by David Stone
Belajic had stopped running when he reached the chapel gates. The last bridge he had crossed was a narrow walkway over the Albero canal. They were now in the tangled medieval warrens just behind the Gritti . . . and the sound of the boat’s engine was getting louder. Dalton stood still, holding his breath, listening so hard it was making his neck hurt.
After a moment, he got a fix: the engine sound was coming from the direction of Teatro La Fenice. Dalton slipped into a lane on his right and ran softly up the alley behind San Giglio chapel. The dark bulk of the ancient theater loomed up on his right. The sound of the boat’s engine was growing louder, coming, he was pretty certain, from the wide canal that ran east to west beside the theater.
Dalton reached the small square by the Calligari, where the Rio Fenice opened up into a kind of broad, shallow pool that, in the high season, would reflect the illuminated façade of the theater. Now, in late December, it was a quadrangle of still black water with a thin dusting of melting snowfall.
The vibrato burble of the boat engine was carrying clear across the lagoon, but there was no light nor movement. Dalton stepped back into a recessed doorway and waited. The snow sifted silently down in the moonlight. He could feel his heart working steadily in his chest, see his breath in a cold blue cloud in the chilly air in front of him. He went inward for a time, as he always did just before a fight.
He may have been afraid, or bitter, or sad, or a combination of all three: he wasn’t sure he gave a damn either way. In the main, what he was feeling was a kind of dark anticipation, an early tremor of that corrosive joy that violent action always delivered: the formal strikecounterstrike of hand-to-hand killing, the aesthetic fulfillment in a well-placed skull shot, the my-work-here-is-through feeling of professional satisfaction when you stood over a dead man who, a few seconds ago, had been trying his hardest to kill you.
Dalton had killed many men back in the Fifth Special Forces, and later on for the Company, and most of them had deserved it, some less so, which he had often tried to regret.
On the subject of regrets, with some luck tonight, if these guys were any good at all, from some unexpected angle there’d come a bright muzzle flash, he’d feel a numbing impact, then the sound of a gunshot and that nauseating flood of vertigo, pain too, of course, he’d been shot before—“a pang, soon passing,” some optimistic fool of an unshot poet had once said—and then the cobblestones coming up at his face like the pitted surface of an onrushing moon: in brief, a nice, quick death, in the heat of a lively gunfight, and a blessed end to regret and remorse and all the self-inflicted grief of his short and brutal life. Then, if Porter Naumann’s ghost was a credible source, a chilled magnum of Bollinger in the eternal twilight of the Piazza Garibaldi in Cortona, watching the light change far below them in the broad checkerboard valley of Lake Trasimeno, surrounded by the shades of all his long-dead friends and a select few sometime lovers.
Somewhere in the farther recesses of his disordered mind a woman’s voice—possibly Cora’s, more likely Mandy Pownall’s—was asking him why he was doing this mad, bad thing, arranging to die in a suicidal vendetta with the ragtag remnants of a Serbian gang he and the Carabinieri had already decimated, crushed, and scattered across the eastern Med from Venice to Kotor to Split. Dalton had no good answer other than that eventually everyone dies and wasn’t this a lovely evening for it, and if Venice wasn’t a good place to die, it was still echelons above all the competition.
Something low and shadowy developed slowly out of the thicker gloom of the canal across the lagoon, a crocodile shape that slid quietly out into the open water, its sharp destroyer bow slicing through the half-frozen water with a reptilian hiss.
In the moonlight, Dalton could make out the vague shapes of three men huddled in the launch and the pale red glow from the control panel on the face of the driver. A tinny crackle from a walkietalkie, quickly squelched, someone cursing someone else, a guttural snarling sound with plodding Slavic cadences; Mirko Belajic’s people, racing to the rescue of the Big Boss, just as Dalton had hoped they would. The sound of a radio handset let Dalton know that there was at least one other man to deal with, probably in the streets already, shadowing the launch, looking for Dalton, knowing that the sound of a boat at this hour would certainly draw him in. The murmur of the boat’s engine reverberated around the deserted lagoon, bouncing off the shuttered windows and barred doors of the empty summer houses that faced Teatro La Fenice.
If the driver of that cutter wanted to thread a launch through the local canals, he had a problem: the Adriatic had risen to record flood levels this winter, the Piazza San Marco half flooded once more, and most of the canals of the city had risen too high for a boat to pass under the bridges that crossed them. In order to reach a canal that led to the chapel of San Maurizio, or even to the quay beside the Campo San Stefano, he’d have no choice but to go under the stone arch that spanned the Rio Fenice. And Dalton was already there, waiting.
He saw the long black shape come fully out of the shadow and into the half-light of the moon. It was one of those exquisite hand-built Rivas, twenty-five feet long, slender as a rapier, a thirties-era Art Deco masterpiece, its mahogany deck gleaming in the moonlight like the hide of a horse, the low, curving stern trailing a fan of lacy diamond sparkles in the black water.
Dalton slipped the Ruger out of his pocket, pressed the slide back far enough to see the pale, brassy glitter of a round in the chamber, eased it forward again. There was a sudden flicker of motion at the side of the doorway. He brought his right hand up, still holding the Ruger, saw a flash of bright steel. A large black shape filled the archway and lunged at him. He caught the edge of the blade on the Ruger’s slide, heard the slither of steel on steel, and drove the man’s blade hand into the stones beside him. Sparks flew as the blade edge grated along the wall—the man twisted, a violent muscular surge, he was incredibly strong—a hulking figure in the dark. Dalton could smell the man’s last drink on his breath, possibly grappa. He drove into Dalton hard, slamming him into the door, all this in total silence, just the grunt and heave and hiss of desperate muscular exertion.
Dalton sensed the rising knee, twisted to his right, and felt the thudding impact of it striking his left hip. The man struck Dalton’s right wrist and the Ruger went flying. Now the knife came punching back again, a wicked streak of silver glinting in the shadow. Dalton felt the blade drive through the folds of his topcoat along his left side, a slicing, burning fire. The man was fully extended, totally committed to the power of the thrust and the necessary follow-through.
Dalton shifted to the right, caught the man’s wrist in his left hand and kicked him behind the right knee. The man went down, striking the door. The knife bounced out of his hands, a muted, tinny clang sounding as it hit the cobblestones.
Behind him now, Dalton got his left forearm under the man’s chin, jammed his foot down on the back of the man’s calf to keep him down, set himself, braced the other hand on the man’s left temple, and jerked the man’s head to the right viciously hard, meaning to tear his head right off his neck—Christ, the guy was a gorilla—it was like trying to rip a fire hydrant out of a sidewalk.
The man now knew his own death was in immediate play, one hand gouging at Dalton’s eyes, the nails of his other hand raking the skin on Dalton’s left forearm as he tried frantically to buck Dalton off his back. Dalton used all his weight and power to ride this monster backward and down, to lock him in place. If the man got his legs under him, Dalton was a dead man.
Dalton wrenched the man’s cannonball skull as hard as he was able to, his left forearm an iron bar across the man’s windpipe, his face a killer’s ugly mask. He could feel the powerful sinews and steel-cable tendons in the man’s neck straining, stretching.
Dalton put everything he had into it, and something deep inside the man’s bull neck slowly began to give way. In the muscles of his forearm, Dalton could feel the bony cartilage of the man’s voice box start to crumple. A high, keening wail, f
ull of mortal fear and agony, came like a needle-sharp jet of high-pressure steam from the man’s gaping mouth: he was trying to speak. “Aspetta, Krokodil . . . per Dio . . . Aspetta . . .”
Dalton jerked the man’s skull around in one final surge, his powerful shoulders flexing hard, his lean, ropy muscles burning with the strain. A low, grinding creak way down deep—a sudden, meaty snap—and now the head was flopping heavy in his hands, a fat gourd on a broken stalk. The alcove filled with the sudden stink of sewage.
This was the “outside man” they were talking to on the radio, or one of them. A nice tactical move. He would have done the same, if he had anyone to deploy. Were there others? He would have to assume there were.
Dalton let the body drop, plucked the Ruger up off the ground with his left hand, the stiletto with his right, the breath burning in his lungs, his shoulders on fire with the ferocious effort it took to break a strong man’s neck.
He moved silently across to the opening of the alcove, looked out at the lagoon. The launch was still slowly crossing the open water. What had seemed like an hour of silent murder had really lasted less than ten seconds. One of the dark shadows on the launch lifted something to his lips. There was a crackle of static close by, then a hoarse whisper in Serbo-Croatian:
“Zorin? Jeste li tu? Zorin?”
Dalton bent over, ripped through the dead man’s pockets, tugged out the radio, put the mike to his lips, spoke in the same croaking whisper:
“Dah. Ja sam ovdje—”
“Krokodil?”
“Dah. Sam ubio ga. On je mrtav.”
Yes. I killed him. He’s dead.
A quick aside, something Dalton could not catch, and then an order:
“Dobar! Prižekatje ovdje. Dobiti Mirko. Prižekatje!”
Good! Wait there. We will get Mirko. Wait!
Dalton watched from the darkness of the doorway as the launch picked up some speed, heading for the stone bridge that led into the next canal, its stern digging in and white wings now curling from its prow. They made no other radio call, which meant there was probably no backup man out there.
Time to move.
He ran lightly, keeping close to the shadows by the walls, until he was almost at the bridge. The launch was nearly there as well. He could hear the men talking, cheerful, an after-action tone in their voices: Of course Zorin had killed the Krokodil . . . Zorin was the Bull of Srebrenica . . . Zorin was the man. Dalton bent down, keeping himself below the edge of the stone railing that ran along the side of the bridge. Now the launch was directly under him, passing slowly through the narrow opening, filling the tunnel with the mutter of its engine and the smoke of its exhaust, gliding carefully along. Dalton waited, in a low crouch, timing his move, trying to catch his breath without making a sound, his pulse pounding in his throat.
He slipped across to the other side, stood poised at the railing, watching the prow of the launch as it began to emerge from the tunnel.
The bow was fully out, then the curve of the windshield, then the faint red glow of the instrument panel, the silhouette of the driver at the wheel on the right, another silhouette standing beside him, peering over the windshield as the canal opened up, and a third silhouette in the stern, crouching as the bridge loomed over him, straightening now as the launch came clear.
Dalton reached down from the railing, caught the last man by the collar of his coat and plucked him off the deck. There was a strangled grunt from the man as he felt himself jerked upward.
Dalton sliced the man’s throat wide open, feeling the edge grate along the vertebrae as he jerked the blade through gristle and tendon. A black spout of blood shot out onto the backs of the two men in the front seat. The man in the passenger seat had already turned. Dalton let his dead man drop into the canal. The man who turned around had his pistol aimed. There was a bright blue flash and a deafening blast, and Dalton felt a slug pluck at his cheek.
He brought the Ruger up and put two rounds into the pale oval of the man’s face, pushing him backward onto the windshield. The driver hit the accelerator and the props roared up.
Dalton saw the driver’s silhouette backlit by the red glow of the dash. His lungs heaving, he steadied the Ruger. Even with the luminous tritium dots, the sight picture was jumping around like a compass needle, the roar of the engine echoing off the buildings lining the canal. The launch was twenty yards away when Dalton fired off two careful shots.
The launch swerved to the right, scraping along the pier. Dalton put out three more rounds, heard a cry of pain. The driver reached out to clutch at the pier, missed, and tumbled into the canal, taking with him the safety switch that was tethered to his wrist.
The engine cut off in a second, and then there was nothing but the slow surging of the boat wake against the walls of the canal, the graveyard reek of churned-up water, and Dalton’s ragged breath rasping in his throat.
THE GATES of the San Maurizio chapel stood open, and a soft amber light was pouring out through the open doors, pooling on the snow-covered steps that led up to the entrance. Dalton climbed the stairs slowly, blood running freely down his thigh from the knife wound that had opened up the flesh over his ribs. The left side of his face was swollen and numb from the glancing strike of whatever it was the man had fired at him.
He thought perhaps his cheekbone was broken, and he was having a hard time keeping his left eye open. The collar of his turtleneck was warm and sodden with the blood that flowed from the gash. His left forearm had four even rows of flesh deeply shredded by Zorin’s nails.
God only knows what standards of personal hygiene Zorin maintained. If Dalton didn’t get killed tonight, which now seemed unlikely, he was going to need a tetanus shot. His head was pounding, and his shoulders still ached from the effort of breaking Zorin’s tree-trunk neck. Yet he was, as previously mentioned, still inconveniently alive. After he finished with Belajic, there was only a bottle of Bollinger, and maybe the Ruger as a chaser.
He reached the doors of the chapel and stood on the threshold, staring down the long nave to the wooden altar on the far end of an open expanse of marble tiles. The chapel, which seemed as ancient as a pharaoh’s tomb, smelled of sandalwood and candle wax and six hundred years of complicated Venetian piety. There was an ornate triptych above the altar, framed in intricately carved cypress wood, possibly by one of Tiepolo’s students, taking a serious stab at the Stabat Mater.
The wing panels of the triptych were utterly dreadful, mud-toned, deadeyed cartoon figures marinating in pious self-esteem: probably some medieval merchants making their play for immortality and being badly let down by a journeyman artist. These panels were likely added years after the main panel, which was quite good, a vigorous swirl of jewel tones in ruby, emerald, lapis lazuli, and fire opal, and for once the Virgin, haloed in gold leaf, didn’t look like a sanctimonious old shrew—you could feel the maternal grief coming off her in waves as they took her ruined son off the cross. Naked, as gray as a slab of raw fish, Christ nevertheless had the build of an NFL linebacker and looked as if He would have been able to twist Zorin’s head off with one hand.
Doric columns marched down the nave of the chapel on either side, and the interior was cast in shadow, half lit by the candles burning on the altar. The pillars seemed to move, in fact, as the flames flickered in the wind from the open doors.
A squat, bent, almost gnomelike figure, neither old nor young, with a round, bald head and a hawklike nose, broken, then badly repaired, was standing at the far end of the nave, his once-powerful arms held low, his twisted hands clasped together over his belly in a kind of sinewy Gordian knot. His black eyes, as hard and sharp as a crow’s, were fixed on Dalton.
Mirko Belajic was slumped on the floor behind him, his back up against the Communion rail, his thick legs sprawled out across the green-and-white marble tiles, his Briony topcoat in a heap at his side. In the glimmer of the candles, Dalton could see a sheen of sweat on Belajic’s fat cheeks and the rapid rising and falling of his chest. His s
hirt had been pulled back from the bullet wound in his chest. Someone, presumably the gnomelike figure at the foot of the altar, had put a makeshift compression bandage over the entrance wound. There was, of course, no exit wound.
That was the whole idea with the Ruger .22.
Dalton looked down at the Ruger in the bloody glove on his right hand, did a brief press check, drew in a long breath, let it out slowly, and began to cross the long, bare expanse of marble, the soft leather of his shoes soundless against the floor, his eyes scanning the clerestories above the rows of pillars on either side of the nave, the choir loft at the back of the nave, the lady chapel to the right of the main altar, the modest reliquary to the left, even the confessionals, low and huddled wooden huts hard up against the stone walls.
It felt as if they were alone, but he kept the Ruger ready, his attention now centering on the bent figure waiting patiently for him at the altar rail. He knew the man well, and the man knew him, although neither of them spoke until they were a few feet apart.
“Micah,” said Issadore Galan, his voice a soft croak, “you are hurt.”
Dalton smiled at Galan, whose presence here, although inconvenient, could not have been a surprise. Issadore Galan was Major Alessio Brancati’s security chief, essentially the intelligence arm of Brancati’s Carabinieri detachment for Venice, Siena, Cortona, and Florence.
Once a member of the Mossad, Galan had come by his crumpled body and battered face during several months of captivity with the Jordanians in the late eighties. The fingers of his hand had been broken many times . . . broken with hammers. Other obscene atrocities had been performed, not so much for the extraction of useful information—which, from a man such as Galan, was unlikely—but rather for the sheer joy some modern young Islamic men take in delivering pain to a helpless infidel body.
