Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment (2 page)

He wondered at his instinctual decision to flee the café. He didn’t doubt the validity of the command his subconscious had generated. But he wished he could pull up the memories that prompted it. Perhaps it was the assuredness of the movements from the two men. He’d sensed the spark of recognition in their expressions even behind their dark glasses.

Lives hinge on your ability to remain anonymous.

He hungered for answers, but only questions were served: Who were they? What did they want with him? Did they know where he lived?

Renzo was a block from the pineta when a car careened from a side street to block his path. Doors opened. Three men exited. They had the same feel as the two behind him. They held silenced weapons. The flush of adrenaline triggered a doubling of his heart rate, fueling his muscles. He jinked to the right between two villas. Bullets hammered into the limestone walls behind him—and the question of what they wanted was answered.

Chips pelted his trousers. A ricocheted round spun past his ear with a hornet’s buzz. Terror filled his gut. He leaped a stone wall and wound a serpentine trail through gates and yards and streets. The solitude of the woodland was no longer an option. But maybe the anonymity of a crowd would provide an escape. The beach was dead ahead.

He twisted through traffic across the four-lane coastal road. Cars skidded, scooters dodged, and motorists shouted. Renzo
ignored them. He sped across a gravel parking lot, through a busy open-air trattoria, past a row of private cabanas and showers, and onto the sand. There was no sign of his pursuers.

Each section of white-sand beach was privately owned, passed down one generation to the next, demarked by the color and style of the umbrellas and lounge chairs that extended in neat rows to the water. It was packed with tourists, in large part because of the influx of college students visiting during spring break. Renzo kicked off his shoes, removed his torn shirt, and plopped himself in their midst. He was shaken. He dug his hands and feet into the warm sand, searching in vain for the familiar calm that the act usually brought. Two bikini-clad girls offered an approving stare. He was accustomed to the attention, more for his tan physique than for his crooked smile. He forced a wink. They giggled. He blew out a breath and sank deeper into the sand. He needed time to think.

“Ciao, Renzo!” a man shouted.

He recognized the voice before he turned around. It was the
bagnino
, Paolo, responsible for this stretch of beach. The fifty-year-old, potbellied lifeguard was a bronze fixture who always had a kind word. Unfortunately, he also loved to hear the sound of his own voice. Once he started talking, it was impossible to get him to stop. He waved as he approached.

“Another run today?” the man asked in his booming voice.

Tourists turned their way. Paolo appreciated an audience.

“It’s a wonderful day!” the lifeguard proclaimed, his arms outstretched as if to soak in the sun.

So much for blending in, Renzo thought. He rose and glanced nervously about. A man with dark glasses and familiar rubber-soled shoes stared back at him from the trattoria. His hand was to an ear. His lips moved urgently.

Renzo took off. The
bagnino
shouted behind him, “Renzo, you forgot your shoes, your shirt!”

He hit the wet sand that was his daily running track and poured on speed. One familiar resort after another passed in a
blur. His plan was simple. He wouldn’t stop running until he came abreast of the police station in Forte dei Marmi. Renzo needed help. After four months in hiding, remaining anonymous was no longer an option.

He was nearly there when he saw the girl from the café. She blocked his path. So did the two men who gripped each of her arms. The girl tried to act natural, but her fear was palpable. She was a hostage, not an accomplice. The men’s deportment left no doubt of the deadly consequences of noncooperation. A big part of him screamed to keep running, to put behind him the two men and the girl whom he had only just met. But he could not. Amnesia or not, a man’s character doesn’t change. He stopped.

The men were all business. They had crew cuts and chiseled features. The taller one removed his glasses. He had angry dark eyes and a boxer’s crooked nose. Through tight lips he said, “You for the girl.” The words were English. Renzo didn’t understand.

“
Cosa?
” he asked.

The man’s eyes narrowed. He seemed surprised. He switched to Italian. “We trade you for the girl,” he said. His Italian was good, but Renzo caught the trace of a German accent.

The girl’s expression pleaded.

“Let her go first,” Renzo said.

The man stiffened, as if unaccustomed to conditional surrenders. Renzo figured he was in charge. He scanned his surroundings with military precision. “We make the exchange in the parking lot.”

Where it will be easy to stuff us into a car and kill us later with no fanfare, Renzo thought. No thanks. He considered his options, grateful that the physical trainer hired by the doctor had included martial arts in his regimen. The movements had seemed natural to him. He remembered wondering if his muscles held memories that his brain could not.

Renzo pointed to a Ping-Pong table by the showers. It was still in view of the crowded beach but only a step or two from the
walkway leading to the parking area. “We walk together to that point,” he said. “Then she goes free.”

The second man nodded to the first, and they escorted the girl up the beach. Renzo followed, recalling the key weakness that his trainer had identified in his fighting skills.
No killer instinct
, he’d said.
Stick to running
.

That was his plan.

The walkway between the beach and the parking lot was lined on either side by rows of cabanas. The men turned to face him, stopping beside a bathroom stall. Their grip tightened on the girl’s arms. She winced. The leader inched up the hem of his polo shirt to reveal the pistol tucked at his waist. “Any tricks and she dies,” he said.

The girl’s breathing quickened. Renzo nodded. He readied himself. The leader motioned to his subordinate.

The man shoved the girl into the stall. “Not a sound,” he growled as he closed the door behind her. Her soft whimper was filled with relief. Renzo could imagine her huddled in a ball beside the toilet, watching their shadows through the slats in the door. Both men turned to face him.

“Let’s go,” the leader said. The girl was safe for the moment, Renzo thought. The sooner he and the two men turned the corner into the parking lot, the sooner she could slip away. He allowed himself to be taken. Each man grabbed an arm.

They stopped when they reached the graveled lot. The leader’s gaze panned the area. The black BMW that had blocked Renzo’s path earlier was parked by the entrance. Its motor idled. The driver nodded. His hand went to the dash, and the sedan’s trunk popped open.

My coffin
, Renzo realized with a start. There was no one else around. They would kill him here and dump him later. The men tightened their grip and walked him forward. But instead of responding with tension, Renzo relaxed his muscles—as he’d been taught. The subconscious reaction of the men holding him was instinctual. They relaxed as well.

He sagged, allowing his dead weight to pull at the men’s grip. They held on with angry grunts and yanked upward. In the same instant, Renzo combined his force with theirs by springing into a backflip. Grips gave way. Renzo turned to run. But instead of freedom, he found himself staring down the barrel of a silenced weapon. It was wielded by a third man, who had followed them down the walkway. A wisp of smoke leaked from the muzzle—and Renzo knew that the girl was dead.

“
Bastardo
,” he gasped. The other two spun him around.

“You’re fast,” the leader said. He pressed his own pistol against Renzo’s chest. “But experience trumps speed every t—”

He cut off when the horn sounded from the waiting sedan. A van filled with bobbing heads drove into the lot. It was followed by a man on a scooter. Guns disappeared. A door slid open on the van, and a family of six piled out. Two of the youngest children jumped up and down with enthusiasm. The leader patted Jake on the back as if they were old pals. He whispered, “They will die unless you get in the car.” Renzo could barely breathe past the rage he felt over the death of the girl. But he didn’t doubt the truth of the man’s words. He allowed himself to be ushered toward the sedan.

The scooter idled under the shadows of a tree. The rider wore an oversize helmet that looked odd above the shorts and baggy shirt that revealed thin arms and bony knees. The tinted helmet visor hid his face. His head tilted to one side as if he were taking in the scene. Renzo willed him to leave for his own safety. The man didn’t budge.

The two thugs walked on either side of Renzo. The one who had killed the girl moved ahead of them. He opened the rear passenger door, motioning for Renzo to get in. But Renzo’s attention was still on the scooter driver. It appeared as though the man stared directly at him from behind his visor. His helmeted head shook slowly from side to side as if he were warning Renzo not to enter the car. But a firm hand on Renzo’s lower back reminded
him that he had little choice. He glanced over his shoulder. The family had gathered their beach bags. They were walking toward the sand. The kids ran ahead.

The sudden whine of the scooter sent a shock of tension through the men surrounding him. The bike raced toward them. The rider had flipped up his visor. His teeth were bared, his eyes narrowed, and he held a dark object in an outstretched hand. The Germans reached for their guns.

Renzo cried out, “Nooo!” The young rescuer didn’t stand a chance. Renzo stomped the instep of the man to his left. The German folded to one knee with a surprised grunt. Ducking to avoid the leader’s fist, Renzo countered with an uppercut that smashed his nose. Cartilage cracked. Blood flowed. He turned to face the third man, when out of the corner of his eye he saw his would-be rescuer fling the object. In the same instant, there were muffled gunshots from within the car and the helmeted scooter rider was thrown backward onto the gravel. But the object he’d hurled continued its arc toward Renzo in a wobbling spiral.

It looked like a small pyramid.

Renzo felt a tingling sensation in his forehead.

Le Focette, Marina di Pietrasanta, Italy

S
OUND MUTED
. T
HE
world around Renzo slowed as the miniature pyramid tumbled through its arc. The closer it got, the stronger the tingling in his head and limbs. Gulls hung as if suspended midflight. The driverless scooter skidded on its side in frame-by-frame motion, furrowing a bow wave of gravel before it. The silenced barrel of a pistol rose toward Renzo’s face. His gut tightened. Fear fueled his supercharged reflexes.

His hand chopped at the nerve bundle in the man’s forearm. The move must have appeared impossibly fast to his assailant. Fingers numbed, grip loosened, and the weapon dropped to the ground. Doors unlocked in Renzo’s brain, and he recognized the gun as the tactical version of a Sphinx AT380, with 9mm slugs, a sixteen-round magazine, and manufacturing tolerances that rivaled that of a Swiss watchmaker. Details of the weapon flashed through his mind like he was reading a Wikipedia page.

The pistol settled in the gravel. The black pyramid dropped beside it, and an explosion of memories expanded in his mind. The force of it nearly knocked him off his feet. But instinct held him steady. Arms grappled from behind. His body responded in a blur of action. He grabbed a wrist, spun, and flipped the leader onto his back. A heel to the temple and he was out cold. A stiff-fingered gouge to the throat of another. A vicious side kick to the
chest of the third man. The BMW driver moved around the front of the car, a compact assault rifle pressed to one shoulder. Renzo somersaulted toward him. In a single fluid motion, he grabbed the Sphinx and double-tapped the trigger. Twin holes blossomed in the driver’s chest, lifting him from his feet. A shuffle at Renzo’s back set off alarms. He tumbled to one side as spits from a silenced weapon left a trail of slugs puckering the gravel beside his head. He rolled to his back, extended his pistol, and squeezed the trigger three times. The killer’s body jerked with the impact of each slug. He folded to the ground and lay still.

Time settled.

Renzo felt the throb of his heart at his temples. The high-speed effort had taken a toll. He staggered to his feet. The scene shocked him. He fought a sudden urge to vomit. The scooter driver was surely dead, as were two of the gunmen. A third gasped a final, rasping breath through a crushed larynx. The fourth—their leader—lay unconscious. There was a seesaw of sirens in the distance. The family must have called the authorities, Renzo thought. He needed to leave. He gathered the weapons, tossed them into the sedan’s trunk, and slammed the lid.

On his way around the car, he retrieved the miniature pyramid. It was the size of an apple. When his fingers closed around its smooth surface, his body seized. His mind reeled with a rush of images. Like flipping channels on a TV, each scene was replaced by another before his consciousness could cling to its details. Faces, bodies, and explosions swirled amid a tornado of emotions that brought forth an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. Each image kindled a memory more painful than the last. Rather than embracing them, he pushed them away, corralling them into a closet deep in his brain. His body shook with the effort.