by Dana Haynes
The newcomer—flanked by a woman with a matching vest and machine pistol—targeted the sound of his bellow. The man raised his weapon and spat three slugs into Eli Schullman’s gut.
The big man staggered but didn’t fall. He held an arm across his wounds and raised an empty pistol, aiming it true.
The female agent with the Ruger fired and hit him twice, in his shoulder and chest.
Schullman plowed into the man, knocking him over. He swung his now-empty pistol like a club and the woman in the Kevlar vest staggered and fell. She hit another CIA agent moving toward Schullman, and both tumbled to the ground.
Schullman drew his combat knife. He glanced toward the cathedral. His smile blooming as he hacked up blood.
Eli Schullman heard the gunfire from the others, but he never really felt the impact.
* * *
Daria vaulted over two wounded guards outside the cathedral. The crowds had dispersed. She ducked inside.
Chaos reigned. Crying civilians huddled in corners. A police officer lay on his back, a chest wound oozing blood. Daria knelt, snapped open his hip holster and drew his sidearm. She put the spade knife back in her boot, and now had a revolver in each fist.
Dizziness and nausea swept through her. Adrenaline was battling the virus for all its worth and the virus was winning. Daria shook sweat from her eyelashes and stood, moving stiffly in the direction of the loudest screams and shouting. She found several people attempting to hide amid the wooden pews. Others had climbed over hip-high safety glass into displays of saints and cubicles dedicated to effigies and catafalques.
Daria got to the intersection, where the longest part of the great church met with two shorter naves, creating the crosslike structure. Directly ahead was the Duomo’s Chapel of the Masses. Daria glanced first to her right, both guns extended, and heard the telltale clack of a gun being cocked behind her.
“Chatoulah?”
Both of her hands shook and lightning bolts of pain coursed through her elbows and knees. She had trouble drawing a decent breath.
“Guns.” He spoke softly from behind her.
Daria went to one knee, set both guns down amid the ornate, nutmeg-and-black floral marble. She stood again, turning, arms out a little from her torso.
Several of the faithful who watched put their hands together or knelt or made the sign of the cross. Collectively, they prayed.
Asher aimed a SIG at her sweat-drenched T, the other hand gripping a matching automatic. To his right, a bright red canister with a pressure gauge and valve lay on an ancient and illuminated Bible, which itself stood on an ornate wooden choir stand. Asher’s shoulder bag sat at his feet.
The trapped tourists had stopped screaming. Daria’s voice echoed amid the towering marble support columns. “Still sorry you shot me that night?”
“God, yes! A day never passes that I don’t regret that.”
“You’ll have to again.”
Diffused light from stained-glass windows lent a rose-and-gold glow to the room. Their voices echoed off the high ceilings, which looked like the hulls of massive, inverted ships. Close to two hundred and fifty trapped tourists grew quiet. The children’s choir hadn’t had time to leave their risers. The pigeons hunkered down.
Asher stared into her eyes. “Get free of this. Let the Americans get you to an intensive care unit. The flu is survivable if treated quickly.”
Daria felt her knee twitch. She worked up a wry smile and a small shake of her head.
He said, “I have a way out. You need one, too.”
“The CIA is on our doorstop.”
Asher shook his head in annoyance. “Every contingency is accounted for, Chatoulah. Workers have been excavating an ancient baptistery. They’re using tunnels. I’m good with tunnels. You know that. I can be blocks away while the CIA and the Italians are dealing with the panic in here.”
“So you can reunite with the Club Sennacherib?”
For the first time, Asher smiled a true smile. Light glinted off his wire-rimmed glasses. The barrel of his SIG didn’t deviate a single millimeter from Daria’s heart.
“The Group has been reconstituted. Our original mission—the mission for which we were conceived and born and raised—is needed today, now more than ever. Israel needs us to do the things it cannot and must not do to survive. We—”
“Hey. Hi.”
An American in a jacket of supple chocolate leather edged through the crowd, empty hands up by his shoulders. “Sorry for interrupting. You’re Asher Sahar, aren’t you? Hi, Asher. I’m John Broom.” The American turned and gave her a little wave. “Hi, Daria.”
Daria blinked in befuddlement at the perfect stranger.
Yet another stranger—this one, a strapping, blond man with an incongruous grin—stepped free of the trapped crowd, put a meaty hand on John Broom’s shoulder, and plowed his other fist into John’s gut.
John folded like a paper kite. He landed on his hands and knees, face going red, hacking great, wet coughs, eyes squeezed shut.
Daria recognized the bigger man from the hellish firefight in the French factory.
Asher said, “Hallo, Will.”
The blond American nodded. “Hey, buddy.”
Asher bobbed the barrel of his gun toward John. “Friend of yours, Chatoulah?”
The smaller man gasped on his all fours. “I’m … CIA…”
Will Halliday drew his hand-gun and placed the barrel against the base of John’s neck. He patted him down, turned to Asher, and shook his head.
“Hallo, Mr.… Bloom, was it? You’re interfering.”
“Broom.” John rose up to his feet, hands on knees. “Yeah, I do that. Look, the guy who hit me sounds American, so I’m gonna go with Will Halliday of the Secret Service.”
The scene was getting away from Daria, who recognized neither American.
“I’m an analyst. I wrote the briefings on Daria Gibron.” John held his gut gingerly. “I know Agent Halliday here killed some of his fellow agents in Colorado and stole the Pegasus-B virus, which you tested at a factory in France. You’re hoping to use it to stir up a war.”
Daria didn’t interrupt. The stranger was buying her the time to catch her breath. All she needed was some breath to catch.
John stood as straight as he could. “Thing is, your plan only works if nobody knows you’re behind it all. And by now, everyone in the CIA knows. Everyone in French intelligence knows. Everyone in Italian intelligence knows. Everyone who’s ever been to a Starbucks knows. My mom, in Queens? She’s calling Aunt Edna right now, so she knows. No fall guy means no war.”
Daria spat a pink glob of blood on the floral floor. “The virus. It targets Jews. Does everyone know that?”
John pivoted slowly in her direction, hand on his gut. He blinked, his brain trying to wrap itself around the concept. Theo James had suggested that a targeted virus was possible. But the idea …
John reached for a gold chain around his neck, yanked a Star of David pennant out of his shirt and flashed it to both Daria and Asher Sahar. Daria could practically see gears churn in the man’s brain. “The Filipino Army broke open one of the canisters but nobody got sick.”
“Surprisingly few Jews in the Filipino military,” Asher deadpanned. “Make me a promise, Mr. Broom, and you’re free to go. Get Daria to an American medical facility, fast. Have her treated for a hemorrhagic fever. Will you do that, Mr. Broom?”
John hesitated.
“Well, sir?”
John inwardly chanted, Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! “Are you going to release the gas in here?”
“After the two of you leave. And myself, of course. Will?”
Halliday reached out and Asher handed him the red canister. Halliday already had proven himself immune to Pegasus-B.
On a second-story walkway of rose-colored wood and fleur-de-lis filigree, three pigeons took wing, cooing in annoyance, and swooped over the tableau below. Will Halliday flinched, nerves raw. Asher and Daria kept their eyes on the canister in
the American’s massive hand.
Daria’s heart raced. She took a stiff step to her left, knee twitching.
John held his aching gut. An image of the going-away Costco cake flashed through his mind. So Long Suckers! “I’m not sure I can do what you ask, Mr. Sahar. I can’t let you release the gas. I’m really, really sorry.”
Halliday said, “You’re sure as shit gonna be.”
Daria collapsed to her knees, palms to the floor, long, limp strands of sweat-wet hair obscuring her face.
“Take her out of here!” Asher’s voice rose as high as it could, taking on a reedy, strained quality, and John heard real emotion behind it. “If we have to carry her, I’ll help. We have to move now, Mr. Broom!”
Asher aimed his gun at him.
“Please, Mr. Broom.”
Daria got one boot under her. She looked up through a sheet of hair like a confessional’s curtain. Her voice rose. “Take … the shot!”
* * *
From the rosewood walkway above, Khalid Belhadj heard Daria’s command. He raised his Desert Eagle and fired once.
The velocity of the .50-caliber shell was so great that it sliced cleanly through Will Halliday. The bullet was too massive to break up and so fast that his muscle, bone, and skin put up as much resistance as a Japanese paper lantern. The exit wound was only marginally larger than the entrance wound.
But the water that makes up so much of the human body fared less well. The hydrostatic shock of the impact made Halliday bolt backward, chest concave, arms and neck snapping forward, his whole body shoved backward three inches. It looked like a modern jazz dance move.
The baptistry floor took the impact of the .50 caliber bullet. Well-trod for centuries by sinners, saints, and supplicants alike, it erupted as if hit by a small mortar round. The hostages reacted with panic to the gunman’s strange, almost acrobatic spasm and the eruption that appeared to come from beneath the floor. Screaming, they stampeded toward the exit and the other naves.
The impact snapped Halliday’s arms up and out. The red canister flew.
The size of an American football, it arced through the air, end over end. The dull red paint reflected the stained glass light of the cathedral.
Asher Sahar reacted first. He let both guns fall to the floor and charged forward, arms extended, his eyes on the canister.
Daria pushed up on her one good leg, flashing forward, slamming into Asher from behind. She palmed the spade-blade from her boot, flicked it open with her thumb, and shoved it into Asher’s back with all her waning strength. It slid in less than an inch.
Asher caught the canister and cradled it to his chest with both hands.
Daria leaped onto his back, her weight and trajectory adding to his forward momentum. She rode him down, her body weight driving the serrated knife through Asher’s spine.
The blade snapped off its hinge.
Daria lay atop Asher, and Asher atop the canister. She turned bloodshot eyes away to see Will Halliday fall amid the mini mushroom cloud of floor debris, on his back, arms wide, his handgun clattering away.
She saw a dim flurry of shoes and trouser legs. The crazy CIA analyst who seemed to know her knelt and gingerly slid the red canister out from beneath their pileup.
Daria slid off Asher’s back onto the cold floor.
Asher’s eyes were wide in pain and shock. His lips moved but no sound escaped.
Neither his arms nor legs were moving.
His eyes slid to her bloody hands, cradled now against her chest as if in prayer. He looked at the well-worn spade sheath, clutched in her hands.
His eyes closed slowly. His breathing slowed.
Daria’s own vision grayed out.
Thirty-three
Belhadj had dislodged the pigeons to let Daria know where he was. He shot the big, blond American and turned his massive gun toward Asher Sahar, just in time to see Daria’s suicide dive.
The Syrian watched the stranger in the brown jacket kneel and hide the red canister in Asher Sahar’s messenger bag.
Belhadj ducked back out of sight as the throng of trapped tourists scattered and five people with American accents shoved against the tide. A wide array of weapons broke through.
“Freeze!… Nobody move!… Do it!”
The thunder of boots and barked commands seemed to revive Daria, who stirred, rising off the floor to kneel beside Asher, her head spinning.
Owen Cain Thorson boomed, “Do not move!”
Daria, on her knees, realized opponents were in close proximity. She couldn’t focus enough to see them and their voices were tinny and muddled, as if over a walkie-talkie on a stormy night.
“Stop!” Thorson ratcheted the slide on his machine pistol. “Don’t move!”
Daria felt a hard, cold shape by her knee. One of Asher’s SIG autos. She wrapped her fingers around the handle.
Five CIA weapons locked on her.
Major Theo James pushed his way through the crowd, panting, his face red.
John Broom, also on his knees, skittered across the floor and into the line of sight of the CIA weapons. “Wait, wait, wait!”
He raised open palms toward Swing Band.
Thorson’s jaw dropped. “Broom? How the hell—”
John pointed behind the CIA assault squad. He had never spoken so quickly in all his life, and was appalled to hear his voice rise an octave. “This is Major Theo James! U.S. Army! He’s USAMRIID! Also World Health! Major? Identify yourself!”
Theo gulped. “Ah, yeah. Me. That’s me. Hi. I’m him.” His instructors in officer training school had never covered this scenario.
John, freaking out, saw the steely glint in Thorson’s eye and the seething anger in his jaw. He figured the odds of Thorson shooting through him to kill Daria to be about fifty-fifty.
“Owen! The major has primary responsibility for the virus! Do you hear me? Whatever else happens, containing the virus is his job! Major?”
Theo couldn’t figure John’s angle but played along. “Ah, yeah. Yes! Absolutely!”
Thorson held his machine pistol in both hands, aimed at John Broom’s chest and, through him, at Daria’s chest.
Daria gripped Asher’s fallen weapon and tried to push through the dizziness. What was happening?
“B-Broom?” she tried.
Agent Maldonado squinted through blood from her badly cut eyebrow. Two other agents bled on the floor.
“Owen, protocol!” John barked. “The major takes control of the virus. Right?”
The ex-SEAL, Collier, squinted over the sights of his .45. His bristly gray mustache twitched. “That is protocol.”
Up on the rosewood balcony, Belhadj didn’t move.
Thorson didn’t move.
John didn’t move.
Theo James said, “Fellas?”
The moment passed, and everyone could see it in the subtle shift of Thorson’s stiff shoulders. He nodded, once. “Yes. Army takes the virus. Do it.”
But the barrel of his weapon didn’t budge.
John exhaled. “Good. Okay. We good, everyone?”
This wasn’t Collier’s first firefight. He watched his boss, then his eyes flickered to the dead and the dying on the floor. He looked at the unarmed civilian on his knees. Behind him, the Israeli target looked barely conscious.
Collier said, “Stand down, people. We good.”
When Thorson didn’t move, Collier’s mustache twitched again. “Boss? We are good.”
Thorson lowered his barrel about three inches.
John tried really, really hard not to pee his pants. “The major gets the virus?”
Thorson rolled his eyes. “Yes, Broom. Step clear of the prisoner.”
“Major?” John gulped. “This is my friend Daria Gibron. She is the virus culture. Take her, please.”
Thorson’s eyes almost shot out of his skull. “What?”
But Theo was quick on the uptake. He had pegged Collier as the most regular military man in the bunch. “You. I’m Major Theo James,
U.S. Army. This woman is Patient Zero for a biohazard threshold event. Help me secure her for transport.”
Collier holstered his weapon. “Yes, sir.”
Thorson went apoplectic. “What? No! She’s—no!”
But the other agents had already lowered their weapons and were securing the onlookers, calming the crowd.
Daria, on her knees, lay one sweaty palm on John’s shoulder. “What … what…”
And she passed out.
* * *
On the balcony, Belhadj waited a few beats. He lowered his handgun, then melted into the gloom of the Catedral de Milano.
Thirty-four
The Middle East
Almost Twenty Years Ago
“There’s a war on, Chatoulah.”
The Tunnel Rat of Rafah gave the girl a spade-shaped knife in a leather sheath. The girl had grown taller and stronger. The children did not know their ages or birth dates, but estimated that she was eight.
“Where?” she asked.
“Here. I think.”
“A war between who?”
“I haven’t figured out all of the angles. Even the Bedouin cousins, God grant them huge profits, don’t know all the details. I just think a war is coming. And…” He paused. “I think we need to align ourselves.”
“With who … whom?”
“With the side that wins.”
“And that’s which side?”
“The Jews. And the West. I think.”
A woman’s voice broke in. “That is a very astute observation, young sir.”
Both children leaped to their feet. The woman stood confidently at the mouth of the alley. Tall, beautiful. Dressed in Western desert kit: khakis, fine boots.
Israeli, the girl thought. But here? In Rafah? That’s when she noticed the other two men with her, both blonds. Both armed.
“You are a gifted political scientist.” The woman had a strange, foreign accent. “You have a keen understanding of the Gaza Strip. If you wish to align yourself, I can help you. Both of you. A war is coming. And lucky me: I know which side wins.”
