Read Online BRAINRUSH 02 - The Enemy of My Enemy by Richard Bard - Free Book Online

residential neighborhood. There was an eight-foot drop from the edge of the park to the street. A chain-link fence separated the two.
    “Hang on!” Jake shouted. He stomped on the gas and held his breath.
    The Jeep ripped through the shrubs like a charging rhino. The fence collapsed under the Jeep’s momentum. Jake felt a momentary weightlessness as the Jeep arced through the air trailing a dozen feet of fencing. The front bumper hit the pavement first, crumpling inward from the impact. The front light housings shattered. Bits of glass and plastic splattered outward.
    Jake struggled to keep the vehicle on its path down the street. The rearview mirror had shifted downward from the jolt. He adjusted it and was relieved to see both of his friends still behind him. He spoke into the speakerphone, still gripped by the dashboard clip. “Beck, you up?” 
    “Quite a trek, mate,” Becker said. “I think we’ve lost the wankers, at least for the moment.”
    “Time for you to switch rides,” Jake said. He knew that Papa and Snake wouldn’t be going with them to the safe house. They preferred their own tough neighborhood in South Central, where no one in their right mind would attempt to follow. Becker, on the other hand, wouldn’t allow Jake to leave without him.
    Jake stopped the Jeep in the center of the street. Papa’s pickup lurched to a stop on his left. Becker jumped out and piled into the backseat of the Jeep with Josh and Sarafina. The Highlander pulled up on his right. Francesca’s face was ashen but otherwise appeared okay. Jake mouthed, I love you , and she forced a smile.
    Jake stepped on the gas. The vans were still not in sight. He needed to get to the airport before Battista’s men found their trail.
    As they drove through the neighborhood, Becker focused his attention on the children. “So, how are you two ankle biters enjoying the ride?” he said with a wide grin. His Aussie accent added a kick to his words. “Quite an adventure, eh?” He mussed their hair as his customary greeting. “I haven’t had this much fun since I was chased by a pack of ’roos on walkabout.”
    As usual, Becker’s presence had an immediate effect on the children. Tension leaked from their shoulders. Max lifted his head from Josh’s lap. His tail carved a tentative wag that clipped Sarafina in the chin. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve while Josh asked, “Do you mean kangaroos?”
    “Right as rain, Josh. Those buggers are faster than spit and their drumsticks pack a mean wallop.” 
    Sarafina smiled at the comment, her right hand twisting an endless curl in her dark hair.
    Jake appreciated the calming influence Becker had on the kids, especially Sarafina. He’d marveled at her ability to bounce back after the terror she’d lived through, first at Battista’s institute near her home in Italy, and later as his hostage in Afghanistan. Since her arrival in America, she’d adapted quickly to her new lifestyle, from the clothes she wore to the ease with which she had perfected her command of English. She embraced her new life—in spite of her spectrum disorder—as if by doing so she affirmed that she was in control of her life, a life that after three years as an orphan now included a mother in Francesca and a father in Jake. But in the face of what lay before them, Jake feared that her thin veil of armor might not survive the onslaught.

 
     
     
    Chapter 15
     
     
    Zamperini Field
    Torrance, California
     
    Z amperini Field was built by the US Army Air Corps in 1942. The airport had been an emergency landing strip for military aircraft on training flights. It had since become one of the busiest municipal airports in the state. It was home to more than five hundred based aircraft, one of which Jake had housed in a double-wide private hangar at the southeast corner of the field. He’d purchased and outfitted the 1981 ten-passenger Sabreliner 65 with the remaining money from his impromptu visit to the Grand Casino