by Nick Thacker
… Which was exactly what the other attacker wanted. While Reggie’s focus had been pulled in the direction of the flying metal bucket, the man rushed behind the table and aimed his pistol down at Reggie.
Reggie saw the man lining up the shot, but he was too close, and Reggie took advantage. He kicked out, hard, aiming for the man’s knees. His left boot made contact with the man’s leg and he went down.
Reggie stayed low, trying to keep the table between himself and the second gunman, but he came out from the table and twirled around on the stone floor, bringing his hand up above the man’s face just as he tried to regain his balance.
The man’s face turned, just in time to see Reggie’s fist come crashing down.
But it wasn’t Reggie’s fist that he would feel. Instead, his eye immediately exploded when the lightbulb Reggie had removed from the work lamp, the tip carefully broken off on the edge of the casket, smashed into the man’s face.
Blood spurted everywhere, more than Reggie would have expected. Then again, he’d never punctured a human eyeball with a razor-sharp glass lightbulb before.
The effect was immediate and profound. The Ravenshadow man imploded, collapsing in on himself as he moaned in agony. Reggie reached over the man’s waist and ripped his rifle from his side, then planted two rounds into the man — one between his shoulders, and one to the back of his neck.
He didn’t pause there. Reggie shifted again, this time rolling in the opposite direction. He came up and aimed, knowing from the sound of the footsteps exactly where the second gunman had traveled. He fired two more shots into that man’s chest, sending him flying against the back wall. He was wearing body protection, so a third to the man’s neck finished the job.
He ran to the man before he’d even closed his eyes in death and took the SMG from his hands. Never hurts to have too much weaponry.
He was about to leave when he took another glance down at the fallen mercenary. The man was wearing his bulletproof vest above his shirt. Never hurts to have too much protection, either.
Reggie strapped on the man’s bloody vest and checked his newfound gear. An MGP-84, developed in Peru for close-quarters protection. Capable of firing Uzi rounds, it was introduced in the ‘90s and he’d seen more than a few of them show up while in Brazil, typically bought and sold on the cartel and black markets.
He slung the MGP over his shoulder and examined the other weapon. This one he was intimately familiar with. An IMBEL IA2, used as the primary rifle of the Brazilian Army. 60,000 of the guns had been manufactured, and plenty of illegal versions had washed up onto the shooting range he’d owned in Brazil since then.
Best of all, he’d run over 10,000 rounds through them, and he knew that a well-maintained A2 in his hands was deadly.
Game over, Garza.
Reggie stepped to the bottom of the stairs and took a last-minute inventory. Satisfied there was nothing else from the two downed guards he needed, he began scaling the stairs. They were even larger than he’d initially thought. The dimly lit room had been playing tricks on him — these stairs had to be three feet wide and two-and-a-half tall.
He jumped forward and began climbing. He needed to move quickly — the room they had kept him in might have been close to soundproof, but the heavy door was open during the skirmish. If anyone on Garza’s team was in the room above, they would have surely heard the gunshots.
He planted a foot just inside the open doorway, waiting. Listening.
Hearing nothing, he crept farther out into the open space beyond the stairs. The air felt warmer, more humid. The space felt larger, too. There was light in the room, but it appeared to be moonlight, and not much at that. It was filtering down through tiny rectangular slits, barely large enough to be called windows. The room itself was round, like a citadel or castle minaret.
And, in the center of the room, laying on top of a huge stone circle, was Sarah.
45
Reggie
Her arms and legs were strapped down using vinyl cinch straps that been tightened over her body and hooked into rings cemented onto the stone floor.
Her head face-down on the stone pillar, was facing the opposite direction, but Reggie could tell she was in severe pain. They had stripped her clothes back from her shoulders, halfway down her back, revealing the wound from the rubber bullet.
Reggie approached, cautious of anything or anyone that might be waiting for him in the dark crevasses of the shadowy room. Thankfully, there were no corners in the room, though there were plenty of sections beneath the rectangular windows that could have hidden a person. He took care to pass through the center of the room slowly but on a spring, ready to pounce and hide behind the stone table at any moment.
But no one came. None of the Ravenshadow men or Garza popped out from a shadow, and no shots were fired. He had a feeling of uneasiness, but shook it off. One goal at a time. One moment at a time.
He looked down at Sarah. Her bronze back was dotted with darker splotches. Dried blood. He saw a gruesome web of dark-blue lines working their way out from the central gunshot wound. It seemed as though Garza had been true to his word — the lines were veins, poisoned and radiating outward, carrying the toxins to the rest of her body.
What the hell did he do?
Reggie had to fight against the rage, against the desire to smash through everything in sight and destroy the entire place in his hunt for Garza. Sarah’s life was at stake, and she needed medical attention.
“Reggie?” she whispered.
Oh, God. She’s awake.
“Sarah,” he said. “Sarah, just rest. Don’t —”
“We have to get out of here. We have to leave. Now.”
Reggie ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, uh… about that.”
“Reggie, there’s no time. That man — Garza? He said… he told me —”
“Shh,” Reggie said. “Just rest. I’m going to figure this out.”
“No,” she said, her voice pleading. He told me… he said that he knew you would —“
Suddenly the room was bathed in blinding-white light. Reggie pushed his elbow up over his eyes, then swung around. He removed his arm and tried to get his bearings, bringing the rifle up and to the ready.
He had almost turned a full circle when he heard a slow clap from the space beneath the windows to his left. He whirled around, preparing to fire on whoever it was.
“Take the shot and Sarah dies,” the voice said. Garza. He stepped out from the shadows. “I do appreciate your willingness to test a few of my new recruits.”
Reggie frowned.
“Those two men downstairs — well done, Red. You know, the best way to test a security system is to place it under pressure. Well-trained pressure, like you. Rest assured, I will be improving my security protocols based on your little MacGyver routine down there.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Reggie asked, throwing a thumb over his shoulder to Sarah.
“As you have seen, the poison we’ve given her is spreading, and it will consume her nervous system within two days. One day from now and she will lose all motor function. Hours from now, severe pain.” He coughed. “Well, more pain than she’s in now.”
Sarah groaned.
“You’re a bastard,” Reggie said. “I thought we’d come to an agreement, but I knew I couldn’t trust you. That’s why I didn’t —”
“Tell the truth?” Garza said. “The truth that you believe the Catholic Church is the organization looking for the Book of Bones?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I told you I wanted to know everything you know.”
“Set her free and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Too late for that, my friend,” Garza said. “I need the Book of Bones — the missing pieces of it — and I need them now. You and your girlfriend are no longer of any use to me, and your other friends, that bumbling idiot Harvey Bennett and his little fling Juliette, seem to have gotten sidetracked in Rome.”
&n
bsp; Rome? he thought. What the hell are they doing in Rome?
“So your entire team has proven useless, once again. My client expects delivery of the Book of Bones within a day, and I expect to keep that arrangement.”
Garza turned to a dark spot along the wall and nodded. A door began opening, another of the massive, hidden-hinged doors. Two Ravenshadow men stood on either side of it, now illuminated by the light gleaming in from the other side. Reggie couldn’t see what was beyond it.
“I’m going to leave you with my men. They will finish what we’ve started here today.”
Reggie sensed the presence of more men, now behind him, stepping forward and into the central chamber.
Shit.
He wanted to run, to start firing. He could take a hit or two. Maybe three, if they weren’t in life-threatening places. But that would guarantee Sarah’s death. He didn’t have time to free her, and even if he could, he wouldn’t be able to fight his way out of the chamber while carrying her.
He did the only thing he knew would give him a chance at living long enough to save her.
Reggie stepped up next to the stone pillar, placed his weapon on the floor, and raised his hands above his head.
46
Ben
“The hell was that?” he asked.
A few seconds later, he heard gunshots.
“Shit,” he whispered, running toward the stairs. “Who the hell are those guys, anyway? Jules, we can’t stay down here. We’re sitting ducks —”
“They know we’re here, Ben,” Julie said, her voice calm and even. “That’s why they’re here. We don’t have any time left — we have to find this entrance to the tunnels.”
Ben listened for a moment. More gunshots, closer this time. They’re moving in. He wondered if the men knew they were in the cellar somehow, and if Ben and Julie were in it. He wondered if they were the same men — or part of the same group — that had attacked them in Corsica.
“Ben, come here,” Julie whispered.
He ran back to her side and moved his head out of the way of the light. Beneath Julie’s fingers he saw a bottle of wine, covered in dust and seemingly no different from the rest of the bottles on that rack. It was full, the cork still in place on its top.
“What about it?”
“The label,” Julie said, pointing to the rack it was sitting on.
He looked down as Julie brushed some dust off the bottle’s label. Instead of a handwritten paper label, someone had scratched a symbol into the rack itself. It was tiny, nearly invisible, and only because of the lighting of the room did it have a small inner shadow that caused it to stand out against the rack.
“That’s the symbol for the Vatican,” Julie said.
She was right. He recognized a simplified version of the Vatican seal — two crossed keys with a rope hanging between them, a crown above.
“That has to mean something, right?” Ben asked.
Julie spun to the left, then to the right, whispering to herself. “We came in from that direction… this is… yeah, I think it has to be it. I’d guess the Vatican is right over there, in the direction the seal is pointing.”
She reached out and pulled the wine. Ben watched as… nothing happened.
“It’s stuck,” Julie said, her voice growing frantic.
Ben didn’t hear any more gunshots, but he knew there weren’t many employees in the hotel in the first place. He only hoped that whoever was up there was safe; that the gunshots were meant as warnings.
But he had a feeling that whoever was after them wouldn’t care about a few innocent lives that stood between them and their goal. He knew Garza’s team wouldn’t have wasted any time making that decision, but these men were somehow different. Somehow colder.
Who are they?
He didn’t have time to ponder the question. Footsteps, deep and menacing, pounded around on the floor above, and he heard men’s low voices calling to each other as they checked and cleared each room. They would find the cellar door in seconds, and if Ben and Julie didn’t find a way out before then…
Julie tried again, this time lifting the bottle up from the front instead of trying to pull it forward. Ben heard a click, and then a deeper hiss as a cool blast of air from the floor blew dust up around them.
“What was that?” he asked.
Julie turned to face him. “We opened something.” She looked around the floor, then pointed. “There!”
Ben stepped over to where she was pointing. A square, each side about two feet long, had been marked out on the floor. Ben hadn’t noticed it before, and he assumed it was because of the care the craftsmen of this room had taken in laying out the floor planks. But when Julie had moved the wine bottle, air had rushed out from the cracks, pushing away dust and debris.
“It’s a door,” he whispered.
“We don’t have time to check it out,” Julie said. “I’ll go first, you follow. Close it after.”
He nodded, but Julie was already waiting in front of the heavy square planks. Ben heaved it open and saw a staircase, dilapidated and rotting. The wood planks on the stairs seemed decayed, but Julie didn’t hesitate. She shot down the steps, the creaking and groaning of them giving Ben a bit of anxiety, but they held.
Julie disappeared into the depths of the staircase, her frame easily blacked out by the deep shadows from within. None of the cellar’s single bulb’s rays reached her.
Ben took a breath. Afraid of planes, afraid of heights, and now afraid of tight spaces? He hadn’t ever realized this was a fear for him, but he didn’t have time to register much beyond that. The shuffling and voices of the men up above and behind him urged him forward.
He dropped into the staircase, crouched, then turned and pulled the square door shut. He knew the soldiers would easily find the marked lines of the hatch, but he’d rather give themselves a chance at getting away.
As soon as the hatch door closed, every drop of light they’d had vanished, and Ben was plunged into complete darkness. He quickly hopped down the flight of stairs until he felt Julie’s outstretched hand. He heard her rustling with something, then a bluish glow emanated from her palm.
“Here,” she said, holding the cheap flip-phone up and in front of her. The stone walls around them seemed to push inward, compressing into a smaller and smaller space, but at least they could see. “It’s not much, but at least we won’t have to walk in the dark.”
“Walk?” Ben said. “I’m jogging. No way I’m getting caught down here by those assholes. I knew we should have brought the rifle with us.”
“There was no way to sneak it in while the bellhop was there,” Julie said. “Let’s just get across the street and into the Vatican, and we can see where we are then. I don’t think it’s a long trip — hopefully we’re far enough ahead that we can get up and out of here before those guys get a bead on us.”
“Yeah, hopefully.”
He didn’t want to think about what it would mean if they didn’t get out before they were spotted.
Ben took a breath, blinked, then charged forward, allowing Julie’s phone-powered flashlight to guide their way.
47
Julie
The path through the underground tunnel ended at another staircase. The entire path was pitch-black, save for the light from Julie’s open phone, and during their run she could see small holes along the walls on both sides — mounts for torch lighting. She imagined a time in the past when relations and tensions between the Vatican and Rome were high, when these tunnels would have been manned by Swiss guards and Vatican soldiers, the routes in and out of the city lit by heavy torches.
She got a chill thinking about it. Rome, The Vatican, these tunnels — everything here was old. Ancient, especially compared to the country she was from. American history barely went back 200 years, and perhaps twice that if she counted the time before the Revolutionary War. Rome, by contrast, had been around from before Christ walked the earth.
It was stunning, and she felt the depth
of the history and the importance of every stone beneath her feet as she ran. When they reached the staircase at the opposite end of the hallway, she paused to catch her breath. Ben was there, waiting.
The staircase rose higher than the one they’d used to enter the tunnel — it was possible this entrance would lead them to a main level instead of a basement or cellar. Instead of a square hatch in the floor, the door at the top of this staircase hung on old iron hinges and appeared to open inward.
She heard the unmistakable sound of heavy footfalls echoing through the hallway.
“They’re here,” she whispered.
Ben nodded. “Here goes nothing,” he said. “Let’s see where this tunnel ends up.”
He pushed hard, and Julie heard the creaking sound of old wood and rusted iron groaning against his weight. But it gave, and the door opened. A faint splash of light spilled outward into the tunnel, but Ben moved through the open space and into the room beyond, which blocked the light. She followed behind, but Ben had stopped in the small space just beyond.
“Ben?” she asked.
“Uh…”
She stood higher on her toes and peered over his shoulder.
“I think we’re…”
He took another step forward and Julie again followed, and she shut the door behind her. When she turned back around, Ben was smiling.
“It’s a bathroom,” he said. “We’re in a doorless closet, like a nook. But this is definitely a bathroom.”
Julie looked around, holding her phone up. The room they had stumbled into was, indeed, a restroom. They were standing inside a small storage nook in the corner of the room, and directly in front of Ben was an old, cracked toilet. A pull string hung from the ceiling next to it. The larger room beyond was too dark to see clearly, but it appeared as though they were inside an old, unused restroom.
