While he spoke, she laid her helmet on the seat and shook her sweat-flattened hair.
He wanted to lift that dark fall, but she beat him to it. Did she know that finger combing her hair, with her arms raised, also jacked up her killer round parts? And some of his parts too? “After the river silted—” he swallowed, trying to create enough saliva to continue, “—the shoreline moved, shipping stopped and the city emptied.” His words felt as dry as his mouth, but maybe conversation would consign his hard-on to history. Otherwise, given the way his jeans had tightened, he’d be challenged to get off his bike without busting a rivet.
“We can’t ignore what happened on the way here.” Her eyes were so deep brown and all-encompassing that it seemed as if he’d plunged into a pool. Her mouth moved, but he couldn’t look away from her gaze even as he absorbed how her eyebrows drew together and a crease formed over her nose. “You can’t let strangers spook you into losing control.”
Before he could reply, she bent at the waist to flip her hair upside-down.
“I wasn’t spooked.” Now he could stand and adjust without her seeing his condition. “And I was in full control of the bike.” Right, that sounded defensive.
“I know that.” Her voice sounded muffled. “I meant control of yourself.”
If he had control, he wouldn’t be staring at the whorls of hair that edged the nape of her neck. He surrendered. Careful not to pull the cashmere strands between his fingers, he cupped her head and nudged her upright. Loose strands clung to his fingers when he traced her jaw. Her chin was strong. Stubborn. Her lips parted, making him think—
A car engine downshifted and tires crunched gravel.
By reflex, he flicked his eyes to the driveway. Years of training primed his muscles to react before what he saw fully registered. His hand grabbed her arm, anchoring her to the far side of his body where his bulk offered a barrier, while his legs sped into motion. “Move!”
The black Fiat had caught up. With the river to their right and access to the road on the left fenced off, only one route remained—into the ruins.
“Whaaat?” She glanced over her shoulder as they sprinted around the tour bus. The moment comprehension hit, her arm spasmed in his grip. “Is it—”
“Yeah.” He shoved a handful of euros through the ticket window and, in Italian, told the disinterested guard to keep the change. “Her husband hired the man in the car, you understand? Perhaps you could assist with a delay?” Neither the best lie Wulf could manufacture in seconds nor the extra cash distracted the man from his text messages.
“How’d they follow—” Theresa stumbled on the cobblestones and swore.
“Probably a GPS bug.” Wulf yanked her forward while he inventoried his assets: a Heckler and Koch Mark 23 automatic pistol, ten rounds and a Benchmade 3300 knife. More than enough to protect himself, but inadequate as piss with her safety at stake. “Move faster.”
Ahead, where a clump of pines and ornamental shrubs opened into a sunny clearing by the remains of the warehouse district, two dozen Scandinavian-looking tourists milled with a guide. He decelerated to a speed walk. “See the tall guy in jeans and a black windbreaker?” At enough distance the tail might not realize the guy was in his fifties. “Next to the grandma Valkyrie with the blue sun hat?”
“Uh-huh.” Theresa panted.
“Stick to him as if he’s me, no matter what.” Numbers would insulate her while he took his questions directly to a man with answers. “Do not leave this group.” Over his shoulder, he noted their follower was hung up at the admission window. By Frejya’s necklace, Italians did enjoy a love triangle. “If I don’t meet you, get on their bus. Pay, faint, twist your ankle, whatever you have to do, but do not go off alone.”
She had those tight-pressed lips he already associated with challenges, so he pinned her with the look he used to test fresh team members. “Understand?”
“No, I don’t.” She lowered her voice as they reached the fringes of the group. “Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“Not if it’s about Afghan heroin.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she pulled away before he realized how that had sounded.
“My team’s investigating. It’s army business, got it?” Shifting his grip, he brought her hand to his lips. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
Letting go of her felt ominous, worse than any first step into a hostile building, but he had to work alone. Screened by the mass of Scandinavians, he slipped through the remains of an arch. Beyond the tumbled blocks in the rear of the building, a former alley paralleled the main road, and he doubled back through half-crumbled columns and piles of sun-bleached bricks, their marble veneers long ago looted for Renaissance palaces. Occasionally a higher-pitched laugh carried to him, indistinct on the breeze, but it didn’t disturb his hunt.
At the next corner he spotted his prey scurrying to catch the tour group. The beefy man with a sun visor, baggy khakis and fanny pack was the eager photographer from the Mouth of Truth. Following them once might be nosiness; twice was surveillance. Wulf melted behind the stones and changed course to match his quarry, but the other man never turned, never looked over his shoulder, never noticed that he’d acquired a stalker.
Ahead, Theresa’s guide stopped and directed the group to consider the Baths of Neptune.
The follower slowed as if unwilling to overtake them.
Wulf’s alley ended in a T intersection at the multistory remains of the baths. He broke right, heading north, and sprinted to circle the rear of the large structure. Taking his eyes off the target felt risky, but without a partner he had to gamble and use his knowledge of Ostia to set an ambush. As he dashed down the lane that separated the baths from the barracks of the Vigili guards, the sun beat on his head. Perspiration stuck his jeans to his legs.
He stopped at the last corner, concealed by the wall, and watched Theresa and the tour group drift toward the restored amphitheater at the center of Ostia Antica. He’d wanted to saunter through the ruins beside Theresa, not hunt some fat, slow prey like his namesake taking a sheep. Some days it felt as if everything he wanted for himself, everything he tried to build in his life, ended up as jumbled and empty as the roofless two-thousand-year-old apartments that stood between him and the spot where he intended to act.
He trotted in the shadow of the buildings, scanning for one of the slaves’ passages that would bisect this faded street. Halfway to the main road, a slip of alley barely wider than his shoulders cut west to the plaza where the others had gathered. At the end of the passage, he dropped behind a stack of bricks high enough to conceal a prone man.
Theresa, still in the midst of the Scandinavians, craned her neck and studied the ruins. Her arms crossed above her waist as if her stomach hurt, but she hunched her shoulders and traipsed with the others into the amphitheater’s entrance tunnel.
He’d attended enough summer concerts here to know the dark ramp sloped below street level, then emerged into sunlight in the middle of a half circle of two thousand seats. In seconds, the group would be facing the stage and the remnants of the guild halls. With that spectacular sight in front of them, no one ever looked behind. There’d be no better strike opportunity.
The target slunk into the tunnel without checking over his shoulder. Dude wouldn’t last one hour in Special Forces Q-Course; he probably wouldn’t make it on a playground. He didn’t hear Wulf until after Wulf’s elbow hooked his throat. Wulf jacked the man’s arm between his shoulder blades and slammed him face-first into a wall niche. “Shut up, or I’ll pop your shoulder.” He twisted the arm high enough to trigger groans while he frisked him one-handed.
Zipped into his fanny pack the guy had a nine-mil Beretta semiautomatic. That was an immediate game changer. Anger erupted in Wulf’s chest as hot and lethal as the volcanic ash that had doomed a different ancient city. This man had come after Theresa with a weapon. It would be so easy to break his arm, and he deserved it. Deserved worse.