Page 81 of Turn the Tide
They had to wait it out. How long would it take police in Berlin to respond to gunfire?
One man lowered his submachine gun. The easily recognizable H&K MP5 hung attached to a sling over his shoulder as he pulled a red can of gasoline from the van.
“No, no,” Ash said in a terrified whisper.
The guy approached the car. Wearing the balaclava, only his eyes and glasses were visible. He opened the red can and threw gas on the windshield.
Click-click.Click-click. The car was bulletproof. Not fireproof. Cold fear turned the taste in Logan’s mouth as bitter and metallic as a penny on his tongue.
More fuel sloshed on the doors, and the last of the can was emptied on the roof. The smell of kerosene permeated the vehicle.
A shudder chased down Logan’s itching back.
The man stood in front of their car and spoke in German, too fast for Logan to understand. Ash had only taught him a few conversational phrases and how to swear.
“They’re bluffing,” Knox said. “They won’t do it.”
“Do what?” Ethan asked, alarm in his tone. “Toast us?”
Logan clenched the steering wheel, his heart pounding.
The man whipped out a flare and lit it. An angry tongue of bright-red pyrotechnics lashed from the tube. “Zehn.Neun.Acht.”
Logan didn’t understand German but knew the sound of a damn countdown.
A heavy coil tightened in his sternum, pulling tighter and tighter while a keening buzz rose in both his ears. He shut his eyes, fighting control.
“Everyone stay cool,” Knox said. “They won’t do it. They need her alive.”
“Sieben.Sechs.”
Phantom fire raced over Logan’s skin, and heat sizzled his eye sockets. He recalled the smell of burnt flesh from the aftermath of the car bomb, the surreal scent mixed with the very real kerosene, electrifying his senses.
“What if you’re wrong?” Ethan asked. “This might be an ‘if they can’t have the drive, no one can’scenario. Then we’re fucked.”
“I amnotwrong.” Knox’s voice was unwavering steel.
“Funf.Vier.”
The inside of the car seemed to shrink, and it was getting harder for Logan to breathe.
If he was going to die, the last thing he wanted to see was Ash. He looked up in the mirror, meeting her gaze.
She was staring at him, her stricken eyes glassy, but the strange, unexpected expression on her face slowed the blood in his veins and sent a chill to his heart.
Logan shook his head. No, she couldn’t consider it. If she got out of the car, they’d force her to take them to the thumb drive and then they’d kill her. “Ash—”
She rammed her elbow into Ethan’s face twice, catching him by surprise, and jumped out of the car, slamming the door shut. Raising her hands with her bag on her shoulder, she ran to the man holding the flare.
The second guy wearing a ski mask kept his automatic weapon trained on the car.
A different kind of fear, deeper and darker, sliced Logan to the bone. He grasped the door handle, but Knox jabbed the barrel of the gun into his side.
“If you get out of the car,” Knox said, “they’ll get the drive and kill both of you.”
“I can’t let them take her.”
“Yes, you can, if you want her to live.”
