Havoc (14 page)

CHAPTER 37

Brian McFarland, Vidulum’s Chief of Security, looked up from his computer at the sound of his ringing cellphone. He wasted no time picking it up.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” said the caller, McFarland’s boyhood friend who now lived in Seattle.

“Hey, George,” said McFarland, careful to use his friend’s professional moniker. “What’s new?”

“I made some progress. I thought you might want to know.”

“Damn straight I want to know. What have you learned?”

“Duncan Wells sold a set of the files to a rep from a Chinese company—”

“We knew that,” interrupted McFarland.

“Let me finish. Wells only sold a
partial
set of the files. The Chinese guy don’t have all the files—not yet.”

“Thank God!”

“But here’s the kicker,” continued George. “It looks like Wells wasn’t the only one of your employees lookin’ to sell the Silverstar files.”

“Seriously? There are others?”

“Yeah. One of your guys is tryin’ to cut a new deal with the Chinese, now that Wells is dead. He replied to a message from the Chinaman, agreeing to meet on Friday—two days from now.”

“Dammit! As if I didn’t have enough troubles,” said McFarland. “What can we do to stop it?”

“That was gonna be my next question. You want me to…uh…do what I do best, right? To take care of this problem, I mean.”

“Absolutely. We can’t let the rest of the files fall into the hands of our competitors, or I’m out of a job. In fact, everyone at Vidulum would be out of a job.”

“Okay. I’ll take care of the problem,” said George. “Don’t you worry.”

“I don’t know how to thank you—”

“You don’t have to. Like you said back in Fabrizio’s Café, this is for old time’s sake. But listen—I ain’t doing this again. I don’t think I’d look too good in prison orange.”

CHAPTER 38

In the morning, Alton and Mallory once again arose early in preparation for their day’s activities.

“So, where are we going on today’s tour?” asked Mallory as they ate breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant.

“Boboli Gardens,” replied Alton. “It’s this ornate area with statues and fountains—stuff like that. It was constructed by the Medici family in the sixteenth century.”

Mallory looked a little skeptical.

“In the pictures, it looked quite tranquil,” said Alton. “And it seemed like a romantic place to take a stroll.”

“Well, okay. That sounds nice. After all the excitement on this trip, a little romantic tranquility would be a good thing.”

“Yeah—really. It’s been pretty quiet since we came here, though. I guess Rossi’s misdirection worked. Either that, or Gino Piazza’s Mafia thugs never came looking for us after the Pompeii shootout.”

“Fine with me either way,” said Mallory. “I’d like to actually have a vacation on my vacation. Some of the days here have felt like I was back on the job.”

At a seedy hostel twenty kilometers outside Florence, Zane Crowe enjoyed his own breakfast. After wiping the remnants of cannoli from his lips, he flicked open and snapped shut a retractable baton several times, ensuring it would deploy when needed. He closed the weapon and tossed it on the bed.

The baton suited Crowe more than the handgun his employer had insisted he employ for the Wells’ murder. The baton made virtually no noise when used, left no bullets or other evidence behind, and could be hidden within moments---three essential ingredients for making a quick exit and avoiding capture once a job was complete.  Even without those advantages, though, Crowe still favored the baton over handguns. What was the fun in finishing a job all at once? Anyone could pull a trigger, but a slow, silent death—that was something a professional could be proud of.

Crowe checked his phone to confirm the details of Alton and Mallory’s Boboli-Gardens tour. The guided portion would begin at noon, affording him plenty of time to set his plan in motion.

The assassin dressed the part of a tourist, slipping on plaid shorts, a dark polo shirt, and sunglasses. He pocketed his phone and slid the baton into the rear waistband of his shorts, untucking his shirt to ensure the baton would remain concealed.

After exiting his room, Crowe climbed into his rented Fiat. He revved the engine and sent a spray of gravel in the air as he accelerated out of the hotel’s cramped lot. The former soldier blasted
Higher
on the radio and tapped the steering wheel in time with the music as he raced down the local highway.

“Next stop: Boboli Gardens.”

Alton pulled into a paved lot outside the historic gardens and opened Mallory’s door. The grounds lay enclosed within a three-story-high wall inlaid with entryways and sculptures. Spotting their tour guide, the couple waited with her outside the main entrance, a massive wooden door set into an enormous stone arch.

Just after the noon hour, the guide gathered the tourists around her. “My name is Gina. I’m gonna be your tour guide today. I have headphones and a battery pack for each of you. When you put these on, you can hear what I’m saying, even if you’re not too close.”

After distributing the equipment, Gina ushered the group through the entrance and into the first courtyard. She led the tourists on a path to the right, explaining the architecture and history of the expansive gardens as she walked. After passing the initial courtyard, they traveled down a stone path nestled between two strips of lawn and bordered by waist-high stone walls. About eighty yards down the path, a circular fountain bisected the trail.

“So what do you think of it so far?” asked Alton.

“I like it—more than I thought I would, to be honest,” replied Mallory.

“You know, if you wore a period costume, you’d fit right in. With your dark hair, you could pass for an Italian.”

“Only until I start talking. No one would mistake
y’all
for a European language.”

Alton smiled. “Tell them you’re from
Southern
Italy—Sicily, perhaps?”

“How do you say ‘very funny’ in Italian?”

Gina fixed the talkative couple with a sour gaze, and they fell into silence. Once she turned around, the two lovers leaned into each other, snickering.

“Busted,” said Alton. “You’ll have to stay after school for a paddling.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Hmm…” Alton walked a few steps in silence. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t seem to focus on Gina anymore.”

From a lush knoll overlooking the path, Zane Crowe watched the tour group come into view. He opened the picture gallery on his phone and brought up the photos of Blackwell and Wilson. After studying their pictures for a moment, he scanned the faces clustered around the tour guide.

There…at the back. That had to be them. As his intel had indicated, the IT geek was disabled. He had the kind of face girls seemed to like, but he walked with a distinct limp. What was a wanker like that doing with a looker like Mallory Wilson? But no matter—before long, they’d have more in common with lawn fertilizer than with each other.

Crowe had already performed reconnaissance throughout the gardens and had picked out four optimal spots from which to stage his attack. Now to hope the lovebirds passed by one of those spots after the guided portion of the tour ended. In the meantime, he would distance himself from the tour group.

After the initial hour, Gina turned to the group. “I hope you had a good time. I know the tour you booked says you have another two hours, but you can stay until the gardens closes if you want to. They say two hours so you can know how long you might be here, in case you have other tours.” She bid the group farewell and departed.

“Since we have the rest of the day,” said Alton, “do you want to grab some lunch before we set out?”

“Yeah—I’m getting kind of hungry.”

After enjoying deli sandwiches at a centrally-located restaurant, the couple traveled deeper into the grounds. They passed through knee-high hedges pruned in the fashion of a maze, then turned onto a trail lined with paver stones. Over the trail, the sprawling branches of ancient trees formed a living tunnel. As they made their way down the path, the last of the other tourists fell away, leaving them in peaceful solitude.

When they reached the end of the tunnel, Alton swiveled his gaze. “Have you noticed a bathroom around here?”

“There was one at the entrance to this path. I don’t see another one in this direction, though.”

Alton unfolded the map Gina had distributed at the beginning of the tour. “It looks like the one at the entrance to this tunnel was the last one. I’d better go hit it before we go any further. I’m pretty sure the groundskeepers wouldn’t like me using the citrus plants as my private urinal.”

“Ha! Well, I’ll wait for you at that tall building.”

Alton glanced at his map again. “The ‘Grotto of Buontalenti,’ it says. Okay, I’ll meet you there in a minute.”

Mallory sauntered down to the stone building’s enormous entryway. Two classic Greek columns and a pair of sculptures graced the entrance to the isolated spot.

As she entered the grotto, Mallory noticed a tourist on his hands and knees, gasping.

“Are you okay?” she shouted as she bounded towards the man.

“My inhaler,” wheezed the man. “Help me find my inhaler!”

Mallory approached and began scanning the ground for the man’s medical device, casting her gaze to all corners of the room. She never saw the man rise. He caught her squarely in the solar plexus with a black baton, sending her crashing to the path in silent agony as she gasped for breath.

“This is my favorite part—outwitting the target,” said the man, a Brit, judging from his accent. “I’m gonna miss this when I retire. Course, it ain’t like I had to be too clever to outfox a little hussy like you.”

The Englishman paced in a circle around Mallory as he spoke. “You’ve been a right wanker to me. Did you know Emilio was a friend of mine? At least he was until you shot him down in Pompeii. But that ain’t why I’m here, really. You’re just a job to me—you and your cripple boyfriend—a job I’ll be done with in a jiffy. I’ll collect the rest of my twenty grand and be on my way.”

Mallory stared at him with wide eyes but found herself unable to make a sound, so completely had the stranger rendered her incapacitated. Her lungs screamed for oxygen, but she remained incapable of drawing a breath.

“I’ve enjoyed this chat,” said the man, “but I really must carry on with the job. Gotta finish you off before your boyfriend gets here. The way he walks, though, that ain’t likely to be too soon, now, is it?”

The Englishman pulled back his leg to deliver a kick, while Mallory—too stunned to flee—could only writhe in pain. As the man’s foot swung forward, Mallory tried to swivel out of the way. The assailant’s shoe glanced the side of her head, snapping her jaw with a sickening thud onto the stone floor and sending her careening into a black oblivion.

CHAPTER 39

Alton emerged from the restroom and headed back down the covered path towards Mallory. His girlfriend’s reaction to his suggestion of a school paddling still danced through his mind, putting a smile on his face.

As he neared the isolated grotto, Alton heard a voice—a man’s voice. He picked up his pace as best he could. The man continued to speak. Mallory’s gregarious nature inevitably led her into conversation with practically everyone she met, but her current silence imbued Alton with a vague sense of unease.

Approaching the grotto entrance, Alton heard the male voice say, “That ain’t likely to be too soon, now, is it?”

Alton rounded the corner just in time to see the Englishman launch a kick towards the prostrate Mallory. The man’s glancing blow sent her head snapping backwards and knocked her out cold as her jaw impacted the stone floor.

The love of Alton’s life lay bleeding on the stone surface, unconscious, possibly dying. Alton had heard the phrase “blinded by rage” but had always attributed the expression to hyperbole. He now realized this assumption was false. The jolt of fury electrifying Alton’s body narrowed the scope of his vision down to a tunnel, as if he were looking through a telescope. In this limited field, he observed the attacker standing over Mallory’s prone form. The man raised a black club of some sort high above his head, preparing to deliver a lethal blow.

Every nerve in Alton’s body tingled, and he snatched the Beretta from his rear waistband. Rage rendering him nearly unable to speak, Alton raised the weapon to chest level and addressed the attacker in icy fury. “Step back and put your hands in the air, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

The attacker paused for a beat of three. He turned but lowered his arms to his side, leaving the club in his grasp. “Oh, the cripple is threatening me, is he? I’m so scared. Why don’t you go back to your computer before you accidentally shoot yourself with that thing?”

Alton cocked back the weapon’s hammer. “Did you know I qualified as a sidearms expert in the Army?”

“Wait—you were in the Army?” The man couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice.

Alton realized the attacker would only be surprised if he had investigated their backgrounds and was now discovering a deficiency in his research. Alton also understood this man must be the latest incarnation of the menace he and Mallory had thwarted in the ruins of Pompeii.

“That’s right,” said Alton. “I’m a near perfect shot at this distance. Just ask your buddies down in Pompeii. Oh, that’s right. You can’t, ‘cause they’re dead. Two of them, at least.”

The attacker swallowed, and his eyes grew a bit larger. Yet he continued to stand his ground, leaving his arms lowered and maintaining a grip on the weapon at his side.

Alton continued. “That’s fine. Give me a reason to ventilate you, asshole. I’ve already shown you more restraint than you deserve.”

The attacker remained perfectly motionless, still unwilling to surrender. Alton stole a glance at Mallory. She remained unmoving on the ground. A trail of blood ran down her temple.

Alton clinched his jaw and locked the killer in a cold stare. “I’m going to give you to the count of three to lie face down on the ground, spread your legs, and put your arms behind your back. I’ll interpret your failure to comply as a hostile act and will protect myself accordingly.”

“The Geneva convention—”

“Doesn’t apply to mercenary scumbags like you. If you’re a soldier, where’s your uniform?”

Still the man didn’t move. The blood from Mallory’s head wound reached the cold surface of the paver stones and oozed outwards.

Alton raised the Glock to shoulder level, aiming it directly at the attacker’s chest. “One…two…”