by A D Davies
Still no sign of Jules, but one of the remaining gunmen dashed across Dan’s peripheral vision. Against his better judgment, Dan switched his aim and fired once into the man’s torso. The impact proved he was wearing body armor, so Dan fired a second into his head. The distraction gave Horse his opening.
The big Aussie zipped around from the far corner, barely a flash of head and shoulders at the end, ducking under the bar’s awning. Harpal reached that end, but he only ended up exposing himself to the last three gunmen.
Dan fired three times down into the awning in the hope of a lucky shot, then rolled away as the expected reply blasted his first position. The torrent followed, and he had no choice but to drop back to Bridget’s position on the floor.
Eyes wide, mouth small, she asked, “Harpal?”
“He’s okay,” Dan said, prepping a second magazine. Although not out yet, he’d lost count of his rounds. “But Jules is stuck.”
A grunt of pain sounded.
Dan leaned around the post to view Horse’s position, which was behind the bar with one of Jules’s throwing knives embedded in the meaty part of his forearm—the same forearm Jules had stabbed back in Prague. Only this time, Horse hadn’t dropped the gun, instead holding it at Giovani’s head.
Dan could guess what had happened: a brief skirmish in which Jules defended himself with a blade, but it didn’t have the usual effect of disabling his target. A shot of morphine to ease the earlier wound?
From the side, two shots from Harpal’s Glock took down one of the dumber raiders, and the final two hunkered behind potted plants the size of small cars.
Behind the bar, Horse spied Dan drawing down on him.
Craning, Dan found Jules on the opposite side of the bar from Horse and Giovani. The kid held a package with dimensions somewhat larger than a legal pad, albeit four times thicker, bound with brown paper. Saint Thomas’s manuscript, no doubt snatched during the firefight.
It looked wet, and Jules swayed a lit Zippo beneath it.
“You won’t burn it,” Horse said.
His voice was deep, but whenever Dan crossed Horse, he was always surprised at how well-spoken the larger man was.
Not just a big guy.
Jules backed away a step. “All I care about is one item. The one you got. I don’t need this relic to find it. Just gotta find you. And guess what? I found you.”
“Back off, Jules.” Dan drew his bead tighter. “I got this.”
Bridget pawed at Dan’s shoulder. “Don’t let him burn it. Please. It’s almost two thousand years old!”
“And he has a hostage.” Dan tried to line up Horse’s face in his sights, but the killer was too experienced for that. “Let’s not forget the hostage.”
“Lowlife.” Jules sounded tough, adopting a stereotypical gangsta tone. “Sells to the highest bidder. Why’d I care about that asshole? Now, I’m walkin’ outa here. And you ain’t stoppin’ me. Clear?”
Horse continued shifting Giovani around to prevent Dan’s angle from winning out. The blade in his arm oozed red but didn’t hinder his movement. “What’s clear, mate, is you got skills. But you don’t carry a gun. We watched the footage from Prague, so we know you can handle firearms. Which gets me thinking you got some kind of hippie-dippie respect for human life.”
Jules held firm, but if Dan detected the minute shift in his lips, Horse surely did too.
“Maybe I’ll demonstrate.” Horse glanced out to the patio area where the elderly couple huddled in a corner behind a scattering of upturned chairs and stools and what Dan took to be a student, who remained curled in a ball under one of the few tables yet to be hit. “The young one, Stephen. Just the leg.”
Jules swung the Zippo away from the package. “No, wait!”
“Too late.”
One of the snipers was plainly named Stephen, as a single muffled gunshot rang out, and the young guy under his table yelped in agony as a cloud of blood burst from his thigh.
Although Dan couldn’t see his whole face, Horse’s eyes creased in a smile that was invisible but spreading to life.
“The manuscript,” Horse said. “The next one goes in the old lady. Think she’ll survive a flesh wound like that?”
Dan felt the gun’s handle slick in his palm. “Jules. We can handle this.”
Horse shifted forward. “Hand it to Giovani.”
“Let the others go first,” Jules said.
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s a good deal. Take it. You ain’t got time to argue. Listen.”
A pause. The high-pitched whine of the polizia sirens echoed through the canyons of streets. It was impossible to tell whether they were one block away or five.
Dan could see the gears turning in Horse’s mind.
Jules said, “They don’t matter to your prime objective, do they? They’re just in the way.”
He shifted the lighter closer again, the bluff about 90 percent nullified now, but with just 10 percent, it was still a chance. Slim, but—
“Go,” Horse said to Dan. “Now, before I call him on it.”
“Get Bridget safe,” Jules said. “You got one minute.”
Dan spent a second considering his options but knew if he didn’t comply, Horse could kill them all. The manuscript was plainly too valuable to him, though. Dan had to choose before Horse calculated the odds were massively in his favor.
Maintaining his aim, Dan held out his free hand and took Bridget’s, pulling her gently behind him, acting as her human shield as she sidestepped from cover. He was aware that this exposed her to the snipers, but he doubted they’d fire with Horse positioned the other side; even a tenth-of-an-inch mistake on their end could result in a two-inch miss on the ground—and a serious risk of hitting their boss.
Once clear of the bar, Dan moved Bridget to march in front of him, sweeping his gun arm between the two potted plants concealing the remaining gunmen. With a final glance back, he escorted Bridget into the hotel with just one thought lingering.
Where did Harpal get to?
Chapter Sixteen
Harpal had found a storeroom around the back of the bar hut. While the gunmen were occupied with Dan’s standoff, he slipped inside. The setup had a door to the rear, a lift-up flap to access the customers’ area, and this large closet packed with beer bottles, juice, and spare glasses. Harpal cracked the door open.
He heard everything, saw a little of it: Horse with Giovani behind the bar, Jules the customer side with the book, and Dan shielding Bridget as he escorted her away. Once the pair were clear, he steeled himself to screw up Jules’s plan.
“Hand it to Giovani,” Horse ordered. “Giovani, you hold on to that, do as you’re told, and maybe you and Mrs. Giovani live to see your next sale. ’Kay?”
Giovani nodded.
Jules flicked the Zippo shut, extending the vodka-rinsed package nervously in one hand over the bar between them. Giovani grasped the book and stepped back, then dropped it into a satchel dangling from Horse’s hand.
Harpal eased the door open minutely farther and firmed his grip on the gun. Two-handed. Mouth dry. Unsure where to plant his feet. Six feet from Horse.
The big Australian shoved Giovani aside and pointed his gun at Jules, injured arm dripping red. “You know I’ve got to kill you now.”
“Guessed as much,” Jules said.
Harpal opened the door fully. “Freeze!”
Horse snapped that way. Jules flicked something, and the air crackled around Horse’s head. Horse flinched, and Jules dived for the counter toward Giovani and the book.
Harpal fired three times into Horse’s chest, but he was wearing what must have been incredible body armor. He merely staggered with a grunt and rolled across the counter, halting Jules with a raised weapon, meeting him halfway.
Jules was too quick. He slapped the gun and scrambled out of sight. Then Horse dragged Giovani over with one hand while loosing off four rounds at Harpal, which forced him back in his hole.
A second
later, Harpal dared to poke his hand around and fired twice at Horse’s last location. When no shots returned, he risked an eyeball between frame and door. Seeing no one present, he crawled out fully. Not even Jules was there.
What the hell... ?
Jules sprinted out from the bar’s blind side. “They got the manuscript. Come on.”
Harpal followed, covering the corners that Jules appeared to ignore. There was no one left. No more sniper fire. Still no mobile reception.
Jules passed the terrified civilians without checking on them and peered over the edge, out into the street. When Harpal reached him, Jules said, “They’ll be going a different way. Won’t risk Dan ambushing ’em. Which is the obvious route?”
“Front exit.”
“Second?”
“Back way, through the kitchens.”
“Meaning...”
“I don’t know,” Harpal said.
“I wasn’t really talking to you. I was thinking. Figured it’d be polite to include you.”
“I’m glad you were polite about it.”
“The next building to this.” Jules dashed to the other side of the patio. “There’s a gap one way, but they’re connected. A back way on the balconies’ll give ’em access. Plus, y’know, cops.”
Jules leaped up the wall and ran along a ledge, all of four inches wide, and disappeared down the uneven drop to the next building—a knockoff fashion store. Harpal could only watch as Jules sprang up onto an AC unit and somersaulted off the other side, disappearing from view.
Harpal had skydived, snowboarded, even used a wing suit for fun, but this was hard-core. So screw that.
He made for the conventional exit, back into the hotel, pausing to shout at the hurt student, “Help’s coming.”
The wah-wah sirens of the polizia whined loudly.
Inside, Harpal descended one floor and sprinted along a corridor, picked a room facing the back of the building at random, and hammered on the door. Better a random one than guessing Horse’s route. There could be mercs waiting.
No answer.
Harpal shot the lock off, the gun clicking empty. He kicked the door in and replaced the mag as he hustled through to the french doors. A second lock to shoot.
Ears ringing after the two reports in a confined space, he stepped out onto the balcony.
It wasn’t much of a view, just an extension of the hotel’s parking lot and a few spires and the top of a dome over the modern buildings. He looked both ways, locating Jules atop the clothing shop.
Sure enough, someone had formed a makeshift bridge using a bed frame to reach the shop’s third floor from two windows away.
Then, up above, Jules fell away from the roof and descended into open space.
What the... ?
It took Harpal a second to spot that the line was secured on a railing, and as Jules plummeted, his speed reduced rather than increased.
That elastic thing again.
Show-off.
Harpal holstered his Glock, swung a leg over the balcony barrier, and used a drainpipe to descend as fast as he dared, in the manner of a sticky fireman’s pole. As soon as he hit the parking lot, he sprinted toward where he guessed Jules would land.
Up a narrow backstreet, not wide enough for a car, he emerged onto a busy, sunlit thoroughfare where a gaggle of pedestrians scattered away from something that had spooked them.
Harpal put his head down and sprinted, glimpsing Jules as he crossed a road chockablock with small cars whizzing in and out of gaps. Horns parped and brakes squealed, and men leaned out of the vehicles to swear and make lewd gestures. Women too. And when the traffic all but ground to a standstill, Jules continued in a straight line, vaulting over the vehicles.
Harpal darted between the cars and mopeds, assuming Jules had a bead on Horse, although why they didn’t have a getaway vehicle waiting, Harpal couldn’t say.
Then he saw why.
The four people they chased were heading for a piazza, a wide-open stretch with a fountain at the center, lorded over by a huge slab of a building, four stories high and a dozen windows wide.
Bikes waited. Six of them. Big beefy Ducatis. Each a Monster 1200 R with an L2 Testastretta 11 Dual Spark R motor—ninety-seven pounds per feet of torque, 160 horsepower. Harpal knew his bikes, and these were works of art to be used as getaway vehicles.
They expected to kill everyone and walk calmly away to this staging point.
Jules flipped himself off a car’s hood, then somersaulted over a speeding moped with two women astride it, causing them to veer crazily to a stop. They yelled obscenities in Italian.
As Harpal hurtled past them, he said, “Scuzi.”
Horse and his men reached the bikes. Horse had a satchel crossed tightly over his body. He looked back and shouted something that Harpal didn’t catch, and the two gunmen peeled away on foot.
A hundred yards ahead of Harpal, Jules spoke to him via the earbud. “Cover me, I’m going for the manuscript.”
Harpal knew Dan would chew him out if he opened fire near civilians, but the pedestrians had already spotted the submachine guns on Horse’s goons and were clearing the piazza in a panicked stream.
“Now, please,” Jules said.
Harpal drew the Glock and aimed. Waited for a long gap in the to and fro. He fired at one guy, taking him in the leg, which dropped him flat to the ground.
Horse made it to a bike and kicked off the stand. Jules snapped his arm forward, and Horse looked down angrily. The tire was flat.
Another knife, courtesy of Jules.
Horse pulled his own gun, firing over and over, forcing Jules sideways behind the low fountain wall.
Harpal used a trash can for cover.
Screams filled the air, the evacuation now a stampede, bodies fleeing in both directions.
And then Horse was away. On another bike, he sped across the piazza in a cloud of tire smoke, bumping over a pedestrian crossing to hit the road.
“Shoot him,” Jules demanded. “But don’t kill him.”
Harpal moved sideways, but he was pinned by the final merc. “I’m kind of stuck.”
Jules unraveled something else from his jacket and tossed a series of small cylinders at the gunman’s hiding spot on the other side of the fountain. The flashbangs detonated in quick succession, causing the guy to stagger.
Harpal popped out and shot him in the head.
“You killed him,” Jules said angrily.
Horse was right: a hippie-dippie respect for human life.
Both Harpal and Jules dashed forward for the only bike left standing, where Giovani cowered nearby. Alive. Uninjured.
Harpal lifted his leg over to sit astride the beast and fired her up. The engine growled through him, and he was almost looking forward to pursuing a professional killer on it. Jules got on behind. No arguing about who was driving. Harpal engaged the clutch, hit first gear, and ramped up the accelerator. They shot off, hitting sixty in less than three seconds.
Jules clung around Harpal’s waist, leaning into the bends with him to keep the balance even. They roared between cars along the main road, the shops and monuments flying by, yet the deaths of the men back at the hotel gnawed at Jules.
In some situations, he treated killing the same way vegetarians occasionally treat meat eaters: you go ahead, but it’s not for me. But in this case, Jules was a part of it.
Was I complicit?
A vegan working the conveyor belt in an abattoir?
Within a minute, as Harpal accelerated up Lungotevere dei Sangallo alongside the River Tiber, Jules forced the existential questions to the back of his mind and concentrated on the fleeing motorcycle that was shimmering into view through the haze of exhaust smoke. The San Giovanni dei Fiorentini loomed, the small basilica resplendent in the afternoon sun, a long bend in the road approaching at a crossroads—one artery to the left toward Vatican City, the other to the right heading deeper into the Roman center. Jules guessed Horse would push straight on, north, toward the
airport.
Ten yards from the junction, their target glanced back at them. And leaned right, taking the less intelligent option.
Denser traffic.
More cops.
Was he rendezvousing with someone?
Leading them into a trap?
Harpal didn’t seem to share Jules’s concern as he dropped a gear and sped up, cutting between columns of vehicles with the sort of abandon Jules used to employ. But the adrenaline-soaked thrill of the chase was just training wheels. Now Jules had a target.
And it was getting away.
Because Horse was smart. Way smarter than anyone of his appearance ought to be. Like calling Jules on his bluff that he didn’t care about the bystanders getting hurt, then using the adjoining building because, undoubtedly, Dan would have set up an ambush once Bridget was safe. And the backup escape option.
Horse was focused. As focused as Jules. And although he plainly wanted to kill the group, he prioritized the manuscript despite the odds being in his favor.
It was all planned.
Had he been under strict orders to expose the manuscript to zero risk?
A good soldier.
The street he turned onto was not a prime escape route, though, nor a great place for a trap.
Decelerating to take the same corner as Horse, Jules tapped Harpal on the shoulder and yelled, “Stop!”
“What?”
They could barely hear one another over the engine and the whoosh of wind, but the tech allowed Harpal’s voice to crackle in Jules’s ear. They were out of jamming range.
“The manuscript,” Jules replied at his normal volume, assuming the throat mic would pick it up. “He don’t have it. It’s back at the Palazzo Farnese.”
“Where?”
“The place we got the bike, the Palazzo... forget it. Just go back to the fountain.”
“Guys?” came Charlie’s voice. “You okay? What’s that noise?”
Jules loosened his grip, straining to keep the annoyance from his tone. “The noise of the manuscript getting away. Harpal, stop the bike.”
They took the corner, but without any sign of slowing. He wasn’t going to listen.