Charles Brokaw - The Lucifer Code

Someone, and he was fairly certain it was Kristine, kicked him in the head.

‘Look out!’ one of the men yelled.

‘I see it!’ the driver yelled back.

The SUV jarred violently, shuddered almost to a stop, then – with a lurch and a whirlwind of screaming metal – the vehicle continued more or less on its way.

The hulking man reloaded his machine pistol with practised ease. He was either stoned on something or had a death wish, Lourds decided.

‘Bleeding wankers,’ Kristine said in disgust. This time Lourds detected the Irish lilt in her voice. She’d obviously been hiding that, too, while pretending to be the awe-struck fan.

Lourds squirmed a little and struggled to move, to bring the woman into view.

Kristine leaned over the back seat for a moment, then returned with a pistol in her fist. She snapped off the safety and worked the pistol with obvious familiarity.

The hulking man stopped laughing.

‘Do you know where you’re going?’ Kristine demanded.

‘Of course,’ the man in the passenger seat said. ‘Everything is going according to plan.’

‘Really?’ Kristine’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

This was no kid, Lourds realized. She wasn’t at all what he’d thought she was. He wondered how old she really was. She looked about nineteen, but that made him wonder how she could have learned all she’d done today in such a short lifetime. Lourds guessed she was in her mid-twenties at the latest. She had a definite accent of the Emerald Isles in her voice now, but he could tell she hadn’t used it for some time. Her American accent had been flawless. She must have lived in the States for a while. Either that, or she had Oscar-worthy acting skills along with her martial arts training. And lots of target practice. The gun in her hand was rock steady.

Who was she? And how could he escape her?

‘Was it in your bloody plans for those men to show up and start shooting?’ Kristine demanded.

The men in the front remained silent. The driver’s lack of response was for the obvious reason. It took everything he had to dodge the cars as the van screamed down the roadway. Again and again, the SUV swerved, sped, slowed and jumped. Only occasionally did the vehicle hit something, and then never more than a glancing impact.

‘No,’ the hulking man said.

‘Then why were they there?’

‘Our prize is more popular than we anticipated.’ The hulking man shook his head. Blood droplets from his damaged ear spun into the air. ‘It doesn’t matter. Your part in this is done.’

‘Not till I get the other half of my fee,’ Kristine said.

While they sparred, Lourds considered his chances of escape. If he were Harrison Ford in an action picture, he could stand, elbow the hulking man in the face, then open the door and leap out onto the roadside without picking up more than a few scratches from the impact. Sadly, Lourds knew he was no Harrison Ford. He’d break something if he leapt from a vehicle moving at this speed – possibly even his neck. The impact with the pavement would probably skin him alive. And one of the vehicles they were weaving through might run over him. However, judging from the carnage they’d left behind at the airport, he figured he was a dead man if he didn’t do something to change his situation soon.

Nobody was paying him any attention. Maybe it was time to try something.

He’d played soccer since he was a boy. He still played on a university team and joined pickup games wherever he had the opportunity. He was in shape and he was fast. He shoved himself into a crouching position, succeeded in standing on his tangled feet, and slammed his head against the vehicle’s rooftop almost with enough force to knock himself out.

Not exactly what he’d planned, but it was something.

‘What do you think you are doing, pencil neck?’ The hulking man reached for Lourds.

Fuelled by adrenaline and operating on instinct, Lourds shoved an elbow into the hulking man’s face. He’d hoped to knock him out: the blow succeeded only in tearing off another chunk of the man’s tattered ear.

Roaring with pain, the man clapped a hand to his head and swung the machine pistol at Lourds. The barrel struck Lourds’ head with enough force to make him see stars. Unfortunately, the weapon also fired. Reeling from the noise and the pain, Lourds staggered back. The car swerved. Lourdes glanced at the driver. The back of the man’s head had been ripped away. Blood covered the shattered windshield. As Lourds watched in horror, the dead man fell forward over the steering wheel. The horn blared and the SUV swung wildly out of control.

Istanbul Cd

Yesilkoy District

Istanbul, Turkey

15 March 2010

Lourds lunged for the steering wheel. He met with resistance from the guy in the passenger seat. Lourds slammed his throbbing elbow into the man’s head. The guy went down. Dazed, Lourds continued to flail for control and ended up getting soaked in blood from the dead man. His hands slipped on the steering wheel and he watched in growing horror as the SUV sped toward an outside café.

Café patrons scattered, alerted by the SUV’s shrill horn still pressed down by the dead man’s head.

A strap whipped over Lourds’ head and settled at his throat. When the strap tightened, the pressure choked him. For a moment he thought someone was trying to strangle him.

‘Give it up, Professor,’ Kristine yelled in his ear. ‘The bloody car is out of control. Let’s see if we can survive the impending crash, eh?’

Giving in to the strangling seat belt, Lourds fell backwards and landed in the young woman’s lap. If circumstances had been different, it would have been a wonderful place to be. For just the briefest moment, he was aware of the feminine curves beneath and behind him as she shifted and dropped the seat belt across his chest.

You’re about to die and this is going to be the last thing on your mind?

Lourds couldn’t believe himself. Then he had no more time to think because the strap snapped tight round his chest, the woman wrapped her arms round him and buried her face against his back, and the SUV ploughed through the abandoned tables and chairs.

Something hard pressed into Lourds’ groin. Despite his situation, he couldn’t help looking. Kristine’s pistol lay in his lap. Before he could grab the gun, the SUV slammed into the side of the café. The right side of the car crumpled and the bloodstained windshield caved in and became a glittering haze of shrapnel ricocheting inside the SUV. Like a dazed boxer, the SUV rebounded from the wall and careened back toward the busy street. Lourds felt the shock of the impact all the way through his body. But the van rolled on. No sooner had the SUV rolled back into the street than a produce truck collided with it on the left side. More pain.

But he was still alive. The pain made that clear.

The crumpled side of the SUV dropped and Lourds thought he felt the front wheel roll away. With mass and speed on the side of the cargo truck, the SUV sagged and rolled over like a submissive hound before its master.

Lourds braced himself against the ceiling, but he and Kristine were thrown across the vehicle’s interior. Feeling cut in half by the seat belt, Lourds dangled. He watched in horror through the broken window as the right side of the hulking man’s face was ground away on the rough street as the SUV skidded along the pavement. The hulking man screamed briefly in agony before the shrieks stopped. The SUV continued careening down the street. Lourds fought to stay away from the huge hideously dead corpse. He feared the body would be reduced to scraps and then he’d share the same horrible fate.

Then both vehicles came to a stop.