Knight's Cross (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 3)

by Christine Kling

  Alonso nodded and waved.

  The fishing-boat captain had not had time to stow the net pole before his young crew turned the wheel, and they veered off. The captain raised the sail and their vessel began to pick up speed. He moved to the rail and raised a hand to Alonso.

  “What do you think he meant?” Arzella asked. “Do you think he recognized the castle?”

  “Yes, we passed an opening in the coast a while back. I think this must be an island next to us. He was trying to say that it’s on the other side of the island. When we get to the end of it, we should turn around and sail up into the waters on the other side.”

  “What was in the net?”

  Alonso held up the fish by its tail. “This and two oranges.”

  “Oranges! How kind! Do you think he was an Ottoman?”

  “I guess we will never know who he was, other than a good friend.”

  Villa del Priorato di Malta

  The Aventine Hill, Rome

  April 25, 2014

  Riley realized as soon as the car started up the hill that they were headed to the villa on the Aventine. She and Cole had read about the place the night before. Originally a monastery, the property had passed to the Knights Templar. Then, when Pope Clement disbanded the Templars, the site passed to the Knights of Saint John along with all the other Templar properties. Today, the villa, designed by the famous architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi, was the residence of the current grand master of the Knights of Malta.

  She hadn’t spoken a word since the explosion back at the catacombs. She’d been trying to sort it out in her mind. As shocking as it had been to discover Diggory Priest was still alive, she was now finding it difficult to wrap her head around the fact that he was dead again. Riley wondered who this blond man was who killed so easily. Hadn’t he and Dig been working on the same side? She’d noticed the blue triangle tattoo on his forearm, and she knew what that meant. They would be arriving at the villa soon, and if she expected any information, she’d better get him talking.

  “Where’d you serve?” she asked.

  He took his eyes off the road to look at her. His blue eyes were unnaturally light. Like arctic ice. They didn’t look real.

  “Iraq. Delta Force.”

  “Thought so. Me, Marine Corps, embassy security guard. No combat.”

  He ignored her.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “You should be thanking me for saving you from that freak,” he said.

  “Saving me? I’d call it kidnapping.”

  “You and your friend have something that belongs to us.”

  “Who’s ‘us’?”

  The car approached a guard gate, and the driver rolled down his window briefly. The guard waved them through.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” he said.

  Riley got a glimpse of the gardens on the front side of the villa, but their car proceeded down a gravel lane at the rear of the buildings. Three-quarters of the way down the lane, he pulled to a stop outside a door. Beyond, she saw steps leading up to what looked like the entrance to a church.

  “Stay here,” he said.

  Blondie climbed out of the car and tucked the gun into the back of his pants. He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and looked around.

  Her chances would not be great if she tried to run for it. Technically, she wasn’t even in Italy anymore. This property belonged to the sovereignty of the Knights of Malta. They issued their own passports and made their own laws here. And Blondie had trained as one of the most efficient killers on the planet. The smart thing to do was to sit tight for now and see what she could learn.

  He returned to the car and opened the passenger’s-side door.

  “Come,” he said.

  She swung her legs out first, then reached forward with her bound hands to lift her weight out of the low seat.

  He waved the gun toward the door. “This way.”

  She entered a dark corridor.

  “Second door on your left,” he said.

  When they passed the first door, it was half-open. Inside was a small, dimly lit dressing room. Various robes and cloaks hung on pegs on the wall. On the far side of the room, she saw another doorway, through which she glimpsed candles burning atop an elaborate altar.

  When she arrived outside the second door, he said, “Open it.”

  Riley entered a small, dark room. Blondie switched on a bare bulb overhead. The room was furnished with a simple wood dresser and an iron-framed single bed. A crucifix—a bronze Jesus on a wood cross—hung on the wall above the bed.

  “Sit,” he said. Then he pulled another zip tie from his jacket pocket. He squatted and pulled her ankle tight against one claw-footed leg of the bed frame at the head of the bed. He zip-tied her ankle to the metal bar, then stood.

  “You found the shield on the submarine.”

  The statement surprised her, and she knew her face had given that away.

  “James Thatcher wasn’t the only one who knew Captain Wilson,” he said.

  “Then why didn’t you search for it yourselves?”

  “They tried. It seems their ‘experts’ had them looking in the wrong place. That was before my time.”

  “And what makes you so sure Cole found something?”

  “You’re here. In Rome. Otherwise, you would still be searching off Djerba.” Blondie checked his watch, then ran his left hand through his stiff hair.

  Riley said, “So what now?”

  “Priest has given us no choice.”

  She remembered the look on his face when he’d tapped the screen on his phone. He’d been smiling.

  “You will tell me what you found,” he said. “Soon.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You will,” he said. “In Iraq, I learned how to be very persuasive.”

  Riley glanced at the tattoo on his arm.

  He walked to the doorway and paused. He looked back over his shoulder. “I take no pleasure from hurting women. But when I come back, you will tell me what I want to know.”

  Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta

  The Aventine Hill, Rome

  April 25, 2014

  When Cole closed the truck’s back door, everything went pitch-dark. The quick glimpse he’d had of the interior revealed that the back of the van was almost empty.

  He took out his phone and turned it on. The dim screen provided some light, but with a couple of taps, he was able to use the camera flash as a flashlight. The back wall of the cargo area was lined with three floor-to-ceiling storage cabinets. The first one he opened had deep shelves filled with pots and pans in the bottom, china on the upper shelves. The middle cabinet was mostly table linens and uniforms. The last one looked like the “everything” storage area. Cleaning supplies, lighter fluid, candlesticks, a couple of lanterns, and electric kitchen appliances. The bottom shelf was almost two feet high. The only thing down there was a large meat-slicing machine.

  The caterers would be returning soon. The guard had said they could take their truck in at seven o’clock. He had to find someplace to hide.

  Cole rearranged the upper shelves and made room for the slicing machine on the shelf one up from the bottom. The machine was heavier than it looked and unwieldy, but after several attempts, he was able to get it onto the upper shelf. He was about to climb in when he thought that he would probably have little time on the other end. Might as well have a look now to see what he might be able to use. He opened the middle cabinet and took out a chef’s coat. He closed the door.

  He took off his backpack and was about to put the coat on when he heard voices outside. Quickly, he got down on the floor, wormed his backside into the space, and curled his arms and legs inside, hugging his pack and the coat to his chest. He was about to close the door when he heard the forward cab doors open. The sound of their voices speaking Italian was now very clear.

  The engine started. The noise was loud, but he wasn’t sure it was loud enough to cover the noise of closing the c
abinet doors, so he held on to them.

  The truck backed up. Then, instead of pulling through the gates, as Cole had expected, it made a wide turn and started to accelerate. He felt the incline change. They were heading down the hill, away from the villa.

  Cole wondered if he should crawl out, open the back doors, and jump out of the truck at a traffic signal. He had to find Riley. He checked the time on his phone. Maybe they were just going to fetch the food they were supposed to be serving at dinner. He decided to wait, but if the drive was too long, he’d bail and catch a cab back up the hill.

  A few minutes later, the truck stopped, then backed up and began a turn. Several voices shouted in Italian, and then an emergency vehicle turned on its siren right alongside the truck. Cole pulled his cabinet doors closed seconds before the truck’s back doors opened.

  He heard shouting, then music playing from inside a building. There was lots of clattering and the screech of metal on metal. He thought they were pulling a ramp out so they could load the truck.

  It took them only fifteen minutes. The truck filled with the aromas of garlic, yeasty bread, and roast lamb. It sounded like they loaded ten or twelve rolling carts into the truck. Then Cole heard a ratcheting sound, like straps being tightened. The doors slammed closed, and the truck started up again.

  The ride back to the villa seemed to go much faster. Their business must not have been far from the Aventine Hill. Now he was starting to worry that they might need something out of the cabinet where he was hiding. He was still trying to think of a story in case he was discovered, when the incline changed, and the truck groaned as the automatic transmission downshifted.

  No, he told himself, thinking negative thoughts wasn’t any help. He would get onto the villa grounds. After that, he would create a diversion, then find Riley. It would be simple.

  Yeah, right.

  Cole held his breath when they slowed to a stop. He heard the driver say, “Where do you want us to park after we unload?”

  He couldn’t hear the answer. The truck’s engine revved, and they were driving over uneven terrain. The dishes clanked and the heavy machine on the shelf above him bounced, threatening to break the shelf.

  The truck stopped, reversed, and parked. The back doors opened before the driver cut off the engine. The ramp screeched out, and Cole counted six different voices, each coming into the truck and taking a cart. Then it went quiet. He tried to open the doors, but the rest of the carts were blocking the storage cabinet.

  The voices returned, and they took the remaining wheeled carts of food. Cole opened the doors to his storage area and crawled out. He shrugged into the chef’s coat, then picked up a flashlight off one of the shelves. He searched the cabinet for matches, but couldn’t find any. He grabbed a package of steel wool off the top shelf and stuffed that in a coat pocket. He grabbed his pack, jumped to the ground, and looked around.

  A few stars shone in a sky still tinged with pink. The truck was backed up on a concrete slab at the rear entrance of a weathered stone building. Dark hedges ran along both sides of a dirt lane that ran the length of the property, down to the edge of the hill that faced the Vatican. Light poured out the kitchen door as well as voices. And they were coming closer.

  Cole pushed through the hedge and lay down on the ground. Now he regretted putting on the white coat—it wasn’t a good color for hiding at night. He heard the rattle of the ramp sliding back into the truck. The engine started, and the truck turned, drove several hundred feet away, then parked next to a cluster of vehicles. The parking lot was on an open, grassy area around what looked to be an old carriage house. The lone driver returned, whistling a tune as he walked. He paused outside the kitchen, then Cole smelled cigarette smoke. The man was so close, Cole could barely breathe. Then the whistling stopped and the kitchen door closed, turning the night dark once again.

  Cole let out a long breath, then jumped to his feet.

  There had to be security on the grounds. Cameras or guards or both, but Cole didn’t see either. He brushed some grass and leaves off the coat, then slipped back through the hedge and walked toward the catering van. Hopefully, anyone watching would assume he was one of their crew. When he stepped between the truck and the car next to it, he ducked down. Keeping his body low, he ran between the vehicles to the open barn doors at the end of the wooden building.

  Half a dozen cars were parked inside. Cole assumed they must belong to the Order. He recognized the new Bugatti with the SMOM license plate, as well as a couple of Porsche Cayennes, and a Rolls-Royce Ghost.

  What a shame, he thought. Cole had already decided that the best diversion would be a fire.

  Villa del Priorato di Malta

  The Aventine Hill, Rome

  April 25, 2014

  Riley did not doubt that a trained Delta would be able to break her, and she wasn’t about to give the man the opportunity to try. Why he had left her alone was a mystery, but she intended to make that his first mistake.

  Reaching down, she tested the zip tie around her ankle. It was tight, and even if she could lift the bed, there wasn’t enough slack in the band around her ankle to slide over the claw-shaped foot at the bottom of the metal leg.

  She would need two hands to work on the leg band, so she turned her focus to the zip tie around her wrists. The white pawl that kept the zip tie tight was on the back of her right hand. She brought her hands to her mouth and bit the buckle. By pulling with her teeth, she was able to reposition the zip tie so that the pawl fell between her wrists when she looked down.

  Riley stood and reached up high over her head. She brought her wrists down slowly at first to check out where her elbows would hit her body. She was aiming for her pelvic region, so it would require some hunching over. She reached up again, paused, and drew in a deep breath. Then, with all her strength, she brought her arms down. Her elbows were driven apart, one on each side of her body, and the zip tie at her wrists broke away.

  Bright-red rings around her wrists showed where the plastic had cut into her skin. The last time she’d tried that move had been in MSG School at Quantico, but there she had protected her wrists with duct tape. She was glad to know the move still worked, but the instructor was right. Without the protection, it hurt like hell.

  The hands had been relatively easy, but the leg was another story. Using both hands now, she tried again to push the plastic band down over the claw foot. The plastic dug into her skin when she tried to stretch it over the metal, but she couldn’t get enough slack. That wasn’t going to work.

  Riley stood up and lifted the single mattress to check for any other bits of sharp metal on the bed frame. The springs were strung very tight. There was little chance she’d be able to get one loose, and the ends didn’t look sharp enough to make it worth the effort. Nothing else on the frame looked like it would come loose. She dropped the mattress, drew in a deep breath, and bit her lower lip.

  “Goddammit,” she said. Then she noticed the crucifix on the wall, and she said, “Sorry.”

  She’d always read that priests and monks lived austere lives, but there was nothing in this room but a bed. She plopped down onto it—then sat up straight, turned around slowly, and looked up at the wall.

  A bed and a crucifix. The wooden cross was about fifteen inches long, and the body of Christ appeared to be made out of bronze.

  She couldn’t climb up onto the bed with her foot tied at floor level, but there was bedding on the bed. She pulled the blanket free, wadded it up, and threw it at the crucifix. The blanket bounced off and nothing moved. It would be just her luck that they had screwed the thing to the wall. The second time, she got hold of a corner of the blanket and tried using it as a whip. The crucifix clattered to the floor.

  After several tries, she pried the statue off the wooden cross. The crossed feet and each of the hands were literally nailed to the cross. Years of corrosion had fused the metal, and the nails came away with the bronze statue. She started pounding the foot nail on the plastic zip tie
where it crossed the edge of the squarish leg. The nail punched holes in the plastic band. She tried being gentle to keep the noise at a minimum. When the foot nail broke off, she used the nail from one of the hands until the plastic was well perforated. Riley slipped the feet of the bronze statue under the plastic band. With one swift movement, she cranked down on Jesus’s head and levered up the zip tie. It broke with a pop.

  She opened the door slowly and put one eye to the crack. The hall was empty in both directions. She slipped out and started back down the hall the way she’d been led in. When she got to the door to the church vestibule, she stepped inside. She lifted one of the black robes and stuck her arms into the sleeves. She found an odd-looking black hat that looked a bit like a crown with a black pom-pom on top. She stuffed her hair up into that. There was no mirror in the room, so she could only hope she looked all right.

  There had to be another exit out through the chapel itself, so she peered out into the sanctuary. The only light came from the candles on the altar, and though the light was dim, the church was small. She couldn’t see anyone in there. The door led her into the front of the church beside the altar. As her eyes grew more accustomed to the light, Riley stopped and stared in wonder at the arches and columns of magnificent white stone. Images of cherubs flying around the Virgin Mary made up most of the huge altarpiece.

  She skirted around the elaborate wooden pulpit and headed for the back door. When she was at the third row of seats, she heard a creak and felt the air move as the church’s front door opened.

  Villa del Priorato di Malta

  The Aventine Hill, Rome

  April 25, 2014

  Cole was certain these guys had more security than just the one guard on the gate. He hid in the shadows beside the catering van and watched the grounds around the big main house. It didn’t take him long to spot them. The first guy he saw was patrolling the front entrance, from the keyhole doors over to the driveway gate. The second guy he spotted was walking around the garden outside the front entrance to the house. Both were dressed in long-sleeved black T-shirts and black pants.