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

by Hogenkamp, Peter

  Marco gave him a quick summary of their situation. He told him about the UPS van and the trucks with the Vatican insignia. He relayed his theory that the nuclear warheads had not yet been offloaded. “There are two men guarding the van. We have to make sure they don’t get in our way.”

  The doctor reached behind his back and pulled out a handgun, indicating that he was ready to go. Marco flattened himself farther against the wall of the alcove and edged toward the open bay. He could hear the men in front of the garage shouting to each other in a foreign language, presumably trying to figure out who was raining death on them from above. He didn’t hear any sound from inside the bay, but he guessed the men who had delivered the bombs were still somewhere in the garage.

  The doctor brushed up against his shoulder, and Marco noticed his headgear for the first time: a pair of magnifying glasses with a small mirror attached to the side. He plucked the stem of the mirror off the glasses and positioned it so he could see into the garage. At first, it looked empty, but after a moment he noticed that the two delivery men had gotten back into the vehicle. The engine growled to life, and the bay door crawled upward: either the payment had been received, or the delivery men were splitting without it.

  He whispered his plan to the doctor, then counted to three—the fastest three seconds of his life—and rushed into the garage. He ran over to the van, grabbed the door handle, and yanked it open. The driver turned toward him in annoyance, and then in fear as Marco placed the end of the silencer against his throat, similar to the way he pressed candles against the throats of the faithful on the feast of St. Blaise.

  The driver held up his hands, but the passenger wasn’t as compliant. He twisted quickly and grabbed for the automatic pistol lying next to him on the bench seat, managing to pick it up before Marco pulled the trigger. The bullet severed the driver’s brain stem before exiting the base of his neck amid a spurt of flesh, blood, and spinal fluid, hitting the second man in the chest. The passenger dropped the gun and slumped against the door with a jagged divot in his lungs and his partner’s innards plastered over his torso.

  Marco swiveled and saw the doctor standing guard in front of the open bay door, ready to execute his simple directive: “Shoot anyone you see.” He grabbed the driver by the collar and pulled him out of the van, dumping him unceremoniously on the concrete floor. The engine was still idling, and the soft thud of the impact was inaudible. He climbed inside the vehicle and slipped between the two front seats, entering the cargo area. A wall of cardboard boxes plastered with labels and bar codes confronted him. He punched his way through the line and knelt in front of a pair of burnished metal cylinders lying near the back. They were each about a meter and a half long, and half a meter in width, the exact specifications Lucci had given him.

  He retraced his steps, satisfied that he hadn’t killed two men without purpose. Al-Sharim was still pressed against the front of the garage, standing guard. He motioned to al-Sharim to get in the driver’s seat, dragged the dead man out of the passenger’s seat, and jumped in. “Sarah.”

  There was no answer. He adjusted the collar microphone as the doctor took the wheel.

  “Sarah.”

  Still no response.

  Marco’s tongue felt like he had tried to swallow a handful of sand, and air stuck in his throat. “Sarah?” He could barely get the words out of his mouth. “Sarah, are you there?”

  “I’m a little busy. This better be good.”

  His heart resumed beating; the wind returned to his lungs. “It is. I have the doctor and the weapons. We’re going to get out of here in the UPS van. Can you cover us?”

  He heard dead air and the crackle of a poor connection.

  “Sarah?”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes. As soon as we’re gone, get out of there. You have the car keys?”

  She didn’t respond, but her silence was pregnant with a tension that Marco could not identify.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, you heard me, or yes, you have the key?” He knew neither of them had time to clarify the issue, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “The hell it doesn’t.”

  “This is no time for our first argument, dolcezza. On the count of three …”

  “Sarah—”

  “One …”

  “Are you all right?”

  There was no response. All he could hear was the idling of the engine and the sound of his heart thumping in his chest.

  “It’s too late for that, Marco.”

  The sound of a bullet impacting against rock exploded in his earpiece.

  “Sarah!”

  “Two …” Her voice was scratchy and thin.

  “Wait …”

  “Three. Goodbye, Marco.”

  Sarah centered the cross hairs over the gas tank of the nearest Mercedes and squeezed the trigger, causing a spout of flame to erupt from the side of the vehicle. Aware that the hunters were just beneath her, she slid backward, narrowly escaping several bullets that smashed against the stone upon which her prone form had been resting. The muzzle flashes had been much closer than she had expected, not more than thirty meters away. She knelt behind a large bush and strapped her backpack on tightly. A sniper rifle was no good for this kind of fight, but she had neither the inclination nor the time to break it down and stow it away, so she looped the carrying strap over her shoulder. Bullets ripped through the pine trees above her, creating a shower of needles and pine tar that stuck to her hair like glue.

  It was evident that she needed to get off the top of the promontory, so she slid down the rock face, her fingers scraping uselessly against the stone as she tried to grab something to control her descent. She dug her toes in to break her momentum, but the face was uneven and filled with cracks, and she couldn’t gain sufficient traction.

  A pine tree saved her. Her feet had just bounced off a rocky protuberance, causing her descent to accelerate, when she collided with the top branches of the resilient evergreen growing on a small ledge. Her momentum slowed considerably, and her flailing arms caught a branch stout enough to support her weight. She climbed down to the ledge and tied a length of rope around the base of the tree. After a quick survey of the face, she looped the rope around her waist and started letting herself down. The rope was twenty-five meters in length, and she used every centimeter, rappeling down to where the slope let up enough to allow her to maneuver without it. She worked her way to her right, toward a patch of large pines where she could get lost in the shadows.

  She had almost reached the trees when shots rang out, and bullets cratered the stone behind her. Fragments of stone lacerated her legs, and she lost her footing. Her right ankle twisted violently, and she hit the ground and rolled, dropping ten meters before she slammed against the bole of a tree, losing her breath. More shots rang out, but the bullets struck above and to her left as if the hunters hadn’t seen her fall.

  Air ebbed back into her chest, and she crawled behind the thick trunk of the pine and sat up against it. She unsnapped the Browning from its moorings on her waist, slid off the safety, and set it down on her lap. Using a piece of cloth and several sticks, she fashioned a crude splint to support her swollen and disfigured ankle, then snatched up the Browning again, listening for the telltale signs of approach: the snap of a breaking twig or the slap of a boot against the rocky shelf. But she heard nothing other than the sound of the breeze whistling through the pine boughs and the rush of her own breath as she exhaled.

  As luck would have it, she had been prepared for such a contingency for a long time, not by the U.S. Army or the CIA, for whom she had labored for a combined fifteen years, but by her father, the backwoodsman who believed that guns—and knowing how to use them—were the best defense against a corrupt state. Although she hadn’t seen or talked to him in years, he was never very far away, especially in situations like this, where his voice whispered into
her ear, instructing her how to stay alive.

  Forty-Four

  The sound of an explosion flooded in through the open garage doors, and Marco tapped al-Sharim on the shoulder: ready or not, it was time to go. He opened the window as the doctor backed the van out of the garage, in the event that he needed room to maneuver his gun, and prayed he wouldn’t have to use it. The van cleared the confines of the bay, and he saw the burning Mercedes off to the side, as if he was watching a CNN clip of the Gaza Strip. There were no enemy combatants in view, at least none that were going to cause problems. He could see a line of dead bodies extending from the garage to the main house, evidence of Sarah’s handiwork.

  He heard gunshots echoing down from above, confirming his fears about her safety. A strong urge to go to her aid overcame him, and he moved his hand away from the handle lest it throw the door open of its own accord. He saw several men running out of Haus Adler, gesticulating for him to stop.

  Al-Sharim shifted the transmission into drive and eased ahead, trying not to arouse suspicion, but the men began shouting and waving their arms frantically.

  “Gun it.”

  Tires screeched on the asphalt, and Marco’s head whipped back against the rest as the doctor floored the gas pedal. He saw the lead man bring his weapon to bear, and he emptied the rest of the clip in his direction, felling him and causing the others to dive for cover. Two men jumped out of the Mercedes parked in the driveway. Marco grabbed al-Sharim’s pistol and scattered them with a volley as the doctor drove straight at the car. There was a grinding collision, and the sound of twisting metal and breaking glass. The van ricocheted off the Mercedes and kept going, reaching the track that ran alongside the edge of the precipice. Marco could see the abyss rushing past through the open window. All it would take was a slight miscalculation—or a burst tire—and the van would disappear over the cliff to be swallowed up by the blackness. But the tires maintained their integrity, and al-Sharim made no mistakes. As the road turned to the left and entered the welcoming cover of the forest, Marco heard the staccato sound of gunfire and felt the thud of bullets hammering against the back of the vehicle, but their getaway was unhindered. They negotiated a sharper turn to the left, and he lost sight of Haus Adler in the mirror.

  “Is there a man at the gate?”

  “Usually not. There is a keypad on the other side, but the bar opens automatically.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “It used to take longer, but the prince is an impatient man, and he put in a hydraulic system that raises the gate in about ten seconds.”

  “Can they jam it from up there?” Marco remembered seeing the barrier as he had driven past it earlier on the way to the trailhead; it was solid steel anchored in reinforced concrete, capable of stopping the van dead in its tracks, and there was not enough room to drive around it.

  “Yes, there is a master switch in the control room, but you need not worry.”

  Marco got the feeling he was going to like the doctor. “Why not?”

  “Because there are only two sets of keys to the security office, and they are both in my pocket.”

  He breathed out a sigh of relief, but the exhaled air stuck in his windpipe as headlights appeared in the rear-view mirror and the whine of a racing engine poured in through the open window.

  “We’ve got company.”

  He dialed Elena on his cell phone. She picked up on the first ring. “What’s going on?”

  He explained his predicament, his words coming in short spurts as he struggled to control his breathing against the rising flood of panic in his chest. Gunshots rang out; bullets shredded the pines trees next to the road.

  “Where are you?”

  “Just past the gate, like you told me.”

  “Get to the gate as fast as you can. It takes ten seconds to raise, and the Saudis are right behind us.”

  Elena ran down the road already brandishing her pistol. The end of the driveway appeared in the darkness ahead of her; she hadn’t seen anyone there as she had driven past it, and she didn’t see anyone now. As she approached the gate, she could hear the sound of straining engines and gunfire off to her right, but she didn’t see the headlights until she had run past. Settling into a good spot behind the bole of a thick pine, she flipped the safety off and held the gun in front of her with both arms extended. All she could see was the driveway snaking away into the night, but from the roar of the nearing vehicles and the flicker of the headlights in the trees, she knew it wasn’t going to be long.

  “Elena?”

  Marco sounded faint and far away despite the excellent reception.

  “I’m here, at the end of the driveway.”

  “They’re right behind us.”

  “Let me worry about them. Just keep driving until you reach the gate.”

  It was then she realized her mistake. She should have gone much farther down, where the sharp bend in the road would have given her a better shooting angle. Worse than that, Marco was going to have to stop in front of the barrier, giving his pursuers an easy target. She pushed off the tree and started running, as the headlights swept around a turn and came straight at her. Angling to the side of the road, she took a few more steps and went into a head-first dive. She slid to a stop and readied the gun as the vehicles bore down on her.

  She heard Marco yelling in her ear, but with the thunder of the engine noise she couldn’t decipher what he was saying. Fixing the van in the sight, she slid her finger behind the trigger, pulling with light pressure.

  “Marco, on my go, brake hard and steer left.”

  Engines wailed. Tires screamed against the asphalt.

  “What?”

  She repeated herself, yelling into her collar microphone. “On my go!”

  The clamor of the engines approached a crescendo. The headlights beamed straight at her, blinding her in the glare.

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  She tensed for the recoil, but the van didn’t waver.

  “Now?”

  “Now!”

  Tires squealed, and the van veered steeply, opening up a direct line of fire to the Mercedes. She pulled the trigger; the gun barked, volleying bullets into the engine of the approaching car. Sparks flew in all directions, metal complained, but the Mercedes came on. The clip emptied; she snapped a new one in place. This time she aimed for the driver’s-side tire, blowing it out and sending the sedan into a spin. It skidded into a grove of pines, coming to rest at a ninety-degree angle to the road, about a hundred feet from her position. She sprayed it with bullets, shattering glass, rending metal, and flattening both tires on the passenger side.

  The gun fell silent as the ammunition was expended; she loaded the last clip and got up, advancing on the vehicle with her pistol drawn. The rear door opened, and a man tried to get out. She shot him twice in the chest. Arriving at the car, she yanked the front door open. The passenger was slumped in his seat, barely moving; the driver was already dead. She shot them both.

  “Elena.”

  She turned around. Marco was standing beside the van, which was stuck in a patch of mud at the side of the driveway, waving for her to come and help. She ran over and helped him push the vehicle back onto the road; then they both jumped in, and the van accelerated away.

  Marco’s heart thudded in his chest as the van paused in front of the gate, waiting for it to lift. After an eternal wait of ten seconds, the hydraulic motor raised the steel beam, and they pulled clear. Elena waited for the barrier to descend behind them and used the remaining bullets in her gun to reduce the control mechanism to scraps. Then al-Sharim gunned the engine, and the van swerved onto the Römerstrasse in the direction of Germany.

  For the past two weeks, Marco had spent many moments wondering how he would feel when it was all over. And now that the end had arrived, he finally knew the answer: he was angry. As the engine strained to pull the van up the steep gradient upon which the Römerstrasse was built, his anger roiled like a severe case of
dysentery. He was angry with everyone and everything, but chiefly with himself. He was angry with Elena for starting the whole sordid affair by entering his confessional, though he was keenly aware that she had never asked him to intervene for her. He was angry with Cardinal Lucci for forcing him into this fool’s errand, though it had been Marco himself who had accepted the assignment. He was angry with Sarah for the most egregious of sins—being beautiful and charming—though she had never invited his attentions or begged his eyes to stroll lazily over her shapely form. And he was angry with himself for not going to her aid the moment he realized she was in danger.

  As the van crested the hill and approached the trailhead where they had stashed the Volvo earlier, he had an epiphany: the only thing he really cared about was Sarah’s welfare.

  “I have to go back.” He pointed to the parking lot looming ahead. “Pull over here.”

  Al-Sharim gave him an uncertain look, but turned into the parking area as requested. Marco introduced him to Elena, then activated the navigation system built into the console and punched in an address in Italy. “I’ve programmed it to take you to my parents’ cottage in the Italian Alps. It’s a three-hour drive from here; you should be there before first light.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Elena asked.

  “Go with Dr. al-Sharim.”

  Her face blossomed with protest, but she didn’t voice it.

  “Get going now, and don’t stop for any reason whatsoever. I will come as soon as I can. If I’m not there in twenty-four hours, call Cardinal Lucci.”

  “What should I tell him?”

  “Tell him that Father Venetti is in dire need of his prayers.”

  Forty-Five

  The muzzle flashes appeared like orange blooms in the darkness. Sarah ducked instinctively, but the bullets ripped into the felled tree lying in front of her, showering bark everywhere. It was evident her pursuers had finally zeroed in on her position. Just as she had expected, one of the hunters had circled around in the darkness and was now attacking from the slope below. She guessed the other had remained on the hill above her, waiting for his partner to flush her out for an easy shot. She decided to stay put.