you. You," Bray ordered the younger man. "Take off your jacket and your cap. And you," he continued, speaking to the bell captain, "get on the phone and tell the operator to send up the manager. You're scared; you don't want to touch anything, there may have been trouble up here. You think I'm dead." The older man stuttered, his eyes riveted on the gun, then ran to the phone. The performance was convincing, he was frightened out of his wits.
Bray took the maroon and gold-striped jacket held out for him by the large subordinate. He removed his coat and put it on, bunching his own under his arm. "The cap," demanded Scofield. It was given.
The bell captain finished, his eyes staring wildly at Bray, his last plea screamedl "For Christ's sake, hurry! Get someone up herel" Scofield gestured with his weapon. "Stand by the door next to me," he said to the frantic man, then addressed the younger. "T'here's a closet over there beyond the bed. Get inside. Now!" The large, dense bellboy hesitated, looked at Bray's fac4 and retreated quickly into the closet. Scofield, his weapoil pointed at the bell captain, took the necessary steps toward the closet and kicked the door shut. He picked up the lamp by its stem. "Get over to your rightl Do you understand?
Answer mel" "Yeah," came the muffled reply from inside.
"Knock on the doorl" The tap came from the extreme left, the young man's right. Bray crashed the base of the lamp down on the knob; it broke off. Then he raised his gun, its silencer attached, and fired one shot into the right side of the door.
"That was a bullet!" he said. "No matter what you hear, keep your mouth shut or there'll be another. I'm right outside this doorl" "Oh, my God.
The man would stay silent through an earthquake. Scofield went back to the bell captain, picking up his attach6 case on the way. "Where's the staircase?" "Down the hall to the elevators, turn right. It's at the end of the corridor." "The service elevator?" "Same thing, the other way, the other end. Turn left at--' "Listen to me," interrupted Bray, "and remember what I tell you. In a few seconds we'll hear the manager and probably others coming down the hall.
When I open the door, you step outside and shout-and I mean scream your fucking head off-then start running down the corridor with me." "Christ! What am I supposed to say?" "That you want to get out of here," answered Bray. "Say it anyway you like.
I don't think it'll be difficult for you." "Where are we going? I got a wife and four kids I" "That's nice. Why don't you go home?" "What?" "What's the quickest way to the lobby?" "Christ, I don't knowl" "Elevators can take a long time." "The staircase? The staircase!" The panicked bell captain found triumph in his deduction.
"Use the staircase," said Scofield, his ear at the door.
The voices were muffled, but intense. He could hear the words police and ambulance, and then emergency. There were three or four people.
Bray yanked the door back and pushed the bell captain out into the corridor. "Now," be said.
Taleniekov turned away as the service elevator opened on the second floor.
Again the black overcoat and the distinctive gray hat evoked no sounds of recognition, and again he spun, his hand gripping the Graz-Burya in his pocket. There were tray tables of half-eaten food and the odor of coffee-remnants of late breakfasts piling up outside the elevator door-but no Marseilles.
A pair of hinged metal doors opened into the secondfloor corridor, round windows in the center of each panel. Vasili approached and peered through the right circle.
There he was. The figure in the heavy tweed suit war. edging his way along the wall toward the comer of the intersecting hallway that led to room 13.
Taleniekov looked at his watch; it was 1:31. Four minutes until the attack; a lifetime if Scofield kept his head about him. A diversion was needed; fire was the surest. A telephone call, a flaming pillow case stuffed with cloth and paper thrown into the hallway. He wondered if Beowulf Agate had thought of it.
Scofield had thought of something. Down the ball the light above one of the two main elevators went on; the door opened, and three men rushed out talking frantically. One was the manager, now close to panic; another car- ried a black bag: a doctor. The third, was burly, his face set, the