Knight's Cross (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 3)

by Christine Kling

  All that food that arrived in the catering truck must mean that there was some kind of big dinner going on in there. Cole didn’t think Riley had been invited to sit down and eat with company. It was more likely they had her holed up in one of the other rooms of the house. The blond guy with her was the same guy who had set the bomb on their boat in Turkey, and who had been in the helicopter that had buzzed them down off Djerba. He was looking for this relic or treasure, too, and it seemed he wanted it badly enough to kidnap Riley to learn what they’d found down in that submarine. With the big shindig dinner going on, Cole hoped they hadn’t got around to interrogating her. Not that he was afraid she would tell them anything. He was more afraid of how much pain she would have to endure if they were dishing it out.

  He had to get her out of there before that started.

  Cole ducked down between the parked cars and ran back into the garage building. He ran past the cars to see what he could find in the rear.

  Indeed, the building had originally been a stable and carriage house. In the rear, he could smell horses. Two stalls looked like they had fresh hay in them, but there were no horses inside. Cole found a locked door. The glass pane in the door didn’t show much of what was inside—it was too dark. He guessed it was some sort of workroom. All the way in the rear of the structure, he found an old wagon wheel and a large open space. It was big enough for a carriage, and Cole suspected that both the horses and the carriage were off somewhere else on the property.

  He dropped his backpack, pulled off the chef’s coat, and tossed it over the gate into the stall. Then he grabbed a handful of hay and dropped it in a pile in the middle of the space left by the absent carriage. He pushed one of the hay bales out, close by, and made a trail of hay leading over to it.

  On the ground outside the workshop, he found a small gas can. It was nearly empty, but a half cup or so dribbled out onto the small pile of hay he’d made in the middle of the carriage stall, and then he shook the remaining drops on the hay leading over to the bale. He saw a broom and a shovel leaning against the wall, and he brought those over and set them on top of the hay bale.

  When he was satisfied with his fire preparations, Cole took the flashlight out of his coat pocket and shaded it with his body. He flicked the switch to make sure it worked. The light flashed so bright it blinded him for several seconds. He closed his eyes and then blinked a few times until the bright yellow dot marring his vision cleared.

  Then he grabbed the top of the flashlight and unscrewed the lens. Inside he found two big D-cell batteries. This little trick had served him well back in his days at university. He’d placed many bets with some of the fraternity types to make beer money. Those guys never believed him when he said he could start a fire with a battery and some steel wool. His problem now was that it usually worked too well. He wanted to be out the door long before the fire really got under way.

  The trick was going to be to make sure he had enough steel wool so it would burn long enough to ignite his tinder. He opened the package of steel wool. The caterers probably used it for scrubbing pots and pans, and it wasn’t as fine as the stuff he had used in college. It should work, though. He pulled the fibers apart, shaping the wool into a long cigar-like shape. It was important to loosen the pack of the fibers to make sure the fire would have plenty of oxygen.

  Cole knelt next to the pile of hay. He turned to look at the cars in the front of the garage, hoping that the guards would delay their arrival long enough for him to get out, but not so long as to let those machines go up in smoke. That would really be a crime.

  After settling the steel wool on top of the straw, he nestled one end of the battery against the fibers. Nothing happened. He checked his escape route again. Then he curved the other end of the long tube of fibers and touched the opposite end of the battery. The steel fibers lit up bright red and glowed. The hay started to smoke, then a yellow-and-blue flame popped up. Cole smelled the burning gas.

  He grabbed his bag and ran.

  Church of Santa Maria del Priorato

  The Aventine Hill, Rome

  April 25, 2014

  She slipped behind a column.

  Judging from the footsteps, there were several of them. She kept the wide stone column between her and the new arrivals, so she didn’t see them as they passed to the front of the chapel.

  “Just take a seat in the first couple of rows,” a man said. He spoke English with a very light Italian accent.

  Other voices murmured words she could not understand.

  She decided to risk a quick look around the column. If they were sitting with their backs to her, she’d be fine. But at least one was probably standing up front. She moved slowly so as not to attract attention. She slid one side of her face out into view.

  She counted six men. Five seated and one standing at the front. She ducked back behind the column.

  “Welcome, Cavalieri of the Guardiani.”

  The other men mumbled again.

  “My good friend Cavaliere Vandervoort has some news for us. Would you like to share the news, Virgil?”

  Riley recognized the next voice immediately. It was Blondie. So that was his name. Virgil Vandervoort.

  “I have a good line on the location of the shield,” Virgil said. “And we have reason to believe whatever is engraved on it may lead to something inside our own library.”

  The murmuring voices grew louder.

  “Based on what I know at this time, I’d say the Religion will be back in the hands of the Guardiani in time for Operation Barnabas to go forward.”

  “Thank you, Virgil.”

  Riley peeked around the column to get a look at the face of the Italian with impeccable English.

  “Gentlemen,” he continued, “the opportunity is before us to complete what our ancestors started in the Crusades—not just Jerusalem and the Holy Land, but the entire Arabian peninsula will be scoured clean of barbarians and become the new Sovereign Territory of the Knights of Malta.”

  Riley slid back behind the column. She could not believe what she was hearing.

  “I’m sure you have heard the recent news from Syria. The Islamic State has become a reality. They are beheading civilians, women and children, and they have brought back live crucifixions. Slavery and rape of non-Muslims grows every day. They’re playing right into our hands. Throughout North America and Europe there is growing outrage. People are calling on their leaders to do something, and our members in the JSOC tell us that they have developed a doomsday plan to present to the Western world when the outcry for blood reaches its crescendo. You see, we don’t care if they are al-Qaeda or Palestinians or Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood. Already social media channels are calling for their extermination. The entire Christian world knows these barbarians must be annihilated.”

  “How do you plan to do that?” The deep voice sounded British.

  “That, my friend, is where the brilliance of Virgil’s Operation Barnabas lies. All these years the Guardiani fought to keep the Religion out of the hands of the infidels. Now, the time has come to hand it over to them.”

  “What?” Several voices spoke at once and the murmuring rose to a roar.

  At the rear of the church, a large man burst through the door.

  “Virgil!” he yelled. “Come quick. We got a fire!”

  Villa del Priorato di Malta

  The Aventine Hill, Rome

  April 25, 2014

  When the church door closed behind the last of them, Riley didn’t move right away. She stood still, stunned at what she had just heard. Extermination? What kind of Kool-Aid were these guys drinking?

  She peered around the column to make sure the church really was empty. Her hair was escaping out from under the hat, so she repositioned it and stuffed the stray strands back under the black cap. It was too dark to see the zipper up the front of the robe, so she just held it closed and walked toward the exit with her head bowed, just in case there was still someone in the church she couldn’t see.
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br />   When she opened the door, she smelled smoke immediately. The odor was a combination of wood smoke and a chemical smell. Something like paint burning, maybe.

  She followed a gravel path around to her right and back along the side of the church. The front of the church opened at the end of the property overlooking the city. The lights of Rome spread out to her left, and in the distance she could see the lights on the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

  At the end of the church wall, very formal gardens opened up on her right. She saw the huge villa and several outbuildings off to the side, stretching the length of the property. The vast gardens ran parallel to them. She was at the back of the villa’s property, and the exit out to the square would be on the other side of the gardens, past the villa and the other buildings. It looked very far away.

  Keeping her head bowed, trying to look like a pious cleric, she strolled the gravel paths, weaving her way in and out of the hedges. The garden had one straight, long path on the far side that provided the clear sight-way for the keyhole visitors. But between that long, open path and the big house was a garden maze of sorts. Around every corner she found little stone benches, statues, and alcoves with fountains.

  She heard a distant siren, and, over the top of the manicured shrubbery, the sky took on an orange glow. The gate she and Virgil had used to enter the villa appeared to be the only access for vehicles. With the fire and emergency vehicles entering through that gate, that escape path would be crowded. Perhaps she could slip out through the crowd, but it would be even better if she could find another way off the grounds.

  As her path had taken her wandering through the gardens, she became aware of the high wall that occasionally blocked her progress. When she and Cole had been looking at the villa on Google Earth the night before, she had seen that the adjoining property was the Basilica of Saints Bonifacio and Alessio. She remembered the name because she’d had to do an Internet search to even know who those two saints were. Only in Rome. She was trying to make her way over to the wall when she heard footsteps on the gravel.

  Riley froze. She listened, waiting. She began to wonder if she had imagined the noise. Then she heard it again. Very close this time.

  Had they discovered her missing? If so, they might also know that certain vestments were gone, and her disguise would do her no good. Her only hope would be to outrun them. Yet, if they didn’t know it was her, by running she would give herself away.

  It’s funny how it works. It had happened to her like that before. So little time elapsed between the moment she decided to run and the time her feet were moving, that she seemed to start running before she’d even made up her mind.

  The robes were a problem. She was running full tilt for the vine-covered wall that divided the properties between the Knights’ villa and the adjoining basilica, but the voluminous fabric of the robes kept getting tangled around her legs and throwing her off her stride. The crunch of feet running on gravel behind her grew ever louder.

  She was almost to the wall when something slammed into her from behind. She stumbled and felt herself falling forward. She dropped her shoulder and rolled to her left. It was only due to years of training that she didn’t end up with a face full of gravel—or half-paralyzed with pain from her old injury.

  Her assailant grunted as he hit the ground next to her. That was when Riley recognized him. She rolled free and was struggling to get to her feet when she saw his arm pulled back, his fist ready to slam into her face.

  “It’s me!” she said in a frantic stage whisper.

  The fist dropped. “Shit, Riley.” He reached over and pushed the pom-pom hat off her head.

  Her hair tumbled down to her shoulders.

  Cole’s body sagged, almost like he was deflating. He said, “Magee, I almost knocked you out.”

  “You were going to punch a priest?”

  “Yeah, I was gonna steal the robes.” He looked up and grinned. “I guess great minds think alike.”

  “Well, I didn’t have to tackle a priest.” She stood. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before they find us.”

  Riley tucked the robe and hat under her arm and led him toward the high wall at the edge of the property. They both heard the footsteps at the same time. Cole stepped behind the waist-high hedge and Riley followed. They lay down and rolled their bodies up tight against the stems of the shrubs.

  The earth beneath them had been turned over recently in preparation for more planting. Someone had added manure to fertilize the soil, and the stench was making Riley’s eyes water.

  A man started talking, and she nearly gasped. The voice was so close. There were two of them. Riley could see their pant legs through the bushes. Jeans and work boots.

  “I could have sworn I heard something this way.” The man’s voice wasn’t a whisper, but his voice was so low, no one could hear him outside ten feet.

  “Man, it stinks here.” That one was a different voice.

  “She’s got to be here somewhere. Virgil said he’d only left her alone for thirty minutes.”

  They must be part of a security detail. They were standing right next to the shrubs where Cole was. Riley couldn’t believe they didn’t see him.

  “Wouldn’t take you or me that long to break out of zip cuffs.”

  “She ain’t us.”

  The other man chuckled, and they moved on down the path. Riley waited until she could no longer hear their footsteps on the gravel.

  She sat up and motioned for Cole to follow her.

  The wall looked like it was just a bigger hedge. She tugged hard on one of the vines, then gave Cole the thumbs-up sign. She wrapped the black robe around the back of her neck and placed the hat on her head. She leaned close to his ear and whispered. “There’s a big church on the other side.”

  Cole pointed to the robe. “You think you’re going to need that over there?”

  “No, but if we leave it here”—she pointed in the direction the guards had gone—“it’d be like leaving a sign saying, ‘They Went Thataway.’”

  “Good point.” Cole grabbed a vine with both hands and put one foot on the wall.

  The climbing wasn’t that difficult—trying to do it without making any noise was the hard part. There were almost no footholds, so it required upper body strength. By the time she got to the top, Riley was winded. She knew better than to sit up on the wall. She didn’t want to present that outline against the night sky, so she rolled over the top. To her surprise, there were no vines on the other side of the wall, and she fell the twelve feet to the ground. She landed feet first, but lost her balance and rolled to the ground. A few seconds later, Cole dropped next to her. He stayed upright. He stuck out his hand.

  Riley reached for his hand. He pulled her to her feet and then wrapped her in his arms and squeezed.

  “I need to breathe,” she said.

  He eased his grip on her. “Sorry. I just thought—” He didn’t finish the sentence, but rather just tightened his grip again.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know that for the last five or six hours. I was so afraid they’d hurt you.”

  “You set the fire?”

  “Yeah.” He glanced back at the wall. “Those guys, they said you broke out of zip cuffs?”

  She lifted her shoulders and let them fall again.

  Cole said, “Damn right you ain’t them. If you’d been the one searching, you’d have found us.”

  She nodded. “Probably.”

  A bright light clicked on. Cole and Riley stepped away from each other. They turned to face the light, squinting and attempting to shield their eyes with their arms.

  The silence dragged on. The person holding the light didn’t say a word. Finally, Cole took a step toward the light.

  A deep voice said, “Stop. Put your hands on top of your head.”

  Riley didn’t recognize the accent.

  “Now follow the trail to your left. Head toward the yellow light on the corner of t
he building. I will be right behind you.”

  They followed orders.

  Aboard the Ruse

  At Anchor off Kekova

  June 30, 1798

  Even before she opened her eyes, Arzella marveled at the boat’s stillness. No creaking from the wooden hull, no gurgling rush of water, no moaning of the wind in the rigging. Her head was nestled into the crook under Alonso’s shoulder, and, though she saw daylight through her eyelids, she didn’t want that sublime moment to end.

  “Good morning, my love,” Alonso said. “I feel you wakening.”

  “I refuse to open my eyes. This is our first night spent together in bed, and it can’t be over yet.”

  “I could grow accustomed to awakening with you by my side.”

  “Last night was lovely.” They had sailed round the island at sunset, feasted on fresh fish, and found the castle under the light of a near-full moon. Best of all was setting the anchor and falling into each other’s arms in bed.

  “But we were both so exhausted all we did was sleep.”

  “Sleep was what we needed.”

  “I am a man, my dear Arzella, and this morning I have other needs.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and began to pull up her nightdress. She kissed his throat, aware that she, too, had needs.

  They both jumped at the sound of loud knocking on the hull. Then they heard a man’s voice shouting words in a language they did not understand.

  Alonso leapt to his feet and grabbed his trousers. He had one leg through and was hopping toward the cabin door as he tried to get the other leg into the right hole. When he was successful, he buckled his belt, grabbed his shirt off the peg, and disappeared through the door.

  Arzella arose and looked out the windows in the high transom. She saw brown, rocky hillsides turned golden by the morning sun, but no boats. Their visitor would be alongside.

  From the cupboard she took out a frock. She had not worn ladies’ clothing since their short visit at Crete. On the boat it was far easier to wear only undergarments and go barefoot. She looked at her shoes and sighed. She supposed it would be necessary to wear stockings and lace her feet into leather again.