Page 90 of Turn the Tide
“I need to authenticate the product,” Glasses said in perfect unaccented English, holding out his unbruised hand.
He hadn’t been the one to beat Ashley, but Glasses was responsible for her suffering.
Logan pulled the thumb drive they’d found in the altar of the only St. Jude Thaddeus church from his pocket and handed it over.
Glasses opened a laptop and stuck the drive in. Smiling, he typed something on the keyboard. Then he handed the computer to the other guy. “Übertragen.Zehn minuten.”
The man nodded, taking the laptop. Glasses whipped out a gun with an attached suppressor. Slipping a wool scarf from around his neck, he draped it over the weapon and held the 9mm low, pointed at Ashley’s side.
Logan controlled his breathing, steadied his pulse, sharpened his focus.
There was no reaction from Ash, no cringe, no flinch, no sign anything registered. Was she drugged? She still hadn’t moved, besides the slight rise and fall of her chest.
He looked back at the outline of the gun, the muzzle jabbed into her ribs. His gaze dipped lower. Then he saw it, Ashley’s hands clenched into his fists, the faint tightness in the set of her mouth, her eyes trained on the laptop’s screen.
She was thinking. And waiting. Planning to do something.
Whatever it was, he needed to give her an opening.
“How did you get that past security?” Logan gestured to the gun.
Glasses flashed a BfV badge. His smile broadened. “The intelligence service walks on water here.”
The robust security of this place was utterly useless to Logan and Ashley now. The guards wouldn’t touch Glasses.
“The agreement was we’re free to go,” Logan said, “after you had the drive and verified it.”
“You’re free to hit the bricks whenever you like.”
Such an American expression for a BfV officer, thought Logan.
“But not her.”
The sudden chill of fear was like an ice cube slipping down Logan’s spine. He’d die before leaving her behind. They were going to get out of this together somehow. They had to.
Logan dropped his calm facade and stormed forward. The gun swung away from her toward him.
At the same time, Ashley lunged as if snapping out of a spell, snatched the thumb drive from the USB port of the laptop, and took off down the ramp.
Glasses spun in her direction with the H&K raised. Logan grabbed the collar of his jacket and jerked him into his companion with all his might.
Both men stumbled, off-balance.
Glasses was the biggest threat, even though he wasn’t the larger of the two. Logan seized the man’s gun arm and spun into him out of the line of fire, putting his back to Glasses’s chest. He knocked the weapon free, rammed an elbow into the man’s ribs, then followed through with a vicious back fist. Glasses pinwheeled from the double blow and crashed to the floor.
People screamed, scattering away from the mayhem.
Whirling, Logan kicked the second man in the torso. The guy careened into the steel balustrade with such force he toppled over the side. As he grabbed hold of the railing to keep from falling, the laptop flew into the air, spinning and spinning before it plummeted.
Glasses leapt up, grabbing the gun, and raced down the walkway after Ash.
Logan took off behind him, but the wiry man was quick and the distance between them stretched.
“Two black sedans stopped out front,” Mike said over comms in his ear. “Government plates. My guess is BfV.”
Just now showing up? If Glasses was really BfV, his backup would’ve already been here. But if he wasn’t with the German intelligence officers outside…then who were these guys?
***
