Klempner

Damn phone…

What’s wrong with the fucking thing?

I tap in again. Nothing happens.

I’m several floors up, heading back for my hotel room. The signal should be strong up here.

I inspect the screen…

Yes… plenty of signal…

Better contact Dakho… Get him to supply a new one…

A more reliable model this time…

Arriving at my room door…

… A brief shufti along the corridor…

… I’m alone. A quick inspection that my slicked-on hair is still in place…

… It is… a faint dark line against the white paint, which peels away, then drops to the floor as I slide the card into the lock and push the door open…

I toss the useless phone onto my bed then start to shrug off my jacket…

… and in mid-movement, I stall.

My spine prickles and without meaning to, I’m standing stock-still, Glock in hand, staring around the apartment.

What’s wrong?

Working on automatic, my hand follows my eye, weapon aimed, but…

I don’t see anything.

Nothing has moved.

Nothing has changed.

a

stripes, with only

Really?

foot down by one of the existing footprints: a perfect

folded up on the table, alongside

cross the floor, turn the handle of the bedroom door. With a subdued click,

dark-light stripes… the bed made, and beside the pillows, a pair of bath-towels folded, for some inexplicable reason, into the shape of

do they

tea and coffee kit, biscuits, a small box of foil-wrapped chocolates, a

arm’s length, I flick open first one

own clothes. And while shirts garishly printed with pineapples and palm trees

Only one place left…

drawn to the door

long second… ear cocked… gun at the ready…

more than the mixed warbles and screeches of birds, the

kick the door and it bangs open,

washed away the sweat of

alarms are

What triggered it?

metallic and my heart plays

Calm down…

Breathe…

Think…

What happened?

barely in the

Outside then…

Something in the corridor…

to aim the gun-barrel at the ceiling, I dart a look outside. The corridor is still empty; nothing to indicate anyone has

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