Jon Tracy - The Rome Prophecy

Trench Coat ignores her and glances around.

‘ Please don’t hurt me, I’ve done nothing wrong.’

The gun stays pressed into her left hip. ‘Keep your voice down! What kind of car is it and where did you park?’

Valentina stares at the ground as though she’s too frightened to look at him. ‘Fiat. It’s a blue Punto. It’s not far… er… just outside in the piazza, right opposite here.’ She keeps her eyes fixed on the floor. Two sets of male feet stop just off to the right of her.

‘Go get her,’ says Trench Coat. ‘Be quick!’

The feet disappear.

Valentina feels another push in her side.

‘We’re going inside the church to wait for a little while.’ He slides his body across hers so he’s face to face with her. ‘I’d hate you to get all cold and wet.’

She feels his hand move inside her jacket, slide beneath her jumper and grab her by the waist.

His touch revolts her.

She has to fight an impulse to drive her right knee so far into his testicles they’ll come out of his mouth.

Being closer allows him to pull the gun out of his right pocket and hold it flat against Valentina’s abdomen, barrel digging into her diaphragm.

He puts his face close to hers. From a distance they could be mistaken for lovers about to kiss. ‘My little friend here is itching to get inside you,’ he whispers in her ear as he moves the cold tip of the barrel against her warm skin. ‘I don’t blame him. It must be really nice inside you.’

Valentina takes a deep breath.

He mistakes it for fear. ‘Don’t be scared. If you do exactly as I tell you, then in less than twenty minutes all this will just be an awful memory.’

It’s not the first time Tom Shaman has looked down the barrel of a gun.

A gangbanger once pulled an Uzi in his church in LA and robbed the entire congregation. The kid was high on crystal meth and ended up getting shot on the church steps by a gang senior who’d come to pick his mother up from the service and found her screaming and terrified.

Tom learned two basic things from all those badasses back in Compton. Firstly, there are frequent shooters, guys who only draw guns when they’re going to fire them. Secondly, there are bluffers, posers who pull a weapon but have never let off a shot in their sorry little lives.

Tom figures the man behind the metal being pointed at him is not a frequent shooter. He’s a bluffer.

But of course, that’s only a guess.

A dangerous guess.

‘Whoa, mister!’ He throws up his hands. ‘I don’t want any trouble. I just needed some help.’ The big American backs away, hands high in the air. ‘Man, no one told me Rome was like this.’ He doesn’t leave the way he came, but heads down the vehicle towards the back.

He knows the guy’s watching in his wing mirror but figures that doesn’t matter. He’d have to be a contortionist to shoot over his left shoulder with the gun in his right hand.

Tom’s about to make his move and he knows he has to be fast.

He is.

He jerks the door open with his left hand, steps forward half a pace and cracks his elbow into the driver’s face. He reaches across him, grabs his gun hand and crashes it repeatedly into the steering wheel.

The screams tell him he’s broken the guy’s wrist.

The man in the back of the car makes his move.

He lurches forward and tries to swing a punch.

Tom grabs the fallen pistol off the driver’s lap and fires a shot into the roof of the car.

Gunfire has a special way of spooking people. Especially in closed spaces.

Louisa flings open a rear door and bolts for freedom.

Her minder slips out of the car and levels a pistol at Tom.

The two men stare down their guns at each other.

Off in the distance, Tom sees Louisa running for her life.

Valentina is under no illusion that being inside a church means she’s safe.

If her last case in Venice taught her anything, it’s that churches aren’t at all sacred when it comes to criminals and killers.

The guy in the black trench coat forces her into a pew and sits tight alongside her. ‘Kneel and pray. Don’t do anything stupid.’

Valentina does as she’s told.

She intertwines her fingers, bows her head and looks as reflective as any of the devout visitors around her.

Her mind is certainly on different things, though.

By now, it’s going to be obvious that there’s no Punto parked near the piazza and no Anna sitting patiently in it. And Tom will have discovered whether or not Louisa and her captors are in a car just around the corner.

For a second Valentina does what everyone else around her is doing: she prays. Prays that Tom is all right and that Louisa is still alive.

It’s the first time she’s been on her knees in church since her cousin died.

The phone in Trench Coat’s pocket rings.

He catches it quickly.

Valentina knows that in doing so, he’s taken his hand off the gun.

It’s her cue to stop trusting in the good Lord and do what she’s been trained to do.

She cups her hand behind Trench Coat’s head and smashes his face into the edge of the wooden pew.

All eyes are now on Valentina.

She glances at the body slumped at her feet, shuffles forward and puts her foot across his neck. If he moves she’ll feel it.

‘I’m a police officer,’ she shouts down the aisle. ‘Please leave the church, immediately.’

No one moves.

Valentina stoops, fishes in the guy’s coat pocket and recovers his gun. It’s an old Glock with a Crimson Trace laser grip.

She holds it up high. ‘I said, I am a police officer. Now get out of here before someone gets shot!’

The church empties in a deafening rush for the doors.

Valentina ignores the last of the stragglers.

There’s blood all over the back of the pew, and for the first time she’s wondering whether the guy on the floor is just unconscious, or dead.

A woman passing by screams hysterically.

The man who’s just levelled a gun at Tom’s head glances to his left.

It’s all the American needs.

He plants a drop kick deep into the guy’s guts and follows with a hard right-hander into his mouth.

Amazingly, the guy’s still upright. And still holding the weapon.

Tom throws a left, then twin punches with his right.

Now he goes down.

Hits the floor like a TV dropped from the top of a tower block. The gun clatters from his open hand.

The four-by-four’s engine roars into life.

Seems the driver’s got his act together.

Tom spins round.

That’s his first mistake.

He clutches at the now closed driver’s door, but it won’t open. The central locking’s on.

He pulls again at the handle as the Land Rover lurches up on to the pavement.

That’s his second mistake.

He hasn’t noticed a man climb out of a similar vehicle parked a few metres away.

An agonising pain erupts in Tom’s right shoulder.

It’s followed by another behind his left knee. The combination of blows sends him sprawling into the road.

Instinctively, he rolls.

He learned at school that if you stay still in a street fight, then you’re as good as asking for a beating.

Now he sees the cause of the pain.

A baseball bat slaps into the brown water beside his head.

Tom grabs the club but feels a terrible burning in his right shoulder. Something’s busted.

He can’t hold on.

The wood slips from his fingers.

The guy takes a swing and slaps Tom on the side of his ribs.

Tom tries to roll again.

The bat man takes a stride to his left, raises the club and starts a swing that he’s sure will pop Tom’s head like a water-melon.