Corsican Death Read Online Free Page B

throat.
    Near the front door of the Ford, the four men, all Corsicans, shifted dark, hard, bright eyes from the sound of Vander’s voice back to the sound of Bolt’s voice.
    They didn’t move. No hands on their heads, no kneeling. They stood still, barely breathing, moving nothing but their eyes.
    One of the four, Pietro Giannelli, forty-two, a large man with a balding head, a wide slit of a mouth in a thick jaw blue with ingrown hairs, did something. Pietro, a tough man, was only beginning to be afraid now. But that was enough.
    He was beginning to fear Remy Patek and what he would do if Claude wasn’t on the La Rochelle when it returned to France. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was the start of another fear, this one concerning the Count. That fear was put there by Alain, his arguing and his threats.
    There was also a fear of spending the rest of his life in an American prison, because these men shouting in the garage were American policemen. Pietro Giannelli knew that. He spoke no English, only Italian and French, but he knew the men yelling at him were policemen.
    So Pietro Giannelli did something.
    Since he was standing behind Alain Lonzu, and maybe, just maybe neither of the policemen who had shouted could see him, Pietro eased his right hand into his jacket pocket.
    Stubby fingers topped by torn, dirty fingernails closed around a hand grenade.
    Casually, as though it were a pocket handkerchief, Pietro took out the grenade, covering it with both hands now, the forefinger on his left hand slipping through the grenade’s ring.
    An American voice yelled at them again, this voice coming from Pietro’s left, almost behind him. Fuck the voice. Pietro didn’t care. He faced prison or death anyway, so what did he have to lose?
    He had no time for voices now. But the voice came at him again, louder, more shrill. A warning? A threat? Pietro only half-heard it, and it didn’t matter anyway. The voice was his enemy, after his freedom or his life.
    Pulling the pin free with his left hand, Pietro jerked his right hand back to his ear, fist tightly around the grenade. His eyes were wide and his thick pink tongue was jammed into a corner of his open mouth when he tossed the grenade at one of the American voices.
    Fucking American cops, he thought. We Corsicans are tough bastards. You’ll see. You’ll see.
    The grenade exploded, roaring and echoing throughout the huge garage. An agent’s high scream almost made it above the roar, but the roar won out, swallowing the man’s sound and absorbing it.
    A bright orange fireball swallowed up the man. The fireball’s heat sent invisible waves racing across the floor, while its light was a harsh brightness stabbing the eyes.
    The car in front of the man was wrapped in flames that snapped like a hundred whips.
    Gunshots. Flat, ugly sounds. Men yelling, cursing. The Corsicans were all moving now, pulling at hidden guns, pulling at car doors, each man swift with the jerky speed caused by tension and the rush of events now out of his control.
    A gunshot cracked and echoed throughout the garage, and a man screamed in agony as a bullet dug into him. The man, spinning and falling with the impact of the bullet, cried out loud for Jesus.

CHAPTER 3
    I T ALL HAPPENS SO goddamn fast. You curse, yell, kill. As fast as you can. You watch somebody else die, and you push that out of your mind as fast as you can.
    Because you’ve got something else to do: you’ve got to save your own ass.
    Oh shit, thought Bolt. Jesus. It’s going down now. It’s happening. Christ. Vanders, that poor bastard.
    Vanders’ scream pierced John Bolt’s brain like a frozen ice pick, stabbing his mind again and again. That sound. Christ. Fucking horrible. The instant Bolt heard it, he knew he’d hear it again and again. Coming at him from darkness and shadows in months to come, and worst of all, coming at him from his own mind.
    That sound. High-pitched. Eerie and scary as hell. A pathetic sound, helpless