Guilio doubts it. One whack on the cracked bone and the guy is in a world of pain. He crouches and dips into the rucksack. ‘Torches.’ He passes over a black rubber flashlight and jams one in his own belt. ‘And weapons.’ He smiles as he holds out a fistful of household tools.
Tom examines them one by one. A ball-peen hammer, a pointed seed dibber and a razor-sharp carpet fitter’s knife. He feels sick. Using any of these things will be an awful experience. To be effective, he’ll have to maim or kill an opponent.
Guilio reads his face. ‘Second thoughts?’
‘No, but I hope I don’t have to use any of these.’
‘You will.’ He leaves the bag for a second and stands up to face the big American. ‘You have to be ready to use all of them. Once we’re in there, they’ll be on us like rats on cheese. Hesitate, and they’ll kill you.’
He doesn’t wait for Tom’s reaction; he returns to the rucksack and pulls out his final purchases. ‘These two are on hire. I hope we live to return them.’
He hands over a strange orange contraption. ‘It’s a nail gun, fully charged, with a spare battery and a magazine of long ring shank nails.’ He points it at Tom’s head. ‘It’s no pistol. You’ll need to get up close, but if you do, it’ll be every bit as deadly as a bullet.’
Tom checks for the on — off switch and fires it up. Indicator lights flash and it trembles for a second in his hand.
‘The man in the shop said it’ll spit out three nails a second.’
Tom squeezes the trigger. It jolts in his hand, but nothing seems to happen.
An inch from his right foot, he sees the glistening top of a galvanised steel nail, sunk deep into the turf.
It raises a smile from Guilio. ‘Impressive, eh?’
Tom turns it off to save the battery. There’s no smile on his face. Just focus. The kind he used to reserve for the worship of God.
He turns the nail gun over in his hands.
He’s aware now of what it does and what he’ll have to do with it.
‘Let’s go,’ he says flatly. ‘I’ll never be more ready than I am right now.’
121
Major Lorenzo Silvestri stares at the clock on his office wall.
He wishes he had the power to stop it.
He’d give anything to be able to halt those hands and gain himself an extra twelve hours.
As one of the most experienced members of GIS, he knows he has to strike quickly. Unfortunately, speed and careful planning are not easy bedfellows.
If he rushes things, then whoever has Morassi will certainly kill her, and maybe other hostages as well.
But if he takes too long planning the search and rescue operation, then the kidnappers will cover their tracks and he may never find them.
‘Anything on Shaman’s phone?’ he asks Pasquale Conti.
The captain’s face answers before he does. ‘We had tech problems. We got a GPS lock and then lost it.’
‘What?’
‘I know. I could kill them too. They’re working on it.’
‘You got one location, right?’
‘Right. The phone company is playing ball and we managed to get a fix on where he called us from.’
‘Which was?’
‘He was near Parco di Porta, heading towards Via Appia Antica.’
Lorenzo drums his fingers on the desk. ‘How do you know he was heading that way?’
‘He turned his phone back on and we got a second brief fix on that, then it went dead again.’
‘Interesting. Who did he call after us?’
‘Morassi. The call lasted less than ten seconds.’
‘Sounds like she didn’t pick up.’
Lorenzo slides a sheet of paper across the desk. ‘The captain’s profile, from our intel unit. She’s a hotshot. A real high-flyer. Golden girl in Venice. That’s where she met this Shaman guy; they worked a murder case together.’
Pasquale taps Valentina’s photo. ‘You’re right about the hot bit. Man, she’s very, very hot!’
‘Enough!’ Lorenzo grins and slides over the brief on Tom. ‘Check out the boyfriend. The pic is from his visits to HQ.’
‘Not my type.’
‘Be serious. I called an old friend in Venice, Vito Carvalho. He used to be Morassi’s boss and briefly worked with Shaman. Turns out the guy used to be a priest in LA, until he stepped into a gang fight one night.’
‘What happened?’
‘Three on one.’ Lorenzo takes a beat. ‘The hoods were raping a young girl and had knives. Shaman beat the living daylights out of them. Left two dead and I think the third is still running.’
‘The original Good Samaritan.’
‘That’s not quite what Vito christened him.’
Pasquale’s intrigued. ‘Which was?’
‘Arcangelo Uriel.’
Pasquale is none the wiser. ‘Uriel?’
‘Heathen.’ Lorenzo shakes his head in mock disbelief and crosses himself. ‘If you were a good Catholic, you would know that Uriel means “Fire of God”. When the Almighty wants the dirty stuff doing, Uriel is the halo he hollers for. From slaying demons to burying Adam in Paradise, Uriel has always been the guy for tough jobs.’
Pasquale looks again at Tom’s ID picture. ‘And now he’s here in Rome, playing angels and demons. Lucky us.’
122
The drop from the field to the first level of the underground tunnel is enough to remind Tom that his knee is still swollen and unstable.
To make matters worse, it’s so cramped down there that he has to crawl along on a stony surface.
‘Wait!’ he shouts, virtually into Guilio’s backside, just a couple of feet away from him.
‘Shush!’ comes back a whispered shout.
Tom waits patiently behind the huddled form. He hears the thin noise of stone scraping on stone, and guesses the scalene pendant is at work again.
Guilio squeezes to one side and hands back his flashlight. ‘Shine it over there; I can’t seem to move this last lock with only one hand.’
Tom takes the light and twists its head so the beam floods more strongly.
Guilio works away in the cramped space.
Several minutes pass.
‘Got it!’
He ties the scalene pendant back on to the strap of his rucksack and manoeuvres his body round.
Tom sees that he’s pulling up another disc, pretty much the same as the one they entered through.
It breaks and collapses inwards.
Guilio falls forward and almost tumbles head first down after it.
The broken cover makes loud but dull thumping sounds as pieces hit the earth two metres below.
A muffled sound, like distant rolling thunder, echoes through unseen tunnels.
‘That was close!’ Guilio looks into the hole. ‘We have to drop down through several more portals like this one before we reach the gallery that will lead us to where I believe your friend is being held.’
Tom nods. There’s nothing in his mind now but the job in hand. He’s ready to deal with anything and anyone that he comes across.
Guilio twists his body round so his feet dangle into the darkness.
He drops out of sight.
Tom follows.
This time he’s doubly careful to make sure his good leg takes most of the impact and that his damaged shoulder stays clear of the stone tunnel walls.
Within a dozen paces, the tunnel doglegs right and then opens into a larger area.
Tom’s relieved to be able to stand.
He pulls out his flashlight and sweeps the beam in front of him.
The walls have been cut out of sandstone. Four layers of deep shelves stretch from a dark earth floor to a high earth ceiling.
He knows where he is.
Long before he sees the first bones and the empty eye sockets of the stacked skulls, he knows he’s in an ancient cemetery.