[Rogue Warrior 18] Curse of the Infidel Read Online Free Page B

toward the data center. The hook of my hand was just enough to throw him off-balance and he crashed down against the doorjamb and rolled onto the floor.
    Twenty years before, I would have jumped to my feet and stomped his face a few times for good measure. But I’m older now, and either lazier or smarter, depending on your perspective: I took the easy way out, grabbing for my pistol.
    My shot caught him in the back of the head. As he fell down, I realized he was wearing a breather.
    I grabbed it, then took a quick look at him. Between the smoke and the confusion, I doubt I could ever identify him in a lineup, but I did note one thing—he was definitely a Caucasian.
    “Dick?” said Shotgun over the radio. “What’s going on?”
    “OK. I’m OK,” I managed. “I’m coming.”
    I held the mask of the breather—it looked like a gas mask—then crawled into the restroom and over to the window. Shotgun pulled me out, and we made our way down to the back alley. I took a half step, then fell off-balance.
    “We gotta move, boss,” yelled Shotgun. He spun around and hoisted me over his back as if I were a seabag filled with unwashed clothes. Then he hustled out to the street, where Mongoose had moved the car. Shotgun threw me into the back as the car sped off.
    My head had cleared but my jaw and the side of my skull ached. I reached up gingerly to see if my ear was still there. It certainly was—at about three times its normal size, it wasn’t hard to find. My lungs made a wheezing sound that would have made an organ-grinder proud.
    I slumped back, content to let Mongoose drive—which gives you some idea of how battered I felt. The streetlights blurred. I finally got my strength back to the point where I could lean forward and pull the ruck off my back. As I did, Mongoose took a hard turn and nearly sent me into the dashboard. I dropped the backpack and grabbed for my seat belt.
    “Careful with your driving,” I told him. “Aren’t you going a little fast?”
    “Tell that to the idiots on my bumper.”
    I turned around. The idiots on his bumper had their bubblegum lights going full blast.
    Fortunately for us, the police officers behind us were driving in one of the force’s relatively new Prius Toyotas. I’m sure they were getting fantastic gas mileage, but the 3.6 liter six-cylinder in the CC had them beat by a hundred horsepower. Veering through traffic, Mongoose managed to build up a decent lead, zigzagging his way around the Tiergarten into a tangle of Strasses and Sackgasses .
    I don’t know how familiar you are with Berlin, but undoubtedly you know the streets better than Mongoose. We had rehearsed three different exit routes to get us out to Bundesautobahn 2, the major highway running west from the city, and another two apiece to Tegel and Schönefeld, the airports north and south of the city, respectively. But in his haste to duck the policemen, Mongoose had lost his way. The navigation unit in the car—programmed for Schönefeld—was no help. It kept telling him to turn right, then became frustrated as he missed the turn, announcing in a loud, English-accented voice that it was “recalculating.”
    We had lost the policemen, but we were lost as well. Even I was confused—we had zigged and zagged so much that I had a hard time making out exactly where we were. The roar of a jet nearby revealed we were near Tegel airport.
    “Should we go to the airport?” asked Mongoose.
    “Negative,” I told him. While we had a set of reservations for a plane—a backup getaway plan—I figured we’d be easy prey there.
    “There’s a paper map in the glove compartment,” I told Shotgun. “Get it and let’s figure out where the hell we are.”
    “I got it,” said Shotgun. He took it and managed to direct Mongoose onto Stadring, one of the major roads that cuts south through the residential areas of the city. But we had hardly gone a half mile when a pair of flashing blue lights cut across the highway from