Dressed in Renaissance uniforms of Medici blue, red, and yellow, the Pontifical Swiss Guard, Vatican City’s military, spread out at regular intervals around the barricaded-in crowd. The Guard’s duty was to protect the pope and the Apostolic Palace. Adding extra security were the Vatican City Police. Chris knew the square was likely swarming with plainclothes officers, too.
Pope Francis rolled into the square on his Popemobile, a white Ford Focus with the windows rolled down. Twenty Swiss Guards dressed in modern black suits jogged alongside or rode with him, similar to the way the US Secret Service accompanied the presidential limousine. People waved, cheered, and called out “Viva il Papa!” Pope Francis smiled and waved back at them. A rainbow of flags from different countries rippled in a breeze, and thousands of tourists and pilgrims snapped photos with their smartphones and cameras. The flashes sparkled like stars in the sky.
The Popemobile stopped near Chris’s section, and one of the bodyguards brought the pope a baby from the crowd. He kissed it, and the bodyguard returned the child to its mother. A woman cried out hysterically, and the Popemobile moved on. Soon it stopped again. Pope Francis signed a young boy’s handmade poster and greeted a pair of Buddhist monks before kissing more babies.
The air electrified. Angelo had told Chris earlier: “People came to hear Pope Benedict; now they come to touch Francis.”
Chris couldn’t fully experience the joy in the air, but it softened his heart, and he was suddenly surprised to find his feelings of hatred and anger mellowing. He hadn’t realized how the emotions had darkened him—until now, when sunlight touched his soul. He couldn’t forgive Minotaur, but in a slice of time, his thirst for revenge left him. He knew right then that he wanted to stay a minister of the Lord.
Even so, his focus snapped back to his surroundings. He wanted to finish his job as a covert operator. If anyone could walk a tightrope between being a minister and an operator, Chris knew it was him. Dead or alive: that was his mission.
A children’s choir sang, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see...” Chris thought of it as a Protestant hymn, and he was surprised to hear it here in Saint Peter’s Square. The music warmed him and made him feel at home. It was as if God had sent him a text message: I love you. The burden on Chris’s shoulders lifted.
The pope rode around another section. Men, women and children stood on seats to see him, blocking Chris’s direct line of sight.
Sonny clenched Chris’s shoulder and pointed. “There.”
The jumbotron showed a live video of the pope, who’d stopped near a group where a gray-haired man in a gray suit stood taking pictures with his smartphone. It was the man in the photos Willy had sent—Minotaur. Beside him was an Italian who looked like a young Al Pacino—one of the men from the shootout that killed Hannah. Chris wanted to bag and drag them, but they were twenty meters away—in another section. The Swiss Guards and Vatican Police between Minotaur’s section and Chris’s didn’t seem like they’d let people jump sections.
Chris tried to come up with a plausible ruse. He could tell the Swiss Guard that his and Sonny’s wives were in the other section and they wanted to join them, but it was a lame excuse, and he struggled to think of a better one.
Because most of the visitors in Saint Peter’s Square stood on their seats or abandoned them to get close to the barricades, it gave Chris space to maneuver within his own section. “Let’s go.”
Chris and Sonny swam through the crowd in the direction of Minotaur. He must’ve sensed them because he turned around and locked eyes with Chris. “I’ve got you,” Chris thought. Minotaur seemed surprised that he’d been made. Then his surprise turned to contempt. The Russian melted in the opposite direction, and Al Pacino went with him.
Chris advanced to the barricades at the end of his section, but he couldn’t cross them without drawing the unwanted attention of security. Minotaur and Pacino continued to move to the edge of their own section, increasing the gap between them and Chris and Sonny. Chris leaned over the barricade and told a tall Swiss Guard, “I saw a man with a gun.”
“What?” the Guard asked in English.
“We saw a man with a gun,” Sonny said.
A woman overheard them and gasped.
“Where?” the Guard asked.
Max and Sonny pointed in Minotaur’s direction. “In the front left section facing the basilica.”
The gasping woman chattered something in Italian to the man next to her and pointed in the same direction. Others craned their heads toward Minotaur and Pacino.
A nearby Vatican cop gestured at the Guard, What?
Tall Guard rapidly chattered something in Italian into his mic, then turned to Chris and Sonny and said, “Take me.”
Minotaur and Pacino slipped through the crowd, away from the basilica.
Chris and Sonny bounded over the barricade, crossed over the path where the Popemobile had ridden earlier, and led Tall Guard over the next barricades and into Minotaur and Pacino’s section. Police stirred in the vicinity, possibly in response to Tall Guard’s radio transmission.
Gunshots and screams rang out from the back of the square, where Max and Tom were positioned.
Chris glanced at a jumbotron, which cut away from the Popemobile and the Pope’s security detail hauling booty out of the square.
Tall Guard split off in the direction of the sound of gunshots, but Chris shoved through the crowd toward Minotaur and Pacino, who now abandoned all attempts at stealth and hopped over the barriers of their section.
A Vatican police officer and Swiss Guard shouted at them, but Minotaur and Pacino were too speedy. Then a curly-haired man balancing a child in each arm and a woman carrying a baby climbed over the barricades; they were soon followed by a throng of panicked people. The floodgates had opened. Vatican police and Swiss Guards shouted orders and pushed back, but they were overwhelmed. The anxious chatter of frightened civilians rose to a roar and barricades toppled. More Vatican cops and Swiss Guards rushed to stop them, but the dam had broken, and there was no putting the water back in.
Chris lost sight of Minotaur and Pacino in the masses. He thought that if he pressed farther he’d spot them, but the density of the crowd was restricting his movement. He climbed up on the reservoir rim of a fountain for a greater view.
A Vatican City policeman chased Minotaur and Pacino through the south colonnade.
Chris hopped off the fountain, plowed through a group of men, and landed two columns deep in the colonnade. The Vatican City policeman reached the end of his jurisdiction, the border between Vatican City and Rome, and paused. Chris and Sonny raced past him and into Rome.
“Arresto!” the Vatican police officer called out from behind.
Chris and Sonny chased Minotaur and Pacino across the street and up a steep flight of steps between two buildings. Near the top of the stairs, Chris’s thighs burned, but he kept pumping. He cleared the top and rushed through an iron gate. Have I lost them? He turned a corner and spotted the doors to an old ornate church. Maybe that’s them. With Sonny breathing hard next to him, he sprinted up more steps, threw open the doors, and burst inside.
The doors of the church closed, but instead of the hushed, muffled reverence he’d normally expect, there was a disturbance, like ripples on a quiet pond. I’m on the right trail. Paintings of religious figures adorned the small, narrow chapel, and an elderly Caucasian couple sat on a pew leaning away from the center aisle. A priest called out to Minotaur and Pacino in a mixture of Italian and Dutch, but the two escaped through the back.
Chris and Sonny kept the heat on and blew out the back door of the church and ran across a shadowy walkway. One story below them was an aged sidewalk, and one story above and to the right stood a row of trees. To the left were the backs of a row of two-story buildings. Chris ran as hard as he could. They didn’t seem to be gaining on Minotaur and Pacino, but he wasn’t about to give up.
H
e pursued them up an incline. His leg muscles tightened, and he formed his lips into a circle and shot big breaths of oxygen straight to his lungs to get more air. Sonny was right with him.
Minotaur and Pacino stopped in front of a wall.
To their right, someone called out “Policia!” and some other words in Italian.
Pacino vaulted over the wall, but Minotaur was slower to clear the obstacle.
A policeman came into view and bounded over the wall after the fugitives.
Not knowing what they were all jumping into, Chris hesitated, but Sonny kept his pace and beat him over the wall.
Chris took a deep breath and vaulted, but when he saw what was on the other side, he grasped the top of the wall and held on. It was a two-story drop!
Pacino was off kilter as he staggered to his feet on the sidewalk below.
Minotaur must’ve landed like a cat, because he dashed away without signs of injury.
The police officer lay on his stomach with part of a broken femur busting through the back leg of his trousers. “Aieee!”
Sonny had landed one story below on a ledge before losing his perch and falling down another story. He landed on Pacino, pressing the man to the ground under him. Both men went limp.
Chris lost his grip and dropped, but he landed on the ledge a story below. Then he fell again. He righted himself in flight, and when he hit ground, his legs buckled and he tumbled. He bruised his hip and dirtied his shirt and trousers, but he was okay. He eyed the police officer’s Beretta Model 92 FS pistol. Chris rushed over to him and took it. “Grazie.”
The policeman shouted something at him.
Chris locked and loaded a round in the chamber and concealed the barrel of the Beretta in his pocket. The handle stuck out, but he gripped it with his hand, concealing much of it.
From the heap on the ground, Sonny recovered first and zip-tied Pacino’s hands behind his back.
“I got this sonofabitch!” Sonny shouted. “You get the other one!” His words motivated Chris to charge harder.
Minotaur sprinted through traffic and over a bridge. Below the bridge flowed the shallow, yellowish water of the Tiber River.
Chris burned in hot pursuit.
Police sirens pierced the air, converging on Vatican City. As Chris reached the bridge, a flashing siren on a squad car approached. Both Chris and Minotaur stopped running and walked, camouflaging themselves with the civilians. Chris realized he was holding his breath, so he breathed deep and long. The police car sped by.
Minotaur resumed flight. He passed high-rises and crossed a street before he ducked into the back of a building. Chris rushed into the building, too, and discovered a bohemian boutique with a handsome young shopkeeper and no customers. The front door swung shut, but Minotaur wasn’t in sight. The shopkeeper greeted Chris, but he sped past the man and burst out the front door.
Minotaur turned a corner.
Chris pursued him several blocks before losing him at an intersection. He could’ve escaped via any combination of side streets and buildings, and Chris had no idea where he was.
A painter sat on a folding chair on the sidewalk and texted on his smartphone. Beside him were displayed a collection of paintings. Behind him was the buff façade of a 1930s apartment building. On it read a plaque: PIAZZA DI TOR SANGUIGNA.
Chris made a gesture of running and asked the painter, “Where is he?”
The painter froze.
Chris worried that the painter might’ve noticed the pistol handle sticking out of his pocket, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He pulled out a handful of euros and held them out. “Where is he?” Chris made a running gesture.
The artist pointed to an arcade in the apartment building. “Lá.”
Chris pointed to the same spot to confirm. “There?”
“Si.”
Chris gave him the money.
The artist smiled.
Chris inspected the arcade. Inside, twenty feet below, was a subterranean level on which stood a massive ancient arch that opened up to a stadium. The top of the arch was at eye level.
“Circus Agonalis,” the artist said.
Circus Maximus was the Colosseum, so Chris guessed that Circus Agonalis was the name of this smaller stadium. The Colosseum could seat around sixty-five thousand spectators, but this stadium looked like it only held about twenty thousand. Even so, the arena of this stadium was the length of two or more football fields.
Chris squinted to see Minotaur below, but the area was vast and had plenteous shadows. He had to get to Minotaur before the Russian found an exit. Chris climbed over the railing and did a dead hang to shave off some of the twenty-foot drop before he fell the remaining fourteen feet.
He bent his knees a little and tucked in his elbows and chin, preparing to do a parachute landing fall. His feet hit the hard ground, and he buckled. Immediately he rolled sideways on the balls of his feet. Distributing the impact so he wouldn’t break his legs, he struck the side of his calf first, thigh next, hip, and finally the side of his back. His hip stung from where he’d bumped it before.
Chris was staggering to his feet when a shadow lunged at him. He attempted to roll out of the shadow’s line of attack, but it caught him in the nose with a mighty crack. Both Chris and the shadow landed on the ground. They rose to their feet, but Chris had a pistol in his hand now. Drawing and aiming it was an automatic response that he didn’t have to think about. Now Minotaur was in his sights.
Minotaur raised his hands in surrender and breathed hard. Even so, he managed a smile and puffed up his chest proudly. His eyes locked on Chris’s, and his tone was arrogant. “In this cosmic lie we call the universe, we create our own values, and then we meet the monster.”
Blood oozed from Chris’s nose. “Death is no monster, and the righteous need not fear it. But you should be afraid. You should be very afraid.”
“Mmm, but I’m not. If you were going to shoot me, you would’ve already done so.”
Chris paused. Then he lowered his weapon.
Minotaur’s smile broadened. “You Westerners are naïve. You like to play fair. If I were armed and threatening you, you could kill me, but you can’t shoot me like this, an unarmed man. You will capture me. Then my people will make a deal. And I’ll be back.”
A serenity filled Chris. The anger was gone. And so was the pain. The loneliness didn’t sting as much, and in its place, he had hope for a brighter tomorrow. “I just have one question.”
“What is that?” Minotaur asked.
Chris studied the man for what seemed like a full minute. “Have you ever seen a cherry blossom?”
The smile on Minotaur’s lips twisted like a pair of question marks. “No—why?”
Chris pointed the Beretta and squeezed the trigger. Bang! A scarlet hole dotted Minotaur between his gray eyes, and chunks of gray brain matter and white skull flew out the back in a mist of blood. His body collapsed under its own weight and landed in a pile on the dirt of the ancient grounds. Chris was the lone spectator in the dimly lit stadium to view Minotaur’s finale.
Epilogue
A week later...
Max bowed his head as he sat in his wheelchair on the lawn of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. He looked up. “My last memory was Tom saying, ‘I can’t make it three hundred meters.’”
Sonny stood in front of him. “The Italian police said that Minotaur and his men attempted to assassinate Pope Francis, but they don’t know Minotaur’s name or who he’s working for. And the police are searching for us. They don’t know who we are or who we work for, either.” Sonny proudly added, “Some in the Italian media are calling us angels. Langley says that the Italian police investigation is simply for show.”
“Is the pope okay?” Max asked.
“Yes. He voiced his appreciation for his security and the law enforcement officers, especially the young carabinieri who sacrificed his life.” Sonny’s arms hung down over his crutches. “Sorry I wasn’t there to help you an
d your brother.”
Max held out his hand as if to stop Sonny from saying any more. “Don’t. We got Minotaur. That was our mission.”
The warmth of the sunshine felt good, and Max lifted his face to it. A gentle breeze soothed his skin.
Willy exited the hospital building. He pushed a wheelchair. He stopped on the lawn next to Max and Sonny.
Tom sat in the wheelchair. “Where’s Chris?” he asked.
“He was here for a day and a half,” Sonny said. “Probably got tired of watching you two numb nuts lying around in comas. The pair of you would still be in Rome if Chris and I hadn’t broken you out of that civilian hospital.”
Willy cleared his throat. “And out of the country. I might’ve had something to do with that.”
“The only reason I’m still here is on account of getting to know little Nurse Müller,” Sonny said.
“Thanks,” Tom said. “I think we make a great team.”
Sonny saluted with his middle finger.
Max and Tom returned the salute.
The salutes were a manly way of expressing intense affection and true friendship.
“This is a topnotch crew,” Willy said.
“We’d be even better with Hannah,” Max said.
The others nodded in agreement.
“You think Chris will be back?” Tom asked. “Seems like he only did this job for her.”
“He was true to her in life, and he’ll be true to her in death,” Sonny said. “She’d want us to carry on with this work—even if it means carrying on without her.”
Max looked Sonny in the eyes, then Tom. “We will.”
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