Read Online The Coil by Gayle Lynds - Free Book Online

uneasily stationary, angling to see what was happening.
    Blase pounded around them, brushing past clumps of people until at last he stopped, panting. It was Viera. She was sprinting out into the open space between the agitators and the embassy, dress flying around her shapely legs. There was a moment of surprise: the police thinking they had stopped the crowd; the crowd transfixed by the daring young woman.
    As Blase took a step forward, unsure, one of the embassy marines bawled at him in English, “Halt! Don’t go any closer!”
    He turned to tell the marine to bugger off. But then he saw the man’s face. It was paling as he stared in the direction of Viera.
    Blase whirled. He saw her lift the bucket she had been carrying, scale off the top, and pour some kind of amber liquid down over both shoulders so that her dress and body were soaked.
    â€œNie!” someone called in horrified Slovak. “It’s petrol!”
    â€œViera!” Blase roared and bolted past the guard and toward her. “What are you doing? Stop! ”
    â€œPetrol!” The words echoed back over the crowd, changing languages, growing in shock, the voices unbelieving.
    â€œGas! Make her stop! ”
    As he ran, Blase’s heart thundered, and his mind tried to grasp the impossible. She looked so small and vulnerable, surrounded as she was by the demonstrators, the police, the marines, the towering embassy. But there was that look on her angelic face, that look that said, This is me. I’m right. This is right.
    â€œStop her!” Blase shouted desperately in Slovak and then in English. “Someone stop her!”
    But there was no time. She moved swiftly, as if she had practiced often. As he and others closed in, she pulled a small blowtorch from the gym bag, pressed a button, and a tongue of fire shot out. She turned it around toward herself.
    â€œViera!” he screamed.
    â€œStop her!” It was the frantic voice of her brother, Johann, shouldering through the crowd. “Don’t let her do it! Help! Stop her! ”
    She exploded in flames. For a moment, it almost seemed like a fairy tale—the lovely princess was preserved forever-more in a glowing vase of fire. But then her skirt evaporated, a wisp of cloth turned to gas. Half-naked, she reached her hands out through the flames to the demonstrators, and her lips parted as if she were going to speak. She even cocked her head, and her face seemed puzzled.
    Gray smoke burst from her open mouth, and her corpse toppled in the direction her head had tilted.
    Blase was paralyzed, trying to comprehend what she had done, his mind so shocked that he did not immediately hear the noise or sense the pandemonium of the crowd’s going wild.
    Her body smoked. Flames licked around it. A breeze arose, carrying the awful odor of burned flesh across the demonstrators and into the sultry night.
    In an instant, it was a riot. Protesters rushed the police and marines. Gunfire exploded as if shot from cannons. Riot hoses sprayed, and people shrieked in fear. One of the parked cars was toppled over, then another. Three cars were set afire, the conflagrations geysering red and yellow up toward the starry black sky.
    It was the World Bank–International Monetary Fund battle in Prague all over again, but for Blase, it was far worse. Caught in the maelstrom, he tried to battle through to Viera’s body.
    As he pushed and shoved, Blase felt a hand slip deftly in and out of his back pocket. He grabbed the pocket and whirled, but no one stood out from the mob. Before he could think more about it, a fist flew past his ear, and a boot stomped the thin dress shoe on his right foot. Pain shot to his head.
    He ducked, punched back, and pushed onward as the vision of Viera’s appalling self-immolation shimmered before his eyes, erasing everything else. He had to get to her. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he had imagined it all.
    A deep ache settled into his chest. He was