“You say you’re going to jump?”
“Do not drop me!”
“Oh, dear Lord,” was all he could manage.
There was someone right outside of Katie’s door now. She heard something pushing against the wood. For an excruciatingly long moment all she saw was Anna Fischer, positioned just as Katie was, and the bullets ripping through her body. If only she’d jumped an instant sooner.
“Here I come,” she called down to the man, who was hopping around, his thick arms flying in all directions, trying to best gauge her trajectory. “Do not miss!” she added firmly.
She leapt and a couple seconds later she and the man tumbled down in a tangle of arms and legs. Katie got to her feet, all body parts seemingly intact, and except for a bruised arm and cut shin she was fine. She shoved five twenty-pound notes into his hand, gave him a kiss, and ran for it.
She turned the corner and headed away from her building. She didn’t look back and didn’t see the man change direction and head her way. She didn’t see the door of her apartment building fly open either as another man hit the street and hustled after her. But she could feel their presence and picked up her pace. Should she start screaming? There were plenty of people around. But what if they had guns? They’d shot poor Lesnik with a million people around. She desperately looked for a cop yet saw none.
She never saw the third man, because he was ahead of her but coming her way. He was the safety valve in case the first team missed, and it looked like he would get his chance. He slid the syringe from the sleeve of his coat, uncapped it, and held it ready as he picked up his pace.
CHAPTER 68
THE TAXI TURNED ONTO THE ROAD and Shaw scanned the street. His gaze caught and held on Katie. Her look of terror was clear. She was running. He caught sight of one of the men behind her. But there would be more than one.
And then it happened. Shaw saw a glint of sunlight reflect off the object in the man’s hand. He jumped from the rolling cab and sprinted forward.
Katie and the man were inches away from each other. He
drew back the syringe and then swung it forward, aiming for her belly.
Katie gasped as the fellow in front of her was knocked aside by a far larger man. She felt something slide across her arm. She looked down and saw the needle as it missed going into her by a bare inch. Then she watched as Shaw grabbed the man’s hand, bent it forward, and buried the needle to the hilt in the man’s chest, the plunger pushed all the way down. The man looked in horror at the thing sticking out of him, pushed Shaw away, got to his feet, and ran down the street. His lips were already starting to grow numb as the drug began its lethal journey through him. Caesar had not opted for ricin, the poison fired into Bulgarian Georgi Markov’s leg using a spring-loaded umbrella. What had entered the man’s body was a massive dose of tetrodotoxin, a substance over a thousand times more lethal than cyanide and for which there was no antidote.
He would be dead in twenty minutes.
Shaw grabbed Katie by the arm and they sprinted to Euston Station, jumped on the Tube, rode it to King’s Cross, ran back to daylight, and grabbed a cab. Shaw told the man to simply drive and then looked over at Katie.
She hadn’t said one word to him, not while running and not in the Tube. A terrible thought seemed to grip him. “The syringe, it didn’t…?”
She put a shaky hand on his arm. “No, it didn’t. Thanks to you. How did you know?”
“More luck than anything else.” He sat back against the seat.
“That was the third party back there, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “That was the third party.”
She glanced out the window as the cab struggled along in London traffic. The afternoon was quickly turning to dusk. “Where are we going?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Shaw?”
“I heard you. I just don’t have an answer.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about Lesnik.”
“So am I,” he said bluntly.
“I shouldn’t have written the story.”
“No, you shouldn’t.”
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?”