The Bone Labyrinth by James Rollins Page B

here, covering up their tracks, making sure anyone in town with knowledge of that secret site was eliminated?
    “And Fredrik?” Gray asked.
    Dag pointed to the bar.
    “So he’s still in there.”
    The young man nodded. “In the bathroom at the back. Only his friend knows he is there, I think.”
    “Is there a window? A way to climb out?”
    “Window, yes. But too small.”
    So the guy is trapped in there.
    Gray doubted Fredrik’s hiding place would remain secret for very much longer. He eyed Seichan, knowing she had heard everything. She nodded, already understanding what he needed. This wasn’t their first dance together. She dashed to his side and grabbed Dag by the collar.
    “You’re coming with me,” she said coldly.
    As she dragged him down the hall, Gray rushed to the doorway of the pub and hid to one side of the opening. From low to the ground, he took a fast glance into the bar, then slid back out of sight. With a snapshot fixed in his head, he assessed the threat: four armed men, wearing knit masks, all with pistols, no assault weapons. Two guarded a trio of patrons stuck in a red-cushioned booth. Another loomed over a man clenched in a ball on the floor. Blood seeped across the polished wood floor. The fourth maintained a wary watch, but luckily the mahogany bar had helped screen Gray’s low peek into the room.
    Gray had also noted one other detail: one of the patrons in the booth had been pointing toward the back of the bar, likely toward the restrooms.
    Time was up.
    As if on cue, fresh gunfire erupted, accompanied by the shatter of glass. The noise rose from the rear of the pub, from the one of the restrooms. It was his signal to move. He rolled across the threshold, keeping somewhat shielded by the bar. The four gunmen had all turned toward the bathrooms, responding to the gunfire by aiming their weapons back there.
    Gray squeezed off two rounds, both head shots. As the pair of men dropped, he aimed for the leg of the third, taking out his knee and sending him crashing next to the patron on the ground, who had been similarly wounded.
    Karma’s a bitch.
    The fourth gunman, the one farthest to the back, lunged for the only shelter available. He charged through the door into the women’s restroom, likely believing the gunshots came from his target, Fredrik, in the other bathroom. The attacker must have hoped the women’s restroom had a window through which he could make his escape.
    But Gray remembered Dag’s earlier words.
    Window, yes. But too small .
    A single gunshot rang out from there, again accompanied by a shatter of glass.
    The fleeing assailant came falling back into the bar, crashing to his side, the back of his skull a cratered ruin.
    Wanting answers, Gray quickly closed on the only man still alive on the floor, the one he had shot in the leg, but before he could reach him, the masked man raised a pistol to his own head—and fired. The blast was loud, drowning out Gray’s own curse.
    Biting back his disappointment, Gray hurried to the men’s room and barged inside. He found Fredrik huddled in one of the stalls, his face ashen, his lanky salt-and-pepper hair disheveled. Despite the man’s raw fear, he glared at Gray, ready to face what was to come.
    A voice rose from the shattered window on the far wall. “Fredrik!” Standing in the rain outside, Dag leaned his face near the broken glass, speaking rapidly in Croatian, his voice full of reassurance.
    Gray also sought to calm the man, attempting the little bit of Croatian he had memorized en route here. “ Zovem se Gray,” he introduced himself, holstering his pistol and lifting his palms.
    Seichan pushed Dag aside and called to him through the window. “Everything’s clear out here.”
    Gray pictured Seichan hightailing it around the hotel’s exterior and shooting through this window, creating the initial distraction. She must have also heard that last gunman crash into the neighboring bathroom, and from her position outside,