by Richard Bard
“What am I doing here?” Jake yelled. “That’s what you have to say to me? What am I doing here? Thanks to you and your partners, my life’s been torn to shreds. My home is dust, and my friends and family think that some poor dead dude burned to a crisp in the debris is me.” He paused only long enough to draw a deep breath. “You drugged me and yanked me halfway around the world just so your pals could poke, prod, and beat me. In the past fifteen minutes, two people have been killed downstairs. And if your boyfriend, Carlo, has anything to say about it, I’m going to be next.”
Francesca shrank from the barrage; her voice quivered. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about? Who was killed?”
She seemed genuinely surprised, but he wasn’t about to fall for it. “Yeah, nice try, lady. But I know your game now. Meryl Streep’s got nothing on you, does she?” He pressed closer to her, forcing her farther backward into the rail.
“Mr. Bronson, please slow down, I—”
“Cut the crap! Your boss Battista is a lunatic, and I don’t have time to screw around talking to you about it.” He scanned the complicated maze of tiled hips and gables that surrounded the small deck area of the rooftop. “Just tell me where the other stairwells are.”
Francesca stiffened at the mention of Battista. “Listen to me! I don’t know what’s going on here. I swear to you, I don’t. But Signor Battista cannot possibly be involved in whatever is happening to you.”
She is so damn convincing. Her denial made him even angrier. “You think so? You think I’m just dreaming this up?”
“Yes. I mean, no—”
“You think I voluntarily jumped on a plane and followed you here on a whim? That my battered face and the track marks on my arms are just evidence of me having a grand night on the town here in your wonderful city?” His breaths were coming in short gasps.
Jake grabbed her hard by the shoulders.
Francesca screamed, “Aiuto!”
Jake’s left hand swung up and pressed over her mouth to shut her up. Battista’s men couldn’t have had enough time to clear the first floor, but someone else might hear. Jake dug the fingers of his right hand deep into the soft flesh of her shoulder. He levered the top of her body farther back over the short rail. “Another scream and you’re going for a swim. Do you understand?”
Her tear-filled eyes went wide with fear. She nodded her head in quick, short jerks.
He slowly removed his hand from her mouth, replacing his grip on her other shoulder. He could topple her over the edge with just a nudge.
Francesca drew in a shaky breath, her face uncertain. Her voice quaked. “I truly did not even know you were here. You must believe me.”
He wanted to believe her, but he dared not. It had all started with her, hadn’t it? He watched her carefully, studying her reaction as he spoke, his voice low. “I was kidnapped. A man was killed in my home to make it look like I was dead. I’ve been held prisoner two floors down, along with two innocent children. And less than an hour ago, your boss Battista and his maniac pal, Carlo, interrogated and tortured me. I just escaped, and now two guards are dead. Got it?” He slid his hands down to the bare skin of her forearms, still maintaining a firm grip.
Then, as if a bubble burst in his head, he felt an odd tingling sensation that ran from the back of his skull, down his arms, and into his fingers where they touched her flesh. It felt like a flow of electricity passed between them. It was pleasant.
She must have felt it too, because her gaze shifted to each of his hands, first one and then the other, her face questioning. She looked back up at him, searching his features, her head tilted as if she were appraising an unusual piece of art.
Jake returned her stare, and the sincerity that he saw in her golden brown eyes cut through his anger and made him wonder.
Could it be she really didn’t know? Is she just a pawn in this nightmare?
He projected his thoughts toward her. Can I trust you?
Francesca’s eyes widened, and Jake felt her arms shudder beneath his hands. Her mouth dropped open, and she nodded slowly.
And with that simple acknowledgment, as his mind touched hers, Jake knew the truth.
He loosened his hold but didn’t let go completely, afraid of breaking the connection. Her tension seemed to melt away. Jake let his walls down and consciously opened his mind to her, wrapping his thoughts around her. Can you hear me?
Her lips parted as if to answer, but she held back and instead just stared at him, and he felt her answer in his head. In that sublime moment Jake knew the essence of Francesca Fellini. And he knew beyond a doubt that she was not a part of this. Her innocence was sincere.
And then reality kicked him in the head. He had to get out of here. “Francesca, I need to go, to get help.”
“I know. But please wait. You mentioned two children?”
“Yes. Ahmed and Sarafina. They’ve been living in a locked dorm room downstairs, part of some sort of experiment that Battista is conducting to create an army of genius soldiers. Ahmed has an implant surgically inserted into his brain. And Sarafina is next.”
Francesca shook her head. “But that’s not possible. Sarafina is dead. This cannot be the same girl.”
“About five years old, an angel on the piano, curly dark hair, deep brown eyes that could melt an iceberg, and a little trouble speaking?”
“Sarafina!” Francesca gasped. She clasped her hands to her chest. “Dio mio, I attended her funeral a month ago. She’d been taken to the infirmary with a bug. Signor Battista said she died unexpectedly in the night from a ruptured aneurysm. She is truly alive?”
Jake thought of Sarafina’s sweet smile. “Yes. She’s most certainly alive. Something happened when I first met her. It was—”
He hesitated a moment, coping with a swell of emotion, his voice soft. “It was like what happened between us when I touched you just now. Sarafina and I had a connection too. It wasn’t exactly the same, but similar.” Jake stumbled over his words. “She said I felt like her daddy.”
A tear spilled from Francesca’s eye and traced the soft curve of her cheek. She looked up at him, her lower lip quivering, and Jake suddenly felt an urge to hold her, to kiss her.
As though she knew his thoughts, a faint blush washed across her cheeks. She looked down but couldn’t hide the gentle smile that lit up her face.
Jake needed to protect this woman along with the children. He lifted her chin with his hand. “Francesca, I believe you, and now you need to believe me. Battista and his men are terrorists, and they’re coming after me. If they discover that you’ve seen me, your life will be worthless. And if you run, he’ll know something is wrong, and he might hurt the children.”
Jake felt Francesca’s body tense at the mention of harm to the children. She clenched her fists at her side.
Jake continued, “You need to pretend that you haven’t seen me, that you know nothing about what’s really going on here. Can you do that? Can you be the remarkable actress I thought you were until I return with help?”
They both turned their heads in alarm at the sound of pounding footsteps echoing behind the door to the staircase.
“Quickly,” Francesca said, pointing to a greenhouse on the far corner of the roof. “There are stairs on the other side.”
He ran across the deck, glancing back at Francesca as he shouldered around a flowing cascade of red and purple bougainvillea.
I’ll be back for you. I swear it.
***
Francesca turned her back to the noises coming up the main stairway. She looked out over the city, forcing herself to loosen her white-knuckled grip on the rail. Her mind and heart were racing like sprinters on a track, each one accelerating to beat the other to the finish line.
It was difficult for her to believe what had just happened. Yet all of her senses told her it was true. Jake had spoken to her with his mind, sending a gentle probe into her thoughts. She had been soothed by it, captivated by the connection.
But they wanted to hurt him, maybe kill him.
The story Battista had told of bringing in volunteer prisoners—some of them violent—to participate in some of their advanced experiments was a fraud. Instead, Battista was using children. Sarafina!
Letting out a slow breath, she willed her muscles to relax.
The guards clambered onto the landing. She turned her head and tried to appear startled. There were three of them, breathing hard, Carlo in the lead. She could feel the rage emanating from him like heat waves over hot desert sand.
“Signorina,” Carlo said. “One of the test subjects has escaped from the security floor. He killed two of our medical technicians. Have you seen anyone?”
She fought down a flush of anger at the lie. “No, no one…”
Carlo studied her for only a moment before gesturing to his men to turn back.
Francesca needed to slow them down. She called out in a trembling voice. “Wait. You can’t leave me alone here!”
Looking back, Carlo hesitated, perhaps collecting himself for the charade he must maintain. He waved her over. “Of course, come quickly. Marco will escort you downstairs.”
Francesca started down the steps in front of the men, the echoing clop of her heels lending an excuse to the slow pace she intentionally set. As they reached the next landing, a shout down the hall grabbed Carlo’s attention. He and the other guard sprinted past her, weapons drawn.
***
Jake jumped the last three steps to the third-floor landing of the corner stairwell. Angry voices echoed from one or two floors below him, getting closer. He peered through the small wired-glass fire window of the door and saw two men running down the west hall. He slipped through the door behind them and turned south, hoping the men wouldn’t turn around. They didn’t. But a third guard entered the far end of the corridor Jake had chosen. They both froze. The man’s shout was louder than an angry drill sergeant’s.
“He’s here!”
Jake shoved his way through the nearest door and slammed it hard behind him.
The tarnished brass keyhole in the walnut door was empty, so he couldn’t lock it. He grabbed a hardback chair from the sidewall and jammed it under the handle, hoping to buy himself a few seconds.
A quick look around the small sitting room told him it was all over. There was no way out. Backing into the room, he drew the Makarov from its holster. He knelt behind a red velour Victorian loveseat, wondering if its old-world frame would be enough to stop a bullet. Either way, he knew in his gut that this was a fight he had no chance of winning.
There was a shuffle at the door and Jake heard muffled whispers as they prepared to breach. Cornered, he trained his weapon on the entrance, hoping that Carlo would be the first to barge through. His finger tightened on the trigger.
He thought of the children and Francesca. What’s going to happen to them without my help?
His mind screamed for a way out and his gaze settled on the bay window off his left shoulder.
Three stories up.
When Jake heard the crash at the door, he was already running. He fired two rounds into the window to fracture the thick glass. He vaulted over a settee, tucked his head down, and used his right shoulder as a battering ram, launching his body into the spider-webbed glazing.
The window exploded from the impact, shards of glass catching the sunlight in shimmering slow motion beside him as he tumbled through the air toward the murky waters of the canal.
Chapter 19
Venice, Italy
TONY SMILED AS HE WATCHED the interaction between Lacey and Marshall. They sat across the aisle from him on the 767. The flight was on final approach into Venice’s Marco Polo International Airport, and Lacey couldn’t tear her gaze from the window. With one hand holding a tourist guide and the other tugging on Marshall’s sleeve, she was like a kid at Disneyland.
She spoke loudly enough so both Marshall and Tony could share her excitement. “An entire city built smack in the middle of a lagoon.” Her voice was full of wonder. “There’s not a single car in sight because the streets are all canals, so the only way to get around is by boat. There are a hundred and fifty canals and over four hundred bridges connecting it all together.”
Marshall’s attention was on his iPhone, navigating through a walking map of the city. Without looking up he said, “I guess they don’t worry much about gas prices here.”
Lacey pressed her index finger to the Plexiglas window. “I think that’s St. Mark’s Square. Can you imagine the amazing things that have happened there? And the famous people that lived there, like Marco Polo or Casanova? And Veronica Franco!”
Lacey turned her gaze toward Marshall and the actress in her took over, her childlike enthusiasm replaced by a sultry smile that could have burned out a pacemaker. She made no secret of her interest in Marshall, Tony observed. She liked to play it up, as though she knew that she was close to breaking through his defenses. In spite of Marshall’s feigned indifference, Tony suspected she was right.
Lacey slid her hand provocatively up Marshall’s arm. “Veronica Franco was Venice’s most famous courtesan in the sixteenth century. They say she was so skilled that she single-handedly saved the republic from the church’s domination by winning over the king of France in her bedchambers. What do you think of that?”
Marshall gently pulled his arm back, his attention still on his iPhone, seemingly immune to Lacey’s charms. But Tony caught a hint of a smile on his buddy’s face.
Lacey looked over at Tony for moral support, her lower lip pursed in an exaggerated pout.
Tony held his palms up defensively. He didn’t want to get in the middle of that discussion.
***
Tony left them at the busy check-in desk of the small hotel while he went around the corner to the bustling train station. Threading his way through the throngs of tourists, he went into the men’s restroom at the north end of the tracks. He locked himself in the last stall and slid his hand around the bottom of the ceramic toilet bowl. A small locker key was taped to the back. It paid to have a network of loyal friends from his former Spec-Ops days. Hoo-rah!
He retrieved a compact but heavy backpack from a locker. A quick search through its compartments confirmed that everything was there. As he slung the pack over one shoulder, he met up with Marshall and Lacey at the Ponte Scalzi footbridge across from the station, one of only three bridges that crossed over the serpentine Grand Canal.
At Lacey’s insistence, Marshall was more dapper than usual, in beige linen pants, loafers, and a lightweight cashmere sweater. Lacey turned heads with a colorful sundress, wide-brim hat, large designer sunglasses, and an eye-catching pair of what she’d called crushed-patent-leather sandals. Together they looked like European models on their way to a photo shoot.
Tony, on the other hand, could not have been confused with anything but a tourist, dressed in loose jeans, black tennis shoes, a dark sweatshirt, and his Yankees baseball cap. Comfortable and easy to maneuver in.
The rows of shops and restaurants on either end of the double-wide bridge were bustling with tourists enjoying the unseasonably warm morning. Backpack-laden teens with the latest-generation iPods and cell phones gathered in small clusters as they planned their attack on the city. A tour guide with a placard over her head herded a group of Japanese tourists over the bridge and paused while they snapped pictures of a vaporetto gliding beneath them. Pigeons fluttered and twisted overhead, searching for their next handout. Tony’s stomach grumbled as the rich aroma of fresh-baked pizza drifted by from a small trattoria.
Today was the first day of Carnevale. Although it was still early in the day, there was already a scattering of elaborately costumed couples making their way from their homes toward the Piazza San Marco to take part in the opening festivities.
Guided by the walking map on Marshall’s iPhone, the trio crossed over the canal and made their way through a maze of winding alleys and arched bridges toward Francesca’s address in the S
an Polo district. With her business card in hand, it had been a simple matter for Marshall to hack into the institute’s employment records to retrieve her home address.
After a ten-minute walk, they stopped at the entrance to a cobblestone alley. “It’s down there,” Marshall said, pointing to an arched wooden doorway embedded in a fifteen-foot stone wall at the dead end of the narrow street.
Tony pulled them back around the corner. He wrapped a small wireless earbud and mini boom microphone around one ear. Marshall wore a similar device. Tony speed-dialed Marshall’s number. “How’s the reception?”
“Perfect.”
Tony scanned the piazza behind them. The crowds were thinner here. A couple of kids bounced a soccer ball off the walls of a church. A group of old men played cards in the shade of a Cinzano umbrella outside a small café.
“Listen up,” Tony said. “It looks like there’s a small courtyard on the other side of that door. I need about fifteen minutes to check the perimeter and get into position. I’ll call you when I’m set. At that point, keep the line open so I can monitor what’s going on when you ring the bell. Remember, if anything goes wrong, clear out fast and we’ll meet back at the hotel.” He gave Lacey a long look. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
She answered without hesitation. “Absolutely!”
Tony admired her confidence. “You guys grab a table at the café and wait for my call.” He took off over a small footbridge to the right of the alley and disappeared around the corner.
Fifteen minutes later, Tony crouched behind the waist-high brick wall between the small open-air workshop of the water garage and the inner courtyard of Francesca’s residence. A tied-off gondola bobbed in the water behind him. He was dripping wet, a small puddle of water forming beneath him. The backpack was open on the ground at his feet. It was the only thing he had been able to keep dry during his brief, one-armed swim through the cloudy green waters of the canal. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience. The water here would never pass a sanitation check.