The Templar Salvation (2010) ts-2

by Raymond Khoury

  He spun the wheel to turn the big SUV around, wrenched the gear lever into drive, and charged forward. The road was narrow and lined with parked cars, hugging the long facade of the Apostolic Library.

  “Nice move on that mechanic back there,” Reilly remarked as he slid a sideways glance at the Iranian professor.

  “My country’s been more or less constantly at war ever since I was born,” he shrugged. “Like everyone else, I had to do my time in the army.” Glancing around, he asked, “You know where we are?”

  “More or less. The gate’s on the other side of this building,” he said, pointing at the library rushing past them on the left. “If I’ve got it right, there should be a passage into the courtyard with the parked cars just about here—”

  He had it right—and swerved into the narrow tunnel that led into the Belvedere Courtyard.

  He slewed the car around the parked cars, startled visitors scrambling out of the way of the lumbering Popequarium bearing the license plate SCV 1—for Stato della Citta del Vaticano, meaning Vatican City State, though most Romans joked that it really stood for Se Cristo Vedesse, meaning “If only Christ could see this,” a jab at how, over the centuries, the popes had completely overturned Jesus’s original message of possession-free preaching. Another vaulted passage on the opposite side of the courtyard led them out on the other side of the library complex—and onto a clear run down the Via Del Belvedere to the Porta Sant’Anna and out of the city.

  “We can’t stay in this thing,” Sharafi said. “It’s like a beacon.”

  “We’re not out of here yet.” Reilly was staring dead ahead.

  Two carabinieri cars—sleek, dark blue Alfa Romeos with menacing, sharklike grilles, spinning blue lights on their roofs, and shrill sirens—burst out of a side street between them and the gate and were rushing toward them.

  Definitely not going according to plan, Reilly thought, scowling at the prospect of playing chicken with the Italian police in a stolen Popemobile. But he was doing it. And they were coming right at him, and didn’t look like they were about to blink first. And in that moment, Tess’s face burst into his consciousness—his mind picturing her in some vile lockdown, chained to some radiator, helpless, the psycho lurking nearby. He couldn’t back down, nor could he not get them out of there with the book. He had to make it—for her.

  He kept his foot down.

  “Agent Reilly—” Sharafi tensed up, his right arm clamping down on the armrest.

  Reilly didn’t blink.

  He was a nanosecond away from slamming head-on into them when the road opened up into a wide piazza outside the Tower of Nicholas V, a massive round fortification that was part of the original Vatican walls. Reilly jerked the wheel to the right—swerving off his arrowlike path just as the two black police cars shot past—then left again to get back on track. He glanced into his mirror to see the two Alfas do some synchronized hand-brake turns that lit up their tires and spun them around before they resumed the chase.

  The road ahead was all clear, the gate less than a hundred yards away now. It was the way Reilly had been driven into the Vatican, twice now, a grand entrance with twin marble columns topped by a solemn stone eagle on either side of the heavy wrought iron gates—gates that some Swiss Guards were now rushing to close.

  Not good.

  Reilly kept the pedal jammed down, feeling a hardening in his gut. With the two Alfas close behind, he cannoned past a few cars that were waiting to be ushered out of the gate onto the main road, ramping the SUV’s left wheels over the curb to squeeze by, before blasting through the gates and obliterating them in a deafening frenzy of twisted iron and steel—instantly followed by an eruption of glass as the Popequarium’s tall viewing box slammed into the intricate overthrow that spanned the top of the gate and burst into smithereens.

  Pedestrians on the busy street outside the Vatican wall scattered frantically, leaping out of the way as Reilly pulled a screaming left and tore up the Via di Porta Angelica. Sharafi looked back as the first Alfa burst out of the gate and hooked a screaming left to follow the SUV—and just then, a massive explosion rocked the street, its shock wave jolting Reilly forward off his seat.

  What the—?

  Reilly instinctively ducked with the blast, controlling the Popemobile as it swerved from the shock wave before slamming on the brakes and bringing it to a screeching halt. His ears deafened, his head dazed, his body rigid with shock, he glanced across at Sharafi in stunned, confused silence. Sharafi met his gaze, looking surprisingly cool and unruffled, as if nothing had happened. Reilly’s mind was too busy slowing down and trying to make sense of the surreal sight around him to process it, but the Iranian’s inscrutable look still registered inside him somewhere as he craned around for a better look.

  The street outside the gates was apocalyptic, like something out of downtown Baghdad. Thick black smoke was billowing out of the flaming hulk of a car, a parked car that must have had a bomb in it. It must have exploded just as the lead Alfa was passing alongside it, as the cops’ car was plastered against the Vatican’s outer wall, thrown into it sideways. What looked like the second Alfa was also in the wreckage, piled into some parked cars. Debris was everywhere, clumps of concrete and metal still raining down around them. Shell-shocked people were limping around, dazed, looking for loved ones or just standing stiff in disbelief. There had to be deaths, Reilly was sure of it—and lots of wounded.

  “We’ve got to go,” the Iranian said.

  Reilly looked at him askance, still groggy from the blast.

  “Get us out of here now,” the man insisted. “You need to think about Tess.”

  Reilly glanced back—a couple of carabinieri were coming out of the smoke cloud, running toward them, weapons drawn—then they started firing. Bullets clipped the back of the wrecked SUV.

  “Move,” the Iranian rasped.

  Reilly ripped his gaze away from the pandemonium and hit the gas. And as the armored SUV stormed through the narrow streets without a specific destination in mind, a sudden realization stormed out of Reilly’s snarled mind—a realization that shot a piercing sensation through his chest.

  Random observations clicked into place. The way the Iranian looked when they were on the run, like he was out for a jog while Reilly was gasping for breath. The way he took out the mechanic with the efficiency of a ninja. The way he didn’t even flinch when the bomb went off. The fact that mangled bodies didn’t seem to register with him.

  Oh fuck.

  He turned to the man sitting beside him. “Who the hell are you?”

  Chapter 7

  Reilly’s heart froze. The man sitting in the passenger seat was glancing at him without a trace of emotion. Not a taunting grin. Not a demented scowl. Nothing. Just an even, level gaze. You’d think he was just out on a Sunday drive, watching the scenery drift by while sharing chitchat with his driver.

  His words, however, had a completely different ring to them.

  “If you want her to live,” he told Reilly, “just keep driving.”

  A frenzy of visual and audio snippets from every minute that had passed since Tess’s phone call rushed across Reilly’s mind. The clips all confirmed the same thing: He’d been played by the bastard sitting next to him.

  His fingers choked the steering wheel, his nails biting into its padded leather. “The bomb … that was you.”

  “Insurance,” the man confirmed, pulling a cell phone from his pocket and holding it up with his right hand, away from Reilly. “And as it turns out, one we needed.”

  Reilly understood. The phone had triggered the bomb. His veins were boiling—he just wanted to reach over and rip the guy’s heart out and shove it down his throat and watch him choke on it. “And the real Sharafi?”

  “My guess is he’s dead.” The man gave him a small shrug. “He was in the trunk of that car.”

  Not a flutter of emotion in his voice.

  The next question was bouncing inside Reilly’s head, kicking and screaming to
get out. He didn’t want to let it loose. He knew the answer he was about to get—but his mouth voiced the words anyway. “And Tess?”

  The man’s eyes hardened a touch. “There’s another car back there. With another bomb.” He held up the phone for Reilly again, to press the point home. “Tess is in it.”

  A firestorm ignited inside Reilly’s chest as the cityscape flying past him went fuzzy, a blur of parked cars and gray walls. “What? You’re saying she’s here? In Rome?”

  “Yes. And closer than you think.”

  He’d assumed she was still in Jordan, which was where she was when she’d called him. When she’d been kidnapped by the sick bastard sitting next to him. Reilly’s heart was now pounding away, far beyond its red line, deafening him and flooding him with adrenaline and bile, the urgency of getting to Tess eclipsing all other thoughts. He zipped through dozens of potential moves at the same time, evaluating them, looking for an advantage, refusing to accept the notion that the son of a bitch next to him could walk away from this.

  “Alive?” He had to ask, even though he had no way of knowing if the answer he’d get was the truth or not. All he could do was look into the guy’s eyes and see if he could spot any tell as to what the truth was.

  The man’s face was maddeningly inscrutable. “Alive.”

  Reilly was too busy processing it to think of slowing down as the battered SUV blasted past the flower market and charged across a major crossroads at the Circonvallazione Trionfale as if it were on rails, causing oncoming cars to slam on their brakes and triggering a flurry of collisions.

  “Keep going straight, and stay focused,” the bomber ordered. “You won’t do Tess much good if you get us both killed. I don’t know how long she’ll be able to breathe in that trunk.”

  Reilly didn’t know what to believe. He blinked, mashing his teeth raw, finding it hard to resist just pummeling the guy. Instead, he scowled at the road ahead and took it out on the gas pedal, mashing it harder. The Merc’s engine strained as it propelled the armored SUV faster, and the Via Trionfale bent right and left gently before the rows of low apartment buildings on either side gave way to greenery and the road climbed up a forested hill.

  Reilly had the pedal floored, the big 4.3-litre engine growling as the trees whipped past. They were charging up what felt like a small forest in the middle of Rome but was actually a lush small park of fifteen acres that led to the Cavalieri Hilton at the top of the hill. Reilly’s eyes had darted sideways, noting that the man was gripping his armrest tightly to avoid sliding around, when a sharp left-hand hairpin came out of the blue, surprising him. He fought the wheel for control, struggling to keep the heavy SUV on the road, its tires screaming for grip. The car fishtailed out of the turn and roared up the hill—where another hairpin, a right-hander this time, loomed ahead.

  “I said easy, damn it,” his passenger barked.

  Fuck you, Reilly seethed inwardly—and saw it, a small, landscaped clearing that was mercifully deserted and sat there, calling out to him in the glorious sunshine, at the end of a small pathway just before the turn.

  He lifted off, feigning a slowdown for the turn, then blipped the throttle and threw the car in the opposite direction. It flew off the road and rumbled down the gravel path, slewing all over the place before Reilly jerked the wheel hard to the left and yanked the handbrake. The car spun around angrily, the tires pushing hard against the mounds of gravel that built up against them—and Reilly used its sideways momentum to launch himself onto the bomber, lifting up his elbow, jacking it in place, and aiming it right at his target’s face as he flew out of his seat.

  The man was lightning quick—raising the big, heavy codex up as a shield to block him. It took the brunt of Reilly’s weight, deflecting the hit. Reilly still had some advantage as he crushed the bomber against his car door. The man’s hand lashed out and flicked the door open. Reilly put one arm around the book and used the other to throw a punch at him. The man bent away to avoid it, leaning precariously far out of the car now—which Reilly was quick to capitalize on, wrenching the book out of his grasp just as he shoved him out.

  The bomber tumbled to the ground. Reilly clambered right out of the car after him, but the man recovered fast and scurried back, putting a margin of ten yards or so between him and the FBI agent. Time slowed to a crawl as they stood there in silence, facing off under the hot Roman sun, taking stock of each other in the empty clearing. It was eerily quiet, especially after the pandemonium they’d been through, with only choruses of cicadas and the occasional tweet of a starling cutting the silence.

  “Settle down,” the bomber told Reilly, holding up his cell phone with one hand while his other wagged a stern, warning finger. “One twitch from me and she’s gone.”

  Reilly glared at him, clutching the book tight.

  They studied each other as they tentatively inched sideways, moving in unison, keeping the same buffer between them.

  “Where is she?” Reilly asked.

  “Everything in its time.”

  “You’re not walking away from this.” Reilly’s eyes were locked on him, his senses alert, processing every morsel of information at hand, looking for an edge.

  “I disagree,” the bomber countered. “We’ve established that you care a great deal for this woman. You wouldn’t have flown halfway across the world and taken me into the Vatican if you didn’t. Which means you won’t stop me from walking away from here if that gets her killed. Which it would. Unquestionably.”

  “But then again, I’ve got this book. And we’ve established that it’s pretty important to you, right?”

  The man conceded Reilly’s remark with a small nod.

  “So here’s what we’ll do,” Reilly said. “You want the book. I want Tess. In one piece. So we trade. Take me to her, show me she’s alive and well, and you can have the book.”

  The bomber shook his head, a mock apology on his face. “Can’t do that. I’m not sure it’s safe for me to go down there right now, you know what I mean? No, you’ll have to go get her yourself. So how about this instead. The book, for her location. And my word that she’s safe and healthy.”

  His word. Reilly mashed his teeth. He knew he had no choice. “And that phone you’re holding,” he added.

  The bomber thought about it for a brief moment, then shrugged. “Sounds fair.”

  The sick fuck’s talking about fair, Reilly bristled. He fought to keep his fury in check and see this through.

  “Okay, here’s how we’ll play this,” Reilly said. “You put the phone down on the ground and tell me what car she’s in and where it’s parked. I’ll put the book down too. Then we’ll each move sideways, one step at a time, as if we’re going around an imaginary circle. Slowly. You get the book, I get the phone.”

  “And then?”

  “Then maybe you get away—for a while. But sooner or later, make no mistake, your ass is mine.” Reilly’s concentration was lasered on him, memorizing every pore, every wrinkle, every detail about him.

  The bomber watched him, as if putting his plan through a final stress test. “She’s in a BMW.”

  Reilly’s pulse spiked.

  The man held up some car keys and dangled them, taunting Reilly. They were like a bloodred rag to a rabid bull. “A five-series. Dark blue. Brindisi plates. It’s parked by the Petriano entrance.”

  Which made sense, Reilly thought. Insurance—to use the bomber’s callous word—in case they exited the Vatican from its other gate.

  The man held the keys there for a moment, then he turned and tossed them behind him, slightly off to one side. They landed in a small stretch of lawn. He eyed Reilly, an icy smirk just cracking the surface of the hermetic expression on his face. “You’re going to want this too,” he added as he held up his phone—before turning around and tossing it too.

  Reilly’s chest seized up as he watched the phone spin in the air several times before it landed on the same grassy patch, by a couple of benches. He just froze there, every musc
le in his body knotted to the breaking point, his ears cranked up to eleven, dreading a telltale, distant boom—but he heard nothing.

  “Drop the book and go get them,” the man barked, pointing an angry finger toward the lawn.

  Reilly hesitated, his feet nailed to the ground—he couldn’t hang on to the heavy book and go around the bomber to retrieve the phone. The man would have no trouble tackling him. His legs twitched, getting conflicting signals about staying put or sprinting off—then he made his move. He turned and hurled the codex as far as he could, shot-putting it behind him, away from the bomber, then tore off toward the phone.

  The bomber sprang forward at the same instant. The two men raced for their prizes, eyeing each other while angling away for safety as they rushed past each other, with Reilly harnessing all of his willpower to resist veering off his trajectory and taking the man down—which he couldn’t. He couldn’t risk it—failure meant condemning Tess to a certain death. So he stuck to his heading and was on the grassy patch within seconds. He spotted the phone and plucked it off the ground, staring at it in disbelief, hoping the fact that he hadn’t heard an explosion in the city below meant that it hadn’t triggered one, his pulse throbbing wildly—then he spun around.

  The bomber was gone.

  As was the book.

  Chapter 8

  Reilly moved with androidlike purpose, as if he weren’t in control of his body anymore. He had to do one thing, and one thing only—and nothing could be allowed to interfere.