“That’s something I could use your assistance with. I assume you have considerable sway in Rome. It would help a great deal if you could see whether there was security footage from inside. Right now, we’re dead in the water. We’ve lost track of the girl, and we don’t yet know who else is involved, but whoever it is has no compunction about killing.”
“I’ll deal with the security cameras. I’ll call you back as soon as I know something. Are you still in Israel?”
“No. I’m en route to Rome now. I should be in town within two hours,” Synthe replied.
“Do you have any leads for re-establishing surveillance on the girl?” Luca demanded.
“I have men watching the spots the car visited several times before they hit the church. Two different hotels. Those are our best hope. But I don’t have to tell you that a hit team showing up at a Roman church in the dead of night moves this situation into a new and critical phase. And obviously, they’ll now be on full alert, as will the girl. This is quickly spinning out of control.”
“Let me remind you, Colonel, that the overwhelming priority is to recover the Scroll. There is no higher calling. Having said that, I cannot condone killing for any reason,” Luca stressed.
“Even if the men involved are butchering those who can lead us to the Scroll?” Synthe fired back.
Luca exhaled a long, pained sigh. “It would seem that providence is testing us. I’m not saying that your contractors acted inappropriately under the circumstances. But I want to stress that I do not want any more killing. There is always another way.”
“Perhaps. But if an armed assassin points a gun at our only lead, there may be more bloodshed. I respect your moral stance, but in field work, sometimes ethics aren’t consistent with reality.”
Synthe couldn’t believe this idiot was taking some religious-based turn-the-other-cheek stance in light of the stakes, with very real killers using lethal force within spitting distance of a sacred place. What was he expecting Synthe to do, shame the killers into behaving? Embarrass them into stopping the slaughter? Synthe barely controlled his anger at the arrogantly superior tone Luca was using. He didn’t have time for this shit.
Synthe decided to enlighten him. “Look. I’m running this operation because I have decades of experience. Sometimes field work calls for difficult decisions to be made in short time periods. To find the Scroll, we need the girl alive. If someone appears ready to kill her, it’s either stop the killers with whatever force is necessary, or watch our only chance of recovering it vaporize. At which point we have no idea whose hands it falls into, or for what purposes it will be used.”
“I…I understand. I just don’t like it.”
“It would really help if I understood what the Scroll contained,” Synthe said.
“That isn’t mine to impart. Even I don’t know. But it is the most important secret the church has,” Luca assured him.
“Fine. Then you can expect it to get messier. Because I can guarantee you that the men who killed the driver aren’t playing by any morally-constrained rules.” Synthe exhaled in frustration. “I’m wasting time. If we run into another situation where deadly force is necessary, should I use it, or shall I instruct my men to watch helplessly as the killers butcher the girl?” Synthe demanded.
Luca paused for a long time. “In the end, if you must use force to defend yourself or the girl from armed assailants who have demonstrated that they intend to kill, then you must do what you must. However, I’d prefer to avoid it if at all possible,” Luca said.
Synthe smiled. They were all the same. The politicians and the desk jockeys always wanted to avoid blood on their hands, but couldn’t achieve their ends without it. This pious ass was no different. He could hide behind the cross and his cassock, but in the end he would do what he had to in order to get his way. It was the history of the world. The pacifists always needed someone like Synthe around when it got ugly and would quickly distance themselves when the emergency was over.
“I understand. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get back to work. We’re knee deep in this, and it’s not going to fix itself,” Synthe snapped. “Call me as soon as you have information on any surveillance footage from the church. It might help if we knew what they did inside.”
Luca hung up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he considered this latest development. The game had obviously changed to one of overt violence, and he was torn. Colonel Synthe was the ideal man for the job if bloodshed was involved, he had no doubt, but how far could Luca allow things to progress before he called off Synthe’s dogs? They were now in water far deeper than ever before, and his heart knew that they had crossed an important line, even if the killing had been in defense. There had to be another way.
The biggest problem they faced was that they couldn’t be sure that the girl even had the Scroll or knew anything about it. Her movements had been suspicious, but for every possibly nefarious explanation there was also an innocent one — although he couldn’t think of a lot of reasons for her to be in the basilica at night — but still, the reasons were speculation at this point. As it was, they had lots of guesswork but precious little solid fact. The only thing Luca could be certain of was that someone was trying to kill her, and that he was now in the thick of it. A place he didn’t want to be.
Luca began making the calls that would result in his getting the security footage, assuming there was any, by morning. Any chance of sleeping had gone since the ringing of the phone.
Sia Amieri sat on one of the two chairs in his hotel room, a small plastic case on the bed in front of him. He held the towel against the crease where the bullet had torn through his side, goring through the fatty flesh of his waist and taking some of the muscle beneath with it. The wound was painful, but hardly life-threatening. He’d been through far worse.
Amieri unscrewed a tiny, single serving bottle of Finlandia vodka he’d found in the mini bar and poured it on the wound, wincing as the alcohol burned the bacteria away. He’d threaded the needle of the hotel sewing kit with dental floss, an old trick from his operational days. It was far stronger than thread and wouldn’t bio-degrade, making for perfect stitching material. Fishing line would have been better, but he didn’t have any, so he’d make do with floss.
The bleeding had slowed to an ooze. Steeling himself for the ordeal to come, he put a washrag in his mouth to bite on and started sewing the wound shut. It had been a while since he’d had to do so, but it all came back to him as the needle punctured the ragged edge of the tear. Like riding a bicycle. His eyes streamed from the pain as he pulled the floss through and began closing the wound, but he continued on, machine-like. There was no point in delaying the inevitable, and the sooner he was done, the sooner he could get back out and deal with the girl.
Five minutes later he spat the rag onto the floor and moved to the bathroom to rinse the blood from his hands. He’d need to change his shirt and pants and get some water and fruit juice to replenish his fluids. He’d lost a fair amount of blood, but was no worse for wear. Which was lucky. Two inches to the left and it would have been a different story.
The attack on Amieri had come as a shock. He’d lost his local contact in the shooting, all of which had been with silenced weapons, telling him he was dealing with professional adversaries. Which could only mean one of two things — either the girl had pulled in some sort of pro help via unknown channels, or the Order was on the ground and willing to engage in a lethal manner. In the end, it wouldn’t make any difference — Sia Amieri was an unstoppable force of nature. And he wouldn’t be surprised again.
He powered up his cell phone and called Dr. Frank.