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

by Hogenkamp, Peter

  “They already have the weapons. Killing the prince won’t stop them anymore.”

  “I came here to kill the prince. I don’t give a damn about the nuclear weapons.”

  Her finger started to whiten on the trigger; Marco put his gloved hand over the front end of the scope.

  “Move your hand, Marco.”

  He kept it where it was.

  “Move it now.”

  Neither moved; neither said a word. After a long moment, her finger fell out of the trigger box, and she glared at him. “Why did you do that?”

  “I already told you.”

  Her head moved back to the scope. “What are we going to do now?”

  “Leave the prince to Pietro. I’m more concerned about those nuclear weapons.”

  “What can we do about them?”

  An idea germinated in his brain; he wasn’t sure from where it had come, but, being a man of God, he supposed it had descended to him from above, borne upon a tongue of flame or on the wings of a dove. Looking around, he saw neither fire nor bird, but the feeling that it was heaven-sent persisted; if nothing else, it made him feel better about the priest he had become and the way he had now chosen to serve God.

  “I’m going to steal them.”

  “How are we supposed to do that?”

  He told her his idea. She listened without interruption, never taking her eye off the scope.

  “All right, but get going now, Marco. They’re not going to hang around forever.”

  Sarah had two coils of rope on the outside of her backpack; he grabbed one and tucked it into his waistband. “I’m off. Try not to shoot me.”

  “Don’t get in my line of fire.”

  He promised her he would do his best.

  “What’s your exit strategy?”

  “I don’t need one.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not expecting to make it out alive.”

  She mumbled something in response, something that might have ended with darling, but it was lost to the whine of der Föhn. He wanted to ask her what she had said, but the moment had passed, so he started down the back of the outcrop, grabbing tree limbs to control his descent.

  When the pitch flattened, he used a pocket compass to blaze his way east. In short order, he was standing on the edge of the cliff, staring down into the dark abyss. He tied a length of rope to a tree, looped it around his waist and lowered himself over the edge. He dropped slowly, searching for a way to move laterally, and found one right away, a thin ridge running parallel to the face. It would be a feat getting back up—a free climb of ten meters—but the ridge appeared to extend all the way to the garage. If it wasn’t too good to be true, it was at least too good to pass up.

  His feet found the ledge, and he let go of the rope and started inching his way in the direction of Haus Adler. The going was steady at first, but the ledge narrowed after a few meters, and his pace slowed. As it turned a corner, the width lessened to about the length of his shoe, and his progress stopped. His heart thundered in his chest, and sweat seeped into his eyes, blurring his vision. For a brief second, he was sure he was going to lose his balance and drop two hundred meters through the night air until the craggy floor of the slope below rushed up to meet him. Or, even more likely, he would keep falling until the fires of hell consumed him.

  He leaned forward and pressed his body against the cool stone, which felt good on his flushed skin. He let go of his handhold with his right arm and reached into his pocket. His fingers collided with the rosary his mother had given him. He worked the beads and prayed for delivery.

  How long he stood there, stuck to the cliff like a fly on tar paper, he didn’t know; his watch was on his left wrist, and he wasn’t about to give up his hold on the rock to check the time. His fingers slid to the last bead on the rosary, his heart slowed to its normal rate, the streams of sweat ran dry, and his vision cleared. He lifted his right hand, found a crevice in the rock, and resumed sliding his feet along the shelf until he reached his destination, a spot on the cliff face just underneath the garage.

  He checked in with Sarah as he gathered his wind.

  “You took your sweet time, I see.”

  “I’m getting paid by the hour. What’s happening?”

  The situation had not changed. He thought her voice sounded strained, but then again, how could it not be? She was waiting for the opportunity to take a man’s life by scattering his brains over the alpine floor.

  “Get a move on, Marco; we’re running out of time. And be careful.”

  “Be careful? You’re not getting soft on me, are you?”

  “Definitely not, darling. I just don’t want another mess to clean up.”

  Up he went, putting a premium on making as little noise as possible, and paused an arm’s length from the top to listen. Muffled voices and the sound of a diesel engine idling floated in his direction. He made sure the Beretta was still securely stuffed inside his waistband, switched the safety off, and hauled himself up.

  He saw the man immediately, standing guard behind the garage, taking a drag from a cigarette. The glow of the cigarette dimmed, and the guard spotted him and brought his weapon to bear, but Marco was quicker to the trigger. He squeezed his finger twice, and the man slumped to the ground.

  He scrambled over the edge. With his feet once more on horizontal ground, he spared a second to look around. The back of the garage, a massive six-door structure with office space above the bays, lay ten meters in front of him. A rear entry was cut into the wall very close to where the dead man lay; the windowless door was slightly ajar. There was no one else visible on the small parcel of land wedged between the back of the building and the edge of the cliff.

  Marco pressed himself against the back wall next to the door and risked a glance inside. There were five vehicles parked there: the limo, the UPS van, a Lamborghini Murciélago, and two white vans. He recognized the last two vehicles straightaway; they were part of the large fleet of trucks belonging to the maintenance service of Vatican City. It seemed like an unusual place for Vatican vehicles to be parked, but there was no denying the silver and gold crossed key emblem on the side of the vans, or the license tags, which, like all vehicles belonging to the Vatican City State, began with the prefix SCV.

  Six men were standing behind the UPS van, shutting the rear doors. Marco ducked his head out of sight and ran through the numbers: six men inside the garage, and six more standing in front. He supposed there were more inside the main house, but he doubted they would leave the prince’s side under any circumstances. The basic framework of a plan began to assemble itself inside his head. If Sarah could manage to take out the men in the driveway, he could probably handle those still inside, especially if their attention was turned elsewhere.

  He was going to need more firepower and less conscience, if he was going to be successful. The former he’d have no trouble acquiring. All he had to do was take a few steps toward the cliff and retrieve the dead man’s weapon. He had no idea what the make or model was, but the former paratrooper named Pietro—the man who talked about the proper way to kill a person as if it were some kind of engineering project—had demonstrated the use of several similar guns, including the Heckler & Koch MP5s used by the prince’s bodyguard, and he was confident he could employ it effectively.

  The problem was in the latter half of the equation. He tried vainly to justify it, telling himself that the ends justified the means, that any method was ethical when it came to preventing a nuclear explosion inside Vatican City. He thought about the death toll of such an event: tens of thousands of his innocent countrymen vaporized. He thought about his discussion with Cardinal Lucci, who had told him to use any means necessary. And then he thought about holding the gentle gaze of John Paul III, and he knew he couldn’t do it. Lucci had chosen the wrong man.

  Forty-Two

  Dr. Khalid al-Sharim rubbed the disbelief from his eyes and stared out the window again; he couldn’t be sure, but he thought he’d seen
a slight movement in the shadows on the other side of the precipice below him. He focused his gaze on the spot and saw the gauzy form of a man suspended against the rock face, just below the top. At first he thought he must be seeing things, but then there was another movement—an arm reaching up to the edge—and he knew he wasn’t. There was only one way to explain why someone would be climbing the cliff in the middle of the night: the Americans were finally making good on their promise to extract him.

  He looked back to the spot where the sentry had been holding vigil for the last half-hour and was rewarded with the firefly flash of light indicating another drag from his cigarette. The man on the cliff face must have seen it as well—despite the bad angle—because he chose that moment to burst over the top. The guard reacted slowly and reached for his weapon a second too late. There was a flash of light from the edge of the cliff, and he fell.

  An opportunity had opened up for Khalid, but he wasn’t sure how to proceed. If he went flying down the steps now, he was sure the American would shoot him before he had the chance to identify himself. No, he would be better off sitting tight for the moment, waiting for things to develop. He watched as the American ran past the dead bodyguard and was lost to sight directly beneath his vantage point. He entertained the idea of opening the window and sticking his head out to see, but caution won out over curiosity, and he left it closed.

  An idea occurred to him, and he went back into the surgical suite. He observed with detachment that both men were still alive, but gave them no further consideration. He filled two syringes with Versed, put his surgical garb and magnifiers back on, and walked out with purpose in his stride. The control room was right across the hall from the clinic, and he strode straight in as if he were in a hurry. Waleed was sitting behind the desk, studying the wall of CCTV monitors.

  “What are you doing here, Khalid? You’re supposed to be operating on Abayd.”

  “I need another set of hands. Abayd told me to ask you.”

  “I have to watch the monitors.”

  “Take it up with Abayd.”

  “I will.”

  Waleed brushed past him, and Khalid flipped the cap off one of the syringes and followed. When Waleed slowed at the door, he jabbed the needle roughly into his flank and squirted all three milliliters directly into his right kidney. Waleed whirled around and struck him in the face with his elbow, sending him sprawling. Khalid hit the floor and tried to roll clear, but the other man was too quick and was upon him right away, with his hands on Khalid’s throat.

  The pressure stopped almost as soon as it had started, and Waleed slumped limply to the floor. Khalid rubbed his neck for a moment, and then used the other syringe to deposit another heavy dose of sedative into Waleed’s radial vein. Thirty seconds later, his respirations were slow and irregular, and his muscles had the limp tone of a wet dishrag.

  Khalid stood up and walked to the window overlooking the turnaround. The blinds were down, and he pried apart two of the blades to peer out. Six armed men patrolled the area in front of the garage. He had been taking notes on the security arrangements for long enough to know that only two men should be on patrol at this hour, and only one in this specific area.

  It was as if the American attack had been anticipated. Somehow—Khalid had no idea how, and he didn’t care all that much at the moment—Abayd had been onto him. But there was nothing he could do about that now, and he wasn’t a man to dwell on the past. He fished a set of keys out of Waleed’s pocket and exited the security office, smiling as he locked the door behind him; there were only two sets of keys to the office, and both of them were now sitting in his pocket.

  Pietro didn’t have to wait long. He had just finished working out his exit strategy when he felt the vibration of footfalls on the stairs leading up from the floor below. He picked up the Beretta and slowed his breathing, willing himself to be calm. He was almost there; there was no need to rush. The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and then turned in the other direction, toward the office on the opposite side of the floor. He hadn’t expected this, and contemplated what to do. The overhead light was switched on, and he heard the prince turning the key to unlock the door to the office. He decided not to delay any longer. Experience had taught him that action was better than reaction. He eased out of his chair, pushed open the closet door, and twisted into shooting position.

  There were two men in the dimly lit hallway. Prince el-Rayad was standing in front of the door to the office, pushing it open. A second man was behind him, directly in Pietro’s line of fire. But he didn’t remain so for very long; grabbing the prince with his powerful arms, he twisted him in front of him. Pietro fired twice, shooting el-Rayad in the neck. Blood spurted over the priceless Persian carpets, and the prince tottered and dropped to the floor. It was all the time the other man needed to slip inside the office and slam the door closed. Pietro fired again, but the door was solid metal, and the bullets ricocheted off and whistled past him.

  It pained him to let the other man live—he thought immediately of Roberto Caruso’s wife pointing at him in the courthouse—but it was time to go. He pulled the pin on a flash-bang, tossed it down the stairwell, and ran to the far side of the room, exiting via the sliding window as the grenade detonated. He had already tied a climbing rope to the railing; throwing it to the ground below, he vaulted over the top, letting himself freefall for a second before he clamped down on the line to slow his descent. He hit the ground and rolled to break his fall. When he returned to his feet, the Beretta was back in his hand again, but no targets presented themselves.

  He heard all hell breaking loose as he ducked behind the large stone marking the land’s end. The fifty-meter coil of rope was already secured to the boulder, and he kicked it over the edge. After a last peek from behind the rock, he crawled to the edge on his belly and let himself fall into the abyss.

  A gunshot rang out, and Marco froze against the wall. The shot had come from the main house; he was sure of it. He twisted around and peered into the garage in time to see the men inside fleeing. This was his chance. He got up and slipped through the rear door as a chorus of shouts arose from the front. Rifle fire echoed, and he assumed Sarah was creating the ghosts who would haunt her for the next few years.

  A stairway led up to the second floor from the corner where he was standing, and he stepped into the alcove to avoid being seen. He heard the pounding of feet on the stairs above and whirled around to face the new threat. A running form appeared around the corner; Marco recognized him right away from the picture Lucci had shown him. It was Dr. Khalid al-Sharim.

  When Sarah Messier heard the shots from below, she exhaled a breath of relief and tightened her finger on the trigger. The waiting was finally over, and she could get down to the work for which she had been training since she was a little girl. She centered the cross hairs on the first target, fired, and swiveled toward the second target without wasting time to confirm the kill. She acquired the second target and pulled the trigger. The rifle roared again, jamming into her shoulder. She tracked a third man as he ran toward Haus Adler, caught up with him as he skirted the edge of the precipice, and felled him with another round. The man bounced off the ground and rolled over the edge and out of sight.

  She lowered the power on her scope to get a better view of the chaos. She expected to see men desperately seeking cover, but was surprised to see a steady stream braving the open ground in between the garage and the main building. The lead man had almost reached the safety of Haus Adler by the time she switched the scope back to full power. She rushed her aim, and the shot went wide, blowing apart a ceramic pot of geraniums on the porch. The target made a frantic scramble for the front door, but Sarah was practiced at moving targets, having felled many a scurrying squirrel with the .22 carbine her father had given her as a young girl, and sent him tumbling to the ground in a heap.

  The two men behind him paused for a minute as if they weren’t sure where the shots were coming from, allowing her to snap a fresh
clip into place and dispatch both of them with clean head shots. She couldn’t locate another target with her scope, so she scooped up the binoculars to take a look. It had finally dawned on the enemy to take cover, but at least two of them had chosen the east side of the parked Mercedes, giving her a clear line of fire. She put down the binoculars, located the two men, and killed both as they huddled behind the car.

  She grabbed the binoculars again and surveyed the target area. The first Mercedes sedan was still in the turnaround; two dead bodies lay in front of it. No other targets were in sight, so she turned her attention to the area at the bottom of the steep slope Marco had descended. At first, she could see nothing and was just about to put the glasses down again when she spotted movement in the bottom of the field of view. She adjusted the focus and zoomed in. Two men were bent low and running hard, angling toward her position. Her eye moved back to the scope, but they had disappeared into the woods and were lost to sight.

  She was going to have company.

  Soon.

  Streams of conflicting impulses flowed through her head, all unbidden. She was a survivor by nature and through her father’s training, and as such, the Volvo sedan beckoned. The spare key to the car was in her pocket, the hike down to it was not long, and the moonlight was sufficient to guide her down the slope. But even as these thoughts materialized in her brain, a second line of thinking came, gaining force quickly. Sarah wasn’t sure at what point in time she had become concerned for Marco’s welfare, but she had, undeniably so.

  She lay still, eye glued to the scope, finger white on the trigger, waiting for the victorious thought to emerge and dictate her actions.

  Forty-Three

  Dr. al-Sharim opened his mouth to speak, but Marco clapped a palm over his face and whispered in his ear in English.

  “Do you understand?”

  Al-Sharim nodded. Marco removed his hand, pointing upward. “Are there any other men upstairs?”

  “Three, but they are all heavily sedated.”