Skyrm pushed Brian back then swiveled into a roundhouse kick aimed at Larissa. His heel connected with her hip and sent her flying across the small marketplace into the wall of fish tanks. She caromed off them and fell, moaning as her left knee jammed into the sidewalk.
Brian reflexively moved to help Larissa, and Skyrm took advantage of this tactical error. He grabbed Brian’s shirt collar and belt loop and hurled him at a nearby table of birdcages. Brian skidded down the tabletop, sending cages to the ground with a din of crashing metal and squawking birds. He went over the edge with a large birdcage caught beneath his chest. Brian’s ribs seared with pain as he landed on the cage. He rolled onto his back and groaned. The cage, now resting next to him, was eighteen inches wide, a little more than two feet tall, and shaped like a dollhouse. At least it looked like a dollhouse until Brian had landed on it. Now it was twisted out of shape. The impact had snapped and bent the wires on the cage’s floor into a jagged hole the size of a small melon. A light blue parakeet hopped through the hole and flew away. Some birds flapped and shrieked in the cages that littered the ground. Others lay still, either in shock or dead. Ten feet away a man, probably the fish seller, was helping Larissa to her feet.
Brian’s brain recorded all this information in the second it took for him to stand. He was now on the same side of the table as the bird merchant, the bearded man he had noticed before, who was shouting at Skyrm in Spanish. The screeching birds echoed the man’s anger. Skyrm drew a semiautomatic pistol from his jacket and pointed it at the bird merchant. The man went silent. The birds continued their keening protests, joined by the cries of people alarmed at the sight of the gun. The bird man gave Brian an apologetic look and scampered into the crowd.
Skyrm turned and waved the gun at the man aiding Larissa, motioning him away from her. The man shook his head. Skyrm shrugged, raised the pistol, and fired. The bullet cracked into one of the fish tanks on the top tier. The pistol’s report sent the birds into frenzy. Bystanders yelled and ran. Water spouted momentarily through the small hole in the aquarium, then the glass erupted outward from the force of the escaping water. Larissa put her hands above her head and leaped to the right to avoid the cascade of liquid and glass. The man at her side took off. Multicolored fish flopped wildly on the sidewalk at Larissa’s feet. Skyrm laughed and fired at a tank on the other side of Larissa. She screamed as a second watery explosion barely missed her.
“Stop it!” Brian shouted.
Skyrm wheeled around to face Brian, a table of birdcage supplies between them. Skyrm smiled ferociously. “What can you do to stop me?” he said. “Do you need to be reminded how pathetic you are?”
Skyrm kicked the table over. The impact knocked Brian down. Skyrm cackled as tiny bells and small plastic mirrors rained upon Brian. A heavy wooden object rolled into Brian’s forearm. It was one of the juggler’s clubs, the type that resemble bowling pins with elongated necks. Brian remembered their name. Indian clubs. He lifted the club to test its weight. About three pounds. He glanced about for the other two clubs but didn’t see them. Two weapons would have been better than one, but now he had one weapon, which was better than none.
Brian looked up. Skyrm had his back to him and was threatening Larissa. “Don’t move, you little bitch,” he said. “Or I won’t allow your boyfriend the decency to die on his feet.”
Brian stood, holding the Indian club in his right hand behind his back. He stepped to the side so that his hip touched the next booth, its tabletop covered with smaller fish tanks and goldfish bowls. Skyrm was an arm’s length away.
“I’m on my feet,” Brian said.
Skyrm spun about, his hip followed by his gun arm. Brian stepped inside Skyrm’s reach and smashed the Indian club into Skyrm’s right wrist. The blow drove Skyrm’s gun hand onto the tabletop. His eyes popped as Brian again pounded at his wrist. Skyrm grunted, and the gun discharged. The bullet lodged in the tabletop’s thick wood. Brian struck once more. Skyrm spat an obscenity and Brian was satisfied he had broken the man’s wrist. Skyrm raised his hand. The pistol dangled from his trigger finger for a second and fell into a fish tank.
Brian swung the club at Skyrm’s head, but Skyrm’s left hand flashed up and caught Brian’s wrist, halting the blow an inch from his head. Skyrm tightened his grip and whispered, “I can fight through the pain, boy. Can you?”
Brian took a step back, which gave Skyrm enough room to raise his foot to Brian’s chest. He held his foot in the air for a tantalizing moment, then kicked like a pile driver. The force catapulted Brian backward. He felt the club leave his hand as Skyrm released his wrist and heard it clatter to the sidewalk. Then Brian was falling. Pain jolted across his shoulder blades as he crashed into something metal. His forearm burned as he wrenched to the side and his skin scraped across the sidewalk. Brian twisted the other way and was flat on his back. He glanced sideways to see what he had landed on. It was the same birdcage as before. The second impact had widened the hole at its bottom.
Brian tried to sit up but couldn’t. His breath was gone. His heart raced with panic as he tried to pull air into his lungs. Above his wheezes he could hear distant sirens. Too distant. Brian knew he had only a few seconds to live unless he could shake this paralysis. He lifted his chin in time to see Larissa make a grab for the fallen club. Skyrm struck her with a backhanded blow that sent her to the ground. He picked up the club with his left hand and advanced on her. Larissa scrabbled backward, but was blocked by the wall of aquariums. Brian took a deep gasp and felt his lungs fill. Larissa clasped her hands above her head protectively. Skyrm raised the club, and Larissa screamed.
Brian moved. Rage, not thought, drove him as he reached for the nearest object to use as a weapon. He felt his strength return as he came to his feet. He resisted the impulse to yell as he took four unsteady but swift steps toward Skyrm. Brian didn’t want to give his enemy any warning as he raised the birdcage high and slammed it down on Skyrm’s head. The opening at the bottom of the cage was wide enough to slide over the crown of Skyrm’s skull. Brian felt resistance as the cage reached the man’s temples. Brian jumped straight up, and as he came down he used his weight to drive the cage’s floor to Skyrm’s shoulders.
The attack caused Skyrm to swing wild. The club thudded against one of the aquariums and missed Larissa. Skyrm whirled about. The wire cage around his head was like a parody of the old metal diving helmets, and Skyrm should have looked absurd. But the face within terrified Brian. A five-inch scratch stretched from Skyrm’s forehead down his right cheek and was just starting to well with blood. His wire-framed glasses, now twisted, hung from his left ear. Skyrm’s lips curled into a vicious snarl and the rings in his eyes blazed. He threw the club at Brian’s head. Brian ducked and heard the club crash into metal behind him. Birds screeched.
Skyrm brought his hands up to the cage and, even with his crippled right wrist, tried to lift it from his head. For Brian, the next few seconds occurred in slow motion. He saw a stray wire puncture Skyrm’s neck and draw a crimson gash across the throat as Skyrm pushed the cage upward. Then came a spray of red, and Skyrm’s eyes and mouth went wide with shock. “No,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. Skyrm’s hands flailed as he instinctively tried to put pressure on the severed artery. But the cage was in his way and his hands slapped uselessly at the wire mesh.
Time returned to normal. Screams of women and birds joined the approaching sirens in an ear-splitting chorus. The sirens were coming from the west, perhaps two or three blocks away. Brian reached down to Larissa and pulled her up. Skyrm howled and came after them. He lasted three steps before dropping to his knees.
Brian watched Skyrm keel over to his side. The cage held his head at a grotesque angle as his body settled and Skyrm’s blood spilled out and mixed with the water from the shattered aquariums to form pinkish rivulets in the sidewalk cracks. The rings in Skyrm’s eyes faded to slate gray, and the man who was so anxious about his reputation died a ridiculous death.
CHAPTER 46--DES
PERATE
The whoop and wail of the sirens pierced Brian’s consciousness and forced him to tear his eyes away from Skyrm’s broken corpse. The sirens were closer now. The fight had lasted less than two minutes, and the police would be here within seconds. Larissa was tugging at Brian, telling him they had to go. She was right. Brian pulled himself together.
He clasped Larissa’s hand again, and they sprinted to the east, away from the sirens. No one tried to stop them. They stepped off Las Ramblas to be engulfed by a torrent of people fleeing the violence. Brian tightened his grip on Larissa’s hand as the river of people squeezed into a narrow street. He looked about, trying to determine their new surroundings. They had entered a section of Barcelona that clearly dated back to the Middle Ages. The buildings were constructed of ancient stone, as was the street. Only the neon signs indicated they had not just passed through a time portal.
After they had run about two blocks, Brian felt Larissa slowing. He was starting to drag her. He turned to see her face twisted in a grimace of pain. Brian put his arm around her waist and forced their way to the stone wall on their right. They took refuge in the doorway of a closed pharmacy as people continued to flow past.
“Are you all right?” Brian asked.
“My knee hurts terribly,” Larissa said. She pulled up her left pant leg to expose her knee. It was swollen and purple.
On the far side of the street, three police officers wearing black berets with red piping pressed against the crowds to make their way toward Las Ramblas.
“I will slow us,” Larissa said.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of your knee once we reach the train station.” Even as Brian said that, he doubted himself. They would have to find an ice pack for her bruise, and Larissa would need ibuprofen. Why couldn’t this pharmacy be open?
“If we become separated,” Larissa said, “promise me you will go to Madrid and stop the men who killed my father.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not leaving you. Not after that.”
“But if we do become separated, I would find the police and let them take me. I would tell enough lies to buy you time.”
Larissa’s eyes told Brian she was serious. “Well, let’s not worry about it,” he said slowly, “because we’re not going to get separated, OK? I need you, Larissa.”
Larissa pulled down her pant leg and nodded. “You are right, we are a team.” She pushed herself away from the stone wall. “We should go now while I can still walk.”
Brian looked out at the people still packing the cramped street. The panic couldn’t last much longer, and he knew they could best avoid the police by remaining lost in this crowd. He took her hand. “All right,” he said. “Hold on tight to me and yell if you have to stop.”
“OK,” Larissa said.
They thrust their way back into the human traffic, which smelled of sweat and stale tobacco. Brian hoped the pace was not too much for Larissa. A slim alley was coming up on the right and several lines of people were moving toward it like river water racing for a tributary. As they neared the alley, Larissa’s hand broke from Brian’s. He turned to see her being pulled toward the alley as inexorably as he was being pushed beyond it. Larissa gazed over her shoulder to smile at him, and then she faced forward and disappeared into the alley’s darkness.
Brian shouted after her and tried to force his way back. A large man behind Brian jeered at him and shoved him forward. Another man pressed up next to the first man, filling the gap Brian had hoped to squeeze through. Brian turned about face and tried to run ahead, but the people surrounding him were packed too tightly to maneuver past.
The mob began to break up at the next intersection, where the narrow street emptied onto a wider one with room for automobile traffic. Brian turned right and ran, hoping to cut down the next street and intercept Larissa in the alley, if he could find it again.
He reached the corner and was about to dash across the street when a compact car slid to a stop in front of him. Jack Silver leaned from the driver’s seat to look at Brian through the open passenger window. “Get in!” he yelled.
“Are you insane?” Brian bellowed back. “Not a chance in hell!” He moved to go around the front of the car. Silver pulled forward to block him.
“Brian!” Silver’s voice snapped in a way Brian hadn’t heard before. He looked back into the car. Silver was pointing a snub-nosed pistol at him.
“Do you know what this means?” Silver asked.
Brian remembered Silver once describing the only reason he would carry a gun. “You’re desperate,” Brian replied.
“Right. Now get into the car.”
Brian looked toward the alley where Larissa had disappeared, and then he opened the passenger door.
CHAPTER 47--NEED
The first thing Brian noticed as he sat was that the dashboard cigarette lighter was missing. Silver caught the direction of his gaze. “Once bitten,” he said. The automatic door locks clicked shut as the window next to Brian rose, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to make a run for it at the next red light.
Pistol still in hand, Silver pulled into traffic. A voice on the radio spoke clipped, urgent Spanish then went silent. A flat black box with flashing red LED lights sat on the center console. Brian had seen these devices before. It was a police scanner.
“Where’s your girlfriend?” Silver asked.
Brian didn’t bother to correct Silver’s presumption. “We got separated in the crowd a few blocks back and I saw her going down an alley. I was about to try to find her when you cut me off.”
Silver pursed his lips. “All right, we’d better find her. Was she heading in this direction?”
“I’m not about to help you capture her.”
“Look, Brian, believe it or not I’m trying to—” A new voice on the radio interrupted Silver. Brian recognized the word niña.
“So much for finding your girlfriend,” Silver said. “It sounds like the police just picked her up.” Brian’s spirits sank. Silver continued to listen to the police frequency. “Yeah, that must be her,” he said. “Sixteen-year-old girl. Asking that they take her to the French consulate.”
Brian snatched at that grain of hope. “Will they?”
“Oh, I’m sure they will. She’s a French citizen and a minor. The police wouldn’t dare question her before contacting the French consulate. And …” Silver paused and looked at Brian. “Her father’s body was found about an hour ago. The French will demand that Larissa be turned over to them. The police will comply. You don’t have to worry about her. She’s safe now.”
Brian nodded. If, as he suspected, Larissa let go of his hand on purpose, she had achieved her goal. She had found refuge, and as a bonus, she no longer had to lie to the police to buy Brian time. That point had become moot anyway, considering that Silver was probably driving him back to Eck. And yet something didn’t fit. Silver did not seem upset that Larissa was beyond his reach. In fact, he had sounded relieved.
Silver raised his gun and wiggled it. “It ain’t easy trying to shift with this thing. If I put it away, you promise not to try to run off or maim me again?”
“All right,” Brian said. Silver slipped the gun into a shoulder holster concealed by his jacket. If Brian wanted to grab for the gun, which did not seem like a smart idea, he would have to reach across Silver’s body to get it.
“OK,” Silver said. “Now for the big question. I assume you were involved in that fight on the Ramblas that lit up the police band a few minutes ago.”
Brian nodded.
“So who’s the dead body in the bird market?”
“Skyrm,” Brian said.
Silver let out a low whistle. “You’d better tell me what happened.”
Brian did. When he finished the story, Silver looked at him with a concern Brian did not expect. “How are you feeling?” Silver asked. “Physically, I mean.”
“My chest and back are sore, probably bruised. And my shoulder is hurting again.”
&nb
sp; “Any numbness?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good, then we don’t have to worry about broken bones.”
Brian looked out the passenger window. Silver had been driving in widening spirals with no apparent destination. The buildings they were passing appeared more modern, relatively speaking—nineteenth century instead of fourteenth century. The streets were wider, too, allowing a clearer view of the darkening sky.
“How did you find me so quickly?”
“Same way Skyrm did, I imagine. Your tradecraft so far has been textbook. So you probably followed the rules to set up a fallback rendezvous with Larissa. Pick a busy place with lots of pedestrian traffic. You’ve never been to Barcelona before, so you were likely to choose either the Ramblas or La Sagrada Família.”
“I was predictable,” Brian said. He slouched his shoulders and sank into his seat.
“If it makes you feel better, I was halfway to La Sagrada Família when the scanner went nuts with reports of a man attacking some teenagers near La Boqueria. I did a U-turn on the spot—which, by the way, they don’t care for around here—and hauled ass for the Ramblas. When I spotted that mob running from the scene, I hoped to see your face. And there you were.” Silver bumped a fist on the steering wheel. “I was terrified it was going to be a repeat of Toulouse, when Skyrm got to that DIA woman before I could.”
Brian looked at Silver in surprise. “You were trying to save her?”
Silver sighed. “My moral compass may be wobbly, Brian, but I wasn’t going to let them murder a fellow American intelligence officer.”
Brian let this sink in. “On the cable car, you knocked Eck down on purpose. You helped me get away.”
Silver nodded.
“So you’re not working for Eck?”
“Not willingly. Skyrm learned about my financial arrangement with Tetzel. He blackmailed me into helping them find you after they grabbed me in Nice.” Silver gave Brian a sharp look. “I was a sitting duck once you caused that fender bender and rabbited.”
The Boy Who Knew Too Much Page 23