by Jon Tracy
Trench Coat ignores her and glances around.
‘ Please don’t hurt me, I’ve done nothing wrong.’
The gun stays pressed into her left hip. ‘Keep your voice down! What kind of car is it and where did you park?’
Valentina stares at the ground as though she’s too frightened to look at him. ‘Fiat. It’s a blue Punto. It’s not far… er… just outside in the piazza, right opposite here.’ She keeps her eyes fixed on the floor. Two sets of male feet stop just off to the right of her.
‘Go get her,’ says Trench Coat. ‘Be quick!’
The feet disappear.
Valentina feels another push in her side.
‘We’re going inside the church to wait for a little while.’ He slides his body across hers so he’s face to face with her. ‘I’d hate you to get all cold and wet.’
She feels his hand move inside her jacket, slide beneath her jumper and grab her by the waist.
His touch revolts her.
She has to fight an impulse to drive her right knee so far into his testicles they’ll come out of his mouth.
Being closer allows him to pull the gun out of his right pocket and hold it flat against Valentina’s abdomen, barrel digging into her diaphragm.
He puts his face close to hers. From a distance they could be mistaken for lovers about to kiss. ‘My little friend here is itching to get inside you,’ he whispers in her ear as he moves the cold tip of the barrel against her warm skin. ‘I don’t blame him. It must be really nice inside you.’
Valentina takes a deep breath.
He mistakes it for fear. ‘Don’t be scared. If you do exactly as I tell you, then in less than twenty minutes all this will just be an awful memory.’
99
It’s not the first time Tom Shaman has looked down the barrel of a gun.
A gangbanger once pulled an Uzi in his church in LA and robbed the entire congregation. The kid was high on crystal meth and ended up getting shot on the church steps by a gang senior who’d come to pick his mother up from the service and found her screaming and terrified.
Tom learned two basic things from all those badasses back in Compton. Firstly, there are frequent shooters, guys who only draw guns when they’re going to fire them. Secondly, there are bluffers, posers who pull a weapon but have never let off a shot in their sorry little lives.
Tom figures the man behind the metal being pointed at him is not a frequent shooter. He’s a bluffer.
But of course, that’s only a guess.
A dangerous guess.
‘Whoa, mister!’ He throws up his hands. ‘I don’t want any trouble. I just needed some help.’ The big American backs away, hands high in the air. ‘Man, no one told me Rome was like this.’ He doesn’t leave the way he came, but heads down the vehicle towards the back.
He knows the guy’s watching in his wing mirror but figures that doesn’t matter. He’d have to be a contortionist to shoot over his left shoulder with the gun in his right hand.
Tom’s about to make his move and he knows he has to be fast.
He is.
He jerks the door open with his left hand, steps forward half a pace and cracks his elbow into the driver’s face. He reaches across him, grabs his gun hand and crashes it repeatedly into the steering wheel.
The screams tell him he’s broken the guy’s wrist.
The man in the back of the car makes his move.
He lurches forward and tries to swing a punch.
Tom grabs the fallen pistol off the driver’s lap and fires a shot into the roof of the car.
Gunfire has a special way of spooking people. Especially in closed spaces.
Louisa flings open a rear door and bolts for freedom.
Her minder slips out of the car and levels a pistol at Tom.
The two men stare down their guns at each other.
Off in the distance, Tom sees Louisa running for her life.
100
Valentina is under no illusion that being inside a church means she’s safe.
If her last case in Venice taught her anything, it’s that churches aren’t at all sacred when it comes to criminals and killers.
The guy in the black trench coat forces her into a pew and sits tight alongside her. ‘Kneel and pray. Don’t do anything stupid.’
Valentina does as she’s told.
She intertwines her fingers, bows her head and looks as reflective as any of the devout visitors around her.
Her mind is certainly on different things, though.
By now, it’s going to be obvious that there’s no Punto parked near the piazza and no Anna sitting patiently in it. And Tom will have discovered whether or not Louisa and her captors are in a car just around the corner.
For a second Valentina does what everyone else around her is doing: she prays. Prays that Tom is all right and that Louisa is still alive.
It’s the first time she’s been on her knees in church since her cousin died.
The phone in Trench Coat’s pocket rings.
He catches it quickly.
Valentina knows that in doing so, he’s taken his hand off the gun.
It’s her cue to stop trusting in the good Lord and do what she’s been trained to do.
She cups her hand behind Trench Coat’s head and smashes his face into the edge of the wooden pew.
All eyes are now on Valentina.
She glances at the body slumped at her feet, shuffles forward and puts her foot across his neck. If he moves she’ll feel it.
‘I’m a police officer,’ she shouts down the aisle. ‘Please leave the church, immediately.’
No one moves.
Valentina stoops, fishes in the guy’s coat pocket and recovers his gun. It’s an old Glock with a Crimson Trace laser grip.
She holds it up high. ‘I said, I am a police officer. Now get out of here before someone gets shot!’
The church empties in a deafening rush for the doors.
Valentina ignores the last of the stragglers.
There’s blood all over the back of the pew, and for the first time she’s wondering whether the guy on the floor is just unconscious, or dead.
101
A woman passing by screams hysterically.
The man who’s just levelled a gun at Tom’s head glances to his left.
It’s all the American needs.
He plants a drop kick deep into the guy’s guts and follows with a hard right-hander into his mouth.
Amazingly, the guy’s still upright. And still holding the weapon.
Tom throws a left, then twin punches with his right.
Now he goes down.
Hits the floor like a TV dropped from the top of a tower block. The gun clatters from his open hand.
The four-by-four’s engine roars into life.
Seems the driver’s got his act together.
Tom spins round.
That’s his first mistake.
He clutches at the now closed driver’s door, but it won’t open. The central locking’s on.
He pulls again at the handle as the Land Rover lurches up on to the pavement.
That’s his second mistake.
He hasn’t noticed a man climb out of a similar vehicle parked a few metres away.
An agonising pain erupts in Tom’s right shoulder.
It’s followed by another behind his left knee. The combination of blows sends him sprawling into the road.
Instinctively, he rolls.
He learned at school that if you stay still in a street fight, then you’re as good as asking for a beating.
Now he sees the cause of the pain.
A baseball bat slaps into the brown water beside his head.
Tom grabs the club but feels a terrible burning in his right shoulder. Something’s busted.
He can’t hold on.
The wood slips from his fingers.
The guy takes a swing and slaps Tom on the side of his ribs.
Tom tries to roll again.
The bat
man takes a stride to his left, raises the club and starts a swing that he’s sure will pop Tom’s head like a water-melon.
Only he never makes it.
Instead, he freezes midway during the draw-back.
A sharp pain erupts inside his chest. It feels like someone has stuck a knife in his heart.
And that’s because someone has.
The throwing hand of Guilio Brygus Angelis is still extended, his fingers pointing at exactly the spot at which the ancient dagger was aimed.
102
Rapid response units from the Carabinieri and the Polizia Municipale arrive within seconds of each other.
Both forces got panic calls from the public after Tom had fired the gun in the car. Both also had reports of a woman in the church brandishing a gun and claiming to be a cop.
Guilio is on his knees alongside Tom. ‘I’ve got to get out of here. Can you move?’
It takes Tom a second glance to realise that his Good Samar itan is the stranger he fought with inside Anna Fratelli’s apartment.
He’s got a dozen questions in his head and no time to ask any of them.
‘Help me up.’ He stretches out his left hand.
Guilio needs both his hands to pull Tom up. He glances at the body with the blade in it. If he pulls it out, he knows the guy will die, but if he leaves it, he will lose a dagger that’s two thousand years old and a set of his own fingerprints as well.
He leaves it.
He turns to Tom. ‘Follow me, or they’ll make you part of this.’
Tom lurches after the quick, slim figure disappearing down Via di San Michele.
Police sirens and whistles fill the air as he follows him into the shadows of a tributary of thin alleys trickling away from the church.
Pain is now starting to devour Tom’s shoulder, leg and ribs. He can barely pull himself upright as he runs.
He has no chance of keeping up with Guilio as he weaves a route through a labyrinth of back streets and passages that few locals even know of.
‘Down here!’
Tom has no idea where ‘here’ is. He stops for breath beside some low railings.
‘Here!’
The shout is from below him.
He swings his right leg over the small metal fence that’s supposed to keep the public out of what looks like one of Rome’s many excavation sites.
There’s a long drop down the other side.
He knows he doesn’t have time to look for a safer route.
He jumps.
His left leg buckles on impact and he falls heavily on to his damaged right shoulder.
Guilio shows no concern. He’s busy.
His hands are pushing hard against the black stone wall located directly beneath the barrier.
As hard as he possibly can.
He groans and strains again with all of his weight and might.
Nothing happens.
He turns and puts his back against the wall. Once more he pushes for all he’s worth.
His feet slip in the grit and soil.
Tom watches in amazement.
A thin section of the wall slowly starts to swing open.
103
Valentina keeps her gun trained on the body at her feet.
Whoever this jerk is, he holds the key to why Anna was so screwed up, and what’s behind all the killings.
She can’t wait for Trench Coat to come round.
The chiesa is silent.
Disturbingly silent.
Empty churches have spooked her since she was a kid, and this one is certainly a major kid-scarer.
She glances over her shoulder.
Two people are there.
A man and a woman.
They’re moving towards her and the man has a gun aimed at her head.
Valentina stays cool.
He’s slightly built and looks older than the woman – much older, maybe even in his sixties.
‘Lift your hands and move into the aisle.’ He waggles the gun towards where he wants her to go.
‘Not going to happen.’ She looks challengingly into his pale blue eyes.
‘Lift them!’
She places her bet. ‘I really don’t think so.’ She looks away from him and keeps the Glock pointed at Trench Coat. ‘You’ll have to shoot me before I give this creep up.’
The old guy’s gun kicks in his hand.
There’s a muzzle flash and a barking boom.
Valentina’s heart all but explodes.
She’s made the wrong call.
She doesn’t feel any pain, but then again, she’s been told that at first you don’t.
Still nothing.
Now she’s sure it was just a warning shot.
A warning duly observed.
If he’s prepared to let off a gun in a church, he’s desperate. Desperate men – even those who don’t intend to kill – often end up doing so.
Over in the pews near the entrance she spots two more figures.
Men, she thinks.
Younger than Shooter, maybe the same age as Trench Coat.
‘Drop it – drop the gun.’ He waves his pistol and speeds up his walk towards her. ‘Now!’
Valentina gives it up.
The clunk of the pistol on the floor is the cue for them to rush her. Not just Shooter and his female sidekick, but the watchers by the door.
A hand with a vice-like grip clamps around her neck. It forces her face first over the pew.
She feels the hard metal of a gun barrel against her temple.
Behind her, the young woman speaks for the first time. Her voice is shaky and nervous. ‘Is he okay, is he breathing?’
There’s a lot of movement. Valentina guesses they’re trying to resuscitate Trench Coat.
‘Attis, can you hear us?’ Someone slaps his face. ‘Attis, wake up!’
Valentina notes the name. She’s sure she remembers Tom mentioning it. Slowly it comes back to her. Attis was the unfaithful lover of the goddess Cybele, who was driven so crazy he castrated himself. Given the chance, she’d do the same to him, then stick the guy’s balls in Shooter’s mouth.
But for now, all she can do is listen and try to make sense of the voices.
‘He’s okay. He’s coming round. Get him to his feet.’ This is Shooter.
‘Come on, let’s get you up.’ This is a woman, an older, more authoritative one. ‘Let’s get moving.’
‘Which way?’ Another woman.
‘No choice.’ It’s the older one again. ‘We’ll have to go through the crypt.’
‘What about her?’ It’s the gentler woman speaking.
There’s silence.
‘She comes with us. We’ll deal with her later.’
104
Carabinieri snipers with Mauser SP66s crawl into position on rooftops in and around the courtyard of Santa Cecilia.
Soldiers speedily bundle visiting tourists and rubbernecking locals out of the church grounds and beyond the piazza.
Overhead, an Augusta-Bell helicopter hovers menacingly.
The 412 CRESCO is fitted with high-powered video cameras, infrared lenses, ground and surveillance radar and advanced heat-seeking thermal devices. Its eagle-eyed ops team is all primed and ready to track any sudden runners.
The crew watch paramedics stretcher an injured man into the back of an ambulance and then disappear with their sirens blazing.
Across the Trastevere back streets, troops spill from soft-topped Land Rover Defenders and start to stake out a dragnet.
No one is going to escape.
Public stabbings and gunfire in churches don’t go down well in Rome, as some jokers are about to find out.
From his command vehicle, Major Lorenzo Silvestri, the head of GIS – the Gruppo di Intervento Speciale – processes in information from his men, then calmly gives word for the operation to begin.
His team is the cream of the Carabinieri. Special-ops troops, specifically trained in hostage release, hijack situations and counter-terrorism.
Right now, they’re moving faster than the blink of an eye.
They enter in a cloud of tear gas, bursting through three main windows above the church and along two specific ground-floor routes.
Lorenzo’s soldiers move with startling synchronism. They sweep the sacred aisles with a deadly mix of Heckler and Koch MP5s and Berettas.
In less than two minutes they establish that the vast church floor and its side rooms and upper galleries are clear.
Lorenzo scratches his stubbly silver-grey hair and watches feeds from helmet cameras as his team enters the crypt. If anyone is still hiding, this is the place they’ll be.
The church lights are cut.
Soldiers slip on night-sight goggles and slide unseen into what they call the black zone.
Lorenzo knows the crypt well; it’s a riot of rich colours from ceiling to floor, with spectacular statues and innumerable marble pillars that create an amazing array of painted arches.
But none of this shows on his infra-red camera feeds.
Just the odd glowing movement of soldiers and blurred backgrounds.
He crosses himself and prays that a gun battle doesn’t break out down there. The crossfire would be horrendous.
The ROS veteran glances at his watch. Three more minutes have passed.
His radio feed crackles. ‘Clear!’ shouts one of his men.
‘Clear!’ confirms another.
‘Clear!’ The final confirmation rolls into Lorenzo’s earpiece.
They’ve all drawn blanks.
Every nook, niche, corner and confessional has been searched and they’ve found no one.
Lorenzo sits back from the monitors and stretches his long legs.
Where the hell did the bad guys go?
He has to see for himself.
He steps from the warmth of his ops vehicle and walks through the wind and rain of the piazza.
He enters the church courtyard, questioning whether the operation was necessary.
Maybe it was a bad case of crowd hysteria.
Perhaps the congregation heard a nearby delivery truck backfire and panicked.
Then he dismisses the notion.
It wouldn’t explain the stabbing, nor the eye-witness accounts of hearing shooting in the church and a woman identifying herself as a police officer.