BRAINRUSH, a Thriller (20 page)

The doctor’s blows weakened. After several seconds he stilled in Jake’s arms.

Loosening his grip, he gulped in deep breaths of air. He dragged the limp body across the tiled floor and dumped it onto the bed. Then he removed the man’s lab coat and pulled it on. Jake hurried into the adjoining room and returned a minute later with a syringe filled with morphine. The doctor was unconscious, and Jake needed him to stay that way for more than a few minutes. He jabbed the needle into the man’s arm and shoved the plunger to its hilt, injecting him with what he hoped was a strong dose. Then he clipped the heart sensor on the doctor’s finger, covered the body up to the neck with a sheet, and placed the oxygen mask over his face. 

The hallway was deserted. Retracing his steps from his failed escape attempt the day before, Jake sprinted up the stairwell toward the converted chapel.

The costume Jake picked out was a complicated getup. He pulled the brown tights up his legs, stretching them over his thighs.
Tights.
Thank God Marshall and Tony couldn’t see him right now. He’d never hear the end of it. 

The green trousers, silk shirt, and waistcoat were next. The fluffy cuffs drove him crazy, but he’d live with them. He used the mirror to tie a lace necktie doodad. Then he added the finishing touches with a tricorne hat and leather gloves. 

Not bad.

At least the half-mask that completed the disguise was reasonably comfortable.

Reaching for the door to leave, Jake’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest when a man pushed into the room, his hands busy unbuttoning his collared shirt. The guy appeared to be running late. He had short-cropped blond hair, and a weathered, angular face.  

The man gave Jake a quick once-over, and his face shifted from surprise to anger. He yelled something in Italian, motioning with his hands at the costume Jake was wearing. When the man turned his head to the side, pointing at the near empty racks, Jake noticed the fresh sutures at the back of his head. This was one of Battista’s recently implanted subjects.

A killer.

Jake knew the temporary advantage of the disguise wouldn’t last long. Taking a commanding step forward, silently thanking Ahmed for his newly acquired language skills, Jake shouted in Dari, “How dare you address me in this way, with your hands waving through the air like a beggar child in the streets of Kandahar? Do you not know who I am?”

The man cowed in surprise at the use of his native tongue.

Pressing his advantage, Jake pointed his finger over the man’s shoulder, his voice full of authority. “Your costume is there, in the corner!”

As soon as the terrorist’s back was turned, Jake clenched his fist and rammed it deep into the man’s right kidney. 

The man arched his back and grunted in pain. But instead of collapsing to the ground as Jake had hoped, the man spun in a crouch and snapped his arm around to block Jake’s second swing. The man followed the move with a snap kick that missed Jake’s groin only because Jake was reeling backward in surprise at the swift response to his attack.

They circled warily, each looking for an opening.

“You’re that guy from California, ain’t ya?” The man spoke perfect English, with a natural Southern drawl. “Yeah, I heard all about y’all. You’re smarter’n a coon dog on the scent an’ faster than the jackrabbit he’s trackin’. Well, we’re just gonna see about that, boy.” 

The man pulled a black and silver switchblade out of his pocket and snapped it open, passing the knife from hand to hand, taunting. In Dari he said, “My name is Abu Karim Hassan al-Rashid ibn Nidal ibn Abdulaziz, and you shall serve me well in death, infidel.”

Jake was amazed at the transformation. This guy, Hassan, could pass as a good ol’ boy at a Confederate Brotherhood convention in the deep South, right before he sealed all the exits and set fire to the place with a dozen of his self-assembled, improvised explosive devices. No amount of racial profiling would ever nab him.
 

Jake finally grasped the deadly genius of Battista’s plan. 

And what the hell was with the knives in this joint? Is knife-fighting a mandatory part of
jihadist
training now? 

Jake had considerable hand-to-hand training during his four years as part of the karate team in college, studying the Japanese Kyokushin style of karate taught by Sosai Mas Oyama. He’d enjoyed the sport for the rigorous training regimen, but was never good enough to make first string. Until now he’d never had to use it outside the sparring ring. He hoped that his speed would give him the edge he would need to take this guy down. 

Watching the terrorist’s eyes, Jake let out a measured breath and dropped his hands to his sides. He allowed the tension to melt from his shoulders, giving the man the opening he was waiting for.

The blade came at him with incredible speed, a straight lunging attack rather than the arcing swipe Jake was expecting. It didn’t matter. Jake’s subconscious mind controlled his movements now. From his perspective the man’s strike was slow as molasses. 

Jake snapped his left wrist up and out in a circular motion, diverting the knife strike with a vicious blow from the side of his hand. Then he stepped into the attack and jabbed the stiffened fingers of his right hand deep into the man’s throat, feeling cartilage give way. Hassan’s eyes bulged. Jake noticed one of them change color at the edge, as a blue-tinted contact lens shifted off center for a moment to reveal the dark crescent of his iris.

The terrorist’s knife dropped to the floor. His hands scratched at his swelling throat as he gasped.

Jake’s body was on autopilot as he went into a crouched swing kick that swept the guy’s legs from under him and sent him crashing to the floor in a bone-crunching face plant. The terrorist lay still, a pool of blood spreading from his broken nose, his raspy breathing the only sound in the room. 

But the guy was still alive. 

Jake picked up the man’s knife and straddled his back. 

This sucker was a ruthless killer, a waste of space. 

How many lives will I save by taking this one? 

 Jake’s body shook. The urge to kill was profound, but something held him back. His emotions pinballed from rage to uncertainty and then back to a determination to end the man. 

Like an Indian preparing to take a scalp, Jake leaned over and grabbed a handful of the man’s hair, pulling the head backward off the ground. Jake wanted more than a scalp. He wanted a life.   With his right hand, he moved the razor-sharp blade into position in front of the man’s bruised and swollen neck. 

A voice in Jake’s head shouted at him to do it, but his mind flashed to the scene he had watched on the monitor yesterday in Battista’s office, on the disgust he had felt as he watched Carlo do this very same thing to the unconscious guard who had allowed Jake to escape. 

And then he thought of Francesca and the children. He tried to blink away the image, but could not.

Jake pulled the knife away and let go of the man’s hair. The forehead snapped back to the floor with a sickening thud. A patch of blond hair stuck to Jake’s gloved palm. He stood, alarmed at what he’d almost done, at how easy it would’ve been, how tempted he’d been. He closed the knife and slipped it into his pocket.

It wasn’t his job to be judge, jury, and executioner. Right now he had to think about Francesca and the children, about escaping the palace and returning with help. He’d let the authorities deal with Battista and his men.

Pulling on his half-mask, Jake straightened his costume in front of the mirror. 

Even his mother wouldn’t recognize him.

Venice, Italy

J
ake stepped into the hallway as if he owned the joint, following the sounds of music and laughter echoing up from the west end of the palace. With the press of people coming and going during the ball, he figured the best way out would be through the front door.

When he pushed through the double doors at the end of the corridor, the music and energy from the scene washed over him, pulling him backward in time to the grand halls of sixteenth-century Venice. 

Jake stood on a second-floor balcony encircling a gymnasium-sized courtyard that had been converted into an extravagant ballroom. Two immense seven-tier crystal chandeliers hung on thick cords from a steel-framed skylight three stories above. Hundreds of teardrop-shaped bulbs flickered as simulated candlelight, casting a warm glow over the gathering. 

He found himself amidst a throng of masked characters dressed in richly colored costumes of incredible variety and detail. It was as if he’d walked into the middle of an epic Hollywood production.

There were upper-crust lords and ladies, dashing noblemen, sparkling gypsies, and sexy courtesans. An Arab sheik, in a scarlet floor-length mantle and bulbous pearl-laden turban, sipped champagne with a delicate princess dressed in layer upon layer of pink lace that was so sheer as to permit the discerning eye to drink in the outline of her inviting curves. A court jester danced with a queen, a pagan priestess walked arm in arm with a red-cloaked cardinal. And most everyone wore handpainted leather or
papier-mâché
masks depicting a vast range of caricatures:  Elizabethan actors, faces from the underworld, the sinister white beaks of the plague doctors, cats, warlords, and even Hansel and Gretel dressed in
lederhosen
.

More guests stood on the third-story balcony above him, chatting, sipping drinks, or just leaning over the columned balustrade to soak in the music and the enchanting scene below. One couple had lifted their masks for a lingering kiss in the shadows, succumbing to the wanton spirit that seemed to permeate the atmosphere.

The masks in the room were a double-edged sword. They couldn’t recognize him, or so he hoped. But likewise, he couldn’t tell whether or not anyone was paying him any particular attention. It was impossible to know for sure. The alarm could sound at any moment, if it hadn’t already, so he had to get out quickly. He fought the urge to rush toward an exit. First, he needed to study the layout to be certain of the best avenue for escape.

Before him a grand staircase curved down and spilled onto the dance floor below. Thick walnut handrails supported by gilded swirls of decorative wrought-iron stanchions followed the widening steps. A twelve-piece orchestra dressed in gold costumes with white ruffles and powdered wigs played a tarantella from a raised platform in the far corner of the hall. The dance floor was packed.

Jake marked the palace’s main entrance at the north end of the room. Through the wide arched opening, he caught a glimpse of lights reflecting off the rippling surface of the canal just outside. He saw couples being assisted out of their gondolas as they pulled up to the landing, eager to join the festivities. Guests were corralled through metal detectors like the ones used at airports. Purses and bags were searched. One woman, dressed in a wide hoop skirt, was pulled aside as one of the guards seemed to consider the proper way to run a wand down her legs. 

The same routine was being followed at a smaller entrance at the east end of the room. That would be his way out.

There were three guards at the entrance, dressed in the blue, gold, and red-striped tunics of the Swiss Guard, like those that protected the Vatican in Rome. It appeared as if their primary focus was on those entering the palace. They paid little attention to the few who were leaving.

Jake started down the stairs, thankful for his half-mask, tipping his tricorne to other guests as they walked by.

He turned right at the bottom of the stairs, hugging the perimeter of the room. As he neared the exit, a new group of guests crowded into the doorway. Two ladies moved forward, handing their decorative clutches to the guards. The third guard was checking names off the guest list, temporarily distracted.

Jake quickened his pace. 

Four more strides and he’d be out. 

Jake?
 

He hesitated when he heard Francesca’s voice in his head, which sparked a surge of adrenaline deep in his chest.

Jake, are you here?

With a fleeting glance at the exit, he turned back around, calling for her with his mind.
Francesca?
 

There were costumed faces everywhere.

Francesca called out again, her thoughts anxious.
Jake, where are you?

Probing the expansive room with his mind, he sensed she was somewhere above him. 

He shouldered his way toward the center of the ballroom so he could scan the full perimeter of both balconies. Dozens of masked faces with colorful but static expressions seemed to be looking in his direction. She could be any one of them.

Steadying himself, he closed his eyes. He sorted through the jumbled waves of emotions that drifted toward him, feeling for her. He filtered out the music, and then the chatter, searching for the resonance that he knew was Francesca. 

He felt her. There. Above his left shoulder. 

Jake swiveled his head and opened his eyes.