Charles Brokaw - The Lucifer Code

‘I’m on the line to the police.’ Olympia spoke rapidly in Turkish.

Another fusillade of bullets slammed into the open door and tore gouges in the wood.

‘The police won’t get here fast enough.’ Cleena changed magazines in her pistol and released the slide. ‘By the time they get here, you’ll either be in the custody of those men – or you’ll be dead. It’s a cellphone. Take it with you. You can talk to the police on the way. Just try to keep up and dodge the bullets.’

She grabbed Lourds by the elbow, but he resisted. He trusted her not to shoot him. She had, in a way, saved his life down in the catacombs. And she hadn’t shot him. Yet. She cursed again and tried to push him into motion.

‘Cleena MacKenna,’ a man’s voice boomed.

Lourds immediately recognized the accent as American, probably by way of Philadelphia. He looked at Cleena as she returned to the door.

‘Cleena? That’s your name?’ Lourds asked.

‘So not the time for introductions,’ she growled.

‘Cleena MacKenna,’ the man called again, ‘you don’t have to die today. You can just walk away from this. We’re just here for the professor. Back away and you can go.’

Cleena looked at Lourds. ‘Do you believe him?’

Lourds started to answer, but wasn’t sure what he was going to say.

‘I don’t believe him,’ Cleena went on. She looked around. ‘There’s a back door to this room?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lourds replied.

Cleena shot a scathing glance at Olympia. ‘You could have mentioned there’s a back door to this office.’

Olympia crossed her arms and looked defiant. ‘The police are on their way. I have them on speaker phone.’

‘I don’t think the speaker-phone function is going to stop those guys.’

Olympia raised her voice and said for the benefit of the men outside, ‘I have called the police. They are on their way.’

Cleena ignored her and raced to the back of the room. ‘Where’s the door?’ she asked. A second later, she swivelled her head to the left and looked at the bookshelf covering one of the walls. ‘Shelving and books cover that wall.’

Lourds realized she was talking to someone else, not him. Then he saw the glint of metal in her ear.

‘Okay, okay. I’ll look.’ Cleena raked a shelf clear of books. The heavy volumes toppled to the floor, along with a snow globe containing a statue of the Greek god, Poseidon.

‘Hey!’ Olympia protested. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

Abruptly, out in the hallway the fire alarm rang, strident and harsh. Lourds guessed that someone, a student or a professor, had set it off. That had been good. At least all the students would get clear of the situation.

‘Ma’am,’ a man’s voice called from the phone in Turkish, ‘is something wrong? Is everything all right?’

Undeterred, Cleena moved on to the second shelf and began clearing those as well. In the shadowy recesses, the door was hard to see, but Lourds spotted the straight lines. Impulsively, he went to help the woman, wading over and through the books.

‘Thomas?’ Olympia called.

‘Ma’am?’ the Istanbul policeman enquired loudly. ‘Please stay on the line.’

‘There’s a door back here.’ Lourds pulled at the higher shelving.

‘Olympia, you don’t think those men are really here after me, do you? I don’t make enemies like this. They have to be after the book I got down in the catacombs. And if they find out you know something about it, they’re not going to stop at just questioning me.’

Cleena swung round with a shelf and nearly caught Lourds in the face with it. She locked eyes with Olympia. ‘Get over here!’

‘Don’t tell me-’

Out in the hallway, something metallic struck the floor and skidded to a stop near the door. Lourds took in the spherical shape, then redoubled his efforts to get to the door.

‘They’ve got a grenade!’

‘It opens inwards!’ Cleena yelled.

Understanding, Lourds reached for the doorknob but found it lacking. Someone had taken it off. As he turned to Cleena, she shoved him aside with her free hand and fired the pistol three times at the locking mechanism. The bullets cored through the cheap metal and splintered the wood. Before the echoes of the shots died away, Olympia had joined them and the grenade blew up.

The tremendous noise deafened Lourds and vibrated through his body. He expected shrapnel to rip through him, but it didn’t. Bright lights and gas followed the explosion. Flash-bang, he realized. He’d read about those in the novels he consumed during long plane flights and dead time at sites. Those grenades were used to confuse and disorient people.

Cleena grabbed his arm and shoved him towards the door, which still hadn’t opened. Lourds saw her mouth moving but heard nothing. Knowing what she wanted, he set his shoulder to the door and threw his weight against it. The door shivered and sprang open, revealing that it had been covered over by Sheetrock on the other side. Evidently some alterations had been done to increase office space.

The other room was thankfully empty. Lourds didn’t want anyone else in danger or joining their little group. His attempt to open the door ripped it from its hinges and it smashed into someone’s painstaking model reproduction of the Ottoman Siege of Constantinople in 1453. Ships and warriors went flying, followed by the blue waters of the Golden Horn and the fabricated brown coastline.

Olympia followed, almost running over Lourds in her haste. She held the cellphone to her ear, but if anyone was on the other end she apparently couldn’t hear any better than Lourds.

He looked round the room, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do next. They were still on the third floor, too high to risk jumping and breaking a leg.

Olympia grabbed his arm and, when he turned to face her, spoke to him anxiously. He read her lips, missing it the first time because she was speaking her native tongue, not English.

‘Where do we go?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied enunciating carefully. ‘Up? Down?’

He used his hands in case she couldn’t read his lips. His mouth, eyes and nose all stung from the gas contained in the flash-bang. Tears blurred his vision as he swept his gaze round the room. Two sharp cracks pierced his deafness and he recognized the sounds as gunshots. Anxiously, he peered back into the opening, wondering if Cleena had made it out of Olympia’s office alive.

She barrelled through and hit him full on. Lourds wrapped his arms round her and they fell to the floor on his back. Cleena glared at him as if he were a bumbling moron, which – Lourds reflected irritably – was unfair. He’d been concerned about her. She forced herself up and partially kneed him in the crotch while doing so. Lourds was certain he’d cried out and was glad no one had been able to hear him. Then his thoughts focused on survival again.

Smoke rolled into the room from the grenade. It got harder to breathe. He didn’t know how they were going to get out of the office. They were still in a death trap.

Eckart stood his ground in the hallway with his pistol up. His left hand was wrapped tightly round his right so the semi-automatic pistol’s recoil would respond perfectly and not jam. He peered through the smoke, expecting Lourds and the two women to emerge at any second. The flash-bang held pepper gas as well as the pyrotechnics.

No one came out.

‘Humboldt,’ Eckart called over the com. Three of his men had set up behind him. Three others held the stairs at the other end of the hall. There was no way their target could escape. ‘Set up outside that office.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The man ran forward without hesitation. He wore a mask against the effects of the pepper gas. He waited a moment, then peered round the door.