He went back up the stairs into the corridor. For a split second, he gave serious thought to returning to the burning hotel room and killing the son of a bitch in the window who’d murdered Wheldon. Instead, he grabbed the navy lieutenant’s hand again and brought her down past the fallen woman.

The alarm was still clown whistling, and there was a pandemonium of people in the lobby when they arrived downstairs two and a half minutes later. Without looking at anyone, Gannon led them behind the empty check-in desk into the back. There were some desks and cubicles there and an emergency fire door in the corner with a push bar that Gannon immediately kicked open.

The eggbeater churning of the low-hovering helicopter above them was incredibly loud as they came out into the garbage alley on the east side of the building.

Then Gannon pushed through another gate, and they were out on 31st Street in the cold air, heading east down the sidewalk toward Sixth Avenue, running as fast as they could.

52

Reyland, in the fusion center, stood before the war room screen in a frozen rictus of wide-eyed baffled rage. On the screen above, smoke was pouring into what looked like a stairwell as a voice repeated, “The source of the alarm signal you are hearing is now being investigated. The source of the alarm signal you are hearing is now being investigated.”

“Emerson, you said we had a team on the floor.”

“We did,” Emerson said, typing into one phone as he cradled another with his shoulder and chin, “but they split up to cover both sides.”

“Who’s down?”

“Sanderson.”

“You put a rookie there on this!” Reyland yelled.

“No, you did, Reyland,” Emerson said, glaring at him. “I told you she wasn’t ready for our New York team, but she’s your buddy the senator’s niece!”

Reyland stood there infuriated. He looked back up at the screen. You could hear feet running somewhere in the distance, the sound of pounding.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” someone yelled as an unseen door boomed open and closed followed by the bedeviled clown whistle again.

“Which one of you assholes did it?” Reyland yelled into the comm link on the desk speakerphone.

“What was that?” Ruiz yelled over the rotor thump.

“Who set the hotel on fire? Did I tell you to burn the place down?”

“It wasn’t us. It was the target,” Ruiz said over the rotor roar.

“Wheldon?”

“No, he’s down,” Ruiz said. “The other one. The guy. He lit the room up after we popped Wheldon. Then he dipped with the girl.”

“What guy? There’s a guy? Who?” Reyland screamed. “Where’s the girl? Where’s Everett?”

“She’s with the guy who set the room on fire. They made it out onto 31st heading east.”

“Arietta, what the hell is that drone for? Get me eyes on that street!”

“On it, on it,” Arietta said.

The screen changed to show the intersection of 31st Street and Sixth Avenue. A man and a woman were rounding the corner turning left, running north up the west-side sidewalk of Sixth Avenue.