Page 14 of Denied Access
David glanced at the cubby and swallowed. “Yeah, okay. Tensions have been high between the Latvian citizens of Russian descent, who reside primarily in the eastern section of the country, and Latvian nationalists like the Popular Front, ever since the Soviet Union tried to institute a coup in Riga a year or so back. Six Latvians were killed and a bunch more were wounded in the fighting.”
Joe digested this in silence. There was something about the argument that was nibbling at the edge of his subconscious, but he couldn’t work out its significance. Maybe because the five sticks of dynamite were still demanding his attention. “We can’t leave this here,” Joe said, pointing at the cubby. “It might still explode.”
“So we’ll what—walk out of here with it under one arm like it’s a loaf of bread?”
Joe wanted to tell David to can it, but he didn’t. For one, his partner’s objection was a solid one, but perhaps more importantly, the kid hadn’t raised the most obvious objection—the bomb could detonate if they moved it. David might be a bit too sarcastic for his taste, but the newbie operator possessed another trait that was much harder to find—courage.
“Exactly,” Joe said. “But first I need you to earn your language pay.”
“The extra one hundred dollars per month? Can’t wait to hear what I have to do for that fortune.”
“Go back to the bar and tell them I had an accident in here.”
Watching David’s cocky smile wilt was almost worth standing eyeball-to-eyeball with a stack of dynamite.
Almost.
“What kind of accident?”
“The kind that requires cleanup. Ask them for a towel or something. Maybe a couple of towels. I’ll throw one of them over the bomb and then we’ll walk out of here like it’s a loaf of bread. How’s that grab you?”
Judging by his expression, Joe’s plan didn’t grab his partner well at all. David opened his mouth, but his reply was drowned out by something equally unpleasant.
An explosion.
CHAPTER 6
BARCELONA, SPAIN
THEmotor scooter careened around the blind corner doing almost forty.
For a second time, Rapp thought he was about to become a victim of vehicular homicide. Fortunately, the rider handled his scooter with a deftness that, while not excusing his excessive speed, helped atone for it. Downshifting, the man braked while simultaneously piloting the scooter to the left, passing within inches of Rapp’s torso. The scooter fishtailed as the rider stopped, nearly tipping over. Turning, the rider flipped up his helmet’s shaded visor to reveal an irate visage.
His flashing brown eyes centered on Rapp.
“Eres estúpido?”
Even for a non-Spanish speaker, the meaning wasn’t hard to intuit.
Are you an idiot?
“Lo siento,” Rapp said.
The man could be forgiven for assuming Rapp was apologizing for standing in the middle of the road.
He was not.
Snapping his arm in a tight circle, Rapp buried his elbow into the side of the rider’s helmet. The man’s head drooped, and he slid from the motor scooter. Rapp caught him beneath the armpits and eased him to the ground. Other than showing the bad sense to drive too fast on Barcelona’s notoriously crowded narrow streets, the rider hadn’t done anything wrong. Hopefully his motorcycle helmet meant the man would wake with nothing more than a bad headache.
A bad headache and one less motor scooter.
Climbing aboard the scooter, Rapp gunned the throttle and tore off down the street.
The winding passage, while large enough to fit a car, definitely favored the smaller scooters and motorcycles that were ubiquitous on Barcelona’s streets. Unfortunately, Rapp’s scooter was not what anyone would call a sport bike. The 50cc engine was designed for fuel economy rather than raw acceleration. Snarls from the Citroën’s racing motor still reverberated from the side streets’ narrow confines, but the sound was already growing fainter.
If Rapp didn’t do something to change the equation, he would lose Greta.
Rounding a corner, Rapp caught a flash of the sedan’s taillights as it slowed for an intersection. Then the car nosed into an adjacent street heading west. Braking, Rapp put his left foot onto the ground, added throttle, and spun the scooter in a tight left turn before rocketing down an alley that paralleled the sedan’s route. The alley east-west-running side streets emptied into the larger north–south Ronda de Sant Antoni, but all paths were not created equal. Most of the side streets doglegged through additional intersections, while one or two flowed straight west. Rapp believed the alley he was following fell into the latter category, but he wasn’t certain.
