Chapter 3

Tuesday came when it was expected, and I finished my preparations for my visit to the penthouse of the Prince Hardin hotel. I left home at 9:00 o'clock and had no trouble finding a place to park at that hour. I was already wearing my working outfit under a conventional pants and shirt. Beside a few other gadgets, I was carrying my air gun and that Colt .45 I had picked up at the camp. The Colt was more for its intimidation effect than for anything else. I was planning to use the air gun for most of my shooting because it was so much quieter in operation than the Colt.

I walked into the hotel just as if I belonged there and waltzed up to the special elevator. I went in and inserted my homemade key. It was a little stiff in operation, but it worked, and that was what was important. About half-way to the 37^th floor, I stopped the elevator and removed my outer clothes to give me more freedom of movement and allow easy access to my gadgets and extra ammo. I released the elevator and let it continue to the penthouse.

I was already holding my air gun ready for use, and I fired one shot into the goon guarding the entrance. I shot him in the head because I figured that he probably was wearing body armor. I checked him after he fell, and, sure enough, he was wearing the armor. He also had one of the Russian pistols in a holster on his belt. I pitched the gun onto the pile of clothes I had left in the elevator and made my way into the hall.

I looked carefully for surveillance cameras and found four of them. It was quite possible that somebody had already seen me, but I figured on making life as hard for them as I could. I took careful aim and shot each of the cameras to junk. That was going to give me away to whoever was watching, but it was going to make it much more difficult to track me.

I moved to the first door and opened it. Damn, what an anticlimax! This was a vestibule for two bathrooms. One was marked for men and the other for women.

Okay, time to check the first room on the other side of the hall. This was a formal dining room, and it was empty. There were two other doors exiting the room, and I could not afford to ignore either one of them. The one on the right opened into a tiny room that was a serving room for the dining room. This room had a dumbwaiter probably leading to the floor below, but it was too small for a human to fit inside, so I ignored it.

The other door from the dining room led to a small bedroom with a bathroom and a closet off it. This room was obviously used, so it must be one of the rooms occupied by the bodyguards. The only other door led to the hallway, so I was covered for those two rooms.

My next door was the one opposite the room that I just left. This was also a bedroom with four twin beds in it. Three of the beds were occupied by men watching a sitcom on a TV hanging on the wall. I did not hesitate. One of the men turned toward me when I opened the door, but I shot him and the two other men before they could react to my presence. Dammit, where was the security that I was expecting. Could it be that these men were so sure of their safety that they were not concerned about keeping watch. If they worked for me, they would be without a job about now!

I checked that there was a closet and a bathroom opening from this room. The bathroom also served the adjacent room. That room was the control room for the surveillance cameras. The dunce working there was reading a girlie-magazine and beating his meat! He obviously had not looked at the display screens since I had reached the penthouse. There were four screens showing nothing but snow and two other screens showing a bedroom and a sitting room. I put a bullet into him from the airgun and he slumped into his seat. Yes, I know: I should have let him finish jacking off before I killed him, but I was afraid of running out of time.

The bedroom showed two real babes dressed in absolutely nothing and entertaining an elderly man who was no better dressed. I figured that this must be the boss and his two "mistresses."

The other camera showed two men in the sitting room smoking cigars and also watching TV. My God! This was the epitome of sloppy security. How could the boss put up with this sort of slovenly work? Oh, well, I was about to make the whole question moot in a very short time. They must have been depending on the single elevator to keep them safe. Well, that and the surveillance system.

I was no longer worried about the surveillance system, and there were only two bodyguards in circulation as far as I could tell. On the other hand, I needed to check the last room to make sure that there were no surprises headed my way.

The last room that I had not seen turned out to be another bedroom. One bed was mussed, but there was no one in the room. I checked the two doors and found one to be the expected closet and the other to be a bathroom. In fact, there was a man using the shower. I put a bullet from the airgun through the glass door before I reached in and turned off the water. Yes, I was one of those people who hated to see water wasted.

Okay, I had been damned lucky so far, probably because of the amazing arrogance of the Russian Mafia people. Now was the time to take care of the two men in the sitting room. I went to the door and eased it open. The door was about half open when a third man walked in from the bathroom. He was still adjusting his pants as he came into the room. Dammit, he saw me! I was bent low when I opened the door, and that was probably why he reacted the way he did. Maybe he was the smartest of the bodyguards.

He shouted something in a language I could not understand, but I guess that it was Russian. He drew a pistol from a shoulder holster and aimed at me. I had switched to automatic fire and put two of the three steel balls into his head. Ah, his head exploded just exactly the way the watermelons do on TV.

The other two men had drawn their guns by then and were firing at me. The noise was almost deafening. I idly wondered if the people on the 36^th floor could hear the noise. If they did, I hoped that they attributed it to a TV program.

Shit, those were armor piercing slugs! I tried to use the door as a shield, and that was almost futile. The bullets came plowing through the door almost as if it were not there. Of course, it was a hollow-core door. There were only two thin pieces of wood or plastic surfacing on the door so that almost any bullet could have penetrated. Nevertheless, it was damned scary the way those bullets came flying through that visually solid door. The problem was, the bullets were also coming through the much more solid wall, albeit slowed a mite by the extra material that they were punching through.

Well, my luck was holding, but I had no idea how long that was going to last. I had not been hit yet, but I was likely to be hit before long just because of statistics. Those guys were throwing enough lead my way that I should be hit pretty soon.

I had slammed the door to keep them from seeing me, and that was all that was protecting me at this point. I lay on the floor to present as little as possible as a target, but I was beginning to worry.

Since my air gun was virtually silent, they had never heard any shots from me, and they must have assumed that I had been hit early in the exchange of bullets. Anyway, for whatever reason, one of the Mafia men came to the door and opened it to look for my body. That was all I needed to put three bullets into his crotch. I did not know how much of his body was covered by armor, but I was willing to stake my life on him not having a protected crotch.

Apparently I was correct. He let out a yell of extreme pain and fell through the doorway. He was not dead yet, but he was in no condition to do any fighting either. The other man had been crouching behind his chair, but he stood up to see what had happened to his companion. That was the opening I needed, and I poured three bullets at his head. I don't know how many hit, but at least one did because his head exploded in the classic ripe watermelon fashion.