Jon Tracy - The Rome Prophecy

‘Move back!’

The voice is loud and surprisingly close.

Valentina’s as frightened as she’s ever been.

But she doesn’t move.

Shooter grins through the bars as he puts a key in the lock. ‘I told you to move back. Looks like I’m going to have to teach you a lesson in obedience.’

All five corners of the pentagram are marked by what look like small slits filled with earth.

But they’re more than that.

They’re locks.

Only by working anticlockwise and putting alternate angles of the triangular pendant into the slits is Guilio able to flip off the fastenings that are holding the cover down.

He stands up, breathless. ‘This is one of the secret entrances, an emergency way into the womb. Once inside, you will need to follow me and do exactly as I tell you.’ He looks at the American to check he has no problems with what he’s just said.

Tom uncaps the bottle of oxycodone. ‘I understand. I’m on your coat tails.’ He takes several swigs of the medicine. He knows he’s going to need all the painkiller he can get for what’s about to happen.

‘Good. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s going to be dangerous in there. There are several tunnels that will take us through to where the sisterhood lives. Not all of them are safe.’

Tom screws the cap back on the bottle and slips off his coat. ‘Subsidence, you mean?’

‘That’s a risk, but it’s not what I meant. Some are deliberately unsafe. They have been designed to protect those in the womb and kill intruders.’

‘But you know your way, right?’

‘I think so.’

‘You think so?’

Guilio manages a grim smile. ‘Just as there was a sequence to follow to unlock that hatch, there are sequences when we get inside. If I get one of those wrong, then we’re in trouble.’

Tom unbuttons his shirt and struggles with the sling.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I have to get out of this. I’m no good to you or myself with only one hand free.’

Guilio knows he has a point. Better to hurt a cracked shoulder bone than to die trying to protect it.

He helps with the bandage. ‘How does it feel?’

Tom stretches his fingers. ‘Pins and needles from having it elevated, but I’ll be fine.’

Guilio doubts it. One whack on the cracked bone and the guy is in a world of pain. He crouches and dips into the rucksack. ‘Torches.’ He passes over a black rubber flashlight and jams one in his own belt. ‘And weapons.’ He smiles as he holds out a fistful of household tools.

Tom examines them one by one. A ball-peen hammer, a pointed seed dibber and a razor-sharp carpet fitter’s knife. He feels sick. Using any of these things will be an awful experience. To be effective, he’ll have to maim or kill an opponent.

Guilio reads his face. ‘Second thoughts?’

‘No, but I hope I don’t have to use any of these.’

‘You will.’ He leaves the bag for a second and stands up to face the big American. ‘You have to be ready to use all of them. Once we’re in there, they’ll be on us like rats on cheese. Hesitate, and they’ll kill you.’

He doesn’t wait for Tom’s reaction; he returns to the rucksack and pulls out his final purchases. ‘These two are on hire. I hope we live to return them.’

He hands over a strange orange contraption. ‘It’s a nail gun, fully charged, with a spare battery and a magazine of long ring shank nails.’ He points it at Tom’s head. ‘It’s no pistol. You’ll need to get up close, but if you do, it’ll be every bit as deadly as a bullet.’

Tom checks for the on-off switch and fires it up. Indicator lights flash and it trembles for a second in his hand.

‘The man in the shop said it’ll spit out three nails a second.’

Tom squeezes the trigger. It jolts in his hand, but nothing seems to happen.

An inch from his right foot, he sees the glistening top of a galvanised steel nail, sunk deep into the turf.

It raises a smile from Guilio. ‘Impressive, eh?’

Tom turns it off to save the battery. There’s no smile on his face. Just focus. The kind he used to reserve for the worship of God.

He turns the nail gun over in his hands.

He’s aware now of what it does and what he’ll have to do with it.

‘Let’s go,’ he says flatly. ‘I’ll never be more ready than I am right now.’

Major Lorenzo Silvestri stares at the clock on his office wall.

He wishes he had the power to stop it.

He’d give anything to be able to halt those hands and gain himself an extra twelve hours.

As one of the most experienced members of GIS, he knows he has to strike quickly. Unfortunately, speed and careful planning are not easy bedfellows.

If he rushes things, then whoever has Morassi will certainly kill her, and maybe other hostages as well.

But if he takes too long planning the search and rescue operation, then the kidnappers will cover their tracks and he may never find them.

‘Anything on Shaman’s phone?’ he asks Pasquale Conti.

The captain’s face answers before he does. ‘We had tech problems. We got a GPS lock and then lost it.’

‘What?’

‘I know. I could kill them too. They’re working on it.’

‘You got one location, right?’

‘Right. The phone company is playing ball and we managed to get a fix on where he called us from.’

‘Which was?’

‘He was near Parco di Porta, heading towards Via Appia Antica.’

Lorenzo drums his fingers on the desk. ‘How do you know he was heading that way?’

‘He turned his phone back on and we got a second brief fix on that, then it went dead again.’

‘Interesting. Who did he call after us?’

‘Morassi. The call lasted less than ten seconds.’

‘Sounds like she didn’t pick up.’

Lorenzo slides a sheet of paper across the desk. ‘The captain’s profile, from our intel unit. She’s a hotshot. A real high-flyer. Golden girl in Venice. That’s where she met this Shaman guy; they worked a murder case together.’

Pasquale taps Valentina’s photo. ‘You’re right about the hot bit. Man, she’s very, very hot!’

‘Enough!’ Lorenzo grins and slides over the brief on Tom. ‘Check out the boyfriend. The pic is from his visits to HQ.’

‘Not my type.’

‘Be serious. I called an old friend in Venice, Vito Carvalho. He used to be Morassi’s boss and briefly worked with Shaman. Turns out the guy used to be a priest in LA, until he stepped into a gang fight one night.’

‘What happened?’

‘Three on one.’ Lorenzo takes a beat. ‘The hoods were raping a young girl and had knives. Shaman beat the living daylights out of them. Left two dead and I think the third is still running.’

‘The original Good Samaritan.’

‘That’s not quite what Vito christened him.’

Pasquale’s intrigued. ‘Which was?’

‘Arcangelo Uriel.’

Pasquale is none the wiser. ‘Uriel?’

‘Heathen.’ Lorenzo shakes his head in mock disbelief and crosses himself. ‘If you were a good Catholic, you would know that Uriel means “Fire of God”. When the Almighty wants the dirty stuff doing, Uriel is the halo he hollers for. From slaying demons to burying Adam in Paradise, Uriel has always been the guy for tough jobs.’

Pasquale looks again at Tom’s ID picture. ‘And now he’s here in Rome, playing angels and demons. Lucky us.’

The drop from the field to the first level of the underground tunnel is enough to remind Tom that his knee is still swollen and unstable.

To make matters worse, it’s so cramped down there that he has to crawl along on a stony surface.