AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A blast of horn. Nobody moved.
"Hold your badge up," she told him.
His smile said the gesture would do no good.
She hit the horn again and guided the car over the curb and along the sidewalk. Furious faces turned toward her, though the expressions of some of the younger men switched from indignant anger to amusement and even admiration when they noted the insane driver was a beautiful redhead.
She breached the intersection and turned as Ercole had instructed. Then roared forward.
"Call," she instructed. "See if the--what's the name of your tac outfit again?"
"Tac?"
"Sorry. Tactical. See where they are."
"Oh, SCO." He pulled out his phone and placed a call. Like most of the conversations she'd heard so far, this one unfolded lightning-fast. It ended with a clipped, "Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao..." He gripped the dash as she shot between two trucks and said, "They're assembled and on the way. It should be fifteen minutes."
"How far are we?"
"Cinque. I mean--"
"Five." Sachs was grimacing. "Can't somebody be there any faster? We'll need a breaching team. The Composer would have locked the doorway or gate again. He did that in New York."
"They'll probably think of that."
"Tell them anyway."
Another call. And she could tell from the tone, if not the words, that there was nothing to do to expedite the arrival of the tactical force.
"They have hammers and cutters and a torch."
A fast shift, fourth to second. She punched the accelerator. The engine howled.
A phrase of her father's came to mind. A bylaw of her life.
When you move they can't getcha...
But just then: A blond teenager, his long curls flying in the breeze, steered a peppy orange scooter through a stoplight, oblivious to any traffic.
"Shit."
In a blur of appendages, Sachs used the gears, the foot brake and the hand brake to decelerate and then skid around the Honda, missing the kid by inches. He didn't even notice. Sachs saw he wore earbuds.
Then first gear, and they were on their way once more.
"Left here." Ercole was shouting over the screams of his laboring engine.
It was a narrow street they were speeding along. Residential--no stores. Pale laundry hung above them like flags. Then into a square around a tiny anemic park, on whose scarred benc
hes sat a half-dozen older men and women, a younger woman with a baby carriage and two children playing with scruffy dogs. It was a deserted area and the Composer could easily have slipped the victim out of his car and underground without anyone's seeing.
"There, that's it," he announced, pointing to a shabby wooden doorway in the abandoned building Giacomo Schiller had referred to. This, like all the building facades nearby, was covered with graffiti. You could just make out the faded sign: Non Entrare.
Sachs brought the Megane to a stop twenty feet from the door, leaving room for the tactical officers and ambulance. She hurried out. Ercole was close behind her.
Jogging again. But carefully. Sachs kept a close monitor on her legs--she suffered from arthritis, which had become so severe she'd nearly been sidelined from her beloved profession. Surgery had removed much, if not all, of the pain. Still, she always stayed mindful. The body can betray at any moment. But now, all functioned smoothly.
"You're new to this, right? To entry."
