The street outside the gates was apocalyptic, like something out of downtown Baghdad. Thick black smoke was billowing out of the flaming hulk of a car, a parked car that must have had a bomb in it. It must have exploded just as the lead Alfa was passing alongside it, as the cops’ car was plastered against the Vatican’s outer wall, thrown into it sideways. What looked like the second Alfa was also in the wreckage, piled into some parked cars. Debris was everywhere, clumps of concrete and metal still raining down around them. Shell-shocked people were limping around, dazed, looking for loved ones or just standing stiff in disbelief. There had to be deaths, Reilly was sure of it—and lots of wounded.
“We’ve got to go,” the Iranian said.
Reilly looked at him askance, still groggy from the blast.
“Get us out of here now,” the man insisted. “You need to think about Tess.”
Reilly glanced back—a couple of carabinieri were coming out of the smoke cloud, running toward them, weapons drawn—then they started firing. Bullets clipped the back of the wrecked SUV.
“Move,” the Iranian rasped.
Reilly ripped his gaze away from the pandemonium and hit the gas. And as the armored SUV stormed through the narrow streets without a specific destination in mind, a sudden realization stormed out of Reilly’s snarled mind—a realization that shot a piercing sensation through his chest.
Random observations clicked into place. The way the Iranian looked when they were on the run, like he was out for a jog while Reilly was gasping for breath. The way he took out the mechanic with the efficiency of a ninja. The way he didn’t even flinch when the bomb went off. The fact that mangled bodies didn’t seem to register with him.
Oh fuck.
He turned to the man sitting beside him. “Who the hell are you?”
Chapter 7
Reilly’s heart froze. The man sitting in the passenger seat was glancing at him without a trace of emotion. Not a taunting grin. Not a demented scowl. Nothing. Just an even, level gaze. You’d think he was just out on a Sunday drive, watching the scenery drift by while sharing chitchat with his driver.
His words, however, had a completely different ring to them.
“If you want her to live,” he told Reilly, “just keep driving.”
A frenzy of visual and audio snippets from every minute that had passed since Tess’s phone call rushed across Reilly’s mind. The clips all confirmed the same thing: He’d been played by the bastard sitting next to him.
His fingers choked the steering wheel, his nails biting into its padded leather. “The bomb … that was you.”
“Insurance,” the man confirmed, pulling a cell phone from his pocket and holding it up with his right hand, away from Reilly. “And as it turns out, one we needed.”
Reilly understood. The phone had triggered the bomb. His veins were boiling—he just wanted to reach over and rip the guy’s heart out and shove it down his throat and watch him choke on it. “And the real Sharafi?”
“My guess is he’s dead.” The man gave him a small shrug. “He was in the trunk of that car.”
Not a flutter of emotion in his voice.
The next question was bouncing inside Reilly’s head, kicking and screaming to get out. He didn’t want to let it loose. He knew the answer he was about to get—but his mouth voiced the words anyway. “And Tess?”
The man’s eyes hardened a touch. “There’s another car back there. With another bomb.” He held up the phone for Reilly again, to press the point home. “Tess is in it.”
A firestorm ignited inside Reilly’s chest as the cityscape flying past him went fuzzy, a blur of parked cars and gray walls. “What? You’re saying she’s here? In Rome?”
“Yes. And closer than you think.”
He’d assumed she was still in Jordan, which was where she was when she’d called him. When she’d been kidnapped by the sick bastard sitting next to him. Reilly’s heart was now pounding away, far beyond its red line, deafening him and flooding him with adrenaline and bile, the urgency of getting to Tess eclipsing all other thoughts. He zipped through dozens of potential moves at the same time, evaluating them, looking for an advantage, refusing to accept the notion that the son of a bitch next to him could walk away from this.
“Alive?” He had to ask, even though he had no way of knowing if the answer he’d get was the truth or not. All he could do was look into the guy’s eyes and see if he could spot any tell as to what the truth was.
The man’s face was maddeningly inscrutable. “Alive.”
Reilly was too busy processing it to think of slowing down as the battered SUV blasted past the flower market and charged across a major crossroads at the Circonvallazione Trionfale as if it were on rails, causing oncoming cars to slam on their brakes and triggering a flurry of collisions.
“Keep going straight, and stay focused,” the bomber ordered. “You won’t do Tess much good if you get us both killed. I don’t know how long she’ll be able to breathe in that trunk.”
Reilly didn’t know what to believe. He blinked, mashing his teeth raw, finding it hard to resist just pummeling the guy. Instead, he scowled at the road ahead and took it out on the gas pedal, mashing it harder. The Merc’s engine strained as it propelled the armored SUV faster, and the Via Trionfale bent right and left gently before the rows of low apartment buildings on either side gave way to greenery and the road climbed up a forested hill.
Reilly had the pedal floored, the big 4.3-litre engine growling as the trees whipped past. They were charging up what felt like a small forest in the middle of Rome but was actually a lush small park of fifteen acres that led to the Cavalieri Hilton at the top of the hill. Reilly’s eyes had darted sideways, noting that the man was gripping his armrest tightly to avoid sliding around, when a sharp left-hand hairpin came out of the blue, surprising him. He fought the wheel for control, struggling to keep the heavy SUV on the road, its tires screaming for grip. The car fishtailed out of the turn and roared up the hill—where another hairpin, a right-hander this time, loomed ahead.
“I said easy, damn it,” his passenger barked.
Fuck you, Reilly seethed inwardly—and saw it, a small, landscaped clearing that was mercifully deserted and sat there, calling out to him in the glorious sunshine, at the end of a small pathway just before the turn.
He lifted off, feigning a slowdown for the turn, then blipped the throttle and threw the car in the opposite direction. It flew off the road and rumbled down the gravel path, slewing all over the place before Reilly jerked the wheel hard to the left and yanked the handbrake. The car spun around angrily, the tires pushing hard against the mounds of gravel that built up against them—and Reilly used its sideways momentum to launch himself onto the bomber, lifting up his elbow, jacking it in place, and aiming it right at his target’s face as he flew out of his seat.
The man was lightning quick—raising the big, heavy codex up as a shield to block him. It took the brunt of Reilly’s weight, deflecting the hit. Reilly still had some advantage as he crushed the bomber against his car door. The man’s hand lashed out and flicked the door open. Reilly put one arm around the book and used the other to throw a punch at him. The man bent away to avoid it, leaning precariously far out of the car now—which Reilly was quick to capitalize on, wrenching the book out of his grasp just as he shoved him out.