“No.” He glanced at the smartphone, which was unlocked and running GPS. He took it off the cradle and passed it back to her.
Taylor let go of him with her right hand and took the phone.
Brodie struggled to see as they whipped through the dense flurries. He spotted a pedestrian about to cross the lane divider in front of him and pressed the horn as he sailed past the guy.
They were approaching a bend in the track, and he saw a single headlight curve around the bend—a tram heading straight at them. The tram rang its bell.
“Hang on!”
Brodie cut hard right onto the parallel track, and the tram shot past them. He spotted a side street to his right with no traffic and peeled off the tracks and down the road. So far, the tires had not skidded out on the turns, but a patch of ice could send them sliding.
Taylor called out, “Make a right at the next major road you see. Otto-Braun Straße. That will take you across the Spree and through Museum Island. You’ll cross two bridges and then make your first left.”
“Copy.” He added, “See what kind of food this guy was delivering.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“I’m hungry.” There was traffic up ahead. Brodie swerved up onto the sidewalk and beeped his horn. He suggested to Taylor, “Pocket the phone so you can hold on better.”
“I’m calling backup.”
“Who?”
“Trent.” She explained, “One of the few numbers I’ve memorized.”
“I disabled his phone. But leave a detailed message.” Well, they could use the backup. And someone else needed to know what they knew in case they got flattened by a truck in the next few minutes.
He was approaching a cross street with a stop sign. He leaned on the horn and sailed through, staying on the sidewalk to bypass the traffic. Twenty feet ahead a man emerged from a building. Brodie hit the horn and swerved as the man jumped back just in time.
He saw the major road up ahead. They had the green and the road was clear, so Brodie drove off the sidewalk into the street and cranked thethrottle as he turned right. He could barely hear Taylor behind him yelling something over the wind. It sounded like she was actually having a conversation, so Chilcott must have gotten his phone working again. Brodie made out “Charles Granger,” as well as “bioweapon,” and “Tempelhof Field.”
She hung up, pocketed the phone, and grabbed onto Brodie again, yelling through the wind, “They didn’t find the mortars in the NordFaust raids.”
Well, that was because the mortars were in the hands of Colonel Granger, probably at Tempelhof Field, which was why he was risking their lives to get there.
They were approaching a large intersection and had the red. Six lanes of cross traffic cut through the intersection. He said to Taylor, “Hang on!”
He felt her arms tighten around him and her face pressed into his neck.
He blew through the red and cut between a sedan and a truck coming from the left, then weaved through the next two lanes, where a truck barreled toward them from the right. Brodie cut left and revved the throttle to outrun the truck and cut in front of it, then zagged to the right and flew between lanes of oncoming vehicles. People honked their horns as he zipped past. He spotted a break in the cars and cut left across the remaining lanes, then careened down the middle of Otto-Braun Straße.
He checked the speedometer. He was pushing a hundred kilometers an hour, which felt like the limits of what the Vespa could do. He peered through the flurries and saw a bridge up ahead. Bridges freeze before roads and he looked to see if there was ice on the pavement, but he couldn’t tell. The area was choked with traffic. Brodie veered back onto the sidewalk, which was wide and mostly empty, and shot past the cars and over the Spree River.
They sped through what must have been the southern end of Museum Island, and then over another bridge. Brodie kept his eyes out for the turn as they approached a light that had just turned green. He shot across the road and blared his horn as he cut in front of three lanes of approaching traffic and onto a small two-lane road.
They hurtled down the narrow road, weaving between lanes to get around the cars. He hit a patch of traffic and zipped between the lanes. Thereweren’t a lot of cross streets here, and no large roads, and he blew through every intersection while blaring his horn.
After a few minutes they were in what looked like a more residential area of small apartment buildings and parks. Taylor called out, “Tempelhof should be coming up soon!”
Up ahead the road ended at a T-intersection. On the far side of the intersection was a long chain-link fence topped by razor wire. Tempelhof Airport—now a park.
Taylor said, “It looks deserted.”
Brodie crossed the intersection and drove onto the sidewalk, then turned left and sped along the length of the fence, looking for an opening.
Thirty yards ahead was an entrance. He slowed the Vespa.
It was a pedestrian access path blocked by a ten-foot-high sliding metal gate that was padlocked. There was no razor wire atop the gate.
