Brian looked at the gauze wrapped around Silver’s right hand. He shrugged. “You kidnapped me.”
Silver waved his other hand dismissively. “It probably worked out for the best. Otherwise they would have grabbed us both in Nice. End of story.”
Silver took a wide left onto a broad boulevard. The buildings around them were glass and steel. Brian looked up at a skyscraper that resembled a forty-story bullet covered in lights that shimmered from red to blue. They had driven back into the twenty-first century.
“Eck still thinks I’m a member of the search party out to find you,” Silver continued. “And from all the times I’ve felt my cell phone vibrate in the last half hour, I’d say he’s getting impatient.”
“Then let me go,” Brian said. “Take me to the American consulate.”
“I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
They were stopped at a red light. Silver twisted in his seat to look squarely at Brian. “I need to know where you hid that Prometheus prototype after you left the warehouse last night.”
Brian shook his head. “That’s the same question Eck asked me on the cable car, and you just admitted you’ve been working for him. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No. You’re not stupid,” Silver said, accelerating as the light changed. “But you are smart enough to see we both have the same need.”
“And what’s that?”
“Look, I’ve spent the last few days collaborating with a traitor to my country and one of Interpol’s most wanted criminals. The CIA hasn’t heard from me since Switzerland, and if I’m lucky they think I’ve gone to ground or been captured.” Silver jabbed the dashboard with his index finger. “The only way I’m going to get out of this without a prison sentence is to deliver Eck and his stolen weapon system all wrapped up in a nice big bow. I’ve got to come out of this looking like Foster goddamned Blake.”
Silver took a calming breath. “So I need your help, Brian. And you need mine. You want this to be over, don’t you? You want to be back with your school friends. You want to call your mother and tell her everything is all right. You want Larissa to be able to return home. Help me bring Eck down, and this could end tonight.”
“What about Kralik and those other goons?”
“Once they hear Skyrm is dead, they’ll take off. Skyrm was this operation’s architect and strong man. Without him, Eck has nothing. He’ll want to flee, too, but he’s supposed to meet a potential buyer tonight. That’s why he needs the prototype. The buyers want the prototype as well as the Prometheus van. So at least tell me the prototype isn’t in Barcelona.”
Brian studied Silver’s face. The CIA man had not pleaded. He had laid out his case logically. The only way to end this quickly was to cooperate.
“We never took the prototype out of the warehouse,” Brian said. “We put it in a crate, then I used a forklift to stack it with the other crates. When we stole the van, we wanted Eck to think we took the prototype with us. I guess it worked.”
Silver laughed and clapped Brian’s shoulder. “Oh, it worked, all right. Eck about had a seizure when they saw the prototype was missing.” Silver’s laugh faded. “Now we just need to find Eck and the Prometheus van.” He looked at Brian. “What were those delivery vans you mentioned on the cable car?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“Eck never took me into his full confidence.”
Brian told him about Barcelona Paquete Servicio. Silver pulled an iPhone from his jacket pocket and tapped the virtual keypad while he kept the steering wheel steady with his knees.
“That’s the third cell phone I’ve seen you use,” Brian said.
“One for every alias,” Silver replied. “Ah, here it is. Barcelona Paquete Servicio has its main distribution center near the port. That’s where the Prometheus van should be hiding in plain sight.” At the next intersection, Silver turned south, toward the Mediterranean.
“Are you ready for this mission’s end phase?” he asked
“Yes,” Brian replied. A shiver of excitement shot through him. “Yes I am.”
CHAPTER 48--TRESPASS
Brian recognized many of the landmarks as Silver drove along the seafront highway. Lighted by intense beams from below, Columbus blazed atop his monument like a golden specter against the indigo sky. On the left was the cable car’s central tower. Brian squinted to see the thick black lines and spotted the cables just as they drove beneath them. He lost them again in the shadows of Montjuïc.
The cable car’s path appeared to be a border between the city’s tourist and shipping areas. The buildings along the waterfront transitioned to warehouses and fuel depots. The length of an enormous container ship flashed between rows of industrial buildings. Brian took a look at Montjuïc to the right and was puzzled to see tiers of ancient stone battlements—ancient except for clusters of windows—arranged like jumbled shelves from midway up the steep hill to its top.
“That’s a cemetery, believe it or not,” Silver said. “Those windows are all graves.”
“On top of each other?”
“Yeah, they stack ’em up here, just like in New Orleans.”
Brian nodded. He could make out roads in the cemetery twisting among the bizarre constructs.
Silver exited the highway and zigzagged among narrow warehouses before finding a place to park.
“I don’t suppose it will do any good to ask you to wait in the car?” Silver asked.
“No.”
“Of course not, but let the record show I took a stab at playing the responsible adult.”
As the automatic locks popped open and Silver got out of the car, Brian considered making a run for it. But where? Silver seemed to read his thoughts. “You could go to the police, of course. But think of the complications. One of your parents will have to come to Barcelona. It would be an expensive trip. You will be tangled in red tape for days, maybe weeks. And while all that is going on, Eck will escape and get away with all the misery he’s caused. And the deaths.”
Brian thought of Lenore Harte and Professor DeJonge, and the two hikers in the Pyrenees, then got out of the car. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“Didn’t think so,” Silver said. He stepped to the rear of the car and opened the hatch. Brian followed. Silver stripped off his blazer and took a navy blue windbreaker from the cargo area. As Silver put the windbreaker on, Brian saw its pockets were heavy. “A stylish tool kit,” Silver said. He zipped the jacket just high enough to hide the butt of the pistol hanging beneath his armpit.
“Our priority,” Silver told Brian, “is recovering the Prometheus van. If we don’t see Eck, fine. Once we have the van, his operation is a washout and the CIA should have no problem tracking him down. Understood?”
Brian nodded.
“OK, then let’s go.”
Silver led him down a series of alleyways. He kept to the shadows without obviously lurking. Brian copied his movements. In a few minutes they were across the street from a low, box-like building about the length of a football field and twice the width. A vast parking lot surrounded the building, and an eight-foot-tall chain link fence, topped by three strands of barbed wire leaning outward, surrounded the parking lot. The side of the building facing them was lined with empty truck bays numbered one to twenty-five. On their left was a gate, now closed. Above the gate, high enough to clear the roof of a semi-trailer, were the words Barcelona Paquete Servicio. Just inside the gate was an empty guardhouse.
Silver nodded at the guardhouse. “That we avoid,” he said. “Let’s find a better way in.”
They slinked counterclockwise from building to building. At each alley they slipped into the darkest corner and crouched near the wall while Silver pulled out a small pair of binoculars and studied Eck’s base. Silver would nod when he was satisfied, and the pair moved on to the next alley. When a car passed, which happened four times, they retreated down the alleyway to a point where the headlights could not penetrate the darkness.
After roughly thirty minutes they reached the far side of the shipping center. There were no outbuildings, just a set of fuel pumps covered by a metal awning. Beyond the pumps were two large garage doors. Brian presumed the delivery vans were behind those doors.
As they stole around the huge warehouse, Brian counted only two cars in the parking lot. The lot was illuminated by a grid of light poles, each bearing a single cone-shaped lamp. Each lamp gave off a bright yellow glow except one, the one directly across from them. Beneath this broken lamp a section of the fence blended into the shadows.
“Is that our way in?” Brian asked.
“Probably,” Silver replied. “I just want to make sure.” He raised the binoculars to his eyes. “What have you noticed so far?”
“Nothing,” Brian said.
“Yeah, and that’s strange.”
“Why?”
“A big shipping center like this should be a twenty-four/seven operation, but there’s no activity. We’ve been watching the place for nearly forty minutes and not one truck has pulled in. And not that I expect to see a full parking lot during the night shift, but there should be more than two cars.”
Silver lowered the binoculars. “And why is no one in the guardhouse? There should be guards.”
“Maybe they’re inside protecting the Prometheus van.”
“That would make sense. And I know I shouldn’t complain because it’s much easier to break into an empty building, but things are not as they should be, and that makes us professional spy-types wary.”
“So are we going to just sit and watch?”
“No, we go in.” Silver looked at Brian soberly. “Unless you want to wait here. I’ll grab you on the way out.”
“Sit here by myself in the middle of the night by the Barcelona docks? I’ll probably be safer with you.”
Silver nodded. “OK, here’s how we get in.” He waved a hand back and forth to indicate the length of the fence. “No cameras on the perimeter,” he said. “We’ll have no problems getting through the fence at that nice dark spot. I’m making the risky assumption the fence isn’t alarmed, because I’m sure our friend Eck doesn’t want to summon the police.”
Silver pointed to a door about fifty feet from the garage entrance. “We’ll go through that door. There’s a camera above it, so we’ll have to approach it by sliding along the wall. After you get through the fence, head right there.” Silver pointed to a spot another sixty feet to the right of the door.
“Where the electrical box is?”
“Right. Now, once you’re through the fence, run fast and straight. None of that serpentine shit.”
“Got it.”
Silver produced a pair of wire cutters from his jacket. “Sit tight while I deal with the fence.”
Silver slipped across the alley to a fence post in the pocket of darkness beneath the broken lamp. Starting at the height of his shoulders and working downward he clipped the strands of the fence where they met the post. After cutting the last link, he pulled the fence up like a page of a tablet and signaled Brian.
Brian shot across the alley and through the triangle that Silver held open for him, then veered toward the electrical box. He heard a metallic shimmy behind him as Silver released the fence. Brian looked over his shoulder to see Silver running fast despite his bum leg.
The wall’s shadow hid them once more. Silver took a moment to catch his breath. Then, with theirs backs pressed to the wall, he and Brian edged toward the door.
When they got within fifteen feet of the door, Brian asked, “How are you going to take care of the camera? With an EMP grenade?”
Silver chuckled. “Where’d you get a crazy idea like that?”
“In the Foster Blake video games you always take out surveillance cameras with an EMP grenade.”
“No,” Silver said. “I have something more old-fashioned in mind.” He pulled out his gun and screwed a silencer into its muzzle. He aimed at the camera and fired. A quiet phut sounded. Silver swore and fired twice more before the camera jerked and hung from its perch like a drunken bird. Glass from its shattered lens fell to the blacktop.
“Three shots.” Silver shook his head. “I’m out of practice.”
Then he was kneeling before the doorknob, working at it with a lock pick from his pocket. The lock clicked, and he pushed the door open. “At least I haven’t lost all my nefarious skills,” Silver said.
They stepped inside to a lighted hallway. Brian didn’t like the lights; they meant someone was in the building. He and Silver turned to the left, where they knew the garage bay would be. Silver stopped at a bulletin board next to the door.
“Well, this explains a lot,” he said.
“What?”
“This notice says that as of yesterday evening, Barcelona Paquete Servicio will be closed for three days while they install a new computer system. It was posted a week ago.”
“Eck didn’t want anyone around while he closed up his operation,” Brian said.
A door down the corridor opened, and a heavyset guard stepped into the hall. He dropped his cup of vending machine coffee at the sight of the intruders and reached for the holster at his hip.
CHAPTER 49--DELIVERY
Silver charged at the guard, hurling his lock-pick set at the man as if it were a throwing knife. The guard instinctively brought up his left arm to shield himself from the projectile, giving Silver the extra split second he needed to tackle the guard before his pistol cleared its holster. The two men struggled on the ground for a few moments before a crackle sounded. The guard grimaced and arched his back, then went limp. Silver stood, holding the same stun gun he had used against Brian in France.
Silver extracted plastic restraints from inside his windbreaker. “Help me with this,” he said. Brian crouched beside him and they bound the guard’s wrist and ankles. Silver improvised a gag using the man’s socks, which Brian found disgusting. They dragged the guard into the room he had exited, a break room, and deposited him in a gap between the soda machine and the wall. Silver took the guard’s pistol, a semiautomatic Beretta, and shoved it into his outside jacket pocket.
“Let’s hope he was alone,” Silver said as they reentered the hall. They hurried down the corridor to a door at the end, which they assumed led to the garage.
They listened at the door for a full minute, but heard nothing from the other side. Silver drew his own pistol and put his left hand back on the doorknob. “I’ll make sure the coast is clear, then let you in.” He went through the door and closed it behind him.
Brian counted two minutes before Silver opened the door and told him it was safe to enter. Banks of fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Brian felt vulnerable in the brightness.
The ceiling of the vehicle bay was higher than Brian expected, and the interior dimensions wider. Before them stood several dozen Mercedes-Benz Sprinters parked in five rows. Each was maroon. Each had a ladder on the left rear door. Each had Barcelona Paquete Servicio emblazoned on the side. Each was identical in every detail.
“Looks like there’s about sixty of them,” Silver said. “Not exactly a needle in a haystack, but it will take a while to figure out which one has the Prometheus gun, assuming it’s still here.” He slid his pistol back into its shoulder holster and pulled out the lock pick. “We’ve got a lot of doors to open.”
“Slap the sides,” Brian said.
“What?”
“You don’t have to open the doors, just slap the sides. The regular vans should be empty, so they’ll feel hollow. But the Prometheus van will be packed with electronics and the weapon itself. Hit the side, and it will feel solid.”
Silver patted Brian on the back. “I knew I brought you for a reason.” He nodded at the closest van. “You take the near row, I’ll start with the far row and we’ll meet in the middle, OK?”
Silver hurried away. Brian took another look around the huge garage as he jogged toward the first van. The expanse smelled of oil, grease, and lingering exhaust fumes. A repai
r bay with a vehicle lift and red toolboxes as tall as bookcases was in the far corner. Six maroon motor scooters were lined against the wall near the garage doors. Brian guessed they were for delivering small parcels within the city.
He came to the first van and smacked the side. A hollow thunk sounded. Across the bay a fainter version of the sound echoed, signaling that Silver had begun as well. Their quest turned into a call-and-response of thuds and whumps, but the strange percussion ended sooner than Brian expected. He came to the final van in the first row and slapped the cargo wall. The result was a solid thwack that left his palm tingling. He smacked the van again. It was like hitting a steel wall.
“I found it,” he called.
Silver was at Brian’s side within seconds. He pounded the side of van with the side of his fist. “Cripes,” he said. “This must weigh as much as a tank.”
Silver dropped to his knees and peered beneath the van. “This is some heavy-duty suspension, and I’d say that’s armor plating covering the gas tank.” He got back up. “Safe to say this is not an ordinary delivery van. It’s Superman disguised as Clark Kent.”
Brian rolled his eyes. He had to get stuck with a DC guy.
Silver walked around the van, pulled out his pick again and went to work on the rear door’s handle. In less than five seconds the door popped open. Silver grasped the handle, then let go. He turned to Brian. “I believe this honor belongs to you,” he said.
Brian pulled the door open. They did not have to stoop when they climbed inside, even though the van’s ceiling was two feet lower than normal to accommodate the Prometheus gun hidden beneath the roof. A control center filled with switches, buttons, and lights was built into the cargo area’s right wall. A seat, more like an old-time tractor saddle, was attached to the floor on a pedestal. A ten-inch screen was positioned in front of the seat. Beneath the screen was a console with a keyboard and a military-style joystick. There was no barrier between the driver’s compartment and the weaponized cargo space.
The Boy Who Knew Too Much Page 24