THIRTY-TWO
Court didn’t have a lot of sprint in him, this he knew, but he had a little, and he’d give it everything he could before he collapsed.
Whereas before it hadn’t mattered to him how he’d been compromised and who these people were, now it was at the forefront of his mind. He needed to ascertain if there were others, and he needed to learn their rules of engagement. Would he actually be shot in the back in central Berlin? He knew it all depended on the identities of the men on his ass and the mandate they’d been given by their masters.
Court assumed that the two immediate threats behind him weren’t the full measure of the threats against him. He didn’t know if others had discovered his bike, or if they were even aware of it, but, he told himself, he had to expect men lying in wait for him down in the parking garage.
But he had no choice. He’d dismantle anyone who got between him and the BMW and then he’d blast his way out of here on two wheels.
He raced across the street on Welandstrasse, running right in front of a large blue tour bus that was already slowing to a stop, and then he entered Walter-Benjamin-Platz, a paved pedestrian-only square lined with high-end shops and elegant cafés.
And though he could feel himself slowing and hear himself gasping for air, he kept pounding his feet against the pavement and pumping his arms up and down, leaning forward as he did so, desperate to get away from his pursuers.
Keith Hulett was forty yards behind his prey and closing when Gentry darted into traffic, right in front of a tour bus, before disappearing on the other side. By the time Hulett neared the bus, the door had opened between himself and his quarry, and it had begun disgorging elementary-school-aged kids on their way for a tour of the historic Kurfürstendamm boulevard.
The children moved single file, and Hulett was going to just plow on through them until he noticed they were all holding a rope to keep them in line for their teachers.
Hulett skidded to a stop, then turned and ran up the sidewalk to the rear end of the bus, only then darting out into the street after Gentry.
A DHL truck raced by, and to avoid getting run down, Hulett dove onto the hood of a parked Maserati and then rolled over the top, then down onto the sidewalk on the far side of the street from the schoolkids.
He struggled back to his feet and started forward again, checking behind him as he did so. He saw that Thor had gotten himself wrapped up in the children and their rope and was falling farther behind.
Once he reached the large square, Hulett could see that Gentry had increased his lead greatly. He wasn’t running as fast as before, but still Hulett doubted he would catch up to him before he rounded a corner on the next block, ran to his bike parked in some lot somewhere nearby, and escaped.
He couldn’t count on the fact that Mercury and Atlas would take him; he had to stay on the man’s tail.
Hulett pulled his gun, thinking he had one last look at Gentry before he lost sight of him. One opportunity to get payback for Ronnie Blight. He held the weapon out in front of him and slowed, lining up on the tiny target, now over sixty yards away.
But he stopped himself before pressing the trigger.
This wasn’t a run-down apartment block in Yemen. This wasn’t an out-of-the-way dilapidated mansion outside Caracas. This was the very center of the very heart of Europe. Cafés spilled out into the square, and Hulett immediately realized he was likely being watched by many eyes.
He holstered his pistol and slowed, continuing at a brisk pace, but nothing like the speed of the man running away at the far end of the square.
Thor had broken free of the kids from the tour bus and now entered the square, as well. Following his leader, he slowed to a brisk walk, thirty yards back from Hades and nearly one hundred from Gentry, who disappeared around the side of a bakery.
Court felt like he was going to vomit, but he wouldn’t let himself slow down to do so. He couldn’t remember a single situation in his life where he literally didn’t have time to puke, but that was where he found himself as he ran past a bakery and then down the single-lane entrance for the underground garage where he’d parked his bike. His run had slowed to a jog, and he had no idea how far back the pair that had been in foot pursuit were, but now he told himself to forget about them, and to instead focus on the unknowns ahead.
He gasped for air, his lungs straining as he left the entrance ramp and ran into the stairwell, then began descending to level P3, all the while acutely aware that he might not be alone down here.
Officer Jürgen Reichert exited Bäcker Wiedemann, a bakery on the corner of Walter-Benjamin and Leibnizstrasse, after witnessing a bearded man in a business suit racing past the window. It was a strange enough occurrence for him to step out of line and go outside to the sidewalk to investigate, but by the time he looked in the direction the man had run, he saw nothing.
He assumed the man had gone into some shop, or perhaps the underground garage entrance two doors down.
He shrugged, turned to head back into the bakery, then saw a man rounding the corner in the opposite direction. This individual broke into a sprint right as he made it onto Leibnizstrasse, running in the direction of the officer.
“Halt!” Reichert shouted, and he put a hand up, thinking the first man was being chased by the second. When the big muscular man did not stop, he pulled a baton from his utility belt, held it out in front of him, and pointed it at the onrushing bearded man.
“Polizei!”
He wore a Heckler & Koch SFP9 in a holster on his hip, but he’d never drawn it while on duty, and it didn’t even occur to him now to do so.
Keith Hulett had just started running again when he noticed the cop in his way. He slowed a little, unsure, but once he saw the man pulling his baton, he charged forward again. He couldn’t see Gentry any longer and assumed he’d already made it up to the next block.
The cop tried to get in his way, and Hulett picked up more speed, running right for him. The young man raised his weapon as if to strike, but the American swatted the baton away, knocking it into the street as he continued sprinting up Leibnizstrasse, desperate to get to the next intersection before his target managed to evade him.
Thor rounded the corner, turning off the pedestrian-only Walter-Benjamin-Platz and onto Leibnizstrasse, running as fast as his team leader now. He saw the police officer dead ahead, standing there, flat-footed, facing away and watching Hades sprint up to the next intersection. When he was just twenty yards away from him, Thor saw the cop reach down to his utility belt. He first assumed the man was going for a radio to call it in, but was instead surprised to see the young cop drawing his Heckler & Koch pistol with an uncertain draw.
Thor figured the only reason this young cop would be pulling his sidearm was that he’d caught a glimpse of Hades’s pistol under his shirt, and the officer was slowly coming to the dramatic realization that he was in the middle of some sort of life-or-death encounter.
The cop’s movements showed he wasn’t ready for a fight. But Thor, for his part, knew exactly what he had to do. He picked up the pace even more, tried to lighten his step as he ran to minimize the chance the cop would hear him barreling down from behind, and then, just as the police officer raised his weapon and shouted at Hades to “halt,” Thor charged into him from behind, ambushing him with a shoulder to his back.
The pistol cracked, the man lurched forward and fell in a crumpled heap, and Thor tumbled over the top of him and fell to the sidewalk.
The American came to rest on his back; the cop’s pistol was feet away, so he reached over, grabbed it, and pulled himself back to his feet.
He took off again at a sprint, following after his TL while deftly disassembling the weapon and throwing the component parts on the ground.
Behind him, the officer writhed in pain on the pavement as passersby rushed to his aid.
Hades had run right past the sign that read Einfahrt Öffentliche Parkgarage; the single-lane entrance to the underground lot was so nondescript he missed it, and he made it all the way to Mommsenstrasse before slowing and looking around.
Thor finally caught up, and he pulled to a stop next to him. Breathlessly he said, “Where the hell is he?”
Hades realized it was up to Atlas and Mercury now, so he said, “Let’s get the vic. Be back here to support the other guys. It’s gonna be crawling with five-oh in a minute.”
The two of them ran off to the east, heading the two blocks to their vehicle at nearly the same speed they’d chased after their elusive prey.