There was movement in the yard. He could hear the scuffling of feet on gravel. One man called to another, confirming there was more than one person about. Duilio huffed out a breath, pressed the side of his face against the cool iron, and made himself breathe slower so he could listen. What was going on out there?
Another shot sounded. This one ricocheted off the ground near his left hand, sending a shower of rock chips spraying about. He jerked back, but not before a chip caught the side of his cheek. He hissed and pressed the back of his right hand against the cut. It came away bloody.
Damnation. He needed to get behind his attackers, however many there were. Out here on the end of the breakwater, they couldn’t miss him if he made a run for it. They had him pinned down behind the Titan’s wheels. He glanced toward the edge of the breakwater more than a dozen feet away. His mind spun, trying to weigh the odds.
He didn’t want to kill anyone today, but he might not have any choice. He could swim back to the quay and get behind the man. The revolver would probably still fire, which gave him six shots, but he couldn’t trust the old derringer once it got wet.
A third shot hit the iron wheel near him. Duilio jerked back and pressed himself against the wheel again. Two more shots followed. They sounded like they’d come from different spots, farther away, but he couldn’t be sure. Duilio held his breath.
Above the wind and the clinking of the chains hanging from the Titan’s boom, he heard moaning. He dared a glimpse in that direction and saw Mata slumped against the stones, clutching his belly.
“He’s down, Mr. Ferreira,” a man with a Brazilian accent shouted. “Come on out.”
Duilio didn’t think the Brazilian was in league with Mata. Surely he wouldn’t announce himself that way if he were. That didn’t necessarily mean he could trust the Brazilian, and his gift supplied nothing. But he needed the answer enough to risk going out there.
Mata lay next to the first row of giant granite blocks, with the man in the dark suit standing over him, his pistol trained loosely on Mata. Inspector Gaspar approached, jumping over the gate at the entrance of the construction yard. Once he reached them, Gaspar knelt down and began to check Mata’s injuries.
Duilio walked cautiously along the rails toward them. His heart was still thumping erratically, but at least his breathing sounded normal. When he’d gotten within a dozen feet, he paused. “Who are you?”
The man in the dark suit came toward him, giving Duilio a better look than he’d gotten on the tram. He had slender features and a lean build, suggesting athleticism, but he seemed tired, worn. His dark gray suit was of a modest Portuguese cut, and his composure after a shoot-out suggested he’d seen the like before. “Anjos,” he said in his Brazilian accent. “Inspector Gabriel Anjos.”
Gaspar nodded curtly to Duilio, confirming that, and turned his attention back to the assassin. He’d opened Mata’s waistcoat and shirt and was surveying a seeping injury that looked to be near the man’s liver. A police-issue pistol lay a few feet away, ignored.
“Would have been nice to know who you were sooner,” Duilio said to Anjos.
“There wasn’t time,” Anjos replied. “You’ve got a nick on your cheek.”
Duilio tugged out a handkerchief and dabbed his cheek. It had nearly stopped bleeding. Still keeping his distance, he gazed at the assassin. A youngish man with a stocky build and regular features, there was little to distinguish him from thousands of other men in the Golden City—save that Duilio had been attacked by him in a tavern earlier in the week. “This is Mata, isn’t it? The same man who killed my brother?”
Anjos regarded Duilio with narrowed eyes. “Yes. Don’t get ideas. He’s our prisoner.”
Did the man think he was going to attack Mata? Duilio turned his eyes back to the assassin. Gaspar was attempting to staunch the wound with a handkerchief, but Duilio suspected it was already too late for a hospital. An internal injury like that was almost always a death sentence.
I should feel . . . more, Duilio thought.
“He’s not going to make it until she can get here,” Gaspar said, looking up at Anjos.
Anjos nodded grimly. “You ask him, then.”
Gaspar grasped the wounded man’s chin with a bloody hand. “Who ordered you to kill Alessio Ferreira?”
The assassin laughed wetly. “I don’t know.”
Gaspar shot a glance up at Anjos, who nodded. He turned back to Mata. “How did you get the order, then? Who gave it to you?”
Mata coughed, and blood speckled his lips. “No one.”
“That’s true,” Anjos inserted quickly.
Duilio glanced at the Brazilian. How did he know that?
“How did you get the order?” Gaspar asked again.
The assassin laughed. “They’re left on my desk in my home. Don’t you get it? I can’t tell you anything. You might as well shoot me now.”
Duilio frowned, trying to recall where he’d heard such a story before—a note left on a desk.
“He means that,” Anjos told his partner. “It’s the truth, as much as he knows.”
Aha! Duilio glanced back at the Brazilian. Anjos must be a Truthsayer, able to parse out the truth or lie in another’s words. It wasn’t a common gift, but not nearly as rare as Gaspar’s ability. It explained why Anjos had been doing the questioning of members of the Special Police. They couldn’t lie to him, not successfully.
Gaspar gripped the assassin’s chin. “Same with Ferreira here?”
But Mata coughed, and blood splattered the back of Gaspar’s hand. Duilio had a feeling they weren’t going to get any more answers. “He’s dying, man.”
“I know.” Gaspar wiped away the blood that now bubbled from Mata’s mouth. Mata slumped to the ground, lacking even the strength to sit up. Gaspar propped him on his side, but Mata’s coughing grew fainter.
Duilio watched Mata as the man’s breathing calmed again. He’d expected to feel more anger, but Mata wasn’t truly Alessio’s killer. He’d simply been the tool that carried out the orders. No, someone else had pulled the man’s strings.
Anjos glanced back toward the quay and waved to a group of uniformed police officers who approached from the town. Workers were beginning to return from their lunch breaks, and a few stood watching curiously at the construction yard gates. Two of the officers stopped at the gates and took up a position there, keeping the civilians out, while another pair entered the construction yard and approached them.
Anjos drew out a handkerchief and covered his mouth as he coughed. “I would rather have gotten him back to the city,” he said as he folded the handkerchief, “but I don’t think he would have spilled anything useful. The best way to keep an assassin from talking is not to tell them anything in the first place.”
The two uniformed officers had reached them and knelt to inspect the body. Gaspar picked up the assassin’s discarded pistol and came to Anjos’ side. “He’s unconscious.”
Duilio watched as the officers prepared to carry Mata out between them. “I had an investigator looking for something previously stolen from my house,” Duilio said, figuring it was better not to say what was missing in front of the two unfamiliar officers. “He was warned off by a note left on his desk, in a locked house.”
Gaspar snorted. “Someone picked his lock—nothing more.”
He’d thought exactly the same at the time. “But the same method was used, which struck me as important. We have reason to suspect Paolo Silva was behind that theft, but no proof.”