The Vatican Conspiracy: A completely gripping action thriller (A Marco Venetti Thriller Book 1)

by Hogenkamp, Peter

  He ran inside, letting the short barrel of the assault weapon lead the way. The front door opened into the kitchen, a large room with an old-fashioned stove in one corner and a large wooden table in the other. He saw the three Siracusans still sitting at the table, what was left of their torsos slumped forward against the tabletop. The smell of gunpowder and sweat filled the air. The rustic wooden walls were pockmarked with bullet holes, and blood was splattered over the tiled floor like an abstract painting.

  There were no intruders in the room, and he ran toward the hallway that opened up to the living room. Gunfire erupted from above him, covering the sound of his advance. He sliced through the hall and exploded into the room. Two men were standing in the middle of the space, staring off to his right. He shot the first one in the neck with a short burst, cleaving off his head. The second man raised his weapon reflexively, but Pietro cut him down before he could find the trigger. He didn’t have time to locate the open area beneath his helmet, so he just opened fire on his chest and toppled him over.

  Seeing movement from the dining room to his right, he dove for cover behind a large sofa. He heard the slap of boots on the pine floor and emptied his clip at the noise, showering cotton stuffing into the air. The footfalls stopped, and he heard the satisfying crash of a body hitting the floor. He reloaded, trying to remember where his men had been prior to the attack. The sound of a Beretta came down the stairwell, answering his question.

  At least one was still alive—and fighting back.

  Abayd heard the sharp crack of a 9mm, and his breath stuck in his throat. None of his men were carrying this caliber of weapon. Not everything had gone to plan, not that he had ever suspected it would. Something about the sound of the shots—the rapid succession of three tight groups of two shots each—told him that the man who had fired them had killed many men before. There was a lethal professionalism, a deadly skill about the sound that was undeniable.

  Abayd pushed back from the tree against which he had been standing and set off toward the opposite side of the farmhouse. If his guess was correct, the shots had come from the cellar, which opened on that side of the building.

  “Falcon, check in.”

  No response.

  “Falcon!”

  Falcon didn’t check in. Less than a minute into the operation, Abdul was either off the air or dead, most likely the latter.

  “Falcon down.” Abayd started across the lawn; there was no point in hiding in the woods any longer. He needed to get to the cellar as fast as he could.

  As he rounded the back corner of the dwelling, he saw a shadow slip onto the porch at the front. It was only a glimpse, but he knew it wasn’t one of his men. The enemy was entering the house where his men wouldn’t expect him. He almost radioed a warning, but if the man had taken Abdul’s helmet radio, he would be giving him forewarning.

  Abayd remained silent and ran toward the porch. He would follow behind his enemy and take care of the problem himself.

  Thirty-Eight

  Pietro heard the crash of boots hitting the stairwell; it was time to move. The main staircase to the second floor led up from the hall on the other side of the dining room, and he knew he would never be able to make it up that way with the enemy already mounted there. There was a second staircase, however, spiraling up from the large hearth room at the rear of the house, and he ran down the short corridor to find it.

  The hearth room was named for the massive stone fireplace cut into the back wall. Three gigantic stags’ heads watched over a cluster of sofas that were littered with the dead bodies of two more of his men, both Palermitani. A single enemy combatant materialized from the door leading from the storeroom, and Pietro greeted him with three shots in the face. The man collapsed onto the pine boards with a thud.

  He opened the door to the back staircase, closed it softly behind him, and crept upwards, running through the math in his mind. There had been ten members of his team when the assault began, in addition to himself. He had to assume Carlo, who had been on sentry duty tonight, was the first man down. He added the two in the hearth room and the three in the kitchen: a total of six dead. That left four unaccounted for. He reached the top of the stairs and pushed the door open. The staircase came out in the rear bedroom, which he had been sharing with Alessandro, who was currently lying on the bed in a pool of his own blood. Second sight or not, he was as dead as the others.

  Seven down.

  He padded across the bedroom and paused in front of the door that let out onto the bottom half of an L-shaped hallway. Unfamiliar voices emanated from around the corner, coming toward him. He flattened himself against the wall and waited.

  A weak light ebbed from above, and he saw two shadows advancing in his direction. He waited until he gauged the pair were directly on the other side of the wall, then stepped back and opened fire. A hail of plaster erupted into the air as the ancient wallboard disintegrated in the barrage. The clip emptied at the same time as a small hole opened up in the wall, just below the level of the chair rail, and he saw two bodies writhing on the pine flooring. He yanked his Beretta free and shot the closest one in the back of the neck. The other disappeared out of his narrow field of vision before he could draw a bead.

  He dove through the door, biting his tongue as he slammed against the floor, narrowly averting a burst of fire that tore through the wall. His opponent was attempting to crawl around the corner to get out of harm’s way; Pietro raised his Beretta and fired twice.

  He reloaded the assault rifle, recalling the layout of the second floor. The remainder of the bedrooms and a small upstairs den lay off the main hallway. He remembered that some of the men had been playing cards in the den when the attack had commenced. He turned the corner and ran down the hall. The lifeless body of one of the attackers decorated the otherwise barren corridor. The smell of death, mingled with the stench of sweat, hung in the air like a vapor. The sound of excited voices floated up from below, and he could feel the pulse of another set of boots slamming against the tiled kitchen floor. Blood, sticky and tasting of salt, flowed into his mouth from the gash on his tongue.

  He found two more of his men, still warm but lifeless, slumped over the card table in the den. Luca was motionless on the floor, next to a dead Saudi soldier who was oozing blood from a knife wound in his throat. At least Luca had been able to slit someone’s throat, even if it wasn’t the prince’s. He grabbed Luca’s Beretta, ejected the clip, and tucked it inside his cargo pocket to save for later.

  It was time to go. He relieved the dead Saudi of his last flash-bang, pulled the pin, and lobbed it onto the main staircase as footsteps echoed up from below.

  Abayd never saw the flash-bang. His ears buzzed with the concussion, and he was aware of nothing but a wash of white, as if he were staring into the blazing Arabian sun. He lay there for several seconds, inhaling the burnt phosphorus. When the daze cleared, he raised his weapon and fired blindly in the direction of upstairs, succeeding in reducing the opposite wall of the second-floor hallway to a mass of splinters. He wasn’t expecting to hit his enemy; he was just trying to keep him on the defensive.

  His vision ebbed back, and he saw that the door to the den was open. The ringing in his ears waned, and he could hear the moans of the dying men on the first floor. The second floor was quiet; his target was either running or lying in ambush.

  There was only one way to find out.

  He got back to his feet and started up the stairs, with the remaining team members behind him. When they stormed the den, they found Sayid sprawled on the floor, unmoving; three of the enemy were there as well, all dead. A glass door let out onto the porch outside. He rammed his finger against the trigger of his weapon, and the door dissolved. He ran through the shattered remnants, ignoring the shards, and his feet landed on the oak planks.

  He knew from his surveillance that the porch orbited the second floor, like a rectangular planetary ring, and he motioned for his men to investigate. The lawn stretched out in front of him,
but with the cloud cover and the constriction of his pupils, all he could see was the contrast of black on black. In frustration, he pelted the yard with bullets, until he ran out of ammunition, and his finger pressed uselessly against the trigger.

  His men returned, shaking their heads, and for the first time, the notion of failure leaked into his head. He did not relish the idea of reporting his lack of success to KiKi.

  “Search the house. I will check the woods.”

  They passed back inside, and he ran the length of the porch, heading toward the stairs. He flew down them, taking three steps at a time, and turned toward the woods where he and his men had massed not fifteen minutes beforehand. He hesitated at the edge of the lawn, uncertain. The chances that he would be successful in his pursuit were small, but he had to try.

  Or perhaps it simply had to appear as if he had made a valiant effort. As he slipped into the thicket bordering the forest, an idea germinated in his brain. He unhooked his helmet and tossed it on the ground, then made his way fifty meters into the woods, stopping inside a heavy growth of fir trees. The night was quiet; no twigs snapped underfoot. He let go of the gun, letting it hang loosely from his neck, yanked his blade from the scabbard secured to his calf, and slashed it across the side of his left forearm.

  The metal was razor sharp, and it sliced through his sleeve and ripped open the muscle, exposing tendons and yellowy fat. Blood spurted from the wound, and he was overcome with nausea. He vomited violently from the shock, then straightened, switched the knife into his left hand, and repeated the maneuver on the other arm.

  Even in the meager light that filtered down through the jumble of branches, he could see that he’d achieved the desired effect. Blood seeped from his arms and smeared his fatigues. He looked like he’d been slaughtering swine with a blunt knife. He dabbed some on his face for good measure, then rammed his knife back into the scabbard.

  He lingered to make sure he hadn’t drawn any unwelcome attention before making his way back, picking up his helmet where he’d left it. His men were waiting for him in the den, next to the two orderly rows of bodies they had stacked like cordwood against the wall: eleven of his own men in one pile, and ten of his enemies in the other.

  Fahwaz saw him limp into the room and rushed over to him. “What happened?”

  “I saw the coward running through the woods, and I followed. He ambushed me in a grove of fir trees.” He held up his arms for them to see, and the lie slipped out before he had a chance to stop it. “He won’t be bothering us again, my brothers.”

  They pressed him for details, and he gave a brief account of the fictional knife fight, which ended with him slitting the enemy’s throat. He finished his tale by describing how he had dragged the dead body under a fallen tree, where it will fester and rot, lest they insist on retrieving it for him.

  Fahwaz applied a bandage as Abayd called for the vans to pick them up. They heard the engines a few minutes later, followed by the quiet approach of the recovery team. With Abayd directing, the reinforcements removed the dead bodies—of both sides—and piled them into the vehicles. Five minutes after the vans had arrived, the house was empty, with nothing to show for the carnage but large volumes of blood puddled on the floorboards, splashed on the cabinetry, and soaked into the carpets. Abayd personally supervised one last check of the house, blood dripping from his wounds as he went, before he and the five remaining members of the assault team filed into the vans and drove away.

  Thirty-Nine

  Dr. Khalid al-Sharim surveyed the wounds on his patient’s arms, then walked wordlessly to the supply cabinet in his clinic to begin the process of sewing them up. It was a process he had always enjoyed, from his first days as an intern in Riyadh to his required service in the Saudi Royal Army. There was something gratifying about taking a shredded piece of bloody flesh and restoring it to its natural state. It was almost worth being dragged out of bed to do it—it was 11.30 at night—not that he had any choice in the matter.

  He selected several items and carried them over to the bench next to the patient: syringes, sterile packages of suture, both absorbable and nylon, and a handful of surgical instruments wrapped in plastic. It would be much easier to have the services of a nurse, but he had been without one for so long he had gotten used to working alone, and he allowed himself the delusion of believing he preferred it this way. He deposited several packaged drapes on the tabletop, along with a large stack of gauze bandages and a bottle of an iodine-based antiseptic.

  “How did you say you were wounded?”

  “I slipped.”

  “You must learn to be more careful, Abayd.”

  “I promise you will never have to fix me up again, Khalid.”

  Al-Sharim thought about this remark as he looked over the various bottles in his medicine cupboard. There were several types of lidocaine, a handful of narcotic painkillers, and a dozen other medications including injectable anti-emetics, anti-migraine drugs (the prince was a habitual migraineur), and sedatives. He chose a new bottle of two percent lidocaine with epinephrine and returned to the patient.

  He had been in the army long enough to recognize self-inflicted wounds when he saw them. In his opinion, there was no doubt about who had sliced open Abayd’s arms; the more important question was why. It simply didn’t make any sense.

  He positioned the patient on the surgical table and mulled it over in his mind. Something smelled like rotten fish, and it wasn’t the odor belching out of Abayd’s filthy wounds. He rifled through a drawer until he found his magnifiers, slipped them on, then grabbed two sets of surgical gloves and a sterile gown. He was ready, but something nagged at him, and he found a pretense to stall. He walked over to the other side of the room and stood in front of the sink, using the foot pedals to start the hot water. There was something wrong; he could feel it. He had felt it all week, but he was not a man to rely on intuition; he was a doctor, after all, a man of facts and science. He had told himself he was paranoid and tried to ignore the sensation that he was being watched.

  He waved his hands in front of the soap dispenser, and a blob of foam spat onto his palms. He lathered slowly, trying to quell a rising tide of panic.

  They were on to him. Yes, he was sure of it. It all became clear to him as he scrubbed his hands: the constant companionship of one of the security detail—always with some ridiculous excuse—the loss of his cell phone, and the ridiculous errands he had been asked to do all week, always with a chaperone. He had spent a whole day taking the train to Vienna with Nassir to buy supplies for the clinic, a job he normally assigned to someone else.

  He dried his hands and returned to the medicine cabinet. Making sure his tall frame was blocking Abayd’s view, he tore the label off a bottle of Versed, a powerful sedative, and replaced it with the label from a reserve bottle of local anesthetic. He deposited the bottle on the bench top, staring coldly at Abayd—they had never liked each other—then went to wash his hands again. When he had finished, he ran his hands through the ultraviolet dryer and donned his gloves and gown.

  He slipped his hand inside a sterile bag, picked up the saline, and irrigated the long wound on Abayd’s right arm. When he was satisfied that he’d cleared out all the pine needles, soil particles, and leaf fragments, he soaked several gauze pads in antiseptic and began to swab the wound. He knew from experience that this stung quite a bit, but Abayd’s square face was neutral. He was a tough son-of-a-bitch.

  When he had finished cleaning the wound, he picked up a syringe. He stabbed the fake bottle of anesthetic and withdrew a full three milliliters, then selected a pair of tissue forceps from the surgical tray and used them to lift the wound flap, exposing the deep belly of the muscle. He found what he was looking for near the elbow—a large branch of the antecubital vein—but when he reached for the syringe, Abayd shook his head.

  “No drugs.”

  “I can’t stitch you up without the medication.”

  Abayd wasn’t convinced. “I can stand the pain.”<
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  Khalid’s chest tightened, and sweat beaded up on his forehead, darkening his light blue surgical cap. Suddenly he was sure Abayd was on to him. He wanted to run, but he could plainly see the gun strapped to the bodyguard’s chest.

  “I wasn’t talking about the pain; you can suffer that for all I care. The medication also stops the bleeding so I can see what I am sewing.”

  He could see the indecision in Abayd’s eyes, and he knew it was now or never. Before his patient could object, he inserted the tip of the needle into the vein and depressed the plunger with his thumb.

  “I can feel that.”

  “Give it time. Your arm will be numb in a few seconds.”

  Khalid counted to ten in his head and grabbed the scalpel by the handle just in case. But there was no need. By the time he got to seven, Abayd’s eyes had rolled up, and his body went as limp as a rag doll. Khalid relieved him of his gun, cell phone, and knife, and then refilled the syringe and gave him another three milliliters of the Versed. He was a little unsure if he’d overdosed him, but he didn’t care that much either—he just didn’t want him to wake up in the next hour. Judging by the flaccid muscle tone and slow, uneven respirations, it was highly unlikely.

  A knock on the door gave him a start. “Khalid?”

  His heart raced. “I’m operating. What is it?”

  “I need to speak with Abayd right now.”

  He looked around the room in desperation, but he knew there was only one exit from the surgical suite.

  “Just a minute.”

  He grabbed a large drape and spread it over Abayd, so that only his head and arm were visible, then threw his leather coat over the pile of Abayd’s things on the countertop, and filled another syringe with Versed. With the needle hidden in his right hand, thumb resting on the plunger, he unlocked the door and opened it a crack. Nassir’s head poked in.

  “I am right in the middle of something. Can’t this wait?”