The Lucifer Code

by Charles Brokaw

  His phone vibrated over his heart. He took it out before it could vibrate again and answered, ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Jimmy,’ the smooth, cultured voice said, ‘I’m in my office watching the news, putting together my notes for the Middle East conference coming up. CNN just came on with a breaking story about Professor Thomas Lourds being involved in a shooting at Ataturk International Airport.’

  ‘Yes, sir. We’ve got eyes on the situation.’

  ‘Nowhere in Professor Lourds’ background did I see that he had any military training or connections with the Turkish army. Or any army.’

  ‘No, sir, but he was an Eagle Scout.’

  ‘I suppose that would be helpful if he needed to start a fire, work out which way north was or help someone across the street.’

  ‘Some Eagle Scouts are trained to shoot, sir.’

  ‘I’m fairly confident that such a background wouldn’t enable Professor Lourds to evade the men you sent after him.’

  Dawson’s face grew hot. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have sent someone who would heavy-handedly take him in a frontal assault. From the looks of things on CNN, there are a lot of wounded and possibly some dead people at that airport.’ Although the man’s words were damning, the flat New Hampshire accent remained even. ‘In short, this is an international incident. Was this your plan?’

  ‘No, sir. This was not in the plan. It happened in reaction to an outside party we didn’t know was in play. Things escalated when that outside party took Lourds before we could get to him. We tried to get him back. Those shooters won’t tie back to the Agency or to your office.’

  ‘That’s good to hear, Jimmy. Really fine. But it appears you’ve lost Professor Lourds.’

  Dawson stared at the rear view of the fleeing SUV. ‘Not yet, sir. We’ve identified the people who took the professor. We’re going after them.’

  ‘All right, then. You’re showing initiative. That’s what I like to hear. You’ve always been a man I could trust to get results.’

  Pride swelled Dawson’s chest.

  ‘As I told you earlier, Jimmy, this business is important. Vastly important. I would like very much to speak with Professor Lourds some time in the near future.’

  ‘You will, sir.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave this in your capable hands. Get back to me when you’ve got this thing sewn up.’

  ‘Yes, sir, Mr Vice-President.’ The click of the broken connection sounded in Dawson’s ear. He returned the phone to his pocket.

  ‘Sir,’ one of the technicians said.

  Without turning back to face them, Dawson said, ‘This had better be good news.’

  ‘We’ve identified the woman.’

  Dawson stared at the woman’s image on the wallscreen. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘She’s a member of the Irish Republican Army. Allegedly.’

  That, Dawson decided, didn’t make any sense at all. Why would the IRA be involved in this?

  ‘We’ve got a helicopter team in the area, right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get them in the air. Feed them the information about the SUV and let them find it.’ Dawson forced himself to let out a breath. Maybe the op was running a little hot, but it was still going to be over in a few more minutes.

  Feneryolu Cd

  Yesilkoy District

  Istanbul, Turkey

  15 March 2010

  Rubber shrieked and the SUV’s transmission strained. Lourds could hear the scream of abused metal beneath his position on the vehicle’s floor. His stomach twisted as the SUV lurched and seemed to go airborne for a moment. His head slammed into the floor, then into the metal seat anchors ahead of him. He tasted blood from his split lip. Horns blared all around them.

  The man in the front passenger seat swore in Farsi. The driver was asking for divine guidance in the same tongue. The hulking brute with the shot-off ear laughed in a deep rumble.

  Unable to see her, Lourds didn’t know what Kristine was doing. He lifted his head and wiped blood from his mouth. Crimson stained his fingers.

  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, Lou
rds 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.

  3

  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.

  The sudden lack of movement seemed almost inconceivable after the last few seconds, but the terrible sounds of screeching metal and human screams continued echoing inside Lourds’ head.

  We’re alive! he thought.

  Then he looked at the ground-up corpse and the driver with part of his head missing.

  Well, some of us are still alive.

  ‘Get up,’ Kristine ordered.

  Lourds didn’t move. ‘You’ve got your pistol in my crotch.’

  Kristine moved the pistol. ‘Get up.’

  Lourds tried, but the strap was too tight with his weight against it. He couldn’t pull free. ‘I can’t. The strap’s-’

  A short combat knife flashed in the young woman’s hand. The strap parted like butter under its keen edge.

  She has a knife, Lourdes thought. A very sharp knife…

  It terrified him even more than the gun.

  The strap’s release caught Lourds off-guard. He fell onto the hulking man’s bleeding body. Before he could recoil, Kristine fell on top of him, then swung round, kicking him in the head in her haste, and stood. She pocketed the knife, shoved the pistol into the back of her waistband, and turned her attention to the broken door, currently above her head.

  A familiar sickly sweet odour tickled his nostrils.

  ‘Do you smell gasoline?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  Wetness slid under the hulking man’s corpse. Lourds hesitantly touched it and sniffed his finger. It was definitely gasoline. The smell overpowered even the stench of blood and death.

  ‘There’s gasoline under us,’ he said.

  ‘The impact must have ruptured the gas tank. Give me a hand with this door.’

  ‘No! All we need is a spark, possibly from messing with that jammed door, and we could be burned alive.’

  ‘Do you really think just sitting here is our best option, Professor? Haven’t you realized there’s worse out there than fire?’

  Lourds didn’t say so to his weapon-toting keeper, but he thought waiting for help was an incredibly intelligent idea.

  ‘Get up and help me,’ Kristine said, ‘Even if the police arrive to rescue us, I’m not sure I want to answer any of their questions. Turkish jails aren’t comfortable. And that’s only if the police get here before more of those men from the airport arrive.’

  ‘You don’t know that there are any more.’ But she had a point. Even as he said it, Lourds liked his plan less and less.

  ‘They tried to shoot us in public. They mowed down civilians everywhere. Do you really think they would have only sent one team?’

  ‘I defer to your experience.’ Lourds scrambled out from under her and crouched on top of the corpse. His footing atop the dead man was treacherous.

  Several people approached the SUV. Lourds saw them through the smashed front windshield. A few onlookers asked them if help was needed, but others pointed out the dead man and all the blood in the vehicle’s interior. It was a nightmare image. They kept their distance.

  Kristine pulled her pistol and brandished it through the broken window. A few of the onlookers gave ground, but that did not apparently satisfy his kidnapper. She fired two quick rounds into the air. One of the brass casings flipped down the back of Lourds’ shirt and burned him until he was able to shake it free. He prayed the gasoline vapour wouldn’t explode and kill him.

  It didn’t.

  A mass exodus of spectators began at that point.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Lourds said. ‘They were only trying to help.’

  ‘Because one of those good Samaritans might be standing out there with a pistol or a knife,’ Kristine answered. ‘You’re a hot item, Professor Lourds. I don’t know why those men at the airport wanted you, but I do know some other people paid me a lot of money to bring you to them.’

  ‘You were bait?’

  ‘I was told you have a weakness for young women. Judging from the way you threw yourself at me, it appears to be true.’

  Lourds couldn’t believe it. ‘The way I threw myself at you? I did not throw myself at you, young lady.’

  ‘Now you’re noticing the differences in our ages? You didn’t seem too worried about it earlier, did you?’

  Lourds tried to think of something to say, but he couldn’t even believe they’d got into the
argument in the first place. They had more pressing concerns.

  ‘You’re standing in gasoline, Professor,’ the young woman taunted him.

  ‘That’s right! You could have killed us both by shooting that gun!’ Lourds said.

  ‘Both of you, shut up,’ snarled the man in the passenger seat; he was conscious again. He pointed a big pistol at them. ‘Or I will kill you both.’

  Kristine turned her cold gaze on the man. For one tense second, Lourds felt certain she was going to kill the driver for threatening her.

  ‘You’re lucky your boss still owes me money,’ she said.

  The man hesitated, then lowered his pistol and wiped at a cut on his face. ‘We need to get out of here.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Kristine turned her attention back to the jammed door. The gasoline stink was stronger now. Not relishing the idea of burning to death, Lourds helped her. This time the door gave way with a heart-stopping shriek of metal against metal. Fortunately they didn’t go up in flames.

  The young woman grabbed the edges of the door and hauled herself out. Lourds jumped after her. They stood on the SUV looking down at the crowd, now hovering a safe distance away. His shirt hung in shreds and his whole body ached. He figured he looked like an extra in a zombie film. His hat was still on his head. He wondered what it looked like after all this.

  Several onlookers had cameras, camcorders and camera phones pointed in their direction.

  ‘Come on.’ The man who had been sitting in the passenger seat stood in front of the SUV. He’d crawled through the broken windshield. Blood soaked his clothing and streaked his hands and face. He held a phone to his ear.

  ‘Where?’ Kristine asked.

  ‘There.’ The man pointed to a nearby alley. ‘There’s a car in the next street.’

  At that moment, Lourds realized he should have been trying to escape his captors instead of looking round in a daze. He shifted his weight and leaped from the SUV, hoping to vanish into the crowd before Kristine or the man could catch him. Sadly, that wouldn’t keep them from shooting him in the back. But maybe they still wanted him alive.