The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,75

approached the door to the maintenance room, the card ready. Now he glanced back. The man was still occupied with his task.

Adam angled towards the door, sliding the card into the slot with a marksman’s precision. Green light and a clack from the lock. He quickly opened the door and went through, the laptop bag scuffing against the frame. Unless someone had been looking directly at the camera feed at that exact moment, his illicit entrance would have been too fast to be noticed. He paused as the door swung shut, listening for a response from the hotel worker . . .

Nothing. He hadn’t been seen.

‘Levon, I’m inside the maintenance area,’ he said. The room was utilitarian, unpainted cinderblock and drywall. Cabinets and shelves contained cleaning products and racks of replacement fittings: light bulbs, lamps, faucets, even televisions.

‘Okay, the way to the roof is straight ahead,’ Levon told him, but he was already moving; there was nowhere else to go. He passed more cabinets and stacked boxes, reaching a narrow metal staircase that zigzagged upwards. He ascended, footsteps echoing.

The room above was only dimly lit. Large pieces of machinery lurked in the shadows, a loud electrical hum coming from somewhere nearby. ‘Where’s the hatch?’

‘Head right from the top of the stairs,’ said Levon. He turned to see a narrow passage, and went along it. The hum grew louder as he neared a short set of steps. ‘The hatch is at the end.’

‘I see it.’ It was set into the steeply angled roof. He climbed the steps. The hatch was padlocked, but a few seconds’ work with one of his tools took care of that. He swung it open.

He was right behind the illuminated IMPERIAL sign, the glare from its thousands of powerful bulbs dazzling even indirectly. Macau spread out vertiginously before him.

And he was suddenly gripped by fear, a cold terror paralysing him. His hand clamped around the edge of the hatch. The city far below seemed to roll, as if the towering casino had turned to rubber.

He forced out words. ‘We’ve got a problem.’

‘What is it?’ Holly Jo asked.

‘It turns out Vanwall . . . is afraid of heights.’

19

It’s Tough at the Top

Bianca was running out of things to say. Zykov had oozed closer, his hand caressing her shoulder, making his intentions absolutely clear.

And he was getting impatient. ‘Bah, enough about that,’ he said, waving away her latest attempt to draw him into a hopefully very long story about his military career. ‘Forget the past, eh? What is done is done. What counts is what we do next, eh?’

‘Well, what I’d like to do next is . . .’ She quickly finished her drink. ‘Use the bathroom, I’m afraid!’ She shrugged his hand off her arm and stood. ‘Sorry, but sometimes nature’s call does come first.’

The look in Zykov’s eye frightened her for a moment. Her resistance was angering him. ‘In there,’ he said in a brusque tone, waving towards a door.

‘Back soon.’ Wishing that she had thought to take off her shoes, she went through it – finding to her alarm that she had just entered Zykov’s bedroom, his king-sized bed dominating the space. Another glass wall to the balcony overlooked the island city.

A door led to a bathroom. She thumped it shut behind her, turning the lock with a firm clack and leaning back against the polished wood. ‘Holly Jo!’

‘Yes?’

‘Where the hell is Adam?’

‘Why the hell didn’t this come up before?’ said Tony.

Even through the earwig, Adam had trouble hearing him over the gusting wind. He forced his hand off the hatch to cover his ear and blot out part of the noise. ‘It didn’t register until I saw the drop.’ A vision of a similarly high vantage point – though inverted – leapt vividly from his adopted persona’s memories. ‘Vanwall once crossed the wrong people in Vegas, and they hung him upside down off the roof of the Sands!’

‘You’re not Vanwall,’ Tony reminded him. ‘You’re Adam Gray, and you’re not afraid of heights. Push him back down and get across that roof.’

‘Easier said than done.’ He reluctantly stepped through the hatch, revealing more of the vista below. His sense of vertigo returned.

Not my sense. His. I don’t have vertigo. I’ve . . .

He wasn’t sure how he was so certain, only that he was certain. The more he tried to recall why, the greater the feeling that something was missing from his mind.

Not missing. Taken—

‘I know you can do it,’ said Tony, bringing his focus back