Page 15 of Denied Access
Only one way to find out.
The pedestrian traffic during this time of the day was thick, but most people stuck to the meager sidewalks. Most. A few braved the motorists by brazenly walking down the center of the street. Thankfullythese daredevils were the exception. Between Rapp’s liberal use of the motor scooter’s anemic horn and his unwillingness to yield ground, the majority of the Spaniards he encountered gave way.
After nearly clipping a man who’d clearly paired his afternoon vermouth with breakfast, Rapp felt the bike sliding from beneath him. With a display of agility worthy of a former collegiate lacrosse player, he steered into the wobble, touched the ground with his right foot, redlined the engine, and shot back down the alley.
A string of angry Spanish phrases chased him, but Rapp was already focused on what lay ahead—a pair of plastic garbage bins marking the junction with the busier Ronda de Sant Antoni thoroughfare. While he didn’t pretend to understand the intricacies of Spanish vehicular courtesies, he had learned something of Barcelona’s rules of the road during his forays with Greta. Driving through some of the narrower alleys was frowned upon, and to discourage collisions between man and machine, refuse containers were strategically placed to block the entrance and exits to the tighter side streets.
Side streets like the one Rapp was currently hurtling down.
Gritting his teeth, Rapp edged the motor scooter onto the curb and drew both feet as close to the center of the scooter as possible. To dissuade motorists of the two-wheel variety, the city planners had lined the sidewalks with anti-traffic barriers resembling slender fire hydrants. Rapp estimated six inches of clearance between the concrete barriers and his scooter. Forcing himself to ignore the bone-crunching cement, he concentrated on the narrow, pedestrian-sized gap between the refuse bins.
With a final burst of speed, Rapp bounced from the sidewalk back to the street. He cannonballed between the bins and arrived on the far side mostly intact. A wrenching of the scooter’s steering mechanism accompanied by a shriek of rending metal suggested that the bike that shot from the bins was not an exact replica of the one that had entered. A quick glance away from the road confirmed his thesis. His leftmirror was gone and the right hung by a collection of wires. Still, he’d made it.
That was the good news.
The great news was that the Citroën’s red two-toned bumper poked from a second side street to Rapp’s right. The sedan was waiting at a traffic light.
A traffic light that had just turned green.
CHAPTER 7
RAPPdid not stop to think.
Instead, he revved the throttle with his right hand and reached for the small of his back with his left. Being left-handed was often an inconvenience.
Not today.
Steering and managing the throttle with his right freed Rapp’s dominant hand to do what it did best: shoot. Though he would have loved to have fitted the suppressor to the Beretta’s muzzle, there wasn’t time. If Greta’s abductor made it to Ronda de Sant Antoni, they were as good as gone. A constant stream of motorists flowed toward Plaça Universitat to the north and the busy Mercat de Sant Antoni to the south. Once the Citroën joined the vehicular artery, Rapp’s opportunity to interdict the kidnappers would vanish.
Now or never.
He gunned the motor scooter and its underpowered engine responded with a whine that was more bark than bite. A horn sounded to his right as Rapp narrowly missed colliding with a delivery van, but the risk had proven worth the reward. He was moving, while the Citroënwas still stationary. The sedan’s driver was already nominally within pistol range, but Rapp didn’t fire. Instead he held the Beretta alongside his leg, muzzle angled downward, as his scooter closed the distance to the car.
Surprise was his only advantage.
Each shot had to count.
Rapp numbered the men in the snatch team to be at least three. A driver and passenger in the front seat with the remaining team member in the rear with Greta. Precision shooting from a moving platform through a vehicle’s safety glass was difficult, but the angles and distances favored him. He was approaching perpendicular to a stationary vehicle. If he shot through the driver’s window, his bullets would only impact the car’s front two occupants. Killing the driver would render the vehicle inoperable, which meant that Rapp would have time to reposition in order to deal with the situation in the rear seats—whatever that might be. Had it been up to him, Rapp would have delayed engaging the driver until his front tire was kissing the Citroën’s door frame.
It was not up to him.
The traffic light finished cycling as Rapp closed to within ten feet.
The sedan edged forward.
Bringing the pistol up in a singular, smooth motion, Rapp aligned the front sight post on the driver’s head and eased the slack from the trigger. The driver turned toward Rapp and his blue eyes widened.
He was too late.
Rapp had fired thousands of rounds through his Beretta. The pistol might as well have been an extension of his arm. The first shot would break in the next millisecond. Like an unwary skier caught in an avalanche’s path, nothing could save the driver now.
Nothing but a blond ponytail.
Cursing, Rapp jerked the pistol off-target, sending his first shot into the Citroën’s engine block instead of the driver’s skull. Why Greta had chosen that moment to wrestle with the driver was baffling, but unimportant. His target line was now obscured.
Time for plan B.
Braking, Rapp slowed the motor scooter until he could jump clear. The bike slammed into the sedan’s front bumper before crashing to the ground, but Rapp was no longer aboard. Once again, he stood atop the Citroën’s hood. This time he had a pistol in his hands. Rapp indexed the Beretta’s stubby front sight post on a dark-haired man in the passenger seat. A man who was frantically trying to draw a pistol from his waistband.
