Raymond Khoury - The Sanctuary

He recognized her from last night. She was sure of it.

She felt a wobble in her legs at the realization, but mustered whatever willpower she had left and kept moving.

Corben was reasonably familiar with the area, and he knew their options were limited. The street was lined with stores and apartment-building entrances, neither of which would provide any cover. He knew the three killers wouldn’t back off, nor would they have any problem with gunning him down and grabbing Mia in plain sight. He also knew he had two or three rounds left in the handgun, which wouldn’t go a long way against stopping them. His eyes scanned the gaps and doorways for a miracle, and he spotted a dip in the sidewalk that announced an entrance ramp. A car emerged from the cavernous mouth of the underground garage, turned, and drove up the street, past them.

“In there,” he shouted to Mia as he took her hand and led her in.

They hastened down the curving ramp, their shoes slapping hard against the bare concrete surface and echoing like thunderclaps against the smooth walls around them.

They reached the main parking area, which was dotted with a forest of columns. Cars were tucked into the narrow bays between them. There was no sign of any attendant around, no stash of keys to raid. Corben scowled. They were boxed in.

The neon lights clicked off, plunging the underground garage into darkness. Corben turned to Mia, pointing at the other end of the space. “Go down to that far corner and hide under a car. Don’t make any noise, no matter what you hear.”

She caught her breath. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll hold them off here. They’ll be exposed coming down the ramp, and if I can get one of them, I think the others will back off. Now go.”

He watched her scamper off into the dark recesses of the garage, then slipped between the cars and positioned himself behind a big sedan that was directly facing the ramp. He pulled out the automatic and cradled it in both hands and aimed it at the entrance, which was backlit from the street above. He silently hoped he hadn’t made a mistake in his mental count of spent rounds, and if he had, he hoped it was in his favor. His heart was still trying to pound its way out of his chest. He took in several deep breaths through his nose, blocking out the stench of oil and grease around him, calming himself, preparing himself for the shot.

He heard a clatter of footsteps hurtling onto the echoey ramp and suddenly dying out. The garage was bathed in silence. He knew the killers were now stealing down towards them. He flexed his fingers, then clamped them back onto the gun’s handle as he lowered himself into position.

A long, narrow shadow scuttled down the wall of the ramp, followed by two other dark, ghostly forms that merged into it. From the angle of the shadows on the wall, Corben knew the killers were crouched low. His entire body went rigid as he adjusted his aim and brought his finger back from the trigger guard and prepared to fire. Every shot had to count, and even then, the odds were stacked against him.

His pulse throbbing in his ears, he watched as the distorted shadow glided down the ramp wall and suddenly stopped. He ratcheted down his grip on the gun by a touch then retightened it, keeping the feel in his fingers on edge. He tried to edit out the sounds drifting down from the street and focus on any noise that would clue him into the killers’ progress, but there wasn’t any. He imagined what they would do, which depended on how desperate they were. Rushing in would probably lead to their overwhelming him, but they’d take a hit or two. Unless the gun he’d appropriated wasn’t fully loaded to begin with, which wasn’t even worth contemplating. He pushed the doubts away and concentrated on the shadow.

It didn’t move. It just stayed there, ominous, stalking him, taunting him.

Then he heard a sudden rush of footsteps and tensed up, his eyes scanning the wide opening like radars, his gun darting left and right across the narrow kill zone — a split second of adrenaline overload before he saw the shadow racing up, not down, the wall. The killers were retreating, and they were doing it in a rush. He kept his position, on high alert in case they were trying to draw him out, then he heard the distant wail of a siren getting closer.

The backup. They’d made it.

He bolted out from behind the car and charged up the ramp. He made it to the street in time to see the killers’ Merc pulling out of its parking space and tearing off into the distance. From behind him, two Fuhud cars came racing down and pulled up outside the Commodore. Cops armed with M16s poured out of the vehicles and secured the street while three officers charged up the steps and disappeared into the hotel.

Corben exhaled deeply, tucked away his gun, and headed back down the ramp to inform Mia that they were safe.

For now.

Mia moved through her hotel room in a daze. Her mind was under siege, the twin barbarians of fear and fatigue at the gates. She was determined to keep them at bay a little longer. She needed to pack up and get the hell out of here. The hotel was definitely no longer safe.

She wasn’t sure anywhere else was, for that matter. These men she’d crossed twice now in less than twenty-four hours, these psychos — they didn’t seem to have a problem finding the people they were after, nor did they seem to suffer from stage fright. They showed up brazenly, in plain sight, and went about their dirty deeds as if they had an all-access pass to the city. And she’d messed up their plans. Twice.

Not something she wanted to dwell on right now.

She tried to calm her nerves and focus on the task at hand. Corben had told her to just grab the essentials, but she didn’t have that much to pack anyway — the bulk of her stuff was still waiting to be shipped over once she’d felt more at ease in the city and settled into an apartment. He’d given her fifteen minutes to get it done, and that was twenty minutes ago.

She was cramming her laptop and some paperwork into a backpack when Corben returned. He was carrying a laptop and a big, leather personal organizer, both of which she knew were her mother’s and thought she remembered spotting on her desk.

“You all set?” he asked.

She nodded.

He led her out. She gave the room a final parting look and followed him as they made their way down to the lobby and exited the hotel.

Cops and Fuhud officers were all over the street. Cars were slithering through the makeshift roadblock, the cops waving them on after a perfunctory glance. Curious locals were milling about in front of shops and on their balconies, taking in the disruption and — a local tradition, this — trading murky conspiracy theories that the shooting was already generating.

As they walked to Corben’s Jeep, Mia slid an uneasy glance towards the entrance to Evelyn’s building. She saw several officers gruffly keeping people at bay as some paramedics brought out a stretcher. The dead shooter’s body — she assumed it was that — was covered with a tattered old blanket that would have given Gil Grissom a heart attack. Forensics were clearly not a major priority right now.

She climbed into the passenger seat of Corben’s car and watched as he exchanged some words with a couple of the hard-faced men in civilian gear before sliding into his seat. She noticed them get into a dusty black Range Rover parked nearby. As the one closest to her got into the car, his jacket swung open and she spotted a holstered handgun under it.

Corben slammed the car into gear, and the big Jeep pulled out and raced down the street. Mia scanned the surroundings warily and saw that the Range Rover was close behind. It followed them down the one-way street for two blocks. She noticed Corben check his rearview mirror, and she looked back to see the Range Rover slow down abruptly and stop at a slight angle, blocking off the street behind them. Corben gave a small, satisfied nod and just drove on. An effective and simple way, she guessed, to make sure no one was following them.