Page 9 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

R APP did not stop to think.

Instead, he revved the throttle with his right hand and reached for the small of his back with his left. Being left-handed was often an inconvenience.

Not today.

Steering and managing the throttle with his right freed Rapp’s dominant hand to do what it did best: shoot.

Though he would have loved to have fitted the suppressor to the Beretta’s muzzle, there wasn’t time.

If Greta’s abductor made it to Ronda de Sant Antoni, they were as good as gone.

A constant stream of motorists flowed toward Placa Universitat to the north and the busy Mercat de Sant Antoni to the south.

Once the Citroen joined the vehicular artery, Rapp’s opportunity to interdict the kidnappers would vanish.

Now or never.

He gunned the motor scooter and its underpowered engine responded with a whine that was more bark than bite.

A horn sounded to his right as Rapp narrowly missed colliding with a delivery van, but the risk had proven worth the reward.

He was moving, while the Citroen was still stationary.

The sedan’s driver was already nominally within pistol range, but Rapp didn’t fire.

Instead he held the Beretta alongside his leg, muzzle angled downward, as his scooter closed the distance to the car.

Surprise was his only advantage.

Each shot had to count.

Rapp numbered the men in the snatch team to be at least three.

A driver and passenger in the front seat with the remaining team member in the rear with Greta.

Precision shooting from a moving platform through a vehicle’s safety glass was difficult, but the angles and distances favored him.

He was approaching perpendicular to a stationary vehicle.

If he shot through the driver’s window, his bullets would only impact the car’s front two occupants.

Killing the driver would render the vehicle inoperable, which meant that Rapp would have time to reposition in order to deal with the situation in the rear seats—whatever that might be.

Had it been up to him, Rapp would have delayed engaging the driver until his front tire was kissing the Citroen’s door frame.

It was not up to him.

The traffic light finished cycling as Rapp closed to within ten feet.

The sedan edged forward.

Bringing the pistol up in a singular, smooth motion, Rapp aligned the front sight post on the driver’s head and eased the slack from the trigger. The driver turned toward Rapp and his blue eyes widened.

He was too late.

Rapp had fired thousands of rounds through his Beretta. The pistol might as well have been an extension of his arm. The first shot would break in the next millisecond. Like an unwary skier caught in an avalanche’s path, nothing could save the driver now.

Nothing but a blond ponytail.

Cursing, Rapp jerked the pistol off-target, sending his first shot into the Citroen’s engine block instead of the driver’s skull. Why Greta had chosen that moment to wrestle with the driver was baffling, but unimportant. His target line was now obscured.

Time for plan B.

Braking, Rapp slowed the motor scooter until he could jump clear.

The bike slammed into the sedan’s front bumper before crashing to the ground, but Rapp was no longer aboard.

Once again, he stood atop the Citroen’s hood.

This time he had a pistol in his hands. Rapp indexed the Beretta’s stubby front sight post on a dark-haired man in the passenger seat.

A man who was frantically trying to draw a pistol from his waistband.

He wasn’t going to make it.

Rapp was applying smooth pressure to the trigger when his shot was interrupted.

Again.

This time by a scream.

“Don’t shoot!” Greta said. “Mitch, don’t shoot!”

Rapp looked over the pistol’s sights to see Greta stretched the length of the front windshield. “They are bodyguards! My grandfather’s bodyguards!”

Once Rapp decided to kill someone, very few people could change his mind.

Greta was an exception.

So was her grandfather.