The boy snarled as his rifle began cracking out single shots, then Franco’s shotgun boomed, and the whole world went up in a roar of gunfire and a string of grenade explosions. Ivanov cursed, once, in Russian, and swung the muzzle of his submachine gun around the mouth of the small cave. He fired controlled, short bursts at first from his MP5 in the general direction of where he remembered small knots of NKVD troopers had been standing, less than a minute before. The suppressor did its job, deadening the muzzle flash and the report of his weapon, but making him feel slightly ridiculous in the devastating uproar of pitched battle that had erupted all around them.
Bullets hummed and whizzed past, stitching the rocks, bricks, and concrete around his position. Someone had zeroed in on his position and began to lay down suppressive fire. An explosion far to his right blew out a chunk of the ceiling, probably from a grenade launcher.
Ivanov gave up on short bursts and emptied the hundred-round drum in a general arc from left to right. Expended in a few seconds, he dropped the drum and replaced it with a conventional magazine. Repeating the process four times, Ivanov sprayed the bulk of his ammunition into the cavern below before throwing a grenade or two of his own into the fray.
The boy grunted and gurgled as his throat exploded, painting Ivanov’s face with a splash of hot gore. His body dropped and rolled over the lip of the cave mouth, tumbling away into the firestorm below. Franco racked shell after shell into his shotgun, raining hundreds of pellets down on the Russians, never once speaking, even to curse, while he did so.
An enormous explosion, seemingly volcanic in the confined space, stabbed Ivanov’s eardrums like hot knitting needles. The blast was far too large for a hand grenade; and after a moment’s disorientation, he surmised that one of the gas cylinders attached to the camp stove had ruptured and exploded. The volume of fire trailed off immediately.
Dark shapes emerged from the far side of the large cavern. Marius’s men. They drew sharp blades and knelt before the ones who still cried for their mothers, gagging on their own foamy blood. Throats were slit, carotids stabbed, and hearts popped in much the same workmanlike fashion one might go about strangling a chicken for dinner.
“We go now-hurry!” shouted Franco. Ivanov could barely hear him over the ringing in his ears. They dived back into the tunnel system, navigating by the light of fires burning behind them.
This is bullshit, he thought, before realizing that he had spoken or perhaps even shouted aloud. Furedi ignored him, charging forward, navigating as he had before by running his fingers along the walls and the rock face above his head. When the flickering orange light of burning equipment and bodies was no longer sufficient, Ivanov slipped his NVGs back on before swapping out a magazine from his weapon.
Unsurprisingly, Marius and Giorgio were waiting for them at the junction of the two tunnels. The priest-if that was indeed what he was-seemed entirely unperturbed by the action. He accepted the death of the boy with a quick nod and the sign of the cross.
“This will bring many more of the Communists,” he said. “They are already in the tunnels and catacombs.”
Ivanov could not help himself. “A brilliant plan then, Padre. Kill a few stupid troopers so that we can get ourselves killed by many more.”
Giorgio skinned his lips back from his teeth like a dog, but neither Franco nor Marius reacted. Nor did the elder Furedi demur at being addressed as “Padre.”
“It all serves a purpose,” he replied calmly. “God’s purpose and yours. The man you seek, this businessman, I am told he is no longer guarded by one hundred of Stalin’s attack dogs. Only a small squad remains.”
Ivanov looked at him as though he were a particularly stupid child.
“Because they are all down here hunting for us.”
“Exactly,” said Marius. “You can thank me later.”
6
South Rome (Allied sector)
“Oh dear,” said Harry. “I hope we’ve set a place at the table for Mr. Cockup, then.”
The Secret Intelligence Service chief was unimpressed with his attempt at levity. These people, thought Harry, no appreciation for the classics.
“This is serious, Colonel Windsor,” Carstairs said, conspicuously declining to address him as “Your Highness.” “Sobeskaia is running hot right now, and you are the only person he’ll agree to run to.”
The three men-Harry, Talbot Carstairs, and Stan Walker, Carstairs’s OSS counterpart in Rome-all stood around a small conference table in the secure room at the British embassy. “The Quiet Room,” as Harry thought of it, although he would never have used that phrasing in present company. The local spymasters both played to type. Carstairs, with his shiny, bald head and round, almost babyish features, was every inch a civil-service man, even if his service was performed in secret. Walker was old-school OSS, a veteran of the mad, bad days of Wild Bill Donovan. The sort of brute who was most happy blowing things up and hurting people. Probably too smart for one of the military-intelligence workshops, and too dumb for the Ivy League of the CIA, which, in this world, did not dirty its hands or bloody its knuckles with anything as gauche as direct action.
The SIS station chief ran a hand over the shining dome of his head, almost as if he were brushing hair out of his eyes. It was most probably an old habit, Harry figured.
“Gentlemen, we simply do not have the time,” said Carstairs. He tapped two fingers on a buff-colored manila folder lying on the table in front of them, leaving a couple of faint, greasy fingerprints behind, just beneath the only words printed on the cover.
VALENTIN SOBESKAIA.
Harry’s stomach growled. Apart from a few mouthfuls of truffled mushroom, he had not eaten since the morning. The glass of prosecco with Julia hardly counted, and he now deeply regretted waving away the finger food at Sir Alec’s movie premiere. He shook his head as frustration got the better of him. Jules had been understanding at the restaurant, but then, she was more than familiar with the demands of last-minute, unexpected deadlines. Still, he felt awful for having dragged her all the way to Rome, only to abandon her almost immediately. Nothing about this meeting suggested he’d be able to catch up with her again anytime soon either.
“All right.” He sighed. “Valentin Sobeskaia. I suppose you’d better tell me all about my new best friend.”
The OSS man threw a quick glance at the locked door. More a nervous twitch than a conscious attempt to reassure himself that they could not be overheard.
First though, to Harry’s surprise and not inconsiderable annoyance, Carstairs insisted on the formalities. Opening the file, he began to read from a card pasted to the inside, carefully sticking to the exact wording.
“Colonel Windsor, you are about to be briefed into a Top Secret Ultra file. By accepting this briefing, you agree to be bound by the provisions of the Official Secrets Act of-”
“Oh, come on, I don’t think this-”
But Carstairs cut him off, holding up one hand like a traffic policeman. Meanwhile he continued his read-through, explaining to the prince and twenty-five-year military veteran the full range of penalties that would apply to him (yes, even him) under the Official Secrets Act of 1939, were he to divulge the contents of this file to any unauthorized person or persons.
Unable to keep his annoyance in check, Harry wordlessly implored Walker to intervene. The American just grinned back at him, like a hammerhead shark. He was obviously used to the bureaucratic obsessions of his colleague.