Milton had not anticipated that the elevators would be connected to the fire alarm; he chided himself for his sloppiness. He should have realised that was likely. His plan had been to take the communal elevator to the tenth floor and then climb to the eleventh and then the twelfth floors by way of the stairs, but that was out of the question now. He ascended on foot, taking the stairs two at a time, maintaining a steady pace. Each floor was scaled by two flights, one turning back on the other by way of half-landings. Milton was sweating by the time he reached the fifth floor and, as he arrived at the eighth, his thighs were complaining.

The fire alarm was still ringing out and the fact that it had not been silenced seemed to have served as the signal for the inhabitants of the building to evacuate. They spilled onto the stairs and started down: mothers and fathers with children clutched to their breasts, elderly couples clinging onto the handrail as they made their descent, single men and women sharing worried glances. Milton had the strap of the delivery bag over his shoulder, his right hand inside the open zip. He bumped through the men and women and children, careful that his finger was rested along the shotgun’s receiver and not against the trigger, where a jostle might lead to an involuntary discharge.

The stream of people thinned out by the time Milton reached the ninth floor, and then, as he reached the tenth, there were none. Milton was pleased. There was a good chance that things were going to get messy. No people meant no witnesses and no chance that an innocent bystander might get hit by an unlucky ricochet or a shotgun blast through a wall.

Milton reached the eleventh floor and stopped to catch his breath. The door ahead was more significant and sealed by a hefty electronic lock. He took out the key card that he had confiscated from the guard in the lobby and held it against the reader. He was rewarded with an electronic buzz and then the sound of the lock disengaging.

Milton took the shotgun out of the bag, pushed the door open and, with the gun raised, carefully stepped through the opening.

Fumio had told him that Sakura and Yamato were on this floor. Milton paused, weighing up whether he should take them now and go, or whether he should attend to Takashi first. He knew the oyabun was trapped at the top of the tower, and that Milton might never get another chance to get to him. If Takashi was allowed to live, he would redouble his security.

But if he didn’t get to Sakura and Yamato now…

He had no choice.

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