The Patriot Threat: A Novel by Steve Berry

Author:Steve Berry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thrillers, Political, Historical, Espionage, Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2015-03-31T02:59:04+00:00

THIRTY-SIX

CROATIA

Isabella ran through the rain after Luke Daniels, the cobbles gleaming with moisture. She wondered what he meant when he told Malone, We’ll be right with you. The answer to her inquiry came as Daniels flagged down a taxi then, when the car stopped to retrieve him, flung open the driver’s door, yanked the man out, and shoved him to the wet concrete.

He motioned for her to climb inside.

She hesitated.

“Fine, stay here. You’re a pain in the ass anyway,” he yelled.

Dammit. She had to go. So she rushed to the front passenger-side door, opened it, and slid in. He settled behind the wheel, slammed the gearshift into drive, and off they went, tires spinning in the swishing rain.

“You never stole a car before?” he asked her.

“Hardly.”

He shook his head. “Welcome to my world.”

“You realize that driver is going to call the police,” she said.

“Hopefully we’ll be long gone before they can find us.”

He was following a road that rimmed the peninsula, outside the town walls along a quay, heading for the causeway to the mainland and, she assumed, the road that ran against the shoreline in the direction of where Kim and Malone had headed by boat. They were playing catch-up, but he was making time, passing cars, bursting through intersections, ignoring every traffic law.

And drawing lots of attention.

Horns blared and brakes squealed.

“You’ve apparently done this before?” she asked, trying to stay calm and holding on.

He twisted the wheel hard left and they turned north, now along the bay road. “I’ve had a little practice.”

The taxi was a dirty and dented Audi coup. Its interior reeked of nicotine and she cracked the window enough to allow in some fresh air.

“Keep an eye out in the bay,” he told her.

The rain continued to slap the car like pellets, splattering the windshield in drenching waves. She stared through the wipers and saw the ferry. The two orange lifeboats were nowhere in sight, but a spit of land jutting out into the bay, near the marina they’d spotted earlier, blocked their view. They’d need to be farther along on the road, past the outcropping, to be able to see anything.

Daniels seemed to realize that, too.

And the engine surged.

* * *

Kim stood beside Hana.

She piloted the boat away from the ferry and toward shore. Rain was now falling in thick sheets, which was good and bad. The storm provided excellent cover, but it had also stirred the bay into a boiling frenzy. Their hostage still lay on one of the benches, not moving. The black satchel rested on his shoulder, the travel bag at his feet. They needed to find a place to disembark, preferably with few to no people around. From there, a taxi or some type of ground transportation could surely be arranged to the airport or train station.

The lifeboat churned along at a steady but slow pace. Wipers barely kept the forward windshield clear of rain. He stepped to the windows on the port side and saw the outline of one of the many islands that protected the bay.

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