the man heading up? What was there to gain from that?

There was no point in trying to ponder that strategy. Storm dashed back across the beam—to hell with being ten stories up—and reached out for the column directly below the photographer.

Then Storm started his own climb to the sky.

Storm was gaining on him. There was no question about that. The photographer was no slouch as a climber. And he was in nearly as good shape as Storm. But Storm was stronger and faster.

It was just that the progress was slow. By the time they reached the twenty-fifth floor, Storm had cut the photographer’s lead in half, down to one level. By the fortieth floor, he was half a level away. Storm could feel the lactic acid building in his muscles and the rawness from where the steel was eating into his fingers, but he was thankful for the pain. It gave him something to concentrate on other than the dizzying heights they were reaching. All of London was growing small beneath them.

By the time they passed the base of the crane, at the fiftieth floor, the photographer was a mere few feet away. It was halfway between the sixty-second and sixty-third floors that Storm was able to reach out and grab the man’s ankle with his right hand. The man kicked furiously, but Storm just squeezed harder. Slowly, carefully, Storm started dragging the man toward the sixty-second floor.

“We can do this one of two ways,” Storm said between huge gasps of air. “The hard way or the easy way. What’s it going to be?”

“Let go,” the photographer said. Only it wasn’t a man’s voice.

It was a woman’s.

“I can’t do that,” Storm said. “You and I need to have a conversation about those pictures you were taking. You’re going to tell me who you are and why you’re photographing that crime scene or I swear to you, I will throw you off this building.”

The woman’s response was to kick some more. Storm was easing his way down toward the beam, inch by inch, dragging the woman with him. The descent wasn’t easy, especially not doing it one-handed while the other hand had to keep taming a flailing limb. But Storm was making progress. Finally, he reached the beam below him and anchored himself to it by wrapping his legs around it. He had leverage now. This would be over with quickly.

He tugged. The woman was resisting with every bit of strength she had left, but she was tired after her long climb. She was almost
in his grasp. Just a little longer. She was trying to scramble toward the outside of the column—the more dangerous side. It was a desperate attempt to get farther away from Storm and perhaps shake loose from his clutches.

Then she slipped. She had been bucking so violently against Storm’s hold—and her forearms had grown so tired from all the effort—that her fingers failed on her, losing the handhold they had on the column.

She fell, letting loose a high-pitched scream. Storm still had his grip on her ankle and felt his shoulder ripping away from its socket as the full weight of her plummeting body suddenly became his to bear. The only thing that saved him from having her momentum carry both of them down to oblivion was the column itself. He was on the inside part, while she was on the outside.

They stayed there for a second—her dangling upside down, sixty-two stories up, him hanging on with all his strength. Her ski mask had fallen off, and Storm felt himself gasp as he saw her long, black hair cascading downward and recognized the cheekbones that that had been hiding underneath.

It was Ling Xi Bang.

Despite himself—despite all the times he had steeled himself against engaging his emotions during a mission—he still felt the sting of betrayal. Yes, he had been using her in Paris, trying to get close to her to pry secrets out of her, just as she had been using him. But hadn’t at least some of what they exchanged been real? The waltzing? The storytelling? The moonlight stroll?

But no. It had all been a lie. It actually disgusted him, to know he had lain with someone who could unleash Volkov on innocent civilians.

“How could you hire a man like Volkov?” Storm shouted.

“No. It wasn’t me, I swear.”

“Then why were you taking pictures?”

“I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with these dead bankers, just like you,” she said. “The difference is, we don’t have
as cozy a relationship with the Brits, so I can’t just call up Scotland Yard and get invited to the crime scene.”

“You’re lying,” Storm said.

“No. Please. Think about it: Why would I take pictures if all we wanted was to have these men dead? Because I’m investigating, too.”