BRAINRUSH, a Thriller (23 page)

The executioner turned a steely gaze toward Marshall. “American. I suspected as much. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Carlo Franco. I am the head of security at the
palazzo
, and I must ask that you please come with me for just a moment.” He motioned toward the double doors behind him.

There was no way Marshall was going let this guy take them anywhere. The crowd was their best protection. He was raising his free hand to remove his mask when Lacey let go of his other arm, placed both hands on her hips, and glared at the man’s scarred face. “I’m afraid we’re unable to accept your invitation. And unless you wish to create a serious scene amidst all your guests, I suggest you back off.”

The executioner gave Lacey a smug grin, brushing off her warning with a wave of his hand. “I’m afraid you have little choice in the matter.”

 Lacey leaned her head forward. “Wanna bet?” She raised her left hand seductively to her chest, hooking her red fingernails under the top of her silk bodice.

Carlo’s eyes followed her movement, confused. 

With a snap of her wrist, Lacey ripped downward, tearing the sheer fabric and partially exposing her left breast. Distracted, Carlo never saw her other hand swinging around at the same instant to slap him hard across the face. She squealed, “How dare you!” She threw her arms across her chest and backed away with gulping sobs.

People all around them gawked at her outburst. 

A haughty lord with a neatly trimmed goatee and fierce dark eyes took a step back as if to distance himself from the executioner. He pulled a small walkie-talkie out of his pocket and whispered something into it.

The executioner’s face twisted in anger. He reached for Lacey’s arm.

Marshall swept in between them, catching the man’s wrist in a fierce grip. The executioner turned on him, fury distorting his cruel face as he jerked his wrist to free himself. Marshall wouldn’t let go, tightening his grip, his fingertips sinking deep into a line of rough scars that ran down the man’s forearm. 

“I said, she’s with me,” Marshall growled.

Carlo reared his head back and head-butted Marshall at the bridge of his nose. The force of the unexpected blow blurred Marshall’s vision and sent him stumbling backward. Marshall caught himself on the balustrade. He shook his head once to clear it. Enraged, he launched himself at the man. 

But the executioner was ready this time and his knife appeared in his hand like a magician’s bouquet. Two quick slashes and Marshall’s right forearm and left hand each had deep burning furrows in them that overflowed with blood. Marshall cried out from the searing pain. He shrank to his knees and pressed both arms to his chest to hold his skin together. Blood spread across the white ruffles of his shirt.

In shock and unable to move, Marshall stared at the leering face of death hovering over him. The executioner’s billowing black cape made him appear double his size. His black eyes burned with rage. He extended his arm and lunged toward Marshall like a fencer with a foil. The wicked blade of the knife bore straight toward Marshall’s heart.

There was a flash of movement to Marshall’s left.  

Lacey screeched, “
Keeai!
”
and flew through the air, landing a powerful side kick that smashed into the executioner’s temple. The man staggered sideways, his blade missing Marshall completely. 

The stunned executioner turned to face this new threat. Too late.
Lacey was already in position to snap a front kick at the man’s chin.
The force of the blow lifted Carlo clear off the ground. His back hit the balustrade. With arms flailing, one hand still gripped around the hilt of his knife, he flipped over the edge. 

A collective gasp from the crowd was followed by a loud crash from below. The music stopped and Marshall turned his head to look down through the balustrade. The executioner lay on his back atop a collapsed eight-foot-long food table, his body sprawled amidst a splattered circle of dessert pastries.

**

10:59
pm

Hassan’s palms felt moist around the cool ridges of the grenades in the pockets of his sport coat. Looking down from the second-floor balcony, he spotted the costumed American in the middle of the crowd. He was dancing with a woman dressed in white. 

He backed into a shadowed archway, turning his back to the crowd to mask the movement of his hands. He dipped both hands into his left pocket and jerked the first grenade’s detonator pin loose, taking care to keep a firm grip around the spring-loaded strike lever with his left hand.

The first grenade was now armed.

He needed only to relax his grip, and four seconds later this party would come to an abrupt end.

The second grenade would be more difficult to arm, since he must perform the same task with a single hand. He pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his coat and dipped it into his right pocket, wrapping it around the unarmed grenade. Then, checking to be sure that no one was nearby, he feigned a sneeze, lifted the cloth-covered device to his mouth, pulled the pin with his teeth, and returned both the grenade and pin to his pocket.

A bead of sweat trickled into his eye, and he ignored the impulse to rub it dry, grinning inwardly at the realization that both hands were unavailable to him now, reserved for the final act that would open the doors to revenge, martyrdom, and paradise.

He hesitated when he approached the head of the grand staircase. He spotted
Signor
Battista stepping back from an altercation between his man, Carlo, and a scantily clad gypsy at the top of the stairs. The girl slapped Carlo across the face, crying out, “How dare you!”

To Hassan, this was a sign that Allah was guiding him, for with the crowd’s attention diverted, he had been granted the opportunity to act. 

He took a deep breath, his heart pounding in his ears, his fists clenched around the grenades. He locked his gaze on the American dancing below, and dashed down the stairs past the gypsy and her musketeer escort.

There were screams at the top of the stairs behind him. Hassan risked a glance over his shoulder. The musketeer was on the floor, bleeding.

Allah be praised! 

Hassan turned back and relocated the American. The man and his woman were less than ten meters away. 

Shouldering his way through the crowd, Hassan pulled both grenades out of his pockets.

Venice, Italy

10:58
pm

J
ake held Francesca close, flowing with the music in the middle of the ballroom. Under different circumstances it would have been a fantasy come true. But he couldn’t let go of the tension coiling through his body, or keep his eyes from darting away to look for the guards she said were waiting for him. His mind churned to come up with an alternative way out of this mess.

Francesca placed her gloved hand on his cheek and drew his attention back to her. “Jake, please don’t think about it for a moment. There is time. The ball will not end for hours and they dare not disrupt the festivities to check every man in costume. We are safe for now.” Her eyes appealed to him from behind her mask. He knew she was trying to calm him down for his own sake before someone noticed his anxiety. 

Her touch soothed him, but his mind continued to agitate over how the hell they could get out of there.

 “Opening night of
Carnevale
has always been an important night for my family,” Francesca said. “Did I tell you my father is a gondolier?”

Jake shook his head while his eyes panned the room.

“Yes. Tenth generation, and so very proud of it.
Carnevale
is the most important season of the year for the gondoliers. But in spite of the crowds, my father always allowed me to go with him for the first hours of the evening on opening night. He told his patrons I was an important part of his crew and they never seemed to mind. My mother dressed me as an angel with lace wings. I sat on the bow and sang with my father as we delivered our guests to balls like this one all around the old city. Everyone was always so happy and full of romance in their beautiful costumes.”

Francesca’s melodious voice was hard to ignore. Jake found himself drawn to her. In spite of their circumstance, her words worked their magic while another part of his mind studied the activity around the exits. 

Jake saw Francesca’s bottom lip quiver and heard her voice soften. “I used to peek into the ballrooms to watch them dance and hold each other like we are right now. Sometimes I saw them kiss.” She tilted her chin up to him, inviting.

Jake couldn’t resist. He slowed their movements to a gentle sway and pulled her close. Their lips touched, and the taste of her, the closeness of her, was overpowering. They kissed softly, tenderly. He brushed his tongue along the inside of her lips and she responded. She shuddered and melted into him, their tongues lingering, neither of them wanting it to end. The orchestra’s song had long since ended and a new one had just begun.

When they pulled apart, Francesca opened her eyes, her cheeks rosy. “Jake, I don’t want to lose you.”

Jake struggled between his need to get moving and the swell of ecstatic emotions that raced through him toward this amazing woman. 

And then the brooding specter of his illness broke into his consciousness.

“Francesca, there’s something I have to tell you.”

She pulled closer. “Yes?”

“There’s something wrong with me. I’ve been sick—”

Francesca interrupted him, relief in her voice. “Oh, Jake, I know all about it. I pulled your medical results from the tests upstairs. There’s something I have to tell—”

She was cut short by a loud scream and a crash from the staircase. Jake’s confusion over her lighthearted response vanished beneath a surge of adrenaline. A man had fallen from the floor above and was sprawled across a collapsed dessert table. The music stopped and the crowd stilled in shock at the body. 

Before Jake could digest what had happened, there was a flash of movement to his right. He turned and saw the bruised and battered terrorist, Hassan, shouldering his way toward him. He clenched something in his hands.

There was a maniacal darkness in the man’s eyes that left no doubt about his intentions.

**

10:59
pm

Still in his feminine costume and mask, Vincenzo finally spotted his niece. He was stunned to see Francesca’s graceful dance transition to a lingering kiss with the man who held her. 

Grazie a Dio! She is well.
 

He moved toward her, twisting through the throng of dancers. He hated being the one to shatter her world with news of the horrors that surrounded her, but he was not willing to risk waiting even a second longer.

Vincenzo’s attention was wrenched away by a loud crash to his left. Someone had fallen from the balcony onto a food table. The music stopped and everyone on the dance floor froze—except for a man out of costume who was pushing through the crowd toward Francesca, his hands holding two…
grenades!

Vincenzo ripped off his mask as he ran at the man, launching himself into the air. The momentum of the tackle sent the two of them tumbling across the floor. Vincenzo scrambled to wrap his strong arms around the man in a fierce bear hug that locked the man’s arms at his sides. 

**

11:00
pm

Seeing Hassan, Jake took a step forward and maneuvered Francesca protectively behind him. He dropped into a defensive crouch just as a man dressed in a woman’s costume flew through the air from Jake’s left to blindside the terrorist in a devastating tackle. 

Someone screamed, “
Bomba!
”
That’s when Jake saw the grenades.

Pandemonium broke out on the dance floor. People scattered in panic to get clear of the melee. One terrorized couple nearly bowled Jake over in their haste. Jake extended his arms behind him, corralling Francesca to keep her shielded as he edged backward.

The two struggling men on the floor rocked back and forth as though they were glued together. Hassan fought to free his arms, but the man who held him from behind had locked his thick fingers together at Hassan’s chest and refused to let go. Hassan craned his neck until his wild eyes found Jake.

The
jihadist
gave a mighty heave with his hips, twisting under the grasp of his captor, freeing one forearm just enough to flick one of the grenades toward Jake.

There was a sharp click as the grenade’s handle snapped open and the explosive device skidded across the dance floor.

Jake’s head filled with the familiar and welcome tingling sensation that told him his brain had kicked into overdrive. He allowed his body to respond instinctively. A part of his consciousness separated itself from what was happening as the world around him slowed.