by Rob Jones
“Then we’re on foot,” he said. “Here, take this.”
He gave her his Glock. “And I’ve got the Steyr. Between us, we have to stop them getting back outside the Colosseum. If that happens they either get the statue away or it goes into custody when the cops arrest them.”
“Then let’s get on with it.”
“I think that decision just got made for us, Jodie!”
“Huh?”
“Incoming!”
Jodie followed Hunter’s pointing hand and registered with nauseating horror the sight of Neverov’s pillion rider firing an RPG from a shoulder launcher. He was aiming it directly at them and with a bright flash and a puff of smoke, the lethal projectile was in the air.
“Out!” Hunter said. “Out, out out!”
Jodie was already on her way, hitting the ground at the same time as Hunter. Each of them rolled away in opposite directions into narrow brickwork corridors as the rocket-propelled incendiary grenade ripped into the Biro’s hood.
A deep thump sounded and for a few seconds their world lit up like a summer’s day as a fireball exploded inside the tiny electric car. Then the shockwave hit them and blackened tubular steel, burning plastic and fuel sprayed everywhere. Thick smoke spewed out of the car’s bent, twisted carcass as Hunter twisted his head around to scan for Jodie. She was lying motionless in the corridor on the other side of the burning wreckage.
“Are you okay?”
No reply.
Overhead, the roar of the Ducatis stirred him further from his dazed condition. He got to his feet, snatched up the Steyr and staggered around the wreck over to Jodie. She was unconscious but slowly coming around. Shouldering the Steyr, he pulled her gently away from the chaos.
“Jodie, are you okay?”
“I think so… I feel dizzy.”
“It’s a concussion. I want you to stay here, sitting up against this wall. Stay in the dark and keep out of sight until you feel better. Have you got your phone?”
She nodded. “Sure.”
“Call Amy and tell her what’s happened. Tell her we’re going to need a vehicle to get out of the city in a hurry and the cops are on our tail. Tell her we’ll come to her when it’s safe just like the original plan.”
“Got it.”
“And keep the gun in your hand and use it if you have to. You do know how to use it, right?”
Through one of the giant open arches to her right, the blue flashing lights of the police cars outside strobed on her soot-smeared, grazed cheek. “Are you kidding?”
“Good.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m getting that damned lion back before those bastards get away.” He scrambled to his feet, boots scuffing on the floor.
She coughed and blew out a long, stressed breath. “Look after yourself, Hunter.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“And Hunter?”
“What?”
“I’m glad you came with me and not Quinn, like I said before.”
Hunter smiled. “Easy, girl. Next thing you know, you’ll be calling me Max.”
“Don’t count on it.”
She never saw his smile. He had turned and was running out of the covered walkway into the main open-air part of the Colosseum. He could hear the Ducatis, but not see them. He searched again and saw one of them racing along the third tier on the far side of the amphitheatre. It was hard to track against the wall behind it, but when it drove in front of one of the arches he saw there was only one rider.
Gubenko.
So where was Neverov and the statue?
He searched again, but the engines of both bikes were echoing so much in the dark amphitheatre that isolating either one was hard work. Then he saw it, on his three o’clock as it raced west on the southern wall. This time there were two riders, and that meant Neverov and the statue.
And a pillion rider with a Steyr.
He could hear the police more clearly now. They were shouting in Italian and one of them was talking through a megaphone. Somewhere overhead, he heard the sound of helicopter rotors and for the first time since New York he thought the mission might be about to come to a rapid and inglorious end.
With the Steyr over his shoulder, he vaulted over a wrought iron fence and headed up a flight of stone steps to the second tier. Gubenko was where he had first seen Neverov, and the old Russian Colonel and his heavily armed pillion rider were rounding a bend on the third tier and turning into the shadows of an obscured stairwell. The pillion rider was holding his Steyr with one hand and talking into a palm mic on the other.
Hunter knew there were more men in the full Wolf Pack than had come out on tonight’s raid, and now it looked like they were calling them in for back-up.
Time to get John the Apostle’s old statue was running out fast, so he turned to his left and sprinted to the bottom of the stairwell he had seen Neverov steer toward. He whipped the Steyr off his shoulder and stepped back into the shadows. The Ducati’s 1.2 liter engine revved as Neverov squeezed the clutch lever and dropped down into a lower gear for better torque. Then he drove down the ancient stone steps.
Hunter was ready, lifting his gun to tire height. He could easily kill them both as they drove past, but gunning down men in a tunnel without warning wasn’t his style. The bike’s headlight spilled down on the stone at his feet and the engine reverberated loudly as they drew nearer. He heard the sound of the machine bouncing up and down on its suspension as the tires banged on the steps and then they flashed into view.
He fired a short burst but the bike was travelling faster than he thought. His rounds missed the first tire and tore the rear one to pieces. The back end of the bike smashed down on the aluminum alloy wheel rim and sprayed orange sparks out into the stairwell. A startled Neverov struggled to control his Ducati as it swerved all over the walkway. At the base of the stairs, the pillion rider tumbled off and rolled to a stop against a wall.
Hunter fired again and took out the front tire. Centrifugal force spun shredded rubber all over the passageway and then the bike went over on its side. Neverov leapt to safety with seconds to spare and the Ducati skidded along the ground before finally bursting outside onto the open walkway. There, it tipped over the edge of the second tier and smashed into the ground with a deep metallic thud and wild roar of revs.
Neverov scrambled to his feet and called out to the other man. “Lugovoy, get the bag!”
Hunter hadn’t noticed, but when Neverov had fallen off the bike, the strap of the bag containing the lion statue had snapped and sent the bag rolling toward the edge of the walkway near where the bike had gone over.
Lugovoy responded fast, racing over to the bag as Neverov covered him. Hunter had to act fast. The matte black housing of Neverov’s Steyr glinted dully in the low moonlight like a warning, but Hunter was armed with the same weapon. He turned it on Lugovoy and fired a burst of rounds at his boots. The Russian scrambled back into the shadows and Neverov ducked behind one of the arches.
Hunter had seconds. Only yards from the bag, he made a dash for it knowing Neverov would fire at him. Skidding to a halt inches from its broken strap, he reached down and snatched it up just as Neverov opened fire on him. Bullets ripped and spit and chewed into the stone flooring all around him as he grabbed the bag and turned to run, but then Neverov stopped firing.
And Hunter saw something that froze the blood in his veins.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Down in the center of the moonlit Colosseum, Gubenko was on foot and dragging Jodie out of the dead man’s exit gate and into the main arena. He was holding a pistol to her head and pulling her roughly around the northern section of the amphitheatre toward the Emperor’s box. Still clutching the bag to his chest, Hunter knew it was over.
“Drop the gun!” Neverov shouted. “Now!”
Hunter obeyed and Neverov stepped forward. “The bag, Dr Hunter. Give it to me now or the woman dies.”
Hunter stared across the amphitheatre at the car
thief from California. Standing alongside the Russian, she looked smaller than usual. He knew what he had to do and that meant taking at least one look at the lion statue. Peering down inside the bag, his eyes crawled over the soft sheen of the ancient statue’s glazed surface and instantly he was struck by something – something that made his stomach turn with fear.
“Now, Dr Hunter!”
Slowly, Hunter lifted the bag out toward the former KGB colonel.
Neverov walked closer to him, but then everything changed. Both men heard a pained grunt echo across the amphitheatre and turned to see Jodie moving like lightning, powering a tiger punch into Gubenko’s throat and knocking him off his feet. She snatched his pistol up off the ground and fired it in the air.
He scrambled to his feet and for a moment froze like a frightened rabbit. Eyes wide with fear as he took in the look of hate on the woman’s face – the woman training a loaded gun on him. Would she kill him?
The distant whomp whomp whomp of helicopter rotors grew louder and deeper and now they all looked up and watched a black Sikorsky appear over the top of the Colosseum’s highest northern wall and descend down inside the arena.
Hunter saw with horror a chin-mounted machine gun fitted to the chopper’s nose and knew what came next. Calling out across the giant amphitheatre he told Jodie to get the hell out of Dodge, and with the bag still clutched to his chest he threw himself into a roll and grabbed the Steyr Neverov had ordered him to drop.
The Russian moved fast, opening fire and ripping rounds into the ground all around him but it was too late. Hunter was out of sight and sprinting into the labyrinth of darkened stone passageways inside the Colosseum. He ran past Neverov’s trashed bike and down the next flight of steps to the bottom tier where Jodie was already waiting for him.
“You got it?” she asked.
He patted the bag. “You bet. Where’s Gubenko?”
“Inside the chopper. It’s picking Neverov and Lugovoy up now.”
“Medinsky must be at the controls,” Hunter said, recalling the briefing notes back in Washington DC. “We need to get out of here and in a hurry. Any ideas?”
She nodded, her young face streaked with moonlight spilling down through one of the arches beside her. “Sure. Before Gubenko took me hostage he dumped his bike back near the Biro. I saw it when he dragged me out in the arena.”
“Question asked, question answered,” he said, grinning. “Shall we?”
“I thought you’d never ask. I wanted to take one of those babies for a spin since the second I saw them back outside the Palazzo Gallo!”
They sprinted back toward the main entrance until they reached the Ducati. Jodie climbed on first and fired it up while Hunter rode pillion, Steyr and lion statue in his grasp. “Go!”
She twisted the throttle and the Ducati Diavel surged forward like a panther roaring in the Roman night. Reverberations from its titanium Akrapovic exhaust rattled and shook the ancient walls as she ripped back out into the Piazza del Colosseo, blew past dozens of astonished policemen and headed west. Turning on the Via Celio Vibenna, she roared past Palatine Hill and whooped with delight as the bike passed one hundred miles per hour.
Hunter felt less jubilant. With one life-saving hand wrapped around her waist and the Steyr over his shoulder, he held onto the bag with his other hand and mumbled a silent prayer. Her hair was whipping up behind her like a wild mare’s, flicking in his face and blocking his view. He turned to get it out of his eyes when he saw the Sikorsky rising above the Colosseum’s southern outer wall like a monster scanning for prey.
He leaned forward and shouted in her ear. “We’re in trouble, Jodie.”
“The chopper?”
“Uh-huh. Please tell me you spoke to Amy and got us a way out of here.”
“Sure, I did! You think I’m an idiot?”
“Not when you’re taking a ninety-degree bend at seventy miles an hour. Absolutely not.”
She dropped a gear and revved, speeding back up along the Via dei Cerchi. To their left they were skirting the Circus Maximus where a quarter of a million Romans would watch chariot races. Tonight, its ruins were empty and silent and no more than a shortcut for Jodie who swerved into it and ploughed the Ducati down the grass slope leading to the main site.
“Are you crazy?” he said.
“I thought we had established that I was not to be criticised while driving at high speeds?”
“How silly of me to forget!” he called back. “And by the way, at least a dozen police cars are now behind the chopper.”
“Fear not, Hunter.”
Reaching the other side of the open field, she revved the Ducati and piled it up to the top of the slope on the far side. When they reached the crest, the Ducati jumped through the air and crashed back down with a crunching smack on a broad three-laned road lined with umbrella pines and poplars. Skidding to the right, she speeded up again and raced along the road.
“We’re almost there, Hunter.”
“Where?”
“Our way out of this nightmare. Hang on!”
Hunter thought the advice was good. Turning, he glimpsed some movement in the sky above the chopper. At first it looked just like a star, but then it started to grow larger and brighter and move toward them. What the hell was that? He had other concerns, namely the mad, armed Russians racing up behind them in the Sikorsky. Someone inside, probably Gubenko given his past experience of the Wolf Pack, was preparing to fire the machine gun.
“By the way,” he said sarcastically. “Did I mention there’s a gun on it? A chin-mounted machine gun?”
Jodie flicked her head around and looked over her shoulder. She couldn’t believe her eyes. A dark, sick feeling seemed to fill her up from the bottom of her stomach. “No way, they wouldn’t open fire with a weapon like that in the middle of Rome. It’s just too risky. It would cause too much damage, kill dozens or even hundreds of innocent people.”
Hunter stared up at the helicopter. “I’m not sure the people who want this statue are too concerned with collateral damage, Jodie. Incoming!”
Jodie took evasive action, swerving the bike to the left and right and letting the heavy duty rounds snake up the road beside them, obliterating the asphalt and flinging chunks of crumbled tarmac up into the air. As they peeled off onto another road and weaved in and out of traffic, Hunter again looked back up at the star.
“I think we just moved up into a whole new level of trouble.”
Jodie turned to him. “What are you talking about?”
He frowned, pulling the bag tighter to his chest and clutching hold of it like a life preserver. “It’s a second chopper. Police, probably.”
“We need to get under some cover or we’re dead.”
She steered hard to the left and skidded off the road. She was aiming for the cover of some trees she had seen in a park and her aim was good. Ripping across the Rome Rose Garden she flew along a narrow side street lined with pencil pines and parked cars before extending her right foot and turning in a tight arc to their right.
“Gate!”
“What?”
“Gate!”
Hunter looked ahead and saw a metal gate embedded in a high red brick wall. It was bearing down on them with unsettling speed but he knew what to do.
“Slow down!” he said.
“Are you nuts?”
“Again, I might be an amazing man, but not even I can hold on to you, hold this bag and fire a compact machine pistol at a locked gate at the same time.”
She said nothing, but dropped some revs and slowed down while he raised the Steyr into the aim and fired at the lock. The rounds ripped into the lock’s metal housing and blew it to pieces in an explosion of ricochets and sparks and blasted it clean off the gate. Seeing the way was clear, she speeded up the Ducati and smashed through the unlocked gate at high speed, smacking both of the metal doors back against the inside wall with a sharp, scraping clang.
Safely inside the Giardino degli Aranci, she weaved t
he bike along a series of neatly manicured footpaths as the Sikorsky and police chopper closed in on them. The famous Orange Garden was an impressive affair hidden from the city behind high brick walls and for a few seconds it offered them sanctuary.
“But what do we do when he get out of here?” Hunter asked.
“Then the cavalry’s waiting for us. Have some faith, man.”
She drove along the crunchy gravelled path and left the cover of the orange trees behind them. Turning down another narrow pathway ending in a hairpin bend, she slowly made her way back down the slope toward ground level and a main road running just above the Tiber.
“We’re too exposed!” Hunter yelled.
“Not for long.”
Without warning, she swerved the bike to a stop and killed the engine.
“What are you doing?” Hunter asked in horror as the Sikorsky opened fire on them again.
Jodie leapt off the bike and let it fall to the sidewalk. Hopping over a low stone wall, she turned to him and winked. “C’mon, Hunter!”
He shook his head, and with the bag and Steyr still in his arms, he climbed over the wall and saw her running down a narrow flight of graffitied stone steps leading down to the west bank of Rome’s famous river. When he reached the bottom, she was climbing on board a modest river cruiser. Lewis was welcoming her aboard and Blanco was revving the engines.
“Ahoy there, sailor!” Amy said.
Hunter had never been so grateful to see anyone in all his life, and quickly raced across the weedy bank and climbed on board. “We’re in deep shit, Amy,” he said. “Chopper with a chin-mounted machine gun full of angry Russians right behind us and cops all over the place, including airborne.”
“But we have the lion statue,” Jodie said.
Amy turned to Blanco. “Get us out of here, Sal!”
Lewis loosed the mooring line and Blanco rammed the throttles forward. The cruiser surged out into the center of the wide river and headed south as fast as its engine could power them. Hunter reloaded the Steyr and Lewis and Amy loaded up two pistols. Behind them, the Sikorsky wheeled in the sky and made a tight arc before swooping down over the Ponte Palatino and turning the gun in their direction once again.