Sign of the Cross

by Chris Kuzneski

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘We must be overlooking something. We need to keep on digging until we find a fact, no matter how large or trivial, that supports our hypothesis.’

  Frustrated, Maria sank back into her chair. ‘That sounds kind of tough, sir. I mean, there are so many places we could look. It would be so much easier if we had some idea where to begin.’

  ‘True, but that is not the reality of things. In this business nothing is ever handed to you, and nothing is sitting out in the open, waiting for you to notice it. That’s just not how it works.’

  But in this case Boyd was wrong, for the answer they were looking for was within their grasp. In fact, it was lying on the table in front of them.

  31

  Opened in the 1930s, the Grand Hotel Reale used to be the most elegant hotel in town. Nowadays the hand-painted frescoes that once enhanced the lobby were tarnished, the result of fingerprints, tobacco stains, and years of neglect. Payne noticed the outside of the hotel was faded, too, as he and Jones scurried alongside the building to reach the back entrance. A few minutes later they were inside Barnes’s room, slipping a pair of his socks over their hands to conceal their fingerprints. After that it didn’t take long to find something of interest.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ Jones said. ‘Look what we have here.’

  Payne turned and saw him kneeling on the floor, holding a 9 mm Beretta in his sock glove. After checking the safety, Jones put the barrel under his nose and took a whiff, trying to determine if it had been recently fired. ‘Found it under the bed,’ he said. ‘Smells clean.’

  ‘The gun or the sock?’

  Ignoring the question, Jones handed him the weapon. ‘I wonder why he had it?’

  Payne took it in his sock-covered hand. Suddenly he looked like a performer in a twisted puppet show who was about to kill Kermit the Frog. ‘Who knows? He was traveling alone in a foreign country. He might’ve brought it for protection.’

  Jones shrugged as he continued looking through the room.

  ‘Speaking of protection, I’m going to borrow the Beretta. Just in case.’

  ‘Fine with me. But I don’t want to see you borrowing his watch or his wallet. We’re here for his film and nothing else.’

  Payne nodded as he dug through Barnes’s suitcase. It was filled with shirts, shorts, and a wide variety of toiletries. ‘And once we find his film, what are we going to do?’

  ‘We’ll leave. For some reason I got a bad feeling about this place.’

  Smiling, Payne held up a Ziploc bag and jiggled it. ‘If that’s the case, then let’s get going.’

  Payne tossed the bag to Jones, who inspected the three canisters of thirty-five-millimeter film. ‘If we’re lucky, one of these will show yesterday’s crash scene.’

  ‘And if we’re unlucky, we might see Donald sunbathing in a thong.’

  ‘Good God, I hope not. I don’t think the CIA will give us hazard pay for that. In fact, I don’t think they’ll… shit!’

  Confusion filled Payne’s face as he tried to determine what the CIA’s bowel movements had to do with anything. ‘What does that mean? You don’t think they’ll –’

  Shit! When Payne heard the noise, he finally understood what Jones was talking about. It was the sound of a key going into the lock and the squeaking twist of a doorknob.

  ‘Oh shit!’ Jones repeated. ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’

  Thinking quickly, Payne pushed Jones toward the door and urged him to block it. Meanwhile, Payne scoured the room for a barricade, hoping to find something that was sturdy enough to keep the visitors at bay – at least until he could figure out an alternative.

  ‘The bed,’ Payne blurted. ‘Let’s move the bed.’

  He leapt over the mattress, then pushed the entire thing forward, a task that was harder than it looked. The bed’s legs dug into the hardwood floor like talons, causing a screech that sounded like 10,000 fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard.

  ‘Polizia!’ shouted one of the men in the hall. He punctuated his statement by pounding on the door with such force that Jones could feel the vibrations in his chest. ‘Aprire!’

  ‘We know you’re in there!’ screamed another in English. ‘Open up, or we’ll shoot the lock!’

  Jones’s eyes doubled in size when he realized his crotch was currently at lock level. In desperation, he yelled, ‘If you shoot, the hostage gets it!’

  ‘The hostage?’ Payne whispered. ‘Quit teasing them and give me a hand.’

  Jones walked across the room and helped Payne tip the antique dresser on its side, wedging it between the foot of the bed and the closest wall. It eliminated any chance of the door being opened without a stick of dynamite. A fact that bothered Jones.

  ‘Great!’ he growled. ‘Now we aren’t getting out and they aren’t getting in.’

  ‘Of course we’re getting out. Just relax. Have a little faith.’

  But Jones wasn’t the only one losing patience. The policemen were getting pissy, too. They emphasized this fact by slamming into the door with a makeshift battering ram. The sound echoed through the room like a Civil War cannon, even though it had no effect on the barricade.

  Jones said, ‘Now what? The door’s the only way out, and they have it covered.’

  Boom!

  ‘Don’t worry, we’re not going through the door. We’re going through there.’

  He followed the path of Payne’s finger and realized he was pointing at a stained glass window in the bathroom. ‘No way, Jon. We’re too big for that. Especially your fat ass.’

  Payne stared at the window for several seconds. ‘I’m pretty good with spatial relations, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we can fit. My ass included.’

  Boom!

  ‘No way,’ he argued. ‘Besides, we have company.’

  Jones pointed to movement behind the window. A shadow in the shape of a human head. Someone was trying to see into their room. Someone who was about to get the shock of their life.

  ‘No problem,’ Payne bragged. Then, without warning, he launched himself toward the window, kicking his legs in front of him in a martial arts leap. The glass shattered on contact, sending multicolored shrapnel through the air like an explosion at a Skittles factory. The cop on the other side got a mouthful of glass and a taste of Payne’s shoe. Unfortunately, his face stopped Payne’s momentum, preventing him from making it all the way through the window. A moment later he crashed to the tiled floor as glass fell around him in a melodic song.

  Jones rushed to his side. Laughing, he said, ‘Damn, Jon. You need to work on your landing.’

  He took a moment to catch his breath. ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘Out of curiosity, why didn’t you use the desk chair to break the window?’

  Payne sat up and tried to shake the glass out of his hair. ‘My parents used to drag me to church every week, and I used to sit there wondering what it would feel like to jump through the stained glass window and run toward freedom. Never had a chance to try it until now.’

  Boom! The sound of the battering ram brought them back to reality.

  Quickly they scurried through the window and over the unconscious cop, somehow reaching the Ferrari without being seen. While waiting for Jones to unlock the car, Payne noticed he was leaking blood in about twenty places – mostly scrapes on his arms and legs. Suddenly his dream of jumping through a stained glass window didn’t seem too bright.

  ‘Do me a favor and stop at the first store you see. I need to patch up.’

  ‘No problem. There should be plenty of stores between here and Perugia.’

  ‘Perugia? What the hell’s in Perugia?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? When you were looking for maps at the bus station, I found out where Boyd was heading. The guy behind the counter knew exactly who I was talking about before I even showed him a picture, like he’d been asked the same question a hundred times before.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And Boyd was going to Perugia
, a small city about two hours from here.’

  They drove fifteen miles outside of Orvieto before they found a gas station that met Payne’s medical needs. He went to the bathroom to wash out his cuts while Jones went into the store and bought some bandages and whatever else he could find. Five minutes later he came into the men’s room, carrying a first aid kit and a copy of the local paper.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Jones said. ‘We’ve got somewhere to go.’

  ‘Back to prison?’

  He shook his head and held up the newspaper. ‘Another crash site.’

  Payne glanced in the mirror and tried to read the headline. Unfortunately, two things stopped him from reading it. The reflection was backward, making the article look like a feature story from Dyslexia Today. And secondly, the damn thing was written in Italian.

  That being said, he was still able to make sense of things from the photos on the front page. You know the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, these photos were worth a million because they were graphic. Real graphic. The kind that could make a butcher puke. Mostly they focused on the burnt shell of a bus, but Payne saw some arms and legs in there, too, jutting out from the wreckage at impossible angles. He also spotted a head pinned to the ground under a massive metal panel. At least he thought it was a head. It was tough to tell since the flesh and hair had melted off the skull like a cadaver that had been dropped into a volcano.

  Everything he saw – both man and man-made – was a dark shade of black.

  Payne took a deep breath, rage boiling in his belly. ‘Let me guess. Boyd’s bus?’

  But Jones didn’t answer. The anger and determination on his face spoke volumes.

  32

  One of the major drawbacks of using espresso as an energy source was its debilitating effect on the human bladder. At least that’s what Maria Pelati thought as she visited the library’s restroom for the second time in an hour. After finishing her business, she headed toward the long row of sinks. Just then a heavyset intruder jumped from the far stall and grabbed her, covering her mouth while pinning her frame against the tiled wall.

  ‘Don’t make a sound,’ he threatened in Italian. ‘Do you understand me? Silence!’

  Normally Maria would’ve been quick to respond. She would’ve bitten the man’s hand, stomped on his foot, and screamed. In this case, though, she decided not to. She wasn’t sure why – it might’ve been the man’s body language or just a gut instinct – but she got the feeling that he wasn’t there to hurt her. Strangely, she sensed he was there to help.

  He said, ‘If you promise to be quiet, I’ll let you go. Otherwise, we must stay like this.’ He stared at her for several unnerving seconds, waiting for her decision. ‘Tell me, will you behave?’

  Maria nodded her head.

  ‘Good,’ he grunted as he removed his hand. ‘I hope I didn’t scare you, but it was important to speak to you immediately. And in private.’

  ‘You needed to talk to me? Why?’

  ‘Why? Because you’re in a tremendous amount of danger.’

  Danger. The word caused the past few days to rush through her head. First, the blitzkrieg from the chopper, then the avalanche, followed by the screams of the bus victims as they fought to avoid death. Then the nauseating smell of burnt flesh as they failed.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘Who sent you to talk to me?’

  A bittersweet smile crossed his lips. ‘You don’t remember me, do you? I’m the guard who let you in the library, the one you flirted with.’

  Her face flushed with embarrassment. ‘You are? I thought you were wearing a uniform.’

  The guard nodded, glad that she’d remembered something. ‘My shift ended an hour ago. And you’re lucky it did, because that’s when I realized the danger you face.’

  ‘Danger? What kind of danger?’

  ‘You mean, you don’t know? The lead story on every channel was about the man you came with today. Did you know that he’s wanted? Every policeman in Europe is looking for him.’

  Damn! she cursed to herself. Keeping her cool, she said, ‘You must be mistaken. I’ve known him forever, and he’s not a criminal. He’s a well-known professor.’

  ‘The TV showed several pictures of him. He’s definitely the one.’

  ‘OK,’ she countered, ‘let’s pretend you’re right. What do you think we should do about it?’

  ‘It’s not what I think we should do. It’s what I’ve already done.’

  Maria felt her heart skip a beat. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Once I saw his picture, I came back to make sure he was still here. Then I waited for you to leave his side – I didn’t want you to be taken as a hostage – before I called the local police. If we’re lucky, they’re already arresting him.’

  A wave of panic swept over Maria. Suddenly, before she realized what she was doing, she found herself bolting toward the door, hoping to inform Boyd before it was too late.

  ‘It won’t do you any good. You can’t get out of here without a key.’

  She tried the door anyway, but it wouldn’t budge, just like the guard had warned.

  ‘You have no right to lock me in here!’ she shouted. ‘No right at all!’

  ‘Actually, I have every right. I’m the one who let you in without an ID, so that makes you my responsibility.’ He strolled toward the door, hoping to calm her. ‘Let’s just wait in here until the authorities arrive, then we can sort everything out. Doesn’t that sound reasonable?’

  Maria sighed, then gave him the warmest smile she possibly could. ‘Maybe you’re right. I mean, all of this stuff is so damn confusing. I’m so tired right now I can hardly think straight. I don’t know. Maybe waiting in here is the best thing to do.’

  The guard nodded at her change of heart and stepped forward to comfort her. But the instant he got close, she slammed her knee into his crotch. The strike was so unexpected and so crippling, the guard doubled over in pain, giving Maria a chance to finish him off with a vicious kick to the chin, a blow that sent him sprawling onto the bathroom floor.

  ‘Then again,’ she taunted, ‘maybe not.’

  Maria stole the guard’s keys and ran to warn Boyd. It took them less than a minute to gather all their materials and leave the conference room. But they weren’t quick enough. An Italian SWAT team had just arrived and was streaming into the building through the library’s front doors. Undaunted, the duo turned in the opposite direction and scrambled toward the back exit, hoping to sneak out. As they approached the women’s restroom, the injured guard stumbled out in front of them and tried to block their path.

  ‘Stop!’ he ordered.

  But they were in no mood to listen. Boyd hit him first, using Tiberius’s bronze canister like a club, smashing it against the guard’s head. Then Maria finished him off, knocking him out with a mighty swing of the Latin dictionary that she carried.

  ‘Lord, that felt good,’ Boyd cackled.

  ‘Didn’t it? That’s the second time I nailed him.’

  Their mood quickly soured when they saw several policemen enter the back door.

  Stopping immediately, Boyd said, ‘We’re trapped!’

  ‘Not if we go up.’ Maria led him to the nearest stairwell and said, ‘Go ahead. I’m going to slow these guys down.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, dear –’

  ‘Just go!’ she ordered. ‘They want you more than me. Get out of here! Now!’

  Maria listened for Boyd’s footsteps before she focused her full attention on the stairwell door. She fiddled with the guard’s keys and tried inserting the first one into the lock but had no success. Cursing softly, she tried the second, then the third, and the fourth. Finally, on her fifth attempt, she found the right key and locked the door an instant before the police got there.

  ‘Yes!’ she shouted as she scrambled up the stairs to hunt for Boyd. She found him quickly, waiting for her on the second floor landing.

  He said, ‘There are metal bars on all the windows, and the fron
t stairwell has been sealed for renovations. This is the only way up or down.’

  ‘No freight lifts?’

  ‘Nothing like that. This building is too old for elevators.’

  She pondered the information. ‘What’s being fixed?’

  Boyd pointed skyward. ‘The roof. They’re redoing the roof.’

  ‘That’s right! I noticed that on the way in. Come on, I have an idea!’

  With a burst of energy, she charged up the stairs at a pace that Boyd was unable to maintain. By the time he reached the top, he was forced to slump against the wall in oxygen-starved agony.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she demanded.

  ‘No,’ he blurted, gasping for air. ‘But I’ll live.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because –’

  Her concentration was broken when she heard voices and footsteps on the stairs below. Acting quickly, she used the guard’s key to open the service entrance to the roof, then helped Boyd inside just as the police lunged for his foot. Miraculously, Boyd fought them off, using the cylinder to beat on the lead cop’s hand while Maria slammed the door in his face.

  ‘That’s the second time I beat you,’ she teased in Italian. ‘You must be quicker than that if you’re going to catch a woman.’

  The SWAT team replied with several curse words while trying to break down the door.

  ‘Good Lord,’ Boyd said, still gasping for breath. ‘They sound terribly upset.’

  ‘You think they’re mad now? Wait until we escape. They’re going to be furious.’

  Boyd laughed as he watched her climb a twenty-foot ladder that extended to a trapdoor in the ceiling and work on the metal hatch. Psssssssssss. The waterproof seal hissed as it was being opened and was followed by a burst of daylight that temporarily blinded her. But she didn’t mind. She was never happier to see the sun in her entire life.

  ‘Is it safe?’ he yelled from the bottom of the ladder. ‘Is it all right?’

  ‘Just a second.’ She searched the roof for problems and found none. ‘We’re fine.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’ Boyd climbed to the roof at a methodical pace, trying to catch his breath as he did. Several seconds later, he asked, ‘Now what? Are we just going to sit here and wait?’