BZRK: Reloaded (BZRK 2)
Page 39
The policeman frowned. “Sorry, I’m not up on all the—”
“Emerging Technology Agency.”
The policeman blinked. Stared. Laughed. “You gotta be pulling my leg.”
“They’re trying to stop me from telling what I know. AFGC. Nanotech. Video of Falkenhym killing her husband. Gray goo scenario.” Farid was just repeating it over and over, frantically, in a loop, as the cop confronted the feds, and the store denizens blasted the entire scene out over the Internet. “Farid Berbera. Anonymous. Lebanese diplomat.”
“Lady,” the cop said, “in this city I got to put up with FBI, Secret Service, DEA, but I have surely never heard of an ETA, and you aren’t arresting—”
BANG!
It wasn’t until the explosion that Farid even noticed the gun in the woman’s hand.
The p
olice officer was wearing a Kevlar vest. It did not protect his face. Or stop the bullet from punching a hole out the back of his neck, spraying bits of spine and blood all over the coffee counter.
“Kill them all,” the woman said. “No witnesses.”
Three guns began firing.
Somehow, he would never be able to explain how, Farid ended up on his elbows behind the counter, crawling and whimpering as BANG BANG BANG BANGBANGBANG! The glass display case full of croissants and pre-made sandwiches shattered. People screamed. People yelled nonsense like, “Hey, what are you doing?” Tables were overturned. Smoke filled the air.
“Stop it, stop it!”
Steam was venting from the espresso machine through a bullet hole.
The woman, still with a cigarette in her mouth, was around the counter now and BANG! shot the cringing barista and BANG! fired at Farid and missed as he jumped up and ran, screaming into the stacks, grabbing at handfuls of books and slinging them over his shoulder.
BANG! and the bullet hit a thick political text and blew it apart in midair, making confetti of the pages.
The shots and screams from the café were dying down, and now there were sirens too late, way too late, as Farid tripped, fell against a table loaded with books, slipped to the floor, and saw himself staring up at the muzzle of a gun.
He said, “No!”
BANG!
His head jerked. Stabbing pain in his mouth.
Smoke drifted.
She was looking right at him, the muzzle no more than two feet away. Ash fell from her cigarette. He could see the way her finger tightened on the trigger. All slow motion now.
Snap.
Instantly the ETA agent reached for a new magazine, but Farid was up and scrambling, leaping, sobbing, tasting the blood that filled his mouth, not knowing what had happened just knowing: run. RUN!
The store had a second entrance, out on Nineteenth Street. He was on the street before he knew it, nearly ran into a passing taxi, raced north up the street and the taxi, amazingly, miraculously, thought he needed a ride, thought he was chasing it.
The cabdriver stopped.
Farid ripped open the door and collapsed into the seat. “Go! Just go!”
The driver looked skeptical until he heard the gunshot from behind. The driver had not survived the waves of war in Sudan just to die here in Washington, DC.
He floored it.
The cab sped away. It was then that Farid realized the bullet had gone in his mouth and out through his cheek. It had taken the top off a molar in the process, but he was alive.