Charlie took Minchev by the arm and led him out into the hall, turning towards the safe room, but before he’d made it two steps, he heard a blurted shout in Bulgarian coming through his earpiece.
More shouting erupted immediately after.
Minchev couldn’t hear the exchange—he wasn’t in direct comms with the security men—but Charlie put his thumb on the push-to-talk button.
A series of muffled pops came through the earpiece just before he pressed to transmit.
Gunfire.
He grabbed Minchev roughly now, began shoving him forward.
“What’s wrong?”
Charlie didn’t answer. There was a time to let the protectee take charge and a time to take charge of the protectee. As of right this moment, Charlie Coyle was running this show.
As he pushed the smaller man up the hallway, he transmitted over his radio. “Coyle for Videv.”
One of the other bodyguards seemed to have his mic open on his radio. All Charlie could hear was shooting, yelling.
Charlie unlocked the door, drew his pistol, and shoved Minchev inside. He tried to transmit again, but whoever was pressing their talk button was still overriding the network.
“Fuck!” he shouted in frustration.
Suddenly, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He snatched it out and answered it, all while holding his pistol on the door, backing up with his protectee through the living room, between the couch and the kitchen island, in the direction of the bedroom.
“Coyle.”
Videv’s voice sounded nearly frantic, his breathing labored, as if he were running at a sprint. “You have boss?”
“We’re in the safe room.”
The team leader spoke quickly, words separated by heavy breaths. “Subject has…escaped. He has…Komitov’s gun…and radio.”
Bloody hell,Charlie thought. “Where’s Komitov?”
“He’s stabbed, in the alley. Pulev is with me. Subject is fleeing. Chanev is chasing him.”
Coyle tried to clarify. “Is the subject in the building or still outside?”
A pause, though he could hear Videv’s heavy breathing in the phone. “In building.” The background sounds of screaming patrons came over the call now.
“But,” Charlie said, “he doesn’t know what room we’re in, right?”
“Hotel security said he was in building this afternoon. We don’t know where he is going.”
It was clear to Charlie that Videv didn’t have much more awareness about what the fuck was happening than he did.
This was all going so bad, so quickly.
Charlie extended his gun arm even more. Anyone coming through the door to the suite was going to catch a 9-millimeter round to the chest; this he told himself with complete assurance.
Videv added, “Me and Pulev are taking the south stairs, coming up to you.”
The building had a main elevator, a larger freight elevator for moving furniture and such, and a pair of stairwells, one on the north side and the other on the south. A lot of directions an attack could come from, so Charlie decided he’d just defend from inside the unit, because there was only one viable access point for an attacker.
Videv added, “We will be there in two minutes. Hotel security is in the elevator; they are also coming up.”
“Copy.”
