Calypso Directive by Brian Andrews Read Free Book Online

it was safe to assume they were looking for him in all obvious places where a half-naked man with no money might try to hide. Homeless shelters, park benches, under bridges—anywhere a vagabond might go. He needed to get out of Prague, away from the dragon’s lair, but without a passport, booking a flight or a train ticket was out of the question. Complicating matters, he still had no idea who “they” were. The most logical assumption was that the people looking for him were the security personnel from the lab. The very guards he had outmaneuvered were now the ones trying to bring him in. Other operatives could also be on his trail. Bounty hunters? Government agents? What about the Czech police? Were they looking for him too? He had no idea how deep this conspiracy ran. Paranoia was the only reason he had not marched right up to the U.S. Embassy in Prague, knocked on the door, and said, “Please take me home.”
    He had been quarantined, drugged, and smuggled out of the United States, without any intervention or investigation by the various agencies of the Department of Homeland Security. This told him that either the smuggling was sanctioned by DHS, or that the information surrounding his case never reached DHS. Either way, the conclusion was the same. Whoever did this to him had some very powerful people on their payroll.
    To avoid capture, he needed to fly under the radar; to solve the puzzle, he needed help. These two goals were not mutually exclusive, but the latter did risk the former. His mind raced. How could he contact Julie covertly? Certainly not from sanctuary of this alley, he thought. Fuck it. He stepped into the daylight onto a crowded intersection in Old Town Prague and scanned both sides of the street for an Internet kiosk, a well-heeled café, or even a modern hotel where he could sneak some computer time. Thirty-one euros would buy him plenty of time online, even if it took hours to reach Julie.
    He walked south, past Hlavní nádraží, the largest and busiest railway station in Prague. He crossed Jeruzalemska and R ů žová, but neither street had what he needed. When he reached Politickych veznu, he turned northwest on a whim and soon found himself in Wenceslas Square. At 700 meters long and sixty meters wide, Wenceslas was a Square in name only, and he found himself stopping for a moment to take it all in. He felt a charge of energy from the vibrant boulevard; its shops and sidewalks were bustling with life. The abundance of automobiles, asphalt, tourist shops, and window advertisements overwhelmed the Old World charm that flowed from the roofline architecture. He suspected that if one could magically wipe away all the commercialism, Wenceslas might be beautiful. But Wenceslas Square was no more or less beautiful at that moment than it had been more than six hundred years before, when King Charles IV founded the Konskytrh , or “Horse Market,” in a brainstorm of urban planning. It was never a panorama of grand buildings and cathedrals like the Old Town or Prague Castle. The Square was—and always had been—Prague’s central market. It was not the showpiece. It was the hub .
    Will looked toward the end of the Square, past the modest gardens dividing the wide tree-lined boulevard, all the way to the imposing National Museum, with its majestic cupola and brightly illuminated Neo-Renaissance facade. Positioned fifty meters in front, stood a statue of a knight atop a horse. Wenceslas immortalized.
    His nervous stomach reminded him that he had work to do, and he strode off. Ten minutes later, he spied a small Internet café. A bilingual sign in the window read T HREE E UROS P ER H OUR in Czech and English. It was a better price than he had dared to hope for. After waiting forty-five minutes for a computer terminal in the back with a view of the entrance, Will took a seat. The room was amply heated, and he wanted desperately to strip off his winter