No choice.
Reilly raised his hands defensively with a sheepish half grin—”Prego, signore ,” Please, sir—then decided this would take too long and just sucker punched the cop in the gut, then followed through with another to the jaw.
The cop dropped.
Reilly was on the move again, his eyes scanning the rows of cars, desperately looking for the BMW. He thought of using the remote control to trigger the door locks and let the alarm’s beeps announce the car’s location to him, but he didn’t want to risk it, worried that the bomber might have booby-trapped the car with just that in mind.
A whistle broke through his concentration. The punched cop was pushing himself back to his feet and calling in backup. Within seconds, cops were rushing at Reilly, converging at him from the gate and from behind—and just as the first of them reached him, he spotted it: navy blue, white plates with the BR provincial code that had to stand for Brindisi.
A cop was yelling “Alt“—Stop—at Reilly and moved in to block him. Reilly shoved him aside and kept going, now only a few feet from the car. Another cop joined in, the two of them now screaming furiously, arms spread and weapons drawn, ordering him to stop moving. Reilly spread his arms wide with evident frustration, motioning for them to stay calm—while still inching his way closer to the BMW.
“The car,” he fired back, his voice hoarse with tension. “There’s a woman in that BMW.” He was jabbing his finger toward it, his face contorted with rage. “In the goddamn car,” he repeated. “She’s in there.” He put his wrists together, miming someone with tied hands.
The cops’ faced clouded with confusion as they moved with him, their arms wide, trying to corral him, but he stared them down and kept moving until he got to the BMW.
He gestured again to them, using his hands and the desperate expression on his face to implore them to give him a second as he eyed the back of the car, his mind buzzing with questions.
Was Tess in there? Was she still alive? Was there a bomb in there with her? Was the bomber watching from somewhere nearby, waiting to take them all out any second now with a second remote trigger? Or did he even need to? What if that sick son of a bitch had booby-trapped the trunk lid?
The carabinieri soon cut short his torment. One of them lunged to hit him with his steel baton—setting Reilly off. He grabbed the cop’s hand with both of his own, blocking the hit and twisting the man’s arm to wrest the stick from his grip before spinning him around and shoving him back onto his colleague. Now armed with the baton, he dashed around to the driver’s side of the car and tried the door. It was locked. He swung the baton and smashed the window, and the car’s alarm started blaring just as the cops reached Reilly. They couldn’t stop him from leaning in, and with a silent prayer flashing across his mind, his instincts taking over, hoping as hard as he could that he wasn’t making a gargantuan mistake, he reached down to the base of the driver’s seat and tugged the trunk’s release lever. He spun around, willing away the explosion that would rip him to shreds, and glimpsed the trunk lid pop open and glide upward harmlessly just as the cops slammed him against the car—hard—winding him as more cops piled in to join them.
He yelled at them as they pinned him down, pressing his face against the roof of the car, crushing his cheek and ear, Reilly fighting back, desperate to lift his head up and see what was inside the trunk of the car. And then he heard it—a cop who’d moved back for a look went ballistic and started shouting wildly.
Tess.
Reilly stiffened as fear and hope ripped through him, his mind scrambling to understand what the man was blurting out. “English,” he shouted. “Say it in English, damn it. Is she in there? Is she okay?”
He read the panic in the cops’ eyes and heard the word “Bomba” blurted repeatedly, its meaning glaringly obvious. Then he heard another word, “Donna,” over and over—the word shredding his heart. Donna—woman. But—alive? Or—
He drew on reserves of strength he didn’t know he possessed and heaved back, shoving the cops off of him, then fought his way to the back of the car and looked in.
She was there.
Wrapped up inside a sleeping bag, strapped down to the base of the trunk, silver duct tape across her eyes and mouth, her nose and two strips of her cheeks the only visible skin on display.
She wasn’t moving.
And next to her, in the right corner of the trunk, a jumble of gray Semtex packs, wires, and a digital detonator with a small red LED indicating that it was armed.
Reilly didn’t give it a second glance. He reached in and settled his hands softly against Tess’s neck, his thumb brushing against her cheek, looking for a pulse.
Her head twitched sideways.
His face flooded with relief. He glanced at the cops next to him, who were watching in silence, dumbstruck—then carefully peeled the tape off Tess’s face, first the strip across her mouth, then the one around her ears and eyes.
She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears of fear and joy, her upper lip trembling.
It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Chapter 9
Mansoor Zahed glanced into his rearview mirror one last time before he pulled into the driveway. He didn’t spot anything that gave him cause for concern. The house that the agency had rented for him was on a quiet residential street. Curious eyes weren’t a problem, especially given that the small driveway was shielded from the street by tall metal gates.
He wasn’t planning on sticking around too long. Now that what he’d come for was lying in the foot well of the passenger seat, he thought he was probably done with Rome. The American historian, Simmons, would soon confirm whether or not that was the case. In doing that, Zahed hoped, the man would also figure out what their next destination would be. Zahed’s instincts told him he’d be on the move again soon, leaving the Eternal City behind as just another blood-soaked entry in his infamous—if anonymous—resume.
He reflected back on his day and felt reasonably satisfied. Things hadn’t gone as smoothly as he’d hoped, but all that mattered was that he was here, he was safe, and he had the codex with him. Mission accomplished, he thought with a small smirk—he just loved that expression and its recently minted, delicious irony. But as he replayed the day’s events in his mind’s eye, his mind kept latching on to the actions of the FBI agent, and he felt a murmur of unease about him. Which wasn’t something Mansoor Zahed was used to. Nor was it something he tolerated.
The agent had been easy to manipulate. Zahed had managed to lure him to Rome. He’d fooled him into believing he was the spineless scholar Sharafi. He’d pushed enough buttons to get the agent to take him into the deepest recesses of his religion’s inner sanctum. Sean Reilly hadn’t flinched then, and he hadn’t flinched in all that followed. He’d done what was needed of him without hesitation. He’d turned himself into a criminal and ridden roughshod across the very epicenter of his faith without worrying about the consequences.