The Rome Prophecy

by Jon Trace

  Lightning fast.

  The man by the fountain finishes his call and looks towards her.

  She stops and kills the open line to Louisa.

  Casually she calls Tom. ‘Louisa’s in a car. Probably in a bay by the right-hand side of the courtyard when you come out. I’m almost with the targets.’

  She rings off and walks towards the fountain.

  Despite the rain, the courtyard is still busy with people coming and going. Multicoloured umbrellas sprout up around the flower beds like fast-growing exotic blooms.

  Valentina’s nerves jangle as Tom comes within ten metres of her.

  He doesn’t even glance her way.

  As far as she can tell, there’s no panic in his movement. He’s walking briskly, but not so fast that the rainfall doesn’t easily explains his haste.

  She allows herself a small smile.

  He’d make a good cop.

  The tall, wiry man in the courtyard is now barely three metres away.

  He’s in her peripheral vision but she’s avoiding eye contact.

  To her surprise, he walks straight past her.

  Then he stops and turns.

  Only now does Valentina realise he’s not alone.

  97

  Tom finds it hard not to stay in the courtyard and protect Valentina. He knows she’s a professional soldier, trained to deal with situations like this, but his instinct is to hang around and make sure she’s okay.

  Once he’s passed under the arch of the entrance block and emerged into the piazza, he picks up his pace.

  He turns sharp right and then goes around the corner into Via di San Michele.

  Immediately he’s confronted by dozens of parked cars.

  All their windows are obscured by the falling rain.

  People moving around with umbrellas make his view even more difficult.

  Opportunistically, a guy with Rasta dreadlocks is standing near a wall, selling cheap brollies.

  Tom pays ten euros for the first one he can grab.

  He doesn’t give a damn about the price or about getting wet; he wants it to hide beneath as he moves from car to car studying the occupants.

  Three quarters of the way along the bays, one of the parkups stands out.

  A green Land Rover.

  It’s noticeable not because it’s an exceptional vehicle, but because the windows have all misted up and the driver’s used a hand to wipe off the condensation to see through.

  Thing is, it’s not the kind of street where there’s anything much to see.

  Tom collapses his umbrella and moves to the driver’s side.

  He knocks on the window.

  It glides down about a third of the way.

  He bends down and speaks English to a stern-looking man in his late twenties.

  ‘Excuse me, I’ve just locked myself out of my car.’ He gestures to the heavens. ‘Dumb, eh? Do you have a phone I can use to call my wife to come and bring some spare keys?’

  The man frowns at him. ‘No.’

  Behind him, in the darkness of the back seat, Tom can just make out another man. He’s sitting upright but struggling with something he’s holding down on his lap.

  The window glides shut.

  Tom bangs on it. ‘Hey! Come on, man, I need some help. I’m getting soaked.’

  The glass glides back down.

  The barrel of a gun pokes out of the blackness. ‘I said no! Now fuck off.’

  98

  The thin man in a long black trench coat smiles at Valentina. ‘Are you waiting for someone?’

  He’s as charming as dozens of other deluded guys who’ve tried to chat her up over the years.

  ‘Yes, my boss.’ She shrugs at the rain. ‘I hope she hurries up.’

  Trench Coat comes up close and from inside his pocket presses a gun against her left hip. ‘Don’t move and don’t scream.’ He’s lost his charm now. ‘If you do, then this church will have another martyr.’ He looks into her eyes, and when he sees the fear and compliance he’s looking for, he adds, ‘Where’s Anna?’

  Valentina feigns panic. ‘Oh God, don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’ He jabs the gun deeper into her side. ‘Where’s Anna? You’re supposed to have her with you.’

  Valentina lifts her hand shakily and points through the archway at the end of the courtyard. ‘I took her back to the car because of the rain. She’s sick. Where’s Doctor Verdetti?’

  Trench Coat ignores her and glances around.

  ‘Please don’t hurt me, I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  The gun stays pressed into her left hip. ‘Keep your voice down! What kind of car is it and where did you park?’

  Valentina stares at the ground as though she’s too frightened to look at him. ‘Fiat. It’s a blue Punto. It’s not far … er … just outside in the piazza, right opposite here.’ She keeps her eyes fixed on the floor. Two sets of male feet stop just off to the right of her.

  ‘Go get her,’ says Trench Coat. ‘Be quick!’

  The feet disappear.

  Valentina feels another push in her side.

  ‘We’re going inside the church to wait for a little while.’ He slides his body across hers so he’s face to face with her. ‘I’d hate you to get all cold and wet.’

  She feels his hand move inside her jacket, slide beneath her jumper and grab her by the waist.

  His touch revolts her.

  She has to fight an impulse to drive her right knee so far into his testicles they’ll come out of his mouth.

  Being closer allows him to pull the gun out of his right pocket and hold it flat against Valentina’s abdomen, barrel digging into her diaphragm.

  He puts his face close to hers. From a distance they could be mistaken for lovers about to kiss. ‘My little friend here is itching to get inside you,’ he whispers in her ear as he moves the cold tip of the barrel against her warm skin. ‘I don’t blame him. It must be really nice inside you.’

  Valentina takes a deep breath.

  He mistakes it for fear. ‘Don’t be scared. If you do exactly as I tell you, then in less than twenty minutes all this will just be an awful memory.’

  99

  It’s not the first time Tom Shaman has looked down the barrel of a gun.

  A gangbanger once pulled an Uzi in his church in LA and robbed the entire congregation. The kid was high on crystal meth and ended up getting shot on the church steps by a gang senior who’d come to pick his mother up from the service and found her screaming and terrified.

  Tom learned two basic things from all those badasses back in Compton. Firstly, there are frequent shooters, guys who only draw guns when they’re going to fire them. Secondly, there are bluffers, posers who pull a weapon but have never let off a shot in their sorry little lives.

  Tom figures the man behind the metal being pointed at him is not a frequent shooter. He’s a bluffer.

  But of course, that’s only a guess.

  A dangerous guess.

  ‘Whoa, mister!’ He throws up his hands. ‘I don’t want any trouble. I just needed some help.’ The big American backs away, hands high in the air. ‘Man, no one told me Rome was like this.’ He doesn’t leave the way he came, but heads down the vehicle towards the back.

  He knows the guy’s watching in his wing mirror but figures that doesn’t matter. He’d have to be a contortionist to shoot over his left shoulder with the gun in his right hand.

  Tom’s about to make his move and he knows he has to be fast.

  He is.

  He jerks the door open with his left hand, steps forward half a pace and cracks his elbow into the driver’s face. He reaches across him, grabs his gun hand and crashes it repeatedly into the steering wheel.

  The screams tell him he’s broken the guy’s wrist.

  The man in the back of the car makes his move.

  He lurches forward and tries to swing a punch.

  Tom grabs the fallen pistol off the driver’s lap and f
ires a shot into the roof of the car.

  Gunfire has a special way of spooking people. Especially in closed spaces.

  Louisa flings open a rear door and bolts for freedom.

  Her minder slips out of the car and levels a pistol at Tom.

  The two men stare down their guns at each other.

  Off in the distance, Tom sees Louisa running for her life.

  100

  Valentina is under no illusion that being inside a church means she’s safe.

  If her last case in Venice taught her anything, it’s that churches aren’t at all sacred when it comes to criminals and killers.

  The guy in the black trench coat forces her into a pew and sits tight alongside her. ‘Kneel and pray. Don’t do anything stupid.’

  Valentina does as she’s told.

  She intertwines her fingers, bows her head and looks as reflective as any of the devout visitors around her.

  Her mind is certainly on different things, though.

  By now, it’s going to be obvious that there’s no Punto parked near the piazza and no Anna sitting patiently in it. And Tom will have discovered whether or not Louisa and her captors are in a car just around the corner.

  For a second Valentina does what everyone else around her is doing: she prays. Prays that Tom is all right and that Louisa is still alive.

  It’s the first time she’s been on her knees in church since her cousin died.

  The phone in Trench Coat’s pocket rings.

  He catches it quickly.

  Valentina knows that in doing so, he’s taken his hand off the gun.

  It’s her cue to stop trusting in the good Lord and do what she’s been trained to do.

  She cups her hand behind Trench Coat’s head and smashes his face into the edge of the wooden pew.

  All eyes are now on Valentina.

  She glances at the body slumped at her feet, shuffles forward and puts her foot across his neck. If he moves she’ll feel it.

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ she shouts down the aisle. ‘Please leave the church, immediately.’

  No one moves.

  Valentina stoops, fishes in the guy’s coat pocket and recovers his gun. It’s an old Glock with a Crimson Trace laser grip.

  She holds it up high. ‘I said, I am a police officer. Now get out of here before someone gets shot!’

  The church empties in a deafening rush for the doors.

  Valentina ignores the last of the stragglers.

  There’s blood all over the back of the pew, and for the first time she’s wondering whether the guy on the floor is just unconscious, or dead.

  101

  A woman passing by screams hysterically.

  The man who’s just levelled a gun at Tom’s head glances to his left.

  It’s all the American needs.

  He plants a drop kick deep into the guy’s guts and follows with a hard right-hander into his mouth.

  Amazingly, the guy’s still upright. And still holding the weapon.

  Tom throws a left, then twin punches with his right.

  Now he goes down.

  Hits the floor like a TV dropped from the top of a tower block. The gun clatters from his open hand.

  The four-by-four’s engine roars into life.

  Seems the driver’s got his act together.

  Tom spins round.

  That’s his first mistake.

  He clutches at the now closed driver’s door, but it won’t open. The central locking’s on.

  He pulls again at the handle as the Land Rover lurches up on to the pavement.

  That’s his second mistake.

  He hasn’t noticed a man climb out of a similar vehicle parked a few metres away.

  An agonising pain erupts in Tom’s right shoulder.

  It’s followed by another behind his left knee. The combination of blows sends him sprawling into the road.

  Instinctively, he rolls.

  He learned at school that if you stay still in a street fight, then you’re as good as asking for a beating.

  Now he sees the cause of the pain.

  A baseball bat slaps into the brown water beside his head.

  Tom grabs the club but feels a terrible burning in his right shoulder. Something’s busted.

  He can’t hold on.

  The wood slips from his fingers.

  The guy takes a swing and slaps Tom on the side of his ribs.

  Tom tries to roll again.

  The bat man takes a stride to his left, raises the club and starts a swing that he’s sure will pop Tom’s head like a water-melon.

  Only he never makes it.

  Instead, he freezes midway during the draw-back.

  A sharp pain erupts inside his chest. It feels like someone has stuck a knife in his heart.

  And that’s because someone has.

  The throwing hand of Guilio Brygus Angelis is still extended, his fingers pointing at exactly the spot at which the ancient dagger was aimed.

  102

  Rapid response units from the Carabinieri and the Polizia Municipale arrive within seconds of each other.

  Both forces got panic calls from the public after Tom had fired the gun in the car. Both also had reports of a woman in the church brandishing a gun and claiming to be a cop.

  Guilio is on his knees alongside Tom. ‘I’ve got to get out of here. Can you move?’

  It takes Tom a second glance to realise that his Good Samar itan is the stranger he fought with inside Anna Fratelli’s apartment.

  He’s got a dozen questions in his head and no time to ask any of them.

  ‘Help me up.’ He stretches out his left hand.

  Guilio needs both his hands to pull Tom up. He glances at the body with the blade in it. If he pulls it out, he knows the guy will die, but if he leaves it, he will lose a dagger that’s two thousand years old and a set of his own fingerprints as well.

  He leaves it.

  He turns to Tom. ‘Follow me, or they’ll make you part of this.’

  Tom lurches after the quick, slim figure disappearing down Via di San Michele.

  Police sirens and whistles fill the air as he follows him into the shadows of a tributary of thin alleys trickling away from the church.

  Pain is now starting to devour Tom’s shoulder, leg and ribs. He can barely pull himself upright as he runs.

  He has no chance of keeping up with Guilio as he weaves a route through a labyrinth of back streets and passages that few locals even know of.

  ‘Down here!’

  Tom has no idea where ‘here’ is. He stops for breath beside some low railings.

  ‘Here!’

  The shout is from below him.

  He swings his right leg over the small metal fence that’s supposed to keep the public out of what looks like one of Rome’s many excavation sites.

  There’s a long drop down the other side.

  He knows he doesn’t have time to look for a safer route.

  He jumps.

  His left leg buckles on impact and he falls heavily on to his damaged right shoulder.

  Guilio shows no concern. He’s busy.

  His hands are pushing hard against the black stone wall located directly beneath the barrier.

  As hard as he possibly can.

  He groans and strains again with all of his weight and might.

  Nothing happens.

  He turns and puts his back against the wall. Once more he pushes for all he’s worth.

  His feet slip in the grit and soil.

  Tom watches in amazement.

  A thin section of the wall slowly starts to swing open.

  103

  Valentina keeps her gun trained on the body at her feet.

  Whoever this jerk is, he holds the key to why Anna was so screwed up, and what’s behind all the killings.

  She can’t wait for Trench Coat to come round.

  The chiesa is silent.

  Disturbingly silent.

  Empty churches have spooked her
since she was a kid, and this one is certainly a major kid-scarer.

  She glances over her shoulder.

  Two people are there.

  A man and a woman.

  They’re moving towards her and the man has a gun aimed at her head.

  Valentina stays cool.

  He’s slightly built and looks older than the woman – much older, maybe even in his sixties.

  ‘Lift your hands and move into the aisle.’ He waggles the gun towards where he wants her to go.

  ‘Not going to happen.’ She looks challengingly into his pale blue eyes.

  ‘Lift them!’

  She places her bet. ‘I really don’t think so.’ She looks away from him and keeps the Glock pointed at Trench Coat. ‘You’ll have to shoot me before I give this creep up.’

  The old guy’s gun kicks in his hand.

  There’s a muzzle flash and a barking boom.

  Valentina’s heart all but explodes.

  She’s made the wrong call.

  She doesn’t feel any pain, but then again, she’s been told that at first you don’t.

  Still nothing.

  Now she’s sure it was just a warning shot.

  A warning duly observed.

  If he’s prepared to let off a gun in a church, he’s desperate. Desperate men – even those who don’t intend to kill – often end up doing so.

  Over in the pews near the entrance she spots two more figures.

  Men, she thinks.

  Younger than Shooter, maybe the same age as Trench Coat.

  ‘Drop it – drop the gun.’ He waves his pistol and speeds up his walk towards her. ‘Now!’

  Valentina gives it up.

  The clunk of the pistol on the floor is the cue for them to rush her. Not just Shooter and his female sidekick, but the watchers by the door.

  A hand with a vice-like grip clamps around her neck. It forces her face first over the pew.

  She feels the hard metal of a gun barrel against her temple.

  Behind her, the young woman speaks for the first time. Her voice is shaky and nervous. ‘Is he okay, is he breathing?’

  There’s a lot of movement. Valentina guesses they’re trying to resuscitate Trench Coat.