Doomsday Exam [BUREAU 13 Book Two] by Nick Pollotta Read Free Book Online

a live snake and soundly sank its fangs where only my doctor knew.
    From behind a curtain of her ebony hair, Jessica paused in the process of reloading her taser to laugh aloud, and I blushed. Okay, so it was now a family secret.
    With a roar, the trailer shuddered and one wall bent drastically outwards almost to the breaking point. The Raptor sent a rustling missile into the hitch, which promptly exploded, and Raul magically gestured to reform the container. I increased our speed and flicked on a flashing light.
    "Hot soup, gangway!” I called over the PA system of the van. What sparse traffic there was got out of our way fast.
    In the distance, I could see an old World War II style Quonset hut, a half-cylinder made of corrugated iron lying on its side. That was the exterior of the Holding Facility. Jail seemed far too weak and feeble a term for the inverted fortress.
    Endlessly we did left turn, right turn, left turn, right turn, but with each corner the Quonset Hut came closer. Always in the background was the Raptor hovering slightly above us, constantly keeping our boojum in range. Somehow, I think the animal knew this because it remained quiescent. Once burned, twice shy, three times exhausted.
    Reaching the exact center of town, we encountered the broad traffic circle of Alcatraz Street. On the outside of the circular road was a staggered barricade of unpretentious cinderblock warehouses. On the island in the middle, was a simple wire fence surrounding the dull plain Quonset Hut. A book and its cover. Yep. Most definitely.
    Stopping in front of the gate in the fence, we disconnected the trailer hitch and moved the van forward a few meters to give sufficient room. We had barely cleared the regulation distance when the hitch burst apart again and there stood Lumpy, now four times his original size. Okay, now he was officially a growing menace.
    Instantly, the metal side of the hut rippled in the manner of parting water and out came a huge mechanical arm, irregular slabs of armor barely concealing the mammoth gears and motors inside its adamantine skeleton. Almost the entire length of the robotic arm was lined with defensive runes, gun turrets, arbalests, crucifixes, Mogen Davids, ankhs, juju bags, or pulsating crystals. And this was only the janitor. At the end of the titanic limb, was a blunt three-fingered claw large enough to seize the moment. Which it promptly did.
    Entirely without effort, the claw snared Lumpy in its cold iron grip and gave the beast a little squeeze. Our hairless lion squealed and went limp. Smoothly contracting, the leviathan limb hauled the boojum inside the Quonset Hut with another of those really cool looking ripple effects. A split second later, there was a muffled explosion and Lumpy's dumb head punched through the metal wall like a hairy cannonball.
    It only bounced twice before a harpoon slammed directly between those slanted cat eyes. A steel cable attached to the end of the harpoon grew taut, and struggling every foot of the way, the rolling head was reeled back inside. As the wall sealed solid, we finally allowed ourselves to exhale and lower our weapons.
    Then the fleetingly memory of Lumpy's smile came to mind, and I debated if the creature had been pretending to be crazy so as to get inside the Facility that much quicker. But I dismissed the possibility, not even the ghost of Houdini could escape once inside this prison. And believe me, Harry had really tried.
    But that uneasy feeling wouldn't go away, so I reached for the hand mike and alerted the guards to watch for trouble. Just in case.
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CHAPTER THREE
    "By the way,” the voice of Gilad said over our dashboard radio as we rolled along the traffic circle heading back into town. “Why did you bother to come personally instead of just shunting the boojum in through a magical portal?"
    Unclipping the hand mike, I pressed the transmit switch, “Just being careful. Besides, we received permission to get a