She glances at the body slumped at her feet, shuffles forward and puts her foot across his neck. If he moves she’ll feel it.
‘I’m a police officer,’ she shouts down the aisle. ‘Please leave the church, immediately.’
No one moves.
Valentina stoops, fishes in the guy’s coat pocket and recovers his gun. It’s an old Glock with a Crimson Trace laser grip.
She holds it up high. ‘I said, I am a police officer. Now get out of here before someone gets shot!’
The church empties in a deafening rush for the doors.
Valentina ignores the last of the stragglers.
There’s blood all over the back of the pew, and for the first time she’s wondering whether the guy on the floor is just unconscious, or dead.
101
A woman passing by screams hysterically.
The man who’s just levelled a gun at Tom’s head glances to his left.
It’s all the American needs.
He plants a drop kick deep into the guy’s guts and follows with a hard right-hander into his mouth.
Amazingly, the guy’s still upright. And still holding the weapon.
Tom throws a left, then twin punches with his right.
Now he goes down.
Hits the floor like a TV dropped from the top of a tower block. The gun clatters from his open hand.
The four-by-four’s engine roars into life.
Seems the driver’s got his act together.
Tom spins round.
That’s his first mistake.
He clutches at the now closed driver’s door, but it won’t open. The central locking’s on.
He pulls again at the handle as the Land Rover lurches up on to the pavement.
That’s his second mistake.
He hasn’t noticed a man climb out of a similar vehicle parked a few metres away.
An agonising pain erupts in Tom’s right shoulder.
It’s followed by another behind his left knee. The combination of blows sends him sprawling into the road.
Instinctively, he rolls.
He learned at school that if you stay still in a street fight, then you’re as good as asking for a beating.
Now he sees the cause of the pain.
A baseball bat slaps into the brown water beside his head.
Tom grabs the club but feels a terrible burning in his right shoulder. Something’s busted.
He can’t hold on.
The wood slips from his fingers.
The guy takes a swing and slaps Tom on the side of his ribs.
Tom tries to roll again.
The bat man takes a stride to his left, raises the club and starts a swing that he’s sure will pop Tom’s head like a watermelon.
Only he never makes it.
Instead, he freezes midway during the draw-back.
A sharp pain erupts inside his chest. It feels like someone has stuck a knife in his heart.
And that’s because someone has.
The throwing hand of Guilio Brygus Angelis is still extended, his fingers pointing at exactly the spot at which the ancient dagger was aimed.
102
Rapid response units from the Carabinieri and the Polizia Municipale arrive within seconds of each other.
Both forces got panic calls from the public after Tom had fired the gun in the car. Both also had reports of a woman in the church brandishing a gun and claiming to be a cop.
Guilio is on his knees alongside Tom. ‘I’ve got to get out of here. Can you move?’
It takes Tom a second glance to realise that his Good Samaritan is the stranger he fought with inside Anna Fratelli’s apartment.
He’s got a dozen questions in his head and no time to ask any of them.
‘Help me up.’ He stretches out his left hand.
Guilio needs both his hands to pull Tom up. He glances at the body with the blade in it. If he pulls it out, he knows the guy will die, but if he leaves it, he will lose a dagger that’s two thousand years old and a set of his own fingerprints as well.
He leaves it.
He turns to Tom. ‘Follow me, or they’ll make you part of this.’
Tom lurches after the quick, slim figure disappearing down Via di San Michele.
Police sirens and whistles fill the air as he follows him into the shadows of a tributary of thin alleys trickling away from the church.
Pain is now starting to devour Tom’s shoulder, leg and ribs. He can barely pull himself upright as he runs.
He has no chance of keeping up with Guilio as he weaves a route through a labyrinth of back streets and passages that few locals even know of.
‘Down here!’
Tom has no idea where ‘here’ is. He stops for breath beside some low railings.
‘Here!’
The shout is from below him.
He swings his right leg over the small metal fence that’s supposed to keep the public out of what looks like one of Rome’s many excavation sites.
There’s a long drop down the other side.
He knows he doesn’t have time to look for a safer route.
He jumps.
His left leg buckles on impact and he falls heavily on to his damaged right shoulder.
Guilio shows no concern. He’s busy.
His hands are pushing hard against the black stone wall located directly beneath the barrier.
As hard as he possibly can.
He groans and strains again with all of his weight and might.
Nothing happens.
He turns and puts his back against the wall. Once more he pushes for all he’s worth.
His feet slip in the grit and soil.
Tom watches in amazement.
A thin section of the wall slowly starts to swing open.
103
Valentina keeps her gun trained on the body at her feet.
Whoever this jerk is, he holds the key to why Anna was so screwed up, and what’s behind all the killings.
She can’t wait for Trench Coat to come round.
The chiesa is silent.
Disturbingly silent.
Empty churches have spooked her since she was a kid, and this one is certainly a major kid-scarer.
She glances over her shoulder.
Two people are there.
A man and a woman.
They’re moving towards her and the man has a gun aimed at her head.
Valentina stays cool.
He’s slightly built and looks older than the woman — much older, maybe even in his sixties.
‘Lift your hands and move into the aisle.’ He waggles the gun towards where he wants her to go.
‘Not going to happen.’ She looks challengingly into his pale blue eyes.
‘Lift them!’
She places her bet. ‘I really don’t think so.’ She looks away from him and keeps the Glock pointed at Trench Coat. ‘You’ll have to shoot me before I give this creep up.’
The old guy’s gun kicks in his hand.
There’s a muzzle flash and a barking boom.
Valentina’s heart all but explodes.
She’s made the wrong call.
She doesn’t feel any pain, but then again, she’s been told that at first you don’t.
Still nothing.
Now she’s sure it was just a warning shot.
A warning duly observed.
If he’s prepared to let off a gun in a church, he’s desperate. Desperate men — even those who don’t intend to kill — often end up doing so.
Over in the pews near the entrance she spots two more figures.
Men, she thinks.
Younger than Shooter, maybe the same age as Trench Coat.
‘Drop it — drop the gun.’ He waves his pistol and speeds up his walk towards her. ‘Now!’
Valentina gives it up.
The clunk of the pistol on the floor is the cue for them to rush her. Not just Shooter and his female sidekick, but the watchers by the door.