Tom squeezes through the gap.
The unmistakable crack of gunfire echoes towards him.
Twenty metres away there are flames.
More shots ring out.
Through the smoke, Tom sees walls and doors.
The gunfire is coming from where the fire is.
It has to be Valentina.
He runs towards the flames and takes a kick at the doors.
They bounce but don’t break open.
He takes another run.
A harder jump.
They still don’t move.
Tom’s eyes fall on the three statues of Cybele forming a centrepiece a little further from him.
He dislodges one and picks it up in a bear hug.
It’s as heavy as a truck, and the weight is killing his damaged shoulder.
He grits his teeth and ignores the pain. He hoists the heavy statue so he can hold it like a Scotsman tossing a caber.
He charges the flaming doors.
Cybele’s stone head breaks off on impact.
Tom shifts all his weight behind the base.
The doors burst open.
137
Valentina pushes Sweetheart behind her and drops the first of the Galli with a body shot.
Two other guards are coming up fast behind him and another two are spreading wide to outflank her.
The front two open fire.
A marble pillar soaks up their shots.
Valentina fires around it. Two rounds to the right, three to the left.
One of the bullets wings a guard in his leg. He falls clutching his upper thigh and screams like a trapped pig.
Valentina sees Sweetheart standing open-mouthed behind her.
She pulls her tight behind the pillar, while blindly pumping off an arc of covering shots.
More gunfire rips into the marble by her face.
She sinks to the floor – sniper level – and scans the smoke and swirling flies for the remaining three gunmen.
The doors crash open behind her.
She wheels around and is about to let off a volley of shots when Tom sprawls on to the temple floor.
She spins back round, knowing that his intrusion will also have distracted her attackers.
Two of them are rushing her.
Blunderers.
Her trained soldier’s hand pumps out four shots, two apiece.
They drop like flies.
Something for the flesh-eaters to snack on later.
Three down – two still to go.
But she can’t see them.
Tom grabs Sweetheart and carries her out of the room, her feet wriggling in the air.
Outside the burning door he pulls up quickly.
He’s face to face with Mater.
A gleaming ancient sword is raised in her right hand.
It slashes downwards.
Tom swings Sweetheart out of the way.
The sword nicks the top of his right hip.
He turns to face the blade.
When she makes the next swipe, he’ll move back a pace and disarm her.
He never gets his chance.
A burst of automatic gunfire rakes Mater’s legs.
Tom turns.
Three black-uniformed soldiers are rushing towards him, sub-machine guns still spilling smoke. He guesses they’ve overwhelmed the Galli guards at farm level and worked their way down.
He lifts Sweetheart into his arms and covers her eyes. Just the sight of the troops in combat gear is enough to terrify her.
Lorenzo Silvestri recognises Tom from the intel he’s been given. ‘Where’s Valentina?’
‘In there.’ Tom holds Sweetheart tight to his chest and points to the temple.
Lorenzo and one of his team don’t break stride as they rush the room.
The third soldier peels away to attend to Mater. He glances at her, then shouts into his radio for paramedics.
The bullets have shattered her kneecaps.
Within seconds, more troops appear.
From inside the temple comes the ripping sound of rapid gunfire.
Tom kneels, and tries to reassure Sweetheart that she’s going to be safe. ‘Don’t be frightened. These soldiers are good men. Whatever horrible things have happened to you, it’s all over now. All over.’
And it is.
Lorenzo Silvestri walks back through the charred and splintered double doors, smoke swirling behind him, his sub-machine gun slung low.
He smiles at Tom and steps aside.
Valentina is a pace behind.
Her face is covered in blood. Her hair is messier than it’s ever been. But to Tom she looks wonderful.
By the time she sees him, he is already next to her and holding her.
They kiss and cling to each other as though the world has just begun. And in a way, it has.
They hold on tight and become aware of a strange feeling, one not at all linked to their emotions.
Tiny hands are wrapped around both their legs.
Hands that are holding them every bit as tightly as they’re holding each other.
138
Paramedics patch up the wounded.
Valentina’s face looks worse than it feels. Her lips are split and bloated. There’s a cut on her cheek that thankfully doesn’t need stitches and some jaw ache that she knows will disappear once she’s had a bath and opened her second bottle of red wine.
Tom’s in slightly worse condition.
Now that the action’s died down, his shoulder is a mass of pain, and he’s enormously grateful for the big syringe of morphine a paramedic is squeezing into him.
Mater is being stretchered away with a tourniquet around one of her legs, while another paramedic works frantically on her shattered kneecaps.
Valentina diverts Sweetheart’s attention while soldiers pass by carrying a body bag out of the temple.
There are more to come.
Valentina killed four of them. Lorenzo’s men finished off the fifth.
She sits on the floor with her back to the temple wall, puts her arms around Sweetheart and pulls her up on her knee. ‘It’s all over, baby. This is the last time you’ll ever see this stinking place.’ She strokes her hair and the child rests her head on Valentina’s blood-soaked chest.
Tom buttons up his shirt as he walks over to Lorenzo. ‘There’s a man trapped further down the tunnel.’ He points to the hole in the wall that he came through. ‘I think he’s dead. There’s some kind of pit back there with a lion in it.’
Lorenzo looks sceptical. ‘ Un leone? ’
‘It’s a long story.’ Tom tucks his shirt into his trousers, which one-handed is harder than he’s ever imagined. ‘There were two of them. We only managed to kill one.’
Lorenzo nods to the darkness ahead. ‘Show us.’
Tom leads the way. ‘This is the route we came in by. I was told there might be some kind of booby traps, and the floor seems to be one of them.’
They climb through the hole in the gallery wall. ‘Best stay close to the middle. The section of floor that I was on just flipped. It’s on some sort of rocker mechanism.’
Lorenzo and his team reach the edge of the pit and peer in.
A guttural growl rumbles up from the fetid hole.
Seemingly without any instructions, the team springs into action.
One soldier produces a coil of zip-wire and attaches it to his colleague’s belt. The second man slides a light on to his machine gun and drops into the pit.
Within seconds there’s a burst of gunfire.
Tom guesses the animal’s dead.
The zip-line hangs slack around the belt of the soldier standing beside Tom. From below there are the sounds of rocks being moved.
A full minute elapses before the shout comes up: ‘ E morto. L’uomo e morto.’
Tom knows what it means.
He was right.
Guilio is dead.
He crosses himself and remembers the young man’s bravery, an act of courage that saved his own life.
He turns to Lorenzo. ‘I’d like to go down. Is that okay?’
The major looks at him questioningly. ‘With that shoulder?’
‘Your medics have given me so much stuff, I won’t feel pain until the start of the third millennium.’