Blown by Francine Mathews Read Free Book Online

arouse suspicion? But there is a man loitering in the street. He smokes far too many expensive Turkish cigarettes for a punk with no job.”
    The sound of a child’s high-pitched voice, insistent and tremulous, drifted from the kitchen. Mahmoud’s elder boy, Moammar, demanding something from his mother. With reflexive Muslim courtesy, Mahmoud had not asked Eric to leave his home and spare his children the possible horrors of their father’s arrest. Eric was Sharif’s guest. He would die defending him if necessary.
    Eric had offered as much eight years ago when Sharif was a penniless carpenter in love with a German girl from Hamburg. As chief of the CIA’s base there, he’d recruited Sharif, trained and instructed and molded him to betray the Hizballah cell that had planted him in Germany. Sharif had fed the CIA vital information for nearly four years, and when his cover was blown—when he was burned, in the parlance of espionage—Eric had saved his life and Dagmar’s. The two men were blood brothers. In a world rife with enemies, some named and some unknown, such things were precious.
    “The BKA was all over 30 April,” Mahmoud told him apologetically. “They’ll have found that lab. The corpse with the broken neck.”
    And who but a 30 April terrorist would have access to such a lab? Eric thought. They’ll have samples of my blood on the floor. My DNA.
    “I’ll leave tonight,” he said.
    “There’s no need. We can hide you for weeks. Move you, if necessary, among our friends, until the hunt dies down.”
    Caroline’s face rose with painful clarity in Eric’s mind. “I don’t have weeks,” he replied. “I leave tonight.”
    Mahmoud nodded, his relief so intense it bordered on shame. “I will take you down to the garage, fold you into the trunk of the BMW, and Dagmar will drive off with the kids as though we’ve had a fight. She’ll go to her sister’s—after she drops you somewhere convenient, of course.”
    Somewhere convenient. Where exactly would that be, for a man hunted the length of Europe? But he merely nodded, and held out his hand. “Thank you, Mahmoud.”
    “I settle a debt, only. Too long unpaid.” He grasped Eric’s palm.
     
    When Mahmoud had gone, Eric moved quietly into the Palestinian’s bedroom and drew a small screwdriver from his pocket. It was essential that he remove every trace of himself from Sharif’s apartment.
    Behind the collection of Italian wool trousers and the sweeping black cloak Dagmar favored was a small wood panel. Screwed into the plasterboard wall, it covered a hole between closet and bathroom: a plumber’s trap, a clean-out. The builder had designed it for easy access to the workings of Sharif’s shower, but Eric had found another use for it. In all the years of his undercover operation with 30 April, his bugout kit had lived in Sharif’s wall.
    The bugout kit was every clandestine agent’s hope for survival. When your cover was blown and the whole world wanted you dead, the bugout kit just might save your ass. In Eric’s case it held a false identity: a British passport in the name of Nigel Benning; a Visa card and driver’s license belonging to the same man. Five thousand dollars in cash. A gun. Enough damaging evidence to send Sharif to prison for years.
    He stared at the photograph of Nigel Benning: dark brown hair, brown eyes, a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. Himself, in disguise. That and a token would get him a ride on the U-Bahn. The passport was too dangerous to use.
    It was a stolen blank he’d bought years ago on the street in Prague. The serial number might already be listed in the world’s immigration databases. If Mahmoud was right—if the BKA was hunting a 30 April survivor—every border would be watched. Every passport studied.
    He stuffed the contents of the bugout kit in his jacket and carefully screwed the wooden panel back onto Sharif’s wall.

Chapter 8
    WASHINGTON, D.C., 10:48 P.M.
    It was Tom Shephard’s job to tell Al