Sonny reached over, put the SUV in park, and pulled Chris’s arm. “You get in the passenger seat, and I’ll drive.”
For Max, seeing Chris’s reaction to Hannah’s death was like stepping back in time and seeing himself when his father died. Seeing Hannah die was horrible, but seeing Chris was worse, and Max turned away.
There was a wet blob of something on the floorboard, and Max didn’t know if it was hair, or flesh, or bone, or brain, but it didn’t belong there, and he didn’t want Chris to see it, so he picked it up and searched Hannah’s head for an exit wound. He found a small wet spot in the back of her head, and he attempted to stuff it back in.
Cars behind them honked, and people on the street slowed and stared.
Max said a silent prayer: I know You and I haven’t been on the best of terms for a long time. I’m not one to beg, but this is about my brother, and my friends, and I don’t know what else to do. Don’t know if you’re even listening. But if you are and I’ve ever done anything good, please, keep Tommy and them alive. And please, don’t let another of them die. At least not today. We’ve had enough for now.
Chris had switched places with Sonny and sat in the front passenger seat. He spoke quietly and calmly, as if speaking in a direct stream of consciousness: “I’m going to kill Minotaur. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but I’m going to kill him.”
Sonny stomped the accelerator, and their SUV leaped forward. Max resumed guarding their flank. Through the busted rear window, Rome receded in slow motion: mopeds and small cars were parked in front of ristorantes and pizzerias, and customers dined outside. Local landmarks passed through Max’s view like disjointed snapshots: Leonardo da Vinci High School, a farmacia, and Carim Bank.
“I’m going to find us a parking garage where we can hide out for a minute and change vehicles,” Sonny said.
They passed Centro Cavour Hotel, but there were no signs of a parking garage. On the opposite side of the street was a classical-style wall of concrete tagged with modern-day graffiti.
Max worried about his brother, so he radioed: “Tomahawk, you okay?”
No answer.
“Tomahawk, this is Yukon, come in, over.”
“I’m okay,” Tom said. “Trying to navigate these one-way streets. What’s your twenty?”
Max looked around. “To our right is a church with twin domes and an over two hundred foot tall bell tower, each topped with a crucifix. On our left is the Argentinian Embassy.”
“You’re behind the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore,” Tom said.
“We’re traveling northwest on Torino.”
“On my way,” Tom said.
A couple hundred meters later, Sonny made a right and partway up the block he said, “There’s a hotel.” He drove clockwise around it. “The hotel next to it has parking.”
Max whipped around to see the name of the hotel so he could tell Tom. “Tomahawk, go to Starhotels Metropole.”
“Say again,” Tom said.
“Starhotels Metropole. On Principe Amedeo Street.”
There was a long pause. “Got it.”
“Hope there isn’t a valet,” Sonny said.
“Or a parking attendant,” Max said.
Sonny drove into the garage and stopped at a barricade. He took a ticket from a machine. The arm lifted, and he drove in. There were a number of vacant spaces—it was noon, and a lot of people must’ve checked out or were out for lunch. Sonny parked in a dim corner, and they waited.
Five minutes later, Tom rolled up and parked beside them. Max and Sonny stepped out of their vehicle, and Tom exited his.
Tom asked, “Is Hannah...?”
Max frowned and nodded.
Tom shook his head.
“Need you to pop the trunk,” Sonny said.
Tom walked around to the back of his vehicle and opened the trunk.
Chris was the last one out. He half walked, half staggered, over to Hannah.
Max, Tom, and Sonny moved in to assist.
Chris dismissed them: “I’ve got this.”
“We’ve got to help you,” Tom said softly.
“I have it,” Max said.
Chris struggled to look at her. “No.”
Sonny grabbed Hannah’s arm. “She’s a part of us, too. Let us help.”
Chris took the other arm. They pulled her out, and Max and Tom each took a foot. The four of them transferred her from the small Audi SUV to the cargo area of the larger Fiat SUV.
Chris stood there in a daze staring at her while the others grabbed Hannah’s weapon and satchel out of the Audi and put them in the cargo area next to her. Max thought Chris would join them when they hopped inside the Fiat, but Chris just stood there gazing at her.
A pair of bearded men sauntered into the garage wearing black hoodies, T-shirts, and sunglasses, their sleeves pulled up to expose tattoos covering their flesh to the wrists. They headed in Chris’s direction, their sagging pants hindering their forward momentum.
Chris must’ve sensed something because he turned and stared through them as if they were less than nothing. The two thugs sauntered like they were badasses in this neighborhood. Chris turned away from them in slow motion as if he didn’t give them a second thought. Each of Chris’s steps seemed filled with ennui. Without any sense of urgency or pausing to look back, he opened the door and crept into the truck. Gradually, he closed the door until it clicked shut.
Tom eased from the parking spot and rolled out of the garage. The two thugs bared their teeth and glared, as if pissed at being so easily dismissed. Max watched them through the rear window. Smaller and smaller, they shrank into insignificance.
Sitting in the back seat, Max reached forward into Tom’s left shirt pocket and took the packet containing his syringe and needle. “Roll up your sleeve, I’m going to give you your shot.”
“Shouldn’t we send the antidote to CIA and make sure it isn’t going to kill us before we inject it?” Tom asked.
Max looked in the rear cargo area and opened the satchel next to Hannah’s body. He found a pair of green packs that looked like insulated lunch bags. He opened one. Inside were a dozen vials labeled Antidoto, cushioned like eggs in a carton. He hoped antidoto meant what it looked like it meant. He took one of the vials. “Bill Hart is already dead. We wait much longer, and it won’t matter what we inject.”
Tom stopped at a traffic light and rolled up his sleeve. “You take too many risks.”
Max ripped off the packet from the needle and syringe. Then he placed the vial on the seat between his legs and removed the caps from the needle and vial. “Just keep us between the ditches, all right?”
Tom waited for the red light to change. “I don’t want to attend your funeral. Dad’s funeral was more than enough.”
Max inserted the needle through the rubber top of the vial and into the drug and tugged the plunger back until he loaded fifteen milliliters into the barrel of the syringe. “You won’t have to attend my funeral.” He pulled the needle from the vial and thumped the syringe to make sure no air bubbles threw off his dosage. No bubbles.
“Sometimes I wish you would leave this world of black ops,” Tom said.
Max sank the needle into Tom’s shoulder muscle and pushed the plunger, injecting the antidote. “This world is all I know.”
“This world is pain and tragedy. I only wish you could find someone and settle down.”
Max put the cap back on the needle and returned it to Tom’s shirt pocket. “There’s nobody for me.”
The light turned green, and Tom tapped the accelerator. “I only want you to be happy.”
Max produced his own syringe with needle, loaded it from the same vial, and gave himself a shot. “Happiness and misery are best friends.”
From the hotel parking garage, they drove half an hour through Rome. Tom steered onto the A90 Motorway, which circled Rome, but they’d hardly traveled several hundred meters of the circle before they slowed.
“Tommy, you okay?” Max asked.<
br />
Tom said nothing. There were no shoulders on the motorway to speak of, but Tom stopped in what appeared to be an emergency lane, painted with white chevrons and the letters SOS. From Max’s angle in the back seat, he could see that at least one of Tom’s eyes was shut. Max positioned himself to take a better look using the rearview mirror. Both of Tom’s eyes were closed, and blood streamed down from both nostrils.
Tom didn’t respond.
Chris stared at Max, who looked down at the front of his shirt. It was soaked in blood. He felt for bullet holes, but there were none. It had to be the BK-16. Or maybe the so-called antidote was actually poison. Max desperately wanted to say something, but all that came out of his mouth was one word: “Liechtenstein.” The world went black.
WHEN MAX WOKE, SONNY was driving, and Tom was passed out in the front passenger seat. They were still on A90 Motorway, and there seemed to be no end to orbiting Rome, but it was preferable to being dead. Max felt as if he’d drifted out of his own body, but when he tried to return to his body, everything went black again...
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chris touched the artery in Max’s neck—he could hardly feel it. Then he put his cheek near Max’s mouth to feel for breathing.
Sonny continued to drive on the A90. “How’s Max?”
“Pulse is weak and breathing shallow. We need to get him to a hospital ASAP.” Chris moved forward in the SUV and checked Tom’s pulse.
Sonny used his phone to navigate. “I’m exiting to A1 Motorway. We’ll take a straight shot south to the naval hospital in Naples.” The A1 was the spinal cord of Italy, connecting Milan in the north with Naples to the south and everything else in between, including Rome. “How’s Tom?”
“Worse. I can barely feel his pulse or breathing.” Chris returned to his seat.
Sonny switched to the far right lane and passed a barricade tagged with gang graffiti. A green sign ahead read: A1 Napoli. Sonny passed four dark compact cars. A sign showed a red circle with a white circle in the middle and the number forty, the speed limit in kilometers. The needle on the speedometer passed 60.
“I’m going to update Willy,” Chris announced. He typed an encrypted text: we have the package. injected yukon and tomahawk, both in critical condition. en route rome to us naval hospital, naples. eta less than 2 hours. infidel dead. need pickup for package and infidel. Then he sent it.
He looked through the rear window to see if any suspicious vehicles were back there. A white tanker truck with a red diamond on the tank was the only vehicle to their immediate rear, and it dropped farther and farther behind.
Chris’s eyes fell to Hannah, lying in the cargo area. He’d associated death with ugliness, but now he was surprised by how ethereally beautiful she was. She lived a life with few regrets, and it showed in her countenance. Her pink lips radiated like spring, and her perfume of vanilla and orange floated in the air. Her fairness caused his chest to burn and moved him to tears. He’d never known anyone like her, and he expected he’d never know anyone like her again. He silently swallowed his tears, but he choked and betrayed himself with sound.
“I miss her, too,” Sonny said.
His tears continued to flow as he touched her cheek for the last time. It was as smooth as silk. He gently closed her eyes. Rest.
LESS THAN TWO HOURS after they departed Rome, they arrived at the US Naval Hospital in Naples. Chris wiped away his tears.
Hospital corpsmen met them at the emergency entrance with gurneys, and Chris and Sonny helped them put Max and Tom on the gurneys. The corpsmen wheeled the brothers away.
A different pair of corpsmen arrived, and Chris and Sonny assisted them in putting Hannah on a gurney. The corpsmen covered her with a white sheet before they scuttled away with her. Chris and Sonny wandered into the waiting room, where a nurse handed them some paperwork.
Sonny shook his head in disgust. Chris was too numb to react. Sonny filled out the paperwork before returning it.
Chris felt as if the batteries to his cell phone to God had died, and he needed to recharge them. “I’m going to visit the hospital chapel.”
“I’ll call Angelo,” Sonny said.
“Meet you back here.”
“Yeah.”
Chris wandered through the hospital and found the chapel. The place was vacant, and he sat on one of the pews. There were no stained glass windows or crucifixes to remind him of God. It was a neutral room where Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and others could fill it with their faith, but now Chris was the one who needed to be filled, and this place left him empty.
Rain came down, muffling the sounds of the city. Chris remembered when Hannah had come to see him in Dallas. It was clear skies when he took her out on the prairie, and they rode horses into the sunset. On the Fourth of July, they sat in lawn chairs near Addison Airport and watched stunt planes soar into the twilight’s last gleaming. Fireworks glared red and other colors, and their sound burst in the air. They ate hot barbequed brisket and cold watermelon. Colors were more colorful and food more savory and sweet when he was with her.
During another visit, they sped down a hundred and thirty-two-foot long water slide called Tornado at Hurricane Harbor before retreating to his house and kissing in his pool as time stood still. When he visited her in the DC area, they hiked thousands of feet to the top of a peak in the Appalachians and sealed the summit with a kiss. At her house, they ate popcorn and binge-watched The Walking Dead on Netflix—their favorite character was a tie between sheriff’s deputy Rick Grimes with his revolver and redneck Daryl Dixon with his crossbow; the black woman with the samurai sword, Michonne, came in at a close second. They agreed not to watch TWD alone until they could binge-watch together again. In the winter, they listened to live Christmas music while they gazed at the National Christmas Tree and rainbows of lights on conifers on the Ellipse in front of the White House. Another time when he flew out to see her, they went to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and viewed some of the most beautiful art he’d ever seen, but none of it could compare to her.
In one of the slots on the back of a bench was a Bible. He knew that reading it could charge his spiritual batteries, but it seemed a burden to walk over and pick it up, and even if he held it in his hands, he didn’t think he could muster enough desire to read.
He needed to pray, but he couldn’t. Ever since he was a child, he’d felt a special relationship with God, but the loss of Hannah seemed to indicate that that relationship might have changed. Chris wasn’t angry at God—he’d never been so in his life, but he was sad in body, mind, and spirit. It reopened the wound of losing his childhood friend Nikkia, and it reopened the wounds of losing brothers in arms. On top of losing Hannah and the others, now it seemed he’d lost God, too.
Loneliness and fear gripped him. It felt like freefalling without a parachute, spinning aimlessly in black hopelessness. And all he could do was weep.
Chris sat there paralyzed with his grief and tears. He had to do something—anything. He may have fallen out of grace with God, but Reverend Luther was always a good friend and closer to God than any man Chris knew. He was Chris’s mentor—and his inspiration.
Chris rubbed his tears away with his sleeve, took out his cell phone, and made the call. It was afternoon in Naples, but it was early morning in Dallas.
Reverend Luther answered. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Chris? Is everything okay?”
“Not really,” Chris said. “Hannah is dead.”
“Oh no,” Reverend Luther said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Chris felt the tears come again, but he held them back. “I was calling for a couple friends of mine, Max and Tom. They’re in real bad shape, and I was wondering if you’d pray for them.”
“Of course I’ll pray. I’ll pray for you, too.”
“Thank you.”
“Is there anything in particular that you want me to pray for?” Reverend Luther asked.
Chris’s blood r
an cold. “The man responsible for killing Hannah—I want to kill him.”
“Is it your job to kill him?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m going to do it anyway.”
“Would it be possible to capture him alive?” Reverend Luther asked.
“Possible. But not likely.”
“What if he surrenders?”
“No matter what he says, no matter what he does, I’m going to kill him.”
“I’ll pray for you to forgive him,” Reverend Luther said. “When you can forgive him, you’ll be able to focus on your job there—wherever you are. Then you can capture him dead or alive.”
Chris thought for a moment, and he became angry. “I can never forgive him.”
“You can. If you want to continue being a pastor, you must.”
Reverend Luther demanded more of his congregation and Chris than other ministers, but the reverend gave more, too, and he was the gold standard of pastors. Chris had worked hard to live up to Reverend Luther’s standards, but now he wasn’t so sure he could do it anymore. An unseen weight pressed down on him, and he shrank under the burden of it all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tuesday morning at the Russian Embassy, two klicks northeast of the Colosseum, Minotaur and Bear breezed into the office of the Rezident, Russia’s chief spy in Rome. The Rezident, wearing a dark suit and tie, sat behind a large black desk, and in front of him sat a younger, thinner FSB officer wearing a dark suit, too. The Rezident stopped speaking, and the two looked at Minotaur.
“You can’t come in here like this,” the Rezident said.
Minotaur proceeded to the desk and stopped in front of it, standing beside the young officer. “I just did.”
“Who do you think you are?” Rezident asked.
“I’m Minotaur. The Center sent me.”
“I know that,” the Rezident said. “You could have at least knocked.”
Minotaur knocked on the desk and mustered a smile. “I need four to five pellets of ricin and a compressed air gun disguised as a camera.” Minotaur didn’t bother to explain to this self-important fool that two of the pellets were for testing the accuracy of the camera gun. The other two to three would be for the actual hit on the pope. He would act as if he were taking a picture when he shot the pope. The camera gun was no louder than a BB gun, and the sound of the crowd would drown out the noise of the shot. The pope would feel as if he’d been stung by a bee, but he and his security detail shouldn’t suspect anything more serious than that.
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