Chapter 16: Presidential Suite

“Okay,” Mia indicated the agents. “Let’s get their guns and wallets and radios, and dump them at the top.”

“They might die,” Grace objected, as she struggled into her robe. She was afraid one of them was dead already, at least. She was trying not to think about it.

Mia was hunting through the pockets of the one who’d shot Mo. She pulled out something from his ear. “Okay we’ll use one of their radios to tell them. They must know it’s gone wrong already.”

They took the lift to the top, dragged and pushed the agents out into the vestibule, and got back in. Mia pressed the button for the tenth floor, the doors closed and the lift set off back down. Grace’s mind swirled as she knelt next to Mo. He seemed to be breathing, and had his eyes open, but was out of it - in shock she supposed.

“Can we stop the lift?” she asked. “Without the doors opening I mean.” They desperately needed some time. Time without someone coming along and screaming!

“Yeah...” said Paul, “with the alarm button, but then I guess security will check. There’s probably CCTV in here, but they might not be looking unless there’s an alarm. Maybe nobody heard the shots from outside, even though they were so loud in here.”

“Cos who are they?” Grace continued, “I mean ... if we committed a crime like a hijack the cops will be after us, all zillion of them, but if it’s just some secret lot like CIA or something then they won’t have so many people after us.”

Ding! “Floor ten.” The lift stopped and the doors opened! There was no-one there, again. But their luck was going to run out at this rate.

“Yes we need to find out,” Mia agreed as Paul pressed the button marked 15. “What’s that next one? P?”

“Presidential suite?” guessed Paul. “It needs the key, anyway. Those guys must have brought the key for the helipad on the roof.”

“Let’s try it,” Mia decided. If there was someone in they’d have to do a hijack. “I bet it’s not let all the time, so that it’s available if some huge star rocks up. It might not need a room card? Or there’ll be a vestibule.”

“If it’s CIA they might have a cleaners’ room card?” guessed Paul as he pressed the P button. Mia started hunting through the wallets.

Grace turned her attention to Mo, who was still sitting slumped against the wall. She supposed it all depended if the bullet had hit a bone, and whether it had stayed bullet-shaped or perhaps broken into lots of pieces that spread out all over the place shredding everything ... ew...

Anyway there was where it had come out, with blood all soaked in. It wasn’t spurting out, like in jets, just oozing steadily. She eased the robe off his slack shoulders and down his arms a bit. She was dimly aware of a ‘Ding’ and the lift stopping, but she shut it out. In a team you didn’t do everything yourself, you had to focus on your job. Focus. She was in a movie, being cool and calculating, so she could save Mo.

He was breathing, in short, sudden little breaths. She opened her suitcase and found a couple of T-shirts. She eased Mo forward.

She dabbed at the wound. The blood was wet and wiped easily. She wiped towards the hole, in segments, to avoid pulling it open any more. There was still blood coming out, in a big dribble. The hole was a quarter way across on his right side, and half-way up. What had the bullet hit on the way through?

She looked at his front. There was blood nearer the side ... a smaller hole. Quite a small hole. He’d been shot at an angle. From what she remembered from her biology lessons that’d be what had saved him from having a lung punctured? Hopefully saved him.

Somehow it had missed his ribs, or just nudged them. It wasn’t bleeding much at the front. She wiped it, and only a trickle kept coming. Anyway what could she do? She needed a bandage long enough to go right round his chest, nice and tight.

She took a tee and tried to tear it in half up the back. She was too weak, it wouldn’t start. Paul leaned over, took it from her and ripped it. She gave him the front and he ripped that too. She folded the other tee and put it round the side of Mo’s ribs, over both holes, looked at Paul and he understood and knotted the ripped halves of the first tee into a length and tied it round Mo’s chest to hold the second tee in place. That would have to do, till they could get him to a hospital.

The lift doors were open, held by a suitcase, and Mia was peering through a door on the far side of a little hall.

Five minutes later they’d laid Mo and Claude on a bed in the huge luxurious Presidential Suite, brought the cases in, given the lift a quick wipe down - that was surprisingly effective with the brown carpet and walls - and let the doors close. It set off down into the main part of the hotel.

Grace let out a big sigh and a gulp as she found her jeans and began to get dressed. Mia was looking at her, so she raised a positive kind of look, she hoped. Mia didn’t smile either, but she was with her.

Mia picked up one of the radios, worked the earpiece into her right ear, and decided the other thing on the wire had to be a microphone. “Pronto,” she said into it, reverting to Italian with the stress. She’d mention the injured agents then take the batteries out.