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Another quick tug on her arm and Claudia turned back around and moved faster. They were out of the colo
“There’s a second one! Run!” he said to Claudia, and the two of them took off down the quay.
They ran past the Rathaus, the Zum Weissen Kreuz, the Pickwick, the Hotel des Alpes, and at St.-Peters-Kirche, steered a hard right and ran up the creaky stairs of the covered wooden bridge known as the Kapellbrücke. Scot looked over his right shoulder as they ran across the bridge and saw Blue Coat coming down the quay. The man in the long coat was nowhere to be seen, but Scot knew he couldn’t be too far behind.
The man in the blue coat looked around and quickly drew the pistol from his parka. The suppresser looked as if it was a foot long.
Reflexively, Scot pushed his hand down hard on Claudia’s head while yelling, “Gun! Get down! Get down!”
Claudia dropped to her stomach on the damp wood. Because the side of the bridge was about three feet high, they were now completely hidden from view, but they were far from safe. Scot yelled, “Keep your head down and move!” just as splinters of wood began flying, only inches behind them. The man in the blue coat had seen where they’d ducked and was firing blindly into the sides of the bridge, hoping to get lucky. Had the man been using a machine gun, he could have cut a much wider swath. Harvath had caught one break; he didn’t expect to catch another.
It was only a matter of moments before the man in the blue coat would be on the bridge, closing in on them from behind. Scot urged Claudia on, and the two ran as fast as they could, crouched beneath the shield of the bridge’s outer wooden wall.
Halfway across the river, the bridge edged to the left. They had put enough distance between them and the man behind. What they needed now was speed to increase the gap. Scot stood up, and Claudia did the same. They were both breathing heavily, yet they pressed on, their feet thumping along the wooden planks as they raced for the other bank.
When they drew alongside a small series of gift shops and the bridge’s tower, Scot’s heart seized. Coming around a bend from the other direction, the direction of their hoped escape, was Long Coat. Harvath saw him pull out a piece of weaponry he knew very well, an H amp;K MP5.
“Shooter at eleven o’clock! Down! Down!” yelled Scot. Both he and Claudia literally hit the deck. Startled shopkeepers had no idea what was happening until they saw the pair draw their weapons. Scot’s was first out, and he let loose with a booming volley of three rounds.
Long Coat disappeared somewhere where Scot couldn’t see him.
“Check our six!” he now yelled to Claudia.
“Six?”
“Behind us! Six o’clock. Check for the man with the pistol!”
Claudia spun just in time to see the man in the blue coat coming around the turn in the bridge. She fired four shots from her nine-millimeter SIG-Sauer P220, which sent the man ru
“Are you okay?” Scot asked.
“Yes. He took off, but I don’t know for how long.”
“I don’t know either. I think they thought they’d surprise us. I doubt they were expecting such a fight. They’re probably in radio contact, so it won’t take them long to regroup and come back.”
“If they’re going to, they’ll have to do it soon. The police will be here any minute.”
“Yell to the shopkeepers in German and ask if we can get out through the tower.”
Claudia did, and then responded to Scot. “No, the only way out is by either end of the bridge.”
“Can you see the man in the blue coat from where you are?”
“No, I can’t. Do you see the other man?”
“I don’t see him, but they’re close.”
The roof of the Kapellbrücke was a series of posts and rafters covered with wooden shingles. He wasn’t going to win any awards from the Lucerne Historical Society, but he didn’t care.
What I wouldn’t give for a nice sawed-off shotgun right about now, thought Harvath. Rolling onto his back, Scot raised his pistol and aimed at the roof, trying to avoid the overhanging paintings the bridge was famous for. He squeezed off five rounds. Half of his magazine was now empty.
The bullets ripped through the brittle wood shingles, filling the moist air with dust and exposing small bits of sky. The pigeons and white seagulls that had remained on the roof were now flapping their wings as hard as they could to get away.
Scot and Claudia had the slight advantage of being in a crook in the bridge where neither of the shooters could see them very well.
“When I count to three, I want you to hop up on the sidewall there and hoist yourself into the rafters toward where I shot those holes in the roof. It shouldn’t be too hard to peel those shingles away. Start making a bigger opening the minute you get up there. I’ll cover you.”
Claudia squinted up. “Okay, I understand,” she said.
“Do you have an extra clip of ammunition?”
“No, I don’t. Had I known I would be doing so much shooting when I left my house on Saturday, I would have stolen a crate of bullets to go with those missiles in my parents’ barn.”
“Very fu
“Two shots. I’ve got it. Ready when you are.”
Scot rolled back onto his stomach, facing where he had last seen Long Coat coming up the stairs. There was still no sign of him. He took a deep breath and then began, “One…two…three!” He swept his pistol from side to side expecting Long Coat to show his face, but there was nothing. He glanced quickly over his shoulder and saw that Claudia was already hoisting herself up onto the lower rafter.
He knew she could no longer be his eyes for the man in the blue parka, so he rolled sideways against the wall and looked behind him. While the bend in the bridge was an advantage, it was also a disadvantage. Without standing up, he couldn’t tell how close or how far away either of the shooters might be. Above, Claudia was begi
With his back against the wall, Scot ejected the magazine from his Beretta partway and verified how many shots he had left. Slowly, he slid himself over to the place where Claudia had been. He pulled the slide back just a fraction to make sure there was a round chambered and got ready to make his move. Glancing overhead, Scot saw that Claudia had opened the hole wide enough and was now begi
Using the wall to support his weight, he pushed himself upward. His head was almost at the level where it could be seen. In the distance, he heard the braying of European police sirens. Time was ru
He fired in quick succession; two shots toward where he’d last seen Long Coat and in the direction of the man in the blue parka. Tucking the pistol into his waistband, Harvath vaulted onto the edge of the wall and prepared to grab hold of the rafter when muffled spits started coming at him from both directions. Long Coat and Blue Coat were returning fire.
From their positions, they hadn’t been able to see him when he was on the bridge floor, but now that he was standing on the wall, he was completely exposed. A bullet missed his forehead by a whisper and crashed into the rafter he was reaching for. Without thinking, Scot jerked his hand away and, before he could steady himself, lost his balance and began to fall backward.