New Rome Rising

by Rene Fomby

  “Yeah. I get you,” Gavin agreed, even though it was against his better nature. “But I’m starting to get a bad feeling about all of this. I don’t know about you, but something’s starting to smell a little fishy, and it ain’t just the wharf, you know?”

  They didn’t have to wait long for backup to arrive. As a member of SDAT, her call for assistance took top priority with the local police. Soon they left the local cops behind to sort out the investigation into the warehouse, while they trotted back to the privacy of their own car.

  Once inside, Gavin jumped in immediately. “Okay, we’re in the cone of silence now, Dez. Spill the beans. What did they say?”

  She was just about to answer when suddenly Gavin’s phone went off. He had stupidly forgotten to turn it off before they got to the warehouse, and he realized now he could have easily compromised the entire mission. If not all their lives. But pulling it out of his pocket, he saw at once it was Bob Sander’s personal cell phone, and impatiently punched ‘Answer’.

  “Bob, what you got? We’re kind of in a situation here—”

  Sanders wasted no time on pleasantries. “Listen up. We just got a brief blip on Andy’s GPS bracelet, not five minutes ago. It didn’t stay lit long enough to get a complete fix, but my guys were able to narrow it down to somewhere inside Notre Dame.”

  “Notre Dame? You mean like in Paris, or the football school?” Gavin asked, suddenly noticing that Dez was pointing at something out the front windshield of the car.

  “No, toi idiot,” she said, shaking her head. “He means Notre Dame de la Garde, Our Lady of the Guard. Up there.”

  Glancing up the hill that looked out over all of Marseille, he could just barely make out the well-lit spire of a church steeple, topped by a glowing golden statue of the Virgin Mary.

  15

  Marseille

  Dez gunned the engine, spitting loose gravel behind them as she swung the car hard right, racing up the hill toward the church. In the back seat, Ramon was busy typing a series of coordinates Bob Sanders had texted him into his GPS tracking device.

  Coming to a straight patch of road, Dez pulled up her cell phone, keying in a number and barking a short series of orders in guttural French before finally dropping the phone into her lap and placing both hands on the wheel. The way she was driving, swinging in and out of traffic at breakneck speed, Gavin was more than a little grateful she had decided to abandon the phone for now and focus on the road. He rolled down his window, leaning out slightly and gazing up at the church, looming high above the city on a hill that gave it a clear view out over Marseille and the Mediterranean Sea beyond. Hold on, Andy, he muttered, mostly to himself, his words immediately stolen by the wind whipping at his face. Just a few seconds longer. We’re coming …

  Dez slowed slightly as she carefully executed a complex series of switchbacks, then pressed down hard again on the gas. Gavin reached up to grab the Oh God handle above his right ear, bracing his left hand against the dash. Up ahead, the church on the hill gradually took on more details, the outside walls well lit by spotlights in the waning light of sunset.

  Notre Dame de la Garde sat atop what looked like a white limestone fortress, with round echaugettes protecting either side of a crisscrossing staircase, arrowslits cut into the stone walls of the echaugettes every foot or so, affording the church’s original archers a full 180-degree view of any invaders. Towering high above the staircase was a massive square-shaped bell tower rising 135 feet into the sky, topped by a thirty-seven-foot statue of the Virgin Mary, now glowing golden in the last rays of the setting sun.

  As Dez brought the car to a skidding stop in front of the church, Gavin had his door open and was racing toward the steps before she could even put the car in park, Ramon right behind him. Dez stepped toward the rear of the car, clearing her throat. “Not so fast, cowboy,” she said, opening the trunk and pulling out a large black jacket with “Police National” written in prominent white letters across the back. She held it out, looking straight at Gavin. “Here, put this on.”

  Gavin shook his head, peeved at the delay. “What? Are you kidding? I’m fine. It gets way colder than this back in San Francisco.”

  “No, you idiot, don’t argue with me. My city, my rules. Besides, if something bad happens up here and the police show up, I don’t want them mistaking you for one of the bad guys. So listen to maman and put the damned coat on.”

  “Well, what about Ramon?” he started to protest again, then stopped short when he saw that Ramon had opened up his suitcase in the trunk and pulled out a jacket of his own. Muttering under his breath something about the legendary obstinacy of the French people, Gavin reluctantly pulled it on. “Okay, you happy now?” he asked. Dez just gave him a quick shrug and headed up the path toward the entrance to the church.

  Reaching the base of the fortress surrounding the church, Gavin glanced at the two doorless bathrooms flanking either side of the stairway. “Ramon, any bead on the exact location of the bracelet?”

  Ramon looked down at his tracker. “The signal wasn’t on long enough to get a solid fix, so there’s no info on elevation, and even the x-y coordinates are a little murky, but it definitely came from somewhere inside this building.”

  Gavin nodded toward Dez, who had just joined them. “Okay, then, let’s take this baby one level at a time. Dez, you check out the ladies’ room, and I’ll get the men’s. Ramon, you keep us covered from out here.”

  Dez and Gavin dashed inside their respective bathrooms, returning just a few seconds later. “All clear,” Gavin reported, shaking his head. “But boy, I thought the tourist bus smelled bad. Whew! And the bathroom doesn’t even have a door to keep all the smells hemmed in. I can’t imagine what it would have smelled like if it did.” He wagged his head toward the stairs. “Okay, same scenario. Ramon hangs back to give us cover. And keep a sharp eye on those arrowslits up there. If I were a sniper, that’s where I’d hold up.”

  “Will do, Cap,” Ramon agreed, glancing over his shoulder to make sure they didn’t have unwanted company sneaking up from behind, then turning back to refocus on the echaugettes guarding the top of the staircase as Gavin and Dez made their way slowly up the stairs, hugging the sides for cover.

  At the top of the first flight of stairs was a large drawbridge, granting access to the crypt lying just beneath the chapel and, via another set of stairs spreading out to either side, the church’s main entrance.

  As they reached the entrance to the crypt, Gavin and Dez held back for a moment, pressing their sides to the cold stone walls. A quick peek inside gave Gavin the general layout: an entrance hall with two marble statues, then a dim, shadowy hall with low barrel vaults, bordered by six side chapels. A perfect location for an ambush.

  “I’ll go first,” he told Dez. “Once inside, I’ll take the left, you go right. We need to get out of the doorway as soon as possible. As dark as it is in there, on our way in we’ll be lit up dead in the middle of a picture frame, perfect for any shooters.”

  “D’accord,” Dez agreed, checking her gun one last time to make sure the safety was thumbed off. With a final nod from her, Gavin spun on his heel and ducked inside, Dez following a second later.

  Warily slipping past the two statues standing guard at the entrance as their eyes adjusted to the dim light of the crypt, Gavin and Dez made their way inside. The relatively narrow main hall was filled almost entirely with low wooden pews, all facing an altar at the back dominated by what appeared to be a painted statue of the Madonna and child.

  “Looks empty, Gavin noted. “But we’ve got zero visibility into the rooms on either side, and watch out for someone skulking down behind the pews.”

  Dez nodded and they both inched forward, checking out the space behind each pew and the three chapels opening up on either side. When they reached the Madonna, Gavin turned back and gave Ramon a quick thumbs up through the open doorway.

  “One more level to go,” Dez suggested, sweeping her eyes across the empty chapel. />
  Gavin shared a grim look. “Yeah, unless they just came and went, it’s the only possibility left. She’s got to be up there.”

  Quickly they rejoined Ramon at the entrance, then made their way up the staircases to the main entrance just beneath the bell tower. Looking back, Gavin could see the entire city of Marseille sprawled out beneath them, lights now coming on in the gathering dusk. Well off to the left he could just make out the island prison of Château d’If, the fortress that once housed José Custodio Faria, the man Alexandre Dumas immortalized as the Count of Monte-Cristo.

  “Okay, same scenario,” he told Dez and Ramon in a low voice, eyeing the substantial bronze doors leading into the chapel. “Those doors look pretty heavy. Certainly not optimal, but at least they’re probably bulletproof.” Gavin paused, checking out the various angles and obstacles in front of them. “Ramon, why don’t you get the door on the left. As soon as it’s open, Dez and I will shoot through. Then leave it open for a quick exit, just in case.”

  “Got it,” Ramon agreed, stepping up to grab the door handle as Dez and Gavin pressed themselves tight against the door on the right. Gavin gave a slight nod and Ramon yanked the door open. Dez leaped through the doorway with Gavin hot on her heels.

  Suddenly the entire chapel exploded in a hailstorm of gunfire, the sound deafening in the confines of the little chapel. Dez went down first, and a split second later Gavin got slugged himself, twice in the middle of his chest. The impact from the bullets forced the air out of his lungs in a whoosh and threw him backward through the doorway, the light bleeding from his eyes even as the floor leapt up to greet him.

  16

  Marseille

  Peter Boucher answered the expected phone call on the first ring. “Yeah? How did it go?”

  “Très bien,” the caller reported. “La cible est morte. Dead like a doorknob.”

  “You saw it with your own eyes?” Boucher demanded. “You’re sure he’s dead?”

  “Oui. Il n’y a pas de doute.”

  “And everything went well? No problem with the police?”

  “L’homme Larson, he took two fifty caliber rounds to the chest. No one could survive that.” The caller hesitated, switching fully to English. “My partner, though, he was shot during the escape. I had to leave him behind.”

  “Behind!” Boucher was livid. “Now they can question the idiot—”

  “No. That will not be a problem. I took care of that before I left. He will not be answering any questions, trust me on that.”

  “D’accord, d’accord. In that case, I will make sure you receive the full payment, for both of you. But, before I pay up, I have one more little assignment for you. I need one of your men to swing back through and make sure your target is really, truly dead. Can you handle that, without any screwups this time?”

  “Oui, I will take care of that myself and get back to you later tonight.”

  “C’est bon.” Boucher walked over to the window looking out over the Marseille harbor. From his second-story office he could see all the way out to the offshore islands. “In that case, jusqu’à plus tard.”

  “Oui, jusqu’à plus tard.”

  Boucher hung up the phone and stared at the top of his desk for a long moment. In the end, it had all been so easy. Now he just needed to finish things up with the pesky Naval Intelligence agent that he had locked up tight back in Turkey. And that was a chore he would take great pleasure in handling personally. Great pleasure, indeed.

  17

  Marseille - Tuesday

  Gavin woke up with the feeling that an army was marching through his skull and an elephant was busily dancing on his chest. “Holy crap! Where am I? What happened?” He tried to pry himself upright but collapsed in a heap as the elephant did a tap dance on his sternum.

  Ramon leaned in close and laid a gentle hand on Gavin’s shoulder to keep him down. “Hey buddy, good to have you back in the land of the living. But you need to take it easy until the EMS boys and girls get here to check you over.”

  As the cobwebs started to clear, Gavin gradually became aware that the entire church and its grounds were now filled with hordes of French police. He tried to shake his head to clear the fog but realized immediately that any movement at all was a huge mistake. Ramon eyed him with a worried look. “Hey, buddy, need to take it easy there. You took two solids to the chest, and then did a swan dive to the concrete. I’m surprised you didn’t crack your head wide open.”

  “Yeah, well, the Larson family has always had a reputation for being hard headed,” Gavin joked, paying instantly for the effort as a knife cut across his chest and his head felt like it was ready to explode. He closed his eyes, trying to remember what had happened. They were at a church. Andy was inside, and he and Dez were—”

  “Dez?” he asked. “She got hit—”

  “Dez is okay, Gavin,” Ramon assured him. “She took a round to the chest, same as you, but her Kevlar vest saved her. And lucky for you she made you wear that jacket. Otherwise we’d be cleaning pieces of you up off the sidewalk right about now.”

  Now it all came flooding back to him. Dez just inside the doorway to the church, with him racing right behind. A glimpse of strange little toy boats dangling from the ceiling, then gunfire erupting from straight ahead, like the gunmen were just sitting there waiting for them. Dez hit and dropping, then two slugs slamming into him on either side of his sternum. The coat she’d made him wear—it must have been a Kevlar-reinforced bulletproof jacket, or maybe even some of the new high density polyethylene tech. He’d been a fool to object. The damned thing had saved his life.

  Just then two local EMS medics arrived, squatting down on either side of him and opening up their kits. The man on his right leaned in to focus on his head wound, while the woman on his left opened up his jacket to check on his chest. They conferred in French for about a minute, then the woman pulled a vial of something out of her bag and carefully drew a small amount of clear liquid into a syringe while her partner unsuccessfully tried to cut away at the jacket with a pair of scissors.

  “That won’t work,” Dez told them in French as she finally arrived from directing the teams that were scouring the chapel for clues. “You’ll need to cut at the seams. Use a scalpel and just slice through the stitches.”

  The male medic nodded to her and pulled out a scalpel, quickly opening up a spot on Gavin’s upper right arm as his partner leaned in to administer the shot. Dez spoke briefly with them, then knelt down close to Gavin’s face. “They just gave you something that will help with the pain. They can’t be certain, but it looks like you made out okay, given the circumstances. Maybe some broken ribs, and that bang on the head will keep you on the sidelines for a while, and needless to say any team sports are a no-no for now, but otherwise you’ll live. Just stay quiet until we can get a stretcher up here to take you to the hospital for x-rays, just to be safe.”

  Gavin could feel the pain killers already kicking in, and the throbbing in his head had begun to subside by the tiniest of fractions. “No. I need to know exactly what happened. The gunmen. Who were they? Did they get away?”

  Dez shook her head. “Why are you Americans always so obstinate? You don’t think the French police can handle this?”

  Gavin shot her a look that he hoped would convince her that he wasn’t going to back down. “It’s my partner we’re talking about. I need to see first hand what happened here. Not read about it in some damned police report. And a translated report at that.”

  Dez exchanged some quick comments with the medics, who were shaking their heads. She turned back to Gavin. “They say they wouldn’t advise you getting up and around, at least not before you’ve been to the hospital to make sure your brain and chest aren’t in far worse shape than it appears right now.” She looked back over her shoulder at the mob of detectives stomping through the crime scene. “But, okay, give me a moment to fill you in.” She stood up slightly before squatting back down in a lotus position. “Here’s what we know so
far. There were two gunmen, at least two that we know of, maybe another one somewhere else providing reconnaissance. That makes sense, given the fact that they didn’t hesitate to open fire once we dove through the doorway. After shooting, they immediately raced for the exit at the back of the church. Ramon managed to get off a few wild shots, and got lucky, hitting one guy, who’s now rather inconveniently dead. The other one got away on a motorcycle. I had called in backup on our way up here, and they just missed him.”

  “Any ID on the dead guy?” Gavin asked, pressing a hand to his head to unsuccessfully try and push the pain back inside.

  “No, although by the looks of him he’s probably local. And he appears to be the guy who shot you. He was carrying this …”

  Dez held out what Gavin immediately recognized as a fifty-caliber sniper rifle.

  “I got hit by two fifty caliber slugs and lived? Holy Cow!”

  “Yeah,” Dez answered with a sly wink. “Good thing maman made you put on clean underwear before we got started, don’t you think?”

  “Dez, I will never argue with you again,” Gavin promised. “But—two gunmen. Any sign of Andy or the bracelet?”

  “The bracelet, yes. The guy we killed had this in his front pocket.” Dez held out an unadorned metal bracelet, just about the right size for Andy Patterson’s slender wrist. With great effort, Gavin reached out and took it from her, examining the bracelet closely. As Bob Sanders had said, it wasn’t at all apparent how the bracelet could have possibly been removed or deactivated.

  Dez nodded toward the bracelet. “So it looks like you were right about all of this, Agent Larson” she said. “These guys evidently turned that thing on for just a few seconds, then turned it off, almost immediately after we nabbed those guys in the warehouse. Couldn’t have been a coincidence, right? Too many clues, all leading us straight to this church.”