by Nick Thacker
He tried to put it together, but he knew there weren’t enough pieces yet. Garza wanted the Book of Bones for his client, who wanted it… for what? And who was the client?
He was skeptical that it was the Catholic Church, but it wasn’t impossible. More likely, he thought, it was a branch within the Church, a smaller organization operating as rogues to attain more power.
But how would the Book of Bones bring them that power? What was in it for them?
He shook his head. Think about that later. For now: get out.
The stairs leading to the heavy door was the only way out of the room. He was sure of that, but he’d scoured every inch of the stone room, anyway. He could climb the stairs, but it was likely locked.
About an hour ago, a man had entered and dropped a bucket of water onto the top stair. Half of it had spilled out, but Reggie was never one to be picky. He’d slurped from the bucket the cool, refreshing water and continued his examination of the room.
A bucket, one-quarter full of water. A casket made of wood, nailed together with long, thin deck nails. It sat on a metal table, something he might find in a chemistry lab or veterinarian’s hospital. A work light, 16,000 lumens split between the two square-shaped bulb housings. It plugged into a cable that ran through a tiny hole that had been drilled through the wall.
That was it. He had no tools, no gear, no phone. The clothes he was wearing were the same ones he’d put on their last day in the forest: a flannel long-sleeved shirt, wool ‘jeans,’ and two pairs of merino wool socks beneath his army boots.
He wasn’t even wearing a watch.
Think, Reggie.
He wondered why Garza had left him alone in this room, without being bound or handcuffed. Completely free to move around. There weren’t even any cameras inside, so he wasn’t being watched.
Then it hit him. He knows I can’t escape.
And if he could escape, where would he go? Garza would have the place crawling with enough grunts — or giants — to prevent him from getting far.
And, even then, Garza would have brought him somewhere so far off the beaten path — the ‘middle of nowhere,’ he’d said — that if he could somehow get out of this place alive, with Sarah, that they’d still be in the middle of nowhere. He might not have considered Reggie’s survival skill set, but with an extra person in tow, it was a long shot that they’d survive.
So he was ‘free’ in the sense that Garza wasn’t keeping a close eye on him. That didn’t give him much leverage, but what little leverage it did provide, he intended to take.
A plan began to form in his mind, and Gareth Red got to work.
42
Julie
The men were still, lying on the top of the water. She could see two of them, but both looked unconscious. She swam toward one of them, hoping they had a knife or sidearm attached to their belts.
She found the third man as she swam. He had been wrapped in the rope somehow and held underwater, and her foot kicked him as she passed. He struggled against the line for a moment, reaching out for Julie, but she moved to the side and swam on.
The two other men were unconscious, one face-up on the water’s surface and one face-down. She reached the closest one to her, the face-up man. There was nothing inside his pockets.
She started to swim toward the second man but the water around her exploded into a fury. She heard the gunshots, ducking instinctively, then pulled herself underwater. She slid over, just beneath the face-down man, and pulled him toward herself, using him as a human shield.
She opened her eyes again and saw through the surface of the water, at the man shooting.
The driver.
The boat had been driven by the fourth man, and he was now standing on the edge of his boat, aiming down at Julie with his own assault rifle.
Shit.
She would not be able to hide forever. The man didn’t seem to care about his downed teammates, nor did he seem to be in any hurry to retrieve them. He aimed, pulled off a few shots, then Julie saw something amazing.
The man launched forward, dropping the rifle, and sailed through the air. He landed with a splash about five feet away from her, just as she was coming up for a breath of air. In the man’s place on the edge of the boat stood Ben, recovering from the perfect tackle he’d administered to the driver. He caught his balance and peered through the water, trying to find Julie.
When she came up to wave and shout his name, the driver resurfaced, splashing around as he came for her.
She began to backpedal, throwing water to the sides as she tried to get away.
Then she heard the crack of the assault rifle. She winced, closing her eyes for a moment, but when she opened them, the man lay on the water, still.
“Jules!”
Ben’s voice.
“Julie, are you okay?”
She nodded, then found her own voice. “Y — yeah, I’m good.”
She met his eyes, saw their relief, and swam over, where he fished her out of the Mediterranean harbor and into the boat. She lay on the deck of the watercraft, panting. Ben stood over her, grasping her hand in his bear-like grip while holding his new assault rifle at his side.
“That was… different.”
She laughed. “Not exactly what I expected to happen on our way to Rome.”
“But it worked,” he said. “It worked perfectly. Good call.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she answered. “But let’s maybe… never do that again?”
“Agreed. I think I’ll play my CSO leader card and ask Mr. E to supply us with a better outfit of firearms.”
He paused.
“And I’m never flying anything but first class ever again.”
She laughed again. “Technically, we were in first class in that Cessna. We just —”
“First class in a private jet. With a lot of whiskey. And a lot of guns. Waterproof guns.”
“Fair,” Julie said. She tossed her hair back — she kept it relatively short these days, nothing but a simple tuck behind her ear would be enough to keep it in line — and walked over to the wheel. “Best of all, we’ve got a new ride. Twin-engine, too. Looks like it’s fueled up and has an extra couple of full tanks. That should be more than enough to get us to Rome and back.”
“Hope so,” Ben said. “And this one’s way faster. You driving the first leg?”
“Sure. Why don’t you look around for a map or a radio? There should be at least something. Oh, and let me know what those engines’ horsepower is.”
Ben gave her a funny look.
“What?” she asked, pushing the throttle down and nudging the boat forward. “My dad and his brother had a fishing boat growing up. He made us all learn how to drive. And a good estimate for gallons burned per mile is one-tenth of the horsepower.”
“Good to know,” Ben said. “Looks like Yamaha 350-HP something or other. That enough?”
She nodded. “That’s perfect. Assuming we’ve got a full tank, we can expect to run those at about 35 gallons per hour, and for a fishing boat like this, I’d guess the tank holds somewhere between 250-300 gallons. The extra tank mounted on the back will add another 100 to that.”
“So…” Ben said. “Is that enough?”
“Easily. We’ve got to burn 133 miles, assuming we can keep it pointed toward the right city. And that average is running the throttle flat-out, so we can go a bit slower to conserve fuel, though we don’t need to. Might just be helpful to follow the ferry and stay in their lane to make sure we get to the right place.”
She goosed the engine to test the speed, and she was impressed to see the speedometer reach 60 MPH. At that speed, they’d be docking in Italy in just over three hours.
“We’ll make better time than we would have by taking the ferry,” Ben said, verbalizing her thoughts. “Let’s shoot for dead east and just see where we land. We’ll be able to aim toward a city once we see land.”
She nodded, pushed the throttle fully open, and stood up behind the wheel. For a fle
eting moment, as she felt the wind pushing her hair up and around her eyes, she felt like a kid again, gunning her dad’s boat out on the lake.
She tried to hold on to that feeling, but it disappeared almost as soon as she acknowledged it.
43
Ben
After reaching the port city of Santa Miranella, Italy, they promptly rented a small car and a paper map of Italy, as well as a small ‘burner’ phone, from which they called Mrs. E.
They had to leave the assault rifle behind a dumpster in an alley while they rented the car, but once they had the papers in hand, Julie drove by and Ben grabbed it. It felt odd to have a weapon like that in their compact sedan, but Ben knew he’d rather keep it with them than risk being caught empty-handed once again. They planned to leave the rifle in the car's trunk until they’d checked into their hotel.
Rome was a short trip down a highway, and they were within the city limits in about half an hour. Julie had driven the boat for about half their trip over the water, and now she was behind the wheel of the car.
Ben had never been here — Italy, Rome, or the Vatican — and he was blown away by the architecture. A city that had existed, adapted, and reinvented itself many times over the course of two-thousand years, Rome was a sight to behold to Ben, a man interested in history but never able to spend considerable time in other countries.
This trip was no different, and he found himself frustrated that their mission here was to get in, find a Catholic relic, and get out again. There would be no time for exploration, historical study, research, or any relaxation.
There would be no time for food, either. Julie had pulled into a major fast-food chain’s drive-through window to grab a pile of whatever was already ready. Ben had inhaled the sandwich and wrap and washed it down with a bit of water, but the smells of the bread vendors and cafes they passed on their way through the city made him wish they had more time.
One of his life’s dreams was to take a ‘food tour’ of the world — hitting the best restaurants in the best foodie cities on the planet. He’d always been interested in eating food, but only recently — after meeting his best friend, Reggie — had he been more interested in the more nuanced aspects of food, like how it was made, why it was served where it was, and the stories behind the meals.
Julie wasn’t as avid a fan as food as Ben was, but he knew she was infatuated with the city for her own reasons. She’d grown up a Catholic, her father and mother devout all her young life until high school. When she’d left for college, her schooling had taken precedence over her religious life, but she’d held onto her beliefs and brought them along into her relationship with Ben.
They didn’t attend church, and Julie didn’t practice any overt Catholic traditions, but he knew she cared deeply for the traditions and histories of the Church.
It was surreal to be in a city that had existed for ten times as long as his entire country had been around. It was mind boggling, to be weaving through buildings and streets and alleys and places of business that could be fifteen years old or fifteen-hundred. They passed modern boutiques, small mom-and-pop bakeries, and ancient-looking churches and cathedrals, and alongside any of the historic sites there were plenty of modern-looking conveniences, from gas stations to malls to cellular phone stores.
Vatican City, the ‘city within a city,’ peered in on Ben though the rental car’s windows. The smallest country in the world, the 109-acre region operates as a city-state, yet is completely surrounded by a two-mile-long wall separating itself from the rest of Rome, Italy. Ben watched the buildings pass by on the Via de Porta Cavalleggeri, then on the Via della Stazione Vaticana, until Julie pointed at their destination.
The hotel was small, smashed between two larger buildings that loomed over it on both sides, but it had a quaint, welcoming feel. The hotelier apparently owned a few of these small buildings throughout the city and used them as short-term rentals and bed-and-breakfasts, which had been on the rise everywhere. Ben wasn’t surprised to find the same deal in Rome, but he was surprised to discover that they allowed them into their room with little fuss, considering he and Julie were traveling from another country and had only Ben’s ID between the two of them — no bags or extra clothes, no cameras or phones, and no other identification. Further, the desk clerk didn’t give them any grief about being illegal tourists in the country. He didn’t ask for passports or travel papers of any sort — money, apparently, was the only currency they needed.
Once they were checked in, Ben and Julie descended the staircase to the lobby where they found a door leading into the dregs of the building. They waited for a moment, scoping out the foot traffic. Aside from a bellhop-turned-desk-clerk, they saw only a single other employee and no guests. The employee appeared to be a cook, as he was a disheveled-looking kid with a wild crop of dark hair that fell out and around his ears and nearly onto his food-stained shirt. He barely shot them a glance as he speed-walked through the lobby and into a deeper area from which Ben could smell faint strains of some kind of pasta.
“Seems deserted,” Ben said.
“Just a small hotel,” Julie answered. “But that’s good news.”
“Yeah, but let’s hope this entrance to the secret Vatican tunnel is easy to find. You think the employees know about it?”
“I doubt it,” Julie said. “Archie said the tunnels predate most of the modern buildings here in Rome, and when the Vatican architects consulted on their construction, they hid the doors inside closets, cellars, and beneath staircases. None of the doors would be obvious to anyone not looking for them.”
“And this one’s supposed to lead to an underground tunnel, not an above-ground one. So that means we need to get access to the cellar.”
“I’d guess a place like this has at least a small wine cellar. Start there?”
They found the cellar’s door within a few minutes of poking around behind closed — but unlocked — doors. It was a short door, and it led to a half staircase that descended beneath the foundation of the building. Ben had to duck to enter it, but found he could almost extend to full height once he was in the cramped cellar space.
Inside the cellar, Julie found a single bulb with a pull string, but the bulb illuminated the entire room. Three walls around them were covered in racks of wine bottles, all laying on their sides and at a slight angle. There were small handwritten labels on the wooden racks beneath a few sections, but the majority of the wines were identifiable only by their own labels, and Ben couldn’t see any particular order to the collection. Whites were stored with reds, ciders and ales all mixed in.
“Any ideas?” he asked.
“Maybe we take a short break? Share a bottle between us before we go?”
Ben laughed. “I’d love to, actually. We could both use a break.”
“Yeah. But I think if anyone deserves a break, it’s Reggie and Sarah.”
“Okay, fair. So, should we canvass the area? You take the left wall, I’ll take the right? Meet in the middle on the far side?”
She nodded and got to work, and Ben followed her lead. After ten minutes of searching through the entire cellar, including the short wall at the opposite end of the room, Ben shrugged. “There’s nothing here.”
“Well…” Julie said, poking at something. “Hang on.”
Ben tried to see what it was she had found and stretched his head up and over her shoulder.
At that moment, before he could make out what it was she was looking at, Ben heard a crash and a loud yell from somewhere upstairs.
44
Reggie
The soldier came back in later that day, apparently to provide Reggie with some food. MREs, by the look of it, but Reggie didn’t get a good look. He had one eye open, barely, squeezing the other shut tightly. He watched the soldier through a single slitted eyelid.
Reggie had gone back to his casket, gotten inside, and pretended to be asleep. He’d brought the bucket, now empty, with him and set it about five feet from the table, hoping the s
oldier would retrieve it rather than replace it with a new one. He wanted the soldier to feel safe enough to grab it without moving too close to Reggie.
Unfortunately, the soldier simply dropped the food onto the top stair as he’d done with the water.
But five minutes later the soldier returned, this time with a buddy. Another armed guard entered the room behind the first, holding an SMG that was pointed at Reggie’s ‘sleeping’ body. The first guard descended the stairs, heading for the empty bucket.
I knew it, Reggie thought. They only have one bucket.
Best of all, neither man seemed to notice that the light in the room had dimmed.
When the soldier was closest to Reggie, he made his move.
The man turned as he knelt to grab the bucket’s handle, facing away from Reggie for a brief instant. Reggie kicked the thin boards that made up the bottom side of his casket, easily breaking away the wood. He lunged up and out of the box, directly at the man, who fumbled with the bucket in one hand while trying to retrieve his weapon in his other.
Reggie kicked him in the groin, then swiftly jumped backward. He pushed the table up and onto its side, sending the casket crashing down and onto the floor.
But he now had some protection, and it was just in time.
A round of bullets pinged against the top of the table, behind which Reggie crouched. They dented the metal but didn’t pierce — there was no way the tiny submachine gun would puncture from that distance — and Reggie waited.
The first man would have easily recovered by now, and would be waiting for his teammate to end his volley to attack.
That attack came, and it came fast. Reggie saw the bucket first, thrown up and over the side of the table, and he instinctively held an arm up to protect his head as the bucket fell.