The Seventh Commandment

by Tom Fox

  ‘It only grazed me,’ she shouted back. The world around her felt wobblier than before, and a surge of panic came with the thought that she’d been wrong in assessing the blood flow. Was this what it felt like to have consciousness ebb away? To enter into the gradual fade-to-black of existence?

  But what wobbled didn’t go entirely dark, and Angelina forced herself to remain focused on the only thing that mattered.

  Ahead of them, the cobblestone route met a wall and connected to a perpendicular walkway. Angelina had a choice – right, or left – and only a matter of seconds to make it.

  The fire in her left leg seemed to spread through her hip, her side, threatening to consume her.

  Left. The decision made itself. Right felt as if it led back in the direction of the interior of the walled city-state, and Angelina had no desire to get anywhere but out.

  She reached out to push Ben in what she had determined was their new direction. The ninety-degree turn brought them into a narrower lane, which ended only a few metres ahead. For an instant Angelina feared she’d made the wrong choice. Maybe right had been right, after all.

  But a second later – the rush of relief. Beyond the end of its narrow run the lane opened into a broad space. Initially its parameters were difficult to assess in the blackness, but as she and Ben raced into its expanse she instantly realised where they were.

  They had emerged into the most famous public piazza in the Western World. St Peter’s Square, the vast space that stood before Catholicism’s chief basilica, was a circle of stone wrapped in the embrace of twin galleries that stretched out from the sides of the basilica’s facade. They extended in mirror arcs to the north and south of the rounded square, almost meeting at its far end. Atop them, over a hundred statues stood silent guard over the throngs of pilgrims that normally filled the space, milling around the ancient and mysterious obelisk that stood proudly at its centre.

  Right now St Peter’s Square was as dark as everything else in Vatican City, and from their vantage point Angelina could see beyond to Rome itself. The absence of light in the Holy See was echoed outside, which was dark as far as the horizon, and who knew how far beyond. The power outage, it appeared, reached much further than the thick stone walls surrounding them.

  The darkness had thinned the crowd that normally filled the vast piazza, even at night, rendering the space far too open. She and Ben needed another way out.

  The situation seemed hopeless, but then, in the distance, Angelina spotted something she’d overlooked a moment ago. The moment she recognised what it was, her heart beat with new strength.

  Beyond them, on the far side of St Peter’s Square, it flashed at her like a beacon. Rows of twin eyes sparkled in the blackness, formed in a chain that slithered a numinous course.

  Not all the lights in Rome, she suddenly realised, had gone out. Those that remained might be their only chance.

  Ridolfo spun around the corner with so much speed that he nearly lost his balance, André emerging behind him less than a second later. Their targets were fast, but one of Ridolfo’s bullets had finally hit something other than stone. The woman was wounded, if not mortally then at least significantly enough to slow them down. That would be enough. Ridolfo knew his friend was in as fit a physical condition as himself, and that a wounded tour guide and a terrified archivist were no match for them in the long run. They just needed to keep running and keep them in sight.

  But as his eyes adjusted to the scene in front of him, Ridolfo felt a pang of worry. It wasn’t what he expected to see.

  The square.

  ‘Shit!’ The profanity barrelled its way out of Ridolfo’s mouth as he planted his feet and came to a sudden halt. ‘God damn it!’ he shouted, not caring if he was overheard. Such a vast space, scattered bodies within it as distractions, was not something he’d factored in to this pursuit. In the darkness, the scrum of tourists was hard to distinguish. They were grey shadows, the bright colours of clothing in the daytime reduced to indistinguishable shades of grey. He didn’t mind shooting into the middle of them, as long as he hit the two people he was after – but that depended on at least having some sense of where they were in the fray. Ridolfo scanned the diminished crowd, but recognised no one.

  Maybe he’d just have to start shooting. Screw who else got hit. Let them drop with that bitch and her friend.

  ‘Over there!’ André’s voice was energetic, his arm flying up and pointing to their left.

  At first, Ridolfo didn’t see anything. Bodies were gathered in various groups, the stonework structures looming behind them. But then it caught his attention.

  Motion.

  Halfway down the expanse of one of the covered colonnades, keeping tight to the edge of the piazza and as close to protective cover as they could, two grey bodies moved in the darkness. And moved fast.

  It took mere seconds for Ridolfo to compute their aim. Beyond, outside the piazza, a twisting line of cars moved slowly beyond the eastern limit of Vatican City, their lights a strange beacon in the otherwise black landscape.

  He knew he couldn’t get a clean shot at Calla and Verdyx from this distance – not in the darkness and with obstacles between them. There was only one option.

  ‘Get fucking moving!’ he shouted at André as he bore slightly left and began to cut through the heart of the piazza. ‘We have to get to them before they make it to the street.’

  37

  St Peter’s Square

  The pillars of the northern colonnade surrounding St Peter’s Square swept by as Angelina and Ben ran between them, layered four deep and massive in their dimensions, obstructing her view in flashes that seemed to animate the scene beyond. In the distance, closing as they moved, the dark exterior world was framed by the visible gap where the two colonnades nearly met at their far ends, like two arms reaching out to embrace the space within them, beckoning to the world beyond.

  Angelina knew the layout well, every Roman did. The Piazza Pio XII stood just beyond the official border of Vatican City, leading into the broad Via della Conciliazione that ran east, past the Castel Sant’Angelo and alongside the Tiber, where Ben had been shot at earlier in the day. The enormous street was home to some of the most touristy and glitzy shops in Rome, second only to the Piazza Navona, and right now it was their only hope.

  Because the Via della Conciliazione was bright with the only lights visible to them. Rows of cars moved in steady, slow progression around the square and down the wide street, their headlamps a creeping illumination in the black city.

  Closest to St Peter’s Square was precisely what Angelina remembered was always there: a rank of taxis, eager to pick up tourists and charge them twice the going rate for a drive on to the next major sight.

  ‘We need to get into one of those cabs,’ she shouted breathlessly to Ben, pointing through the columns as they moved. ‘They’re our best chance to get away, as far from here as we can.’

  Ben simply grunted his affirmation. He was winded from the run and clearly still in shock, but he understood perfectly well the need to put as much distance as possible between them and this place.

  Yet Angelina’s plan involved one element that couldn’t be avoided, and that scared her to death.

  Within fifteen metres they were going to reach the end of the covered colonnade. Getting to the taxi ranks was going to involve leaving the protected space. They would have to make the last distance through the piazza, then dart out into the even more exposed square beyond.

  Angelina had taken note of the crowd. It was thin. It would hardly be adequate cover.

  But she’d also seen their pursuers, out in the square. Two young men. Even at this distance, in the darkness, she could make out the pale shapes of their faces, one of them pitted and deformed. Her mind raced. Cutting through the circular space rather than running around its periphery as she and Ben were doing meant that they were gaining ground. If they reached the end of the colonnades before her and Ben, they’d be trapped.

  Cover
or not, moving out into the open was going to be their only choice.

  Ridolfo knew that if the duo were to make it to the street, they would have an out. They could jump into any of a hundred cars within easy sight, and after that Ridolfo didn’t know how he and André would catch them. They’d have to be traced, tracked, and pursued all anew.

  He could feel the burning in his calves as he propelled himself forward. His younger friend and partner kept pace, even advancing a little, the fire of youth driving him like a motor.

  There wasn’t room to play about. They had less than seventy metres between them and the end of the northern colonnade’s reach.

  Angelina grabbed Ben’s wrist and yanked him out from beneath the protective cover of the ancient colonnade. Open air suddenly loomed above them, starry yet still surprisingly dark.

  All Angelina could see were the taxi ranks. Despite the agony of her leg, she pushed all her energy into her feet. Thirty metres, twenty . . .

  She processed the scene at lightning speed. A huddle of tourists was moving towards the first car in the taxi rank, so she aimed herself and Ben towards the second. They would only have one chance at this. And screw it if I’m going to get shot knocking on taxi cab doors trying to find an open car!

  Fifteen metres . . .

  She could hear the thump of feet on stone behind them. Their pursuers were close, though Angelina dared not look back and see just how close. She shoved Ben towards the second taxi, which felt an eternity away. She tried to focus on the door, though her mind couldn’t help but be overshadowed by the panicked fear that at any instant the world would go black, or white, or whatever colour it goes when a bullet lands in your skull.

  But the world stayed as it was. Less than two seconds later she slammed into the side of the waiting cab, unable to slow herself to a stop in time to avoid the bodily collision.

  Ben arrived with a similar thud, and before Angelina could bark any instructions, he was already ripping at the door. Afraid, but not inept, she noted, grateful to have his companionship in such a terrifying moment.

  Ben lunged into the car, Angelina following suit, slamming the door closed behind them. The driver was already turned back towards the rear of his cab, a young man with olive skin and a baseball cap advertising a football team, swearing profanities at the aggressive entry.

  ‘Be careful with my fucking car!’ he shouted. ‘I paid for this myself, no loans!’

  He looked like he would have shouted more and Angelina was preparing a desperate answer, when the side window closest to the Vatican exploded into a thousand shards of crystalline breakaway glass. She impulsively slammed Ben’s body down into the seat, covering it with hers as she crouched low, protecting them both from the flying glass and whatever bullets might follow the one that had shattered it.

  ‘If you want anything to be left of your car at all,’ she shouted at the driver from the protective position, ‘then drive!’

  Horrified, his face instantly a sickly pale, the driver spun round and slammed his right palm hard against the gearstick. One foot powered down against the accelerator as the other flew off the clutch and the car lurched into violent motion. His hands spun the wheel to point them out of the ranks, and he tore his way out of the piazza. The profanities returned a millisecond later, their pitch higher and laden with terror.

  Another gunshot boomed, so loudly that Angelina thought the shooters might have caught up with them and been standing just outside as they moved away, but no more windows exploded. Another shot, more distant. Then the only sound Angelina could hear was the car’s engine revving to its full, strained power, and the beating of her own heart pounding over the obscenities flowing from the driver as he sped them away.

  38

  Torre Maura district

  Eastern Rome

  Emil was not going to be able to sleep tonight. Despite the darkness of the blackout, he’d recognised early on that emotion and anticipation meant rest wasn’t a realistic option, so hadn’t even bothered trying. For the past hour he’d been pacing the sitting room in his small house in Torre Maura, alternating between refreshing the email display on the laptop he’d connected to an extended battery pack and a satellite Internet connection, and compulsively checking his phone for messages from his various teams, all of whom had been equipped with satellite phones for this phase of the operation.

  He paused long enough to pour himself a third tumbler of the finest Scotch he’d ever drunk. Emil wasn’t a man of vast wealth – not yet – and his tastes weren’t normally so exalted. But this was the dawn of . . . everything. He felt it ought to be seen in with nothing but the finest. Even in the darkness.

  He didn’t have ice, so by the light of a battery-powered lantern Emil topped his glass up to a respectable level and took a sip, neat. The amber liquid glided over his tongue with a hot, buttery bite. It was, in his humble estimation, worth every penny.

  At this very moment, Ridolfo and André would be taking care of the only leaks the tech team had discovered. This was, Emil recognised, the only thing that genuinely had him nervous. He was pulling strings that had put the whole city on edge, enacting a plan that involved deceit and risks far greater than any he’d ever undertaken in his life, but it was this one issue that churned his stomach. Everything else was going well. Everything except . . . them.

  He couldn’t believe it could be so difficult to take out a pair of scholars. Emil had been a scholar himself, before his shunning by the establishment, and he would rank neither himself nor a single one of his former colleagues as particularly capable individuals in a violent situation. ‘Our weapons are the pen and the book,’ he remembered one of his bygone friends saying at a staff reception, years ago, ‘and they’re much mightier than guns.’ It was the kind of romantic drivel that felt laudable and believable right up to the moment someone pointed a gun barrel at your forehead. Pens were rarely effective in convincing someone not to pull the trigger.

  The frustration he felt wasn’t really at the difficulty in killing them off, however, but at the fact that they were running, and that someone seemed to be helping them run. This was far, far more worrying.

  Emil had been convinced his advance work was impeccable. The text was perfect. They’d brought on, used, and then ‘disposed of’ an Akkadian scholar abroad to ensure that. It had been checked and double-checked. It had been inscribed into a clay mixed with the powdered dust to which his men had reduced a thirteen-hundred-year-old clay urn they’d stolen at his direction, so that any rushed carbon dating would show signs of age enough to confuse interpreters. And the planting, the delivery, the discovery – all had gone exactly according to arrangement. Scrutiny would come upon the document, of course, and in due course it would be denounced. The ageing trick would eventually be discovered; the text would eventually be hyper-analysed. But those things took time. Everything Emil wanted rode on belief in its authenticity lasting just long enough to get the job done.

  There were only two people who posed a threat to that. Two scholars who had come on to Emil’s radar when his tech crew had chased through their web histories or Net trailings or whatever-the-hell other records those geeks had access to, and announced that they were experts in this obscure field. Experts who could expose the fraud far faster. Discovery that two such scholars lived in his city had upset Emil, but at least this was a simple problem to deal with. Elaborate shows of prophecy-led death wouldn’t be needed here. A bullet to the head of each would accomplish what he needed.

  But for reasons that baffled description, Emil’s men were struggling to kill them.

  The acids in his stomach churned, and Emil set down the whisky, worried it was only compounding his discomfort. He commanded himself to calm down. The whole show only had to last another day and a half. After that, it wouldn’t matter who knew what.

  He walked over to his small desk and swept a finger across his laptop’s trackpad to bring it to life. A few keystrokes later his email was refreshed. Nothing new.


  Damn it. He wanted to hear something. Anything. He was the kind of man who’d grown to assume the worst of tense situations. He wanted a report from one of his teams, any of his teams, to reassure him things were moving forward as they should.

  With little else to focus his worried mind, Emil scrolled down through the old emails still in his inbox. Hundreds of messages. He rarely deleted anything.

  Yet he realised his scrolling wasn’t as aimless as it at first seemed, even to him. His attention was drawn like a magnet towards the lengthy message he’d received earlier in the day from Vico and his crew. It contained all the data the techie trio had gleaned on the two individuals who had attracted their attention. On the woman, they had all the pertinent details: name, address, financial portrait, locations. Everything Emil expected. And they had the same for the man – what was his name? Emil scrolled further down the message.

  Dr Ben Verdyx.

  A jingle of memory. Something tugging at his personal past.

  He read the name again, aloud. ‘Dr Ben Verdyx.’

  Then, for the first time, Emil felt weak at his knees. He knew the name, and, he gradually recalled, he had known the man. Ben Verdyx had been brought on to the staff of the Vatican Secret Archives towards the end of Emil’s tenure there – perhaps six or seven months before the scandal and shaming that had resulted in Emil’s dismissal. He remembered Ben as socially awkward, shy, like a bat craving the solitude of a cave.

  So this was the ‘other Akkadian scholar’ in the duo his men were after. Emil could feel the acid work its way up his oesophagus, perilously close to reaching his throat and threatening to trigger his gag reflex.

  The Calla woman was risk enough, but Verdyx had worked in the same environs as Emil himself. It was too close to home. It meant he could know . . .

  And as Ben and the woman had been taken by others – Vico had concluded the black vans had belonged to the Swiss Guard – it meant he could have told them.