The Saboteurs by Clive Cussler (top 10 best books of all time .TXT) 📗

no longer had rights, not even freedom from harm—especially not that. Bell’s shoulders and arms took a savage number of blows as he fought to protect his head. Through it all, he thought nothing of himself and only of Marion and her uncertain fate.

28

The beating finally stopped when one lucky blow glanced off Bell’s temple, tearing skin and opening a patchwork of tiny veins and arteries. Blood welled from the wound, looking far worse than it was. Bell hadn’t lost consciousness, but the gore was enough to satisfy the cops’ lust for violence.

“Alto,” Ortega said.

Bell was certain that once he was back in a cell, he wouldn’t see freedom for weeks. Ortega didn’t care who he was, never even asked how Dreissen knew Bell’s identity. The detective had his own part to play in the sham and now he would fulfill whatever promises he’d made to Dreissen. Once they had Bell caged, it was over. He had to make a move now. Acting like the blow had affected him more than just bloodying his face, he rolled his eyes back into his head and crumpled to the dirty floor.

Ortega said something that could have been an admonishment, that his men had gone too far, Bell wasn’t sure. The detective issued an order and left. Each man taking ahold of a wrist, Bell was dragged out of the interrogation room and down the hall to the stairs. In a move that had been perfected by frequent repetition, they spun Bell so that his boots dangled over the top step and began pushing him down feetfirst. They had to tighten their grip on his wrists to take the weight, but in no time they reached the ground floor, where they spun Bell around a second time and continued to drag him behind them.

The outer door to the cell block was open, so there was no need to pause. They kept going, past several cells, until they reached the one Bell had been tossed into earlier.

The instant the guards released Bell’s wrists, he clenched his abdominal muscles with every ounce of his strength to jerk his torso off the floor, the heels of his hands pumping upward for extra power. The right hand landed squarely at the juncture of one guard’s legs in a crippling blow that sent him staggering back and clutching his agonized groin. The second strike was off target and mostly hit the guard’s thigh and barely made an impression. Bell continued up off the floor, twisting his body and sweeping a leg as he rose to knock the uninjured cop off his feet.

Bell spun once more, building momentum. The closest guard was on his back and already trying to get up. Bell leveraged the weight of his body behind his fist, slamming it into the man’s face with everything he had. The nose exploded and head and body crashed backward onto the cement floor. The man’s eyes fluttered for a moment, then he was out.

The second guard, still clutching his crushed manhood, sensed the danger he was in and tried to draw his baton. Bell was on him like a wraith. He pulled the stick from the cop’s hands and whipped it around his throat, choking off the flow of blood to his brain. The man struggled, but Bell’s fury could not be matched. The cop’s movements slowed, and then the man went limp in Bell’s arms. He let him fall.

Just eleven seconds had elapsed.

Bell removed the Sam Browne belt from the officer closest to his size and tugged the man’s arms out of the sleeves of his blue uniform coat. Bell’s own pants were a close enough match, so he didn’t bother swapping. He ripped a swath from the man’s shirt to clean the blood from his face. Once he had the jacket on, he cinched the belt and pulled the cop’s visored cap over his head at an angle to cover the wound.

He was running on pure instinct now and didn’t know if trying to disguise himself was worth it. He grabbed the ring of keys, stepped out of the cell, and broke its key off in the lock.

Imitating the cop’s leisurely pace and slouch, Bell left the cell block and immediately turned his back on the main room beyond in order to lock the outer door. He’d swept the squad rooms with his eyes as he’d turned and noted everyone’s position. Two uniformed cops were just leaving the building, two others in plain clothes were at their desks, one typing a report, the other taking a statement from an overwrought woman in a black dress. There were three more people, talking, at a round table in a corner near a bunch of filing cabinets.

The doors to the offices along the left-hand wall, through one of which Ortega had vanished earlier, were all closed.

Certain of his route, Bell turned and started ambling through the police station like he didn’t have a care in the world. No one showed even the remotest interest. To maintain as much distance as he could from the others, Isaac walked along the left side of the room and could only hope none of the higher-ranking members of the city’s police force chose that moment to step from his office.

A door did open, and a shapely woman’s backside appeared. The secretary continued backing out of the office, muttering something to the superior inside. She closed the door and straightened. In her hands was Bell’s shoulder holster with the .45 nestled inside. An evidence tag dangled from one strap. She also had his boot knife.

Without thinking, Bell took the items from the stunned woman’s hands and kept walking. “Gracias, señorita.”

“Hey,” she shouted indignantly, and all the attention in the room swung to Bell and the woman.

Bell ran out of the room. He’d pushed his luck too far. He should have just made his way out the door and onto the street. The