The tour continued through one more section of the papal apartments before making its way down a set of opulent marble stairs to the exit. The rest of the journey only took five to ten minutes, but to the four companions, it felt like an hour.
They knew that any second the Brotherhood—or worse, the Swiss Guard—could descend on them like a pack of angry wolves.
The ambush never came.
Back in the fresh air of Saint Peter’s Square, Sean kept moving, hurrying down the stairs and into the plaza. His friends stayed close behind, none willing to linger longer than necessary. Every second they spent on Vatican property was a second they could be arrested.
“Need to get back to the car,” Sean said as they jogged around a mob of schoolchildren waiting for their teacher to finish giving them instructions.
The group reached the relative safety of the colonnade and ducked in behind one of the columns on the first row. Sean peeked around the big pillar and stared back at the entrance to the basilica. There was no sign of trouble, at least not that he could tell. He was savvy enough to know that sometimes those signs weren’t always obvious.
Every bit of paranoia his subconscious could muster rushed to his mind.
He had to push it away and focus on getting everyone out without getting caught.
“Keep going,” Sean said. “I don’t see anyone coming after us, but once we’re off of Vatican property we should be okay.”
“From the Vatican’s security, sure, but what about the Brotherhood?” Tommy asked.
“No sign of them. We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
“What about the North Koreans?” Adriana asked. “You know they could be skulking around here somewhere.”
“Yeah, I know. Which is all the more reason for us to stay on the move. Tommy, take the lead, and head back to the car. I’ll watch our backs.”
Tommy nodded. “You still have the thing you found back there?”
“Yeah.” Sean pulled the rolled-up vellum out of his belt and showed it to the others.
“Um, please tell me you’re wearing underwear today?”
“That’s private, and I’ll thank you for staying out of my personal affairs.”
“Seriously, man. You’re—”
“Yes, Tommy. I am. Boxers, if you really want the details. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get out of here so we don’t run into any more problems.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” a voice said from behind one of the columns.
The Americans spun around and saw the North Korean leader standing in the shadows with a pistol pointed at them. None of the four were armed, having left their weapons in the trunk of the car before heading to Saint Peter’s Square. They knew there was no point in taking guns since there was no way to get them into the basilica. Security was tight. They checked for guns, knives, bombs, pretty much everything before letting tourists inside.
Now that fact played to the advantage of the North Koreans.
June spun around to see if there was anyone behind her. Shaved Head appeared like a ghost from behind one of the columns in the second row. Buzz-Cut stepped into view to her right. They all had weapons leveled and ready to fire.
The companions huddled together like frightened prey surrounded by a pride of lions.
“I don’t suppose you have any ideas on how to get out of this one?” Tommy said in a hushed tone.
“Sorry, buddy,” Sean replied. “I’m fresh out at the moment. We really need to work on getting some gadgets for situations like this.”
“Silence,” Han-Jae ordered. “You have caused enough trouble for me. Now you are going to do things my way. Give me what you found inside the basilica.”
“What are you talking about?” Sean asked. “We didn’t find anything in the basilica.”
“Liar!” Han-Jae said, full of indignation. “We know you went in there looking for something. You wouldn’t have left without finding it.”
“Well, you’re wrong,” Tommy said. “There was nothing in the basilica we found to be of any help. We thought the sword was there, but it wasn’t.”
“Do you think I believe you, American dog?”
“Dog? Well, thank you. Dogs are very loyal and extremely intelligent animals. Unless you were trying to be offensive. In which case, I might recommend you use something like a cat.”
“Cat?” Sean said, pretending to be offended. “I love cats. Cats have it figured out, man. They just sit around all day waiting for people to love and feed them.”
“Shut up!” Han-Jae said, boiling over. “Where is the sword?” The gun shook in his hand as he nearly shouted.
Sean and Tommy glanced at each other and then shrugged.
“Seriously, does it look like we have the sword? I mean, it would be difficult to hide something like that in our pants.”
Sean’s answer didn’t impress the North Korean leader.
Han-Jae forced himself to calm down. “Yes, pants. I overheard you saying you had something in your pants.”
Sean raised a wary eyebrow. “Tommy, did he just say he wants to see what’s in my pants?” He turned to Han-Jae. “Sorry, man. I’m spoken for.”
Han-Jae ignored the comment. “Give me whatever it was you were hiding, or I will kill you all right here.”
“I don’t think so,” Sean said. “Too many witnesses, even with those suppressors on your guns. It will be way too loud. So unless you’ve got some other plan for killing us, it ain’t gonna happen here.”
“You know, Sean, you’re right. I’m not going to kill you here. We’re going to take you somewhere else, to a place we have someone I think both you and your friend would like to see. Perhaps if we tortured them a bit, you might change your tune.”
Tommy’s and Sean’s hearts dropped into their stomachs.
“If you do anything to Joe and Helen,” Sean said, clenching his jaw.
“Joe and Helen?” Han-Jae laughed. “No. We don’t have anyone by those names.”
The feeling worsened in Tommy’s gut. His face drained of all color, and he turned a ghastly pale.
“That’s right, Tommy. We have your parents, here, in Rome. If you want to see them alive, your friend will give me what he found in the basilica. Or you can do this the hard way, and I can let you watch as the man I have guarding them cuts off their fingers and toes, eventually working his way up to their eyes, ears, nose, tongue…he can make dying a very long and painful process.”
Tommy raged inside, but what could he do? They were surrounded.
Sean knew he was out of options. If he didn’t cooperate, bad things were going to happen to people he cared about. And now the leader of the North Koreans was playing the ace up his sleeve.
“Okay,” Sean said, putting up one hand. He held out the rolled piece of vellum with the other. “Take it easy. Here’s the scroll. Just don’t hurt anyone.”
Han-Jae flashed a devilish, toothy grin. “I thought you might come around.” He motioned with a flick of his head for Shaved Head to grab the scroll.
The henchman did so with caution, as if he was taking a piece of meat from the mouth of a crocodile. As soon as he snatched it from Sean’s grip, he stepped back, wary that the American might try something.
Han-Jae reached out his hand and waited until his assistant had placed it in his palm.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“We don’t know,” Tommy said. “We haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. We were trying to get out as fast as we could.”
“Ah. Very well. We’ll all know soon enough, won’t we?”
Han-Jae carelessly shoved the scroll into a jacket pocket and waved his weapon at the four companions. “Now get moving. It’s time for a little family reunion.”
32
Rome
The drive to the outskirts of Rome took more than a half hour. Traffic seemed ever-present in the ancient city, and the laws of the road were more like guidelines.
Mopeds and motorcycles zi
pped in and out of lanes, weaving between slower vehicles in a dangerous dance of speed and guts.
The four captives had been thrown into the back of a conversion van—probably a rental. Guns were kept trained on them at all times in case they considered jumping out the back door. That idea wouldn’t have been prudent considering a violent death by car tire probably awaited anyone foolhardy enough to try it. So everyone sat as still as possible, contemplating how they were going to get away.
The van pulled off the main road and into an industrial area much like the one the companions had seen in Cologne, although the buildings were sparse, unlike in the German town.
Sean craned his neck to see out the windshield. A tanned brick building covered in ivy was just ahead. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence with a warped gate bent just enough for the van to get through. A tall smokestack stood off to the side of what appeared to be the main building.
“At least they didn’t cover our heads,” Tommy said. He’d been silent during the entire drive out of the city.
“That’s a bad thing, buddy,” Sean said. “When they don’t care if you see where they’re taking you, it means you’re not getting out alive.”
June’s eyes welled, and she wiped her nose.
“Oh, it’s okay,” Tommy said. “He didn’t mean it.” He turned to Sean with an angry look on his face. “Did you?”
“No,” Sean said in an unconvincing tone. “I was just joking around. It’s going to be fine. We’ll be okay.”
Tommy put his arm around June to console her.
Sean and Adriana exchanged glances. Neither of them actually thought they were going to die, but they didn’t know how they were going to get out, either.
The van bumped along the gravel road, jostling the occupants sitting on the floor in the back. The driver slowed when he neared the gate and carefully navigated the vehicle around the damaged blockade. He drove around the brick building to the side where a metal door hung open. A rusty padlock hung from a latch near the doorknob.
When the driver brought the van to a stop, Han-Jae turned around and faced the passengers with a menacing gaze.
“We’re here.”
The back door flung open, and the Americans were herded out, through the door of the foundry, and into a huge space where old machinery sat silent, rusting for the better part of some decades. The ceiling was at least fifty feet high at its zenith. In some spots, the roof had rotted away or collapsed, letting in sunlight that shone down as bright spots on the concrete floor.
Sean took inventory of the area. “Reminds me of that factory in—”
“Quiet,” Shaved Head ordered, jamming the muzzle of his gun into Sean’s back. “Keep moving.”
Sean didn’t think pressing the man’s patience was a good idea, so he hushed for the moment.
They were ushered through the cavernous factory space and down an old set of stairs into the smelting areas below. An old light hanging in the stairwell allowed them to see where they were going, albeit barely. Tommy nearly slipped on one of the steps but caught his balance on the railing. He was lucky they hadn’t bound their wrists, otherwise he would have tumbled painfully down the steps to the bottom.
Once they were in the basement, the group turned left into a four-hundred-square-foot room with a few naked lights burning in the ceiling. The power would have been off for years, which meant the North Koreans had circumvented the problem, possibly with a generator somewhere.
They found a man standing in the middle of the room, holding a gun aimed at two other figures sitting on the floor with their backs pressed against the wall.
Han-Jae walked over to the man and said something to him in their native tongue. Sean and the other prisoners didn’t understand what he said, but by the man’s body language and his sudden disappearance up the stairs it was a good assumption that the guy was being sent up to guard the entrance.
Buzz-Cut shoved Tommy in the back, and he stumbled toward the couple in the shadows against the wall.
“Time for you three to get reacquainted,” Han-Jae said.
He pushed Sean in the back and then corralled June and Adriana into the corner near the others.
Tommy stopped a few feet short of the older couple. The woman had gray hair that fell down past her shoulders. In spite of her age, she had a natural beauty that would have been the envy of any woman. Her eyes were kind but tired.
The man had a head of gray hair as well, and a worn, wrinkled face. He still had a strong jaw and a rugged handsomeness like a lumberjack. The gray beard on his face helped complete that imagery.
Their clothes were worn down and old, probably given to them by the general years ago.
They both looked up as Tommy stood over them.
Up until that point, he still hadn’t really believed his parents were alive. It was impossible. For so long he’d accepted the fact that they were gone, taken tragically before their time.
Now there was no denying it as he stared into the faces he’d not seen for nearly two decades.
Tears streaked down his face as he lost control of his emotions and collapsed in front of them.
“I…I don’t believe it.”
They both reached out and enveloped him in their arms.
“Son,” Tommy’s father said. “I thought we’d never see you again.”
His mother was crying too hard to say anything.
Sean watched, fighting back tears of his own. He’d grown up with the Schultzes. When they died, or supposedly died, it was like he’d lost his second parents. Seeing them again brought back so many memories, and so many regrets.
“I...I don’t understand,” Tommy said. “I thought you were dead.”
His mother shook her head while she sobbed. “No, son. We…we had to stay alive…if for no other reason than to see you again.”
June cried openly at the scene. Even Adriana—normally as hard as a diamond—wept at the sight of the reunion.
“You see?” Han-Jae said. “I kept my end of the bargain. Your parents are alive. Now tell me what this means.”
He pulled out the paper and held it up to the light, unrolling it to see what was written on the ancient animal skin. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the vellum. Then his head cocked to the side, and he started laughing.
Sean turned around and faced the three gunmen. “What’s so funny?” he asked, wiping the tears from his face.
“You know, I thought we might need your help interpreting whatever was on this thing.” He held up the scroll. “Turns out, we don’t need any of you. This scroll tells us the exact location of the sword.”
Tommy let go of his parents and stood up. He spun around and stared hard at Han-Jae. “So let us go. You have what you want. The sword is yours. We can’t stop you.”
“Yes…well…I can’t risk having you interfere with our mission anymore. So unfortunately, you all have to die now.”
“No. What if you get there and you don’t know where to look. Or what if there’s something you need translated and you can’t figure it out. We could still be of use to you.”
Sean didn’t care for his friend’s begging, although he understood it. He was in no hurry to die either. Sean, however, had one more card to play.
He eased his hands behind his back and waited.
Han-Jae seemed to consider Tommy’s offer, if that’s what it was.
“You know,” he said after a moment’s thought, “I think you might be right. We could end up needing someone with your expertise in case we have any trouble figuring out how to get to the sword.”
Tommy nodded, seeing a sliver of hope in the man’s eyes.
That hope was squelched almost immediately.
“Then again, men like you probably take advantage of situations like that. An old proverb says it’s better to kill the few rats now than deal with an infestation later.” He motioned to Sean, June, and Adriana. “You three, get over there by the wall with the others.”
Sean knew what was abo
ut to happen. It was an execution. He’d witnessed a few just like this one before, haunting images that he’d tried to wash away with years of good deeds. He’d been unable to stop them from happening. But in this case, he wasn’t entirely helpless.
June moved closer to Tommy, who wrapped his arms around her.
“Mom, Dad, this is June. I never thought I’d actually be introducing a girl to you.”
Adriana shuffled near Sean and waited for him to make his move. If there was a move to be made.
“Please,” Han-Jae said, “don’t draw this out longer than necessary. If you just do what we say, we’ll make sure you all die quickly. We’d prefer it that way. Fewer bullets, less screaming and moaning. Just a few shots to the chest and head, and it’s all over. You won’t feel a thing. Well, you won’t feel it for long. Unless, of course, you want to.”
“Tell me something,” Sean said as he stepped between Adriana and the gunmen. “What are you going to do when you find that sword and there’s nothing special to it?”
“What?”
“What if it’s just a blade, an ancient weapon with no magical properties? What if what you’ve been searching for turns out to be nothing? What then? Your little revolution goes away. Your general goes away. And you return home to a pathetic country and an even more pathetic leader.”
Sean could tell his words were getting to the man. Han-Jae’s eyes blazed with fury, and he had to force himself to remain calm.
“You doubt the power of the sword?” he asked. “I don’t think so. You wouldn’t come all this way just to find something unimportant.”
“Oh, I didn’t say it was unimportant. I just said it might not have any sort of weird powers.”
“Then you are a fool, Wyatt. You and your friends. And you are unfit to wield such a weapon. Not that it matters. Soon we will possess Excalibur, and the armies of the world will bow to us.” He lifted his weapon, aiming it at Sean’s chest. “Unfortunately, you won’t be around to see it all burn. If you have any last—”
The lights overhead exploded and plunged the room into darkness before Han-Jae could finish his monologue. One of the other weapons fired, sending a bullet ricocheting off the hard walls, the sparks provided the only light until it stopped.
The Sean Wyatt Series Box Set 4 Page 50
