The Brotherhood of the Rose by David Morrell Read Free Book Online

Obey the speed limit. Bleeding, in a stolen car with a shattered rear window and bullet holes in the body, he didn't dare get stopped by the police. He had to ditch this car.
    And do it fast.
    He drove past a truck stop, squinting at the bright lights of a gas station and a restaurant. Two pickup trucks, three semis. Heading a quarter mile farther, he turned toward a trailer court. Four-thirty. No lights were on in the trailers. He parked between two cars on a strip of gravel, shut his headlights off, and disconnected the ignition wires beneath the dash.
    Pain made him wince. After glancing around to make sure he hadn't attracted attention, he wiped the clammy sweat from his brow. Straining to take off his jacket, he lifted his turtleneck sweater, touched the Velcro straps on his bulletproof vest, and tugged them, pulling the vest off.
    Eliot had always insisted, never violate procedure. After a job, take precautions. Wear your vest. In case of complications from the job. Established methods keep you alive.
    The vest was somewhat bulky. A quarter-inch thick, weighing a pound and a half, it was made from seven layers of Kevlar, a synthetic nylonlike fiber five times stronger than steel. But Saul was big-boned, rugged, and the extra girth made him seem merely overweight. At the casino, though he hadn't risked carrying a gun, he'd felt confident the vest would be unobtrusive. Once again, a habit had saved his life.
    But the bullet should only have stunned him. It shouldn't have gone through the vest. It shouldn't have wounded him. Frowning, he fingered the blood on his chest, probing for the bullet hole. Instead he touched the bullet itself, embedded a quarter-inch into his chest, sticking out between two ribs, its impact slowed by the vest.
    He gritted his teeth and pulled it free, exhaling, stifling the urge to vomit. For a moment in the dark, the car seemed to swirl. Then the spinning stopped, and he swallowed bile.
    He wiped the bullet, troubled. Nothing made sense. It shouldn't have gone through the vest. The bullet was slim and pointed, but its tip should have been blunted by its impact against the vest.
    He took a chance and opened the car door, using the interior light to study the bullet, more troubled by what he saw.
    The bullet was green. Teflon streamlined its shape, making it capable of piercing the vest. A special item favored by elite intelligence networks. Including the Mossad.
    He studied the silencer on the Beretta. Possession of one was as illegal as having a machine gun or a rocket launcher. Rather than risk getting caught with one or trying to buy one on the black market, operatives assembled their own, using parts easy to obtain and innocent-looking if distributed in a toolkit. In this case, the gunman had bought a plastic tube, wide enough to fit over the Beretta's muzzle. The tube had been filled with an alternating series of metal and glass-wool washers, the holes in the washers wide enough to allow for the passage of a bullet. The tube had a hole in the end, small enough to prevent the washers from falling out, large enough to let the bullet escape. Three holes had been drilled a quarterinch down from the tube's open mouth. Set screws through these holes braced the silencer over the pistol's barrel. Quickly assembled, it was effective for seven shots before the glass wool lost its muffling power. It c&couldd then be swiftly taken apart, its components thrown away with no sign of what they'd been used for. Simple. The method preferred by the Mossad.
    What the hell was going on? How had his opponents known he was going to that hotel? He himself had known only a few hours before. It wasn't a question of his having been followed. The assassins had anticipated his movements. They'd been waiting for him.
    Eliot had made the arrangements. Eliot must have done something wrong. Perhaps he'd used an unsecured phone.
    But Eliot didn't make mistakes. Then Eliot must have been followed, his conversations picked up by