The Boy Who Knew Too Much

by Jeffrey Westhoff

  Silver whistled. “I am satisfied, Brian, that we have attained our target objective.” He grinned like a buccaneer who had found a trove of Spanish doubloons.

  Silver pointed to the garage doors. “You go open that while I hot-wire this baby.” His grin widened. “I’ll pick you up on the way out, and mission accomplished.”

  “What about Eck?”

  “Don’t worry about Eck. We’ve got Prometheus and that’s what matters.”

  Brian hopped out of the van. Silver followed. “I thought you were going to hot-wire the van,” Brian said.

  “I just want to take a quick look at the roof,” Silver said, reaching for the ladder. “To get an idea how the weapon works.”

  Brian trotted to the garage doors and wondered where Eck had gone. He doubted the man would leave Barcelona without Prometheus. If the guard belonged to one of the cars in the parking lot, did Eck belong to the second?

  At the garage door, Brian took a closer look at the motor scooters. They were Honda Leads. A helmet and ignition key hung from hooks on the wall above each scooter.

  Brian found a pair of buttons six inches from the doors. He pressed the top one, and the left door rose with a clatter. Brian turned toward the Prometheus van. Silver, his back to Brian, was coming down the ladder. Brian heard the hastening footsteps first, then saw Roland Eck run from between two of the maroon Sprinters holding a large wrench above his head.

  Brian shouted a warning, but Eck had already swung the wrench into Silver’s midsection. With his hands and feet on the ladder, Silver could not defend himself. He let out an agonized cry as he fell. Eck brought the wrench down on Silver’s neck, and Silver went still.

  Brian rushed to help Silver. Eck reached beneath the CIA man’s armpit and pulled out his gun. He wheeled around and fired.

  The bullet ricocheted off the concrete floor fifteen feet to Brian’s right. Brian threw himself behind the nearest van. Eck fired again, this time into the rafters. One of the fluorescent lights near the far wall exploded.

  “Stay back, Brian,” Eck shouted. “Don’t force me to shoot you!”

  Brian looked beneath the van but couldn’t see Eck and Silver. He peered around the rear bumper to see Eck stuffing Silver into the rear of the Prometheus van. Eck spun around again, pistol at his side like a gunfighter, and Brian ducked back. Another phut sounded, but Brian couldn’t tell where the bullet went.

  Brian heard the rear door of the Prometheus van slam shut. He crawled to the cab of the Sprinter that was hiding him, then dropped to the floor and rolled to the next van. Another door banged shut and an engine fired. Brian got up and ran down the row as he heard the sharp chirp of rubber on concrete resound within the vast bay. Then the engine roared as Eck stepped on the accelerator. Brian emerged from between two vans, and Eck waved the gun at him menacingly but didn’t fire.

  Brian bitterly recalled Silver’s assured “mission accomplished” as he stood there and watched Eck speed past him in the target objective and out the garage door he had just opened.

  CHAPTER 50--GRAVES

  Brian stared into the void beyond the open door as the chill of failure crept across his skin. Then his eyes found the motor scooters parked beside the entrance. He ran toward them. He still had a chance! He squeezed a helmet onto his head and snatched the first key from the wall. Brian hopped on the nearest scooter and started the ignition. While the engine purred to life, Brian aimed the front tire at the door. He twisted the right-grip accelerator and sped out of the garage in time to see the van disappear behind a corner of the warehouse.

  Zipping across the parking lot, Brian purged his mind of hopeless thoughts. Sure, the chances of catching the van on this little Honda were slim, but the alternative was to remain in the warehouse and admit defeat. And, anyway, what could he do then? Call the police? Brian knew maybe ten words of Spanish, and they didn’t include “stolen American weapon.” Call the American consulate? By the time Brian reached someone who would listen, Eck would be out of the country and Silver would be dead (Brian didn’t want to admit, not even in his thoughts, that Silver might be dead already). No, Brian would snatch at even this meager chance of catching Eck. He would chase the Prometheus van until its taillights vanished in the distance. At the very least he would memorize the license plate number to pass along to the American consulate.

  Brian rounded the building’s corner and saw that he had caught a break. The van was slowing as it approached the gate. Brian twisted the accelerator grip to its limit and steered toward the van. The gate opened with a jerk, then rolled smoothly to one side. The Sprinter stopped, waiting until it had enough room to pass. Brian’s hope surged. The loud mosquito whine of the Honda’s engine bounced off the warehouse wall as Brian cut across the empty lot. Eck certainly had spotted him by now, but Brian didn’t care. The distance between him and the van shrank by the second. He was within two hundred feet.

  The van bounded ahead the moment it could fit through the gate. Eck would gain speed again, but Brian had made up for the time he lost getting on the scooter. He smiled.

  The gate juddered to a halt, then reversed direction. Brian’s smile vanished. Was he going fast enough to clear the gate before it closed? He already had the accelerator opened to its max. Brian leaned forward to coax extra speed from the bike.

  The gap in the fence was less than five feet and Brian was twenty yards away. The gate seemed to be closing faster than it had opened, but Brian was sure that was his imagination. He had to keep his nerve. He would not lose a game of chicken to a gate. He told himself he needed an opening of only two feet to slip through. Possibly less.

  Brian drew his elbows to his rib cage as he rushed at the swiftly shrinking gap. One foot to go. Six inches. Now! With extraordinary willpower he kept his eyes focused straight ahead, even as the gate lunged into his peripheral vision. Was he clear? Brian checked the rearview mirror and saw the gate threaten to clip his rear tire, but it clanged shut without hitting the bike. If he had been one millimeter or millisecond off—

  But that didn’t matter anymore. He was outside and needed to keep up with the Sprinter. Eck had gone to the left after the gate. Brian turned, but too sharply for his speed. He felt the rear tire slide away. He leaned into the skid, eased up on the accelerator, and tapped the rear brake. Instantly he was upright again and the handlebar stable in his grasp. The van was three blocks ahead. Brian twisted the accelerator.

  This was not Brian’s first time on a motor scooter. Last September when Tim’s older sister, Peggy, got a Vespa for her birthday, she let Tim and Brian take turns riding it around the neighborhood. But those were the familiar streets of Wauwatosa in the daylight, and these were the unfamiliar docks of Barcelona at night.

  The Sprinter turned right. Brian followed. He wasn’t worried about losing Eck just yet. As long as the chase stayed within the short, narrow streets of the warehouse district, Eck wouldn’t find the speed to pull away. Once they reached a main road, though, Eck would escape easily. Brian had to press his advantages while he could. Ahead of him the van braked hard as a tractor-trailer trundled into its path. Brian was within half a block of the van before Eck could move again. The Sprinter turned left.

  A house cat chasing a tiger, Brian wasn’t sure what he would do if he caught up to Eck. He recalled one his favorite Foster Blake lines. In To the Point of Insanity, Regency Sommers asked what their plan would be once they infiltrated Koziakin’s heroin processing lab. Brian smiled and repeated Blake’s suave reply: “When it happens, I’ll know.”

  Brian remained within a block’s length of the van as the two vehicles hurried through a valley of warehouses. The wind sliced through the thin fabric of Brian’s FCB jersey. A dark mass loomed ahead. It was not another building, but Montjuïc. They had reached the highway that hugged the bottom of the great hill. Brian’s hope sank. He was certain to lose the van in a few minutes. He looked at the license plate: BMT306R with a Spanish EU tag. He fixed the number in his mind.

  Eck
turned right onto the highway, toward Barcelona. Brian had expected him to turn left, toward the countryside. This could be another break. Brian turned onto the highway just as the van’s taillights disappeared behind a bend. Across the highway a stone wall ran along the foot of Montjuïc. It marked the cemetery Silver had pointed out earlier.

  Brian rounded the bend, and he saw that the Sprinter had pulled into the cemetery’s entrance, an alcove where the stone walls curved away from the road. Eck was out of the van and pushing open the cemetery’s towering iron gate. What was this about? Brian remembered Silver saying that Eck was supposed to meet a potential buyer tonight. This could be the meeting site. It made sense. The deal was unlikely to be interrupted in a secluded, darkened cemetery. Eck could have bribed the night watchman to leave the gate unlocked and disappear for a few hours.

  Spotting a break in traffic, Brian cut across the highway and swerved into the alcove just as Eck returned to the driver’s seat. The van’s engine roared as the Sprinter entered the hillside cemetery. Eck had left the gate open—he likely had no choice with Brian so close—and Brian lagged only twenty feet behind as he sped past the tall iron bars.

  The scenery racing alongside him was surreal. The graves, as Silver had said, were above ground, regal marble boxes arrayed along the hill. Statues stood solemnly over many of these tombs and reclined sadly alongside others. A few alabaster figures prostrated themselves across graves in eternal anguish. Angels dominated the statue population, as Brian would have guessed, but there also were beautiful, seminude women dancing and laughing. Brian glanced upward. Statues became scarce halfway up the hill, and higher above were the imposing stone and glass bulwarks he had seen from Silver’s car.

  The road straightened and the van increased its lead. Brian accelerated, but the road had become an incline. He scanned the path ahead and saw that the road was a ribbon that zigzagged through the gravesites and ascended the hillside in a series of hairpin curves and long straightaways. The road had to lead to another entrance at the top of Montjuïc. Brian pictured Eck’s buyer waiting within that upper gate.

  The van’s tires squealed when it entered the first curve. Eck was taking it too fast. The van fishtailed, knocking over a decorative bench alongside the curve. Then the tires found their grip on the pavement, and the Sprinter powered up the first long straightaway.

  Brian hoped he could take advantage of Eck’s driving error. But by the time Brian rounded the bend, Eck was halfway to the next turn. The Honda’s four-stroke engine was no match for the Sprinter on this slope. Brian released the right grip and let the bike slow until he could leap from it safely. The momentum from his jump propelled him toward stone steps at the straightaway’s midpoint. These steps rose through the next level of graves and upward. Perhaps if he took this direct route through the tombs he could reach the top before Eck, who had to drive to and fro up the road. Pulling off the helmet, Brian looked toward the van and saw its ruby brake lights brighten as it approached the next curve. It appeared Eck would take each hairpin cautiously now.

  And then Brian knew what to do. It had happened, and he knew.

  Instead of continuing straight up the stairs, he left them and ran through the tombs, ascending the hill at an angle that would take him to the next switchback curve on the left. Silently asking forgiveness of the souls he might be disturbing, Brian hopped from grave to grave as if they were platforms on a playground jungle gym. His shadow lengthened and danced across a dozen statues as the van’s headlights passed above him. He reached the road just as the van rounded the bend about thirty feet away.

  Next time, Brian thought.

  His destination, the next left-hand bend on the winding path, was up two levels. Brian ran across the roadway and was among the statues again. He hustled through the monuments, climbing them when necessary. He had to squeeze past a weeping angel, her head buried in her hands, before he reached the road’s next level. He looked to the right. The Sprinter was nearing the straightaway’s end. Brian darted across the road and into another copse of graves. He climbed through them quickly until he reached his destination.

  At the edge of the pavement, Brian crouched behind an arch-shaped monument and peered around it. The Sprinter had come around the far curve and was heading upward toward him. Brian moved his head back. The eerie panorama below caught his eye. Sloping away from him were hundreds of statues shimmering silver like ghosts in the moonlight.

  The van was almost upon him. Brian tensed his legs. The headlights swept by, and the Sprinter slowed as it approached the curve. Brian emptied his mind of thought that could create doubt. The moment the rear bumper passed him, Brian vaulted from his hiding space and ran behind the van. He took three long strides and leaped for the ladder welded to the rear door.

  CHAPTER 51--CLINGING

  Brian snatched the third rung with his left hand and the side of ladder with his right. The balls of his feet landed squarely on the three-inch ledge that ran beneath the twin doors. As the Sprinter entered the hairpin curve, Brian locked his right elbow around the ladder and hung on with his left hand. The van rounded the corner and centrifugal force tried to tear Brian away. He hugged the ladder tighter, pressing his cheek into one of the rungs and wedging his feet inside the ladder’s frame. Then the force trying to jerk Brian off the ladder ceased and the van accelerated up the next straightaway.

  Brian transferred his left hand to the ladder’s side and reached for the door handle with his right. He wrapped his fingers around the handle and extended his right leg for balance. He hoped the door remained unlocked after Silver had jimmied it. Brian pressed his thumb into the handle and smiled as the button gave way. He pulled at the door. With the van heading up an incline, gravity took over and the door swung open. Brian didn’t let go of the handle fast enough, and the door swatted him backward. He grabbed the inside of the doorframe and regained balance. He repositioned his right foot and slid his face a few inches along the cool steel of the van. When he felt the door’s edge against his cheek, he turned his head and looked inside.

  Silver was pitched along the floor, his feet pointed toward the door. Brian couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Eck was twisted around in the driver’s seat glaring back at him. Brian expected to see surprise in Eck’s eyes. He saw rage instead.

  “Skyrm was right about killing you!” Eck yelled. He reached for something in the passenger seat and came up holding Silver’s pistol.

  Before Eck could aim, Brian snapped his head back behind cover. He let go of the doorframe as he heard a silenced shot and lost his balance. His right foot slipped off the ledge, and he reeled into space. He saw the blur of the roadway beneath him and gripped the ladder in his left hand so tightly it bit into his palm. Spread-eagled, Brian flapped behind the van like an idiotic pennant.

  Another phut sounded. Then another. Brian’s left foot was losing its purchase on the ledge. He twisted at the waist and grabbed the ladder with his other hand just as his left foot gave way. He pulled himself hard against the ladder as he slipped downward. His left knee smashed into the ledge. Brian grunted at the sudden jabbing pain, but brought his right knee alongside the left. He thought he heard one or two more shots before Eck began to swear loudly. Was he out of bullets? Brian hoped so, but he had more to worry about at the moment.

  He leaned forward and wrapped his arms behind the ladder, locking himself in place by grasping the opposite forearm with each hand. He was now kneeling on the ledge and clinging to the ladder. Muscles that had gone taut with panic relaxed as Brian sensed his balance returning. And then he was yanked to the right as if grabbed by an invisible monster.

  The van was hurtling around the next curve. Preoccupied with the gun, Eck must not have had the time to slow down and was taking the left turn at a dangerous speed. The tires wailed like banshees at the abuse, and Brian’s knees slid out from under him. His jaw bounced off a rung, but his arms continued to grip the ladder like a vise. The inside of his left elbow felt like it had been kicked. Th
e rear door reeled wide with the centrifugal force. The tires’ keening rose in pitch. Brian felt the van tilt tip and feared Eck was going to roll it. He heard a loud whump to his right and turned his head in time to see the door flying right at him. He snatched his legs back just before the swinging door could crush them. A granite cross that the door had smashed into toppled as the van rushed past. Its pieces skidded up the roadway, chasing the Sprinter until they lost momentum.

  The van entered the next uphill straightaway. Its suspension resettled with a bounce. The door fell open, no longer a threat. Brian was sitting half twisted. His knees were at his chest, but his feet were still on the ledge and keeping him stable.

  He pulled himself up the ladder until he was standing. Eck would have needed both hands on the steering wheel to take that corner, so Brian was willing to bet he had dropped the gun. Had Eck fired its final round? Brian had to put that question out of his mind. Eck’s next tactic would be to swerve until he shook Brian off the van. Brian had to get inside before that happened.

  He stretched his right leg toward the opening, then grabbed the doorframe’s inner edge. He slid his torso along the closed left-door panel and hooked his right foot inside the door. Brian released the ladder and felt an instant of vertigo before his left hand found the doorframe.

  Brian heaved himself into the van.

  He was wrong about the gun. As Brian landed in a heap behind Silver, Eck turned to face him. He reached into his lap and retrieved the pistol. He pointed the gun at Brian’s forehead.

  “I’m sorry,” Eck said, and he pulled the trigger.

  The hammer fell on an empty chamber with a click.

  “You’re sorry, all right,” Brian said. He stood, attempting to demonstrate a sense of control.