and with a glance at the crumpled tarp that he knew covered a dead security guard, pulled on a black helmet, and started the motor with a roar. After looking around one final time, he slammed the bike into gear and twisted the throttle, tearing up the sidewalk before hurtling off the curb and onto the street.
The wail of sirens in the background was drowned out by the sound of the engine as he raced through the gears, bouncing down the cobblestone streets as he wound his way along the twisting route to the highway that would take him out of town. He was just breathing a sigh of relief when a police car swung out of an alley immediately behind him with its lights flashing and siren screaming, and a male voice blared over the public address system in Czech.
“Stop where you are. Pull to the side. Motorcycle. Pull over now. That is an order.”
Rauschenbach considered his options, and then revved the engine into the redline and made an unexpected hard left, flying up a narrow byway barely wide enough for two people. The police car skidded to a stop and reversed, blocking the entrance, and he glanced at his mirror for a split second before pouring on the gas. One of the cops had his pistol out. Werner didn’t want to test the police’s marksmanship skills – it was those sorts of stupid, unexpected surprises that could get one killed.
The little alley veered left and he ducked down as he urged the motorcycle on, the walls streaking by him in a blur, and then he was out of the passageway and bouncing on a manicured lawn, trying frantically to maintain control of the handlebars as the wheels slid on the slick grass. Another police car came around the corner of a nearby building on two wheels, and he fought to steer the motorcycle to the far street on the other side of the park. A third police car blew down the road he was racing towards, and he gripped the brakes, swinging the bike around. His eyes scanned the perimeter of the park in front of him, and then he made his decision and gunned the engine. The bike leapt forward and he pounded up a set of stone stairs, a squabble of sparrows scattering skyward at his approach.
Rauschenbach darted across the road just as another police car veered onto it, and he swerved to miss the vehicle as he made for the labyrinthine streets only a few hundred yards away. The motor howled as he twisted the throttle, and he disappeared around another ancient building just as one of the officers opened fire at him. Chunks of stone flew off the centuries-old façade, and then he was gone, the sound of his revving engine the only trace of his passage.
Four minutes later he got off the motorcycle in an empty church parking lot and walked to a parked light blue Renault coupe. He stripped off the worker’s coveralls he was wearing, balled them up, and threw them into the nearby bushes. His blue pinstripe suit and conservatively striped tie were slightly rumpled but serviceable, and as he eased behind the wheel of the little car he caught a glimpse of his gray eyes in the mirror, the small scar above the right eyebrow an almost imperceptible reminder of a past close call from his days in the military. His salt-and-pepper hair framed a ruggedly handsome face, square jaw, high cheekbones, a slight tan – the picture of a respectable businessman.
He turned the key and put the car into gear, exhaling with relief. The job was done, and he would be in Dresden within an hour and a half, even allowing for some holdup at the border. He was carrying one of his many identities, this time a Dutch passport, and had a rock-solid alibi for his time in the Czech Republic if anyone questioned him. A seller of pharmaceuticals, he’d filled his trunk with samples and literature, and even the most aggressive border agent would come up dry after a few minutes of searching.
He hadn’t stayed free, a frustrating rumor for the authorities, by accident. Nobody had any current photos of him, and any old ones would have done no good – extensive plastic surgery had altered his features to the point where his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him. He was a cypher, a ghost, who slipped across borders with ease, and carried out the most