She nodded. "We still have the meet tomorrow night anyway."
He let her go and stepped back. "I doubt that Kazdan will show up."
She shrugged and turned away. "We'll see, won't we?"
He led the way forward. When they reached the foyer, he crossed to the reception desk. Both the doorman and the receptionist lay unconscious on the floor behind the desk. He felt their necks, relieved to discover both had steady pulses. Given Kazdan's reputation, that was something of a miracle — though perhaps it was simply a matter of not wanting to shit in his own backyard.
"They okay?" she asked, though her gaze was on the elevators rather than the victims.
"Yeah." He rose, and got out his cell phone. "Why don't you head outside? I'll call in the troops." Kazdan and his cronies would be long gone by the time the SIU got here, but the apartment itself might yield something useful.
He made the call, and then followed her out the door. But halfway down the steps, he stopped. One of the men with Kazdan was a bomber. The car sat right in front of the building, State plates conspicuous. And Kazdan had ordered his men to take him down to the car. He'd said Gabriel had been slated for termination anyway. At the time, he'd thought they'd meant Kazdan's car, but it could easily have been his own.
"Sam, wait."
She turned, one eyebrow raised in query. He got his car key-coder out and pressed a button. The car purred to life.
"You don't think they'd go to that extreme, do you?" Though her voice held a hint of doubt, she stepped back to the partial cover of the foyer entrance.
He smiled grimly. He'd underestimated Kazdan once already tonight. He wasn't about to make a second mistake. He pressed another button and ran a fingernail across the screen. The onboard computer responded, and the car edged forward, wheels turning away from the curb.
Then it exploded.
Deadly metal missiles were flung in all directions. He dropped and saw Sam do the same. Heat and flames hissed through the night air, scorching several Elms that lined the curb. The glass door behind them shattered, showering them with glass.
He scrambled to his feet, shook free the glass, and then grabbed Sam, helping her rise. The blast would draw Kazdan and his cronies down to the ground. They had to get out of here — fast.
"There's a taxi stand just around the corner," he said.
She nodded. Her expression was remote as her gaze went back to the car. Only her clenched fists gave any sign of emotion. He touched her arm, trying to get her to move, and she looked up. There was something almost chilling in her gaze. Something decidedly unhuman. Then she blinked, and the moment was gone.
"We have to go. Now," he said.
She nodded again and followed him down the steps.
* * * *
"He tried to kill me." Again, Sam added silently, and shook her head in disbelief.In the passing gleam of headlights, Gabriel's eyes seemed fired with gold. "Maybe. Maybe not."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean he keeps missing. It could be intentional."
"That car bomb definitely would have killed us." But why would he have set it in the first place? If he'd been so certain they'd escape, why wouldn't he have rigged the service elevator? It was the only other way out of the apartment.
He shifted. The plastic covering the cab's back seat squeaked in time with his movements. "Think about it. You escaped the kite, something no human has ever been able to do. Two men break into your apartment and bomb it after you escape. They trace us to the hotel and let themselves be seen before they firebomb us."
"That still doesn't explain the car bomb." Even as she said it, she had an uneasy feeling he was right.
"It does if the bomb was meant to take out only me."
That made a little more sense. If the gas in Jack's apartment had been meant to knock them out, not kill, it would be easy enough to take Gabriel down to the car and blow him up. It still didn't explain why they'd bother, though.
A trickle of moisture ran down the side of her face. She wiped it away and glanced down at the smear on her palm. Blood. She had cuts all over the place from the glass that had flown everywhere. So did Gabriel. It was just as well the cab had plastic covers in place.
She looked out the side window. They were traveling over the Bolte Bridge, and the lights of the Western suburbs stretched out below them, firefly bright in the darkness. Thousands upon thousands of lights. Millions of people, living side by side uneventfully. Why couldn't fate have given her one of them as a friend? Why did it have to choose a nutter?
She crossed her arms and tried to ward off a chill. Maybe fate had nothing to do with Jack becoming her partner and friend. Maybe it had all been planned from the very beginning.