Havoc (22 page)

CHAPTER 56

Alton and Mallory set a leisurely pace as they wound through the streets on their way to the Trevi Fountain. After walking through a dimly-illuminated, narrow street lined by seven-story buildings, they approached a bright courtyard containing the fountain itself.

As Alton rounded the street corner and acquired a full view of the area, the fountain’s vast size and intricate detail caught him by surprise. This was no quietly-dripping, circular structure with a bird-bath in the middle. Rather, it was an architectural marvel encompassing an entire city block. Ornate columns and carvings back-dropped several waterfalls running down rocks and between exquisite sculptures into a monstrous pool. No wonder tourists flocked here.

Despite the relatively early, mid-morning hour, the popular tourist destination already bustled with activity. Tourists streamed in and out of nearby gift shops, and vendors with carts sold “Roma” postcards, pens, and coffee mugs. Locals wearing gladiatorial costumes assumed fierce photographic poses with tourists—for a fee, of course. In nearby streets, several tour groups gathered around sign-wielding guides.

“This is amazing,” said Mallory as they neared the fountain. “Once again, I’m pleasantly surprised.”

“I have to admit,” said Alton, “I am, too. I never got around to researching this spot. It’s much bigger than I imagined.”

“Yes, and more interesting than I would have guessed.”

“Why don’t you go sit down there, and I’ll take your picture?” said Alton, pointing down a row of granite steps leading to the pool’s broad retaining wall.

Mallory skipped down the stairs and posed for the shot, then took a few of Alton in the same spot. A friendly German woman offered to take photos of the couple together. On the third picture, Mallory leaned in and kissed Alton’s cheek just as the picture was snapped.

The German returned Alton’s phone. Mallory gazed at the photos.

“Look at us,” she said. “We could make a postcard.”

“You could.”

“I wouldn’t be in it without you, Sweetie.”

They moved back up the stairs to make room for more tourists anxious to take a keepsake picture at the photogenic spot.

As they reached the street level, one of the faux gladiators caught their eye.

“You want picture with me?” he asked in a heavy accent.

Alton looked at Mallory, who shrugged.

“Why not?” she said.

As the gladiator approached, a glint of sunlight reflected off the genuine steel of the sword clasped firmly in his hand. Alton studied the man’s face. It was Zane Crowe, all right. The ceremonial Roman helmet couldn’t hide that nose or those distinct, squinting eyes. And despite his apparent efforts, the man still walked with the trace of a limp.

As Crowe closed the distance, Alton turned to Mallory and nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Sweetie,” said Mallory, staggering, “my concussion dizziness is coming back again.”

Crowe redirected his route to proceed directly towards Alton, completely ignoring the swooning female. As Crowe reached Alton, he drew back his sword without preamble and raised it just above shoulder level, poised to deliver a deadly strike.

Simultaneously, Mallory withdrew a Taser from her purse and shot its electrified cables towards Crowe’s neck. The device’s barbed spikes embedded themselves in his flesh and hummed with the flow of electricity.

Before he could bring down the sword, Crowe stiffened. Spasms racked his body, and the weapon fell from his twisted hand. He crashed onto the sidewalk but continued to struggle, seemingly intent on overcoming the voltage and rising. Cold fury burned in his eyes.

Alton turned to Mallory. “Keep the juice flowing. No point in taking any chances until we know he’s incapacitated.”

Mallory leaned over the weakening figure. “You look shocking in that uniform, but your prices are killer.” She switched off the device as Inspector Rossi’s men swept in from three directions. They cuffed the hired thug and dragged him from the area as a throng of tourists clustered around the scene to gawk.

“Get your bloody hands off me,” protested Crowe as he regained his senses.

“We can’t do that, Mr. Crowe,” said Rossi as he joined his men. “You are the guest of honor at a party we have planned in my building.”

Alton turned to face Mallory. “Nice work. That’s one down, two to go.”

CHAPTER 57

After watching his men drag off the struggling Crowe, Rossi turned back to Alton and Mallory. “You are sticking with the plan we talked about yesterday, right?”

“Yes,” replied Alton. “We’ll leave the area for a few minutes. Once we’re gone, any tourists who saw what just went down would have no reason to stick around. We’ll return in thirty minutes or so. That’ll still be a good half-hour before the scheduled meeting.”

Rossi nodded. “In that case, I go with Zane Crowe to my office. I have a lot of talking to do to him. I will leave four of my plainclothes men here to help you.”

“Okay,” said Mallory, “but how will we know who they are, in case we need their help?”

“I was just getting to that,” said Rossi, removed two small, electronic devices from his jacket. “Here is one for each of you. You take off this plastic backing, and is sticky. Put this inside your clothes.”

Alton and Mallory did as instructed, attaching the tiny devices to hidden folds in their clothing.

“Now we test to make sure they are working,” said Rossi. He activated a small, handheld radio and spoke for a moment in Italian. Turning back to the couple, he said, “Now each of you talk. My men are going to make sure they can hear you.”

Alton and Mallory both spoke. After conversing with his subordinates on the radio again, Rossi gave them the thumbs-up. “Okay, they all hear you. If you have any problems, you say the word ‘home.’ That will be the signal for my men to come help.”

“Home,” said Mallory. “Got it.”

“Sergeant Tafani is gonna go with you when you leave the area for a few minutes. He will make sure nothing bad happens to you.”

“Okay,” said Mallory, “although with Crowe bagged, that seems unlikely.”

“You never know,” said Rossi. “Is better to be safe. My other three men will wait here for your return. Well, I have to go now. I have a lot of talking to do with Crowe.”

Rossi left the scene, leaving Alton and Mallory alone in the street as a dozen or so tourists continued to stare.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Alton. “We don’t want to give these people any reason to linger.”

They walked ten minutes and entered a pastry shop. They ordered nothing but bottled water, their recent adrenaline surge eradicating any appetite they might have otherwise experienced.

A half-hour later, they returned to the Trevi Fountain. The area had reverted to its normal appearance. Although Alton had expected this, he nonetheless marveled at how quickly the wheels of commerce could commence turning. The area bustled with excited tourists and calculating vendors as if nothing had happened earlier.

In the midst of the activity, Alton chose a spot by a small cart that afforded him a good view of all but one of the streets that fed into the fountain’s courtyard.

He turned to Mallory. “Why don’t you scout that street back there, and I’ll keep my eye on the rest?”

“Okay,” said Mallory. “The meeting is scheduled for eleven o’clock, right?”

“Yes,” said Alton, glancing at his watch. “About forty minutes from now.”

After waiting just over thirty minutes, Alton spotted a lanky Asian staring at him from a few dozen yards away. Alton checked to ensure their predetermined signal, a yellow handkerchief protruding from his waistband, remained visible.

The lanky man, who also sported a yellow handkerchief, approached. Alton withdrew his phone and showed the man a picture
:存储
.

“What does this mean to you?” asked Alton.

“Cúnchú—the best company in the world,” replied Feng Wu. Casting a suspicious eye on Mallory, he turned back to Alton. “I thought you would be alone.”

“Brookings never said that. He just said you’d be meeting someone else. This is my associate. You can trust her as much as you can trust me.”

“It seems I have no choice in the matter.”

“I’d normally introduce myself and my colleague,” said Alton, “but under the circumstances, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“No need,” confirmed Wu. “The sooner we can conclude our business, the better.”

“Why don’t we move to that side street over there? I’m not crazy about conducting this conversation in the middle of such a thick crowd.”

The trio moved to the quiet road. A smattering of tourists emerging from a nearby gift shop comprised the lane’s only other occupants.

Before they could begin their discussion, a lone figure approached and motioned to them with a pistol concealed underneath an umbrella. “Gentlemen, ma’am…walk with me down this street, please. I’d hate to disturb the wonderful time these tourists are having with a homicide or two.” A glint of steel reflected in the man’s eyes. “But believe me, if I have to, I will.”

CHAPTER 58

Alton looked at Mallory and shook his head. She seemed to understand, as he did, that this scenario needed to play itself out without the intervention of Rossi’s men. If it didn’t, another potential seller of the Silverstar files—one of whom they had been previously unaware—might evade their grasp.

Alton wished he had thought to ask Inspector Rossi about the range of the transmitters he and Mallory wore, but it was too late to correct the oversight now.

“What do you want?” asked Alton.

“C’mon,” said the man, a huge, foreboding specimen. “Don’t act stupid. We all know why you’re here. I’m here to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

Trying to digest this new development, Alton struggled to keep the man talking. “What’s your angle? You know Cúnchú won’t deal with you if you rob one of their guys at gunpoint. Who are you going to sell this to if not them?”

The brooding man clinched his jaw. “I’m not selling it to anyone—not that it’s any of your business.”

“Wait,” said Mallory. “Are you law enforcement?”

The gunman remained silent.

Mallory continued. “I’m FBI. My name is Mallory Wilson. This is Alton Blackwell. He’s not an agent, but he’s helped me and my colleagues on several cases.”

“Blackwell and Wilson,” murmured the man. “Aren’t you the two tourists who were at the Colosseum the night Duncan Wells was murdered?”

“That’s right,” replied Alton, feeling more perplexed than ever.

“What the hell are you doing here, about to make a deal with this guy?” demanded the figure as he gestured at Wu. “Or…perhaps you’ve been a lot more involved in this than anyone realized.”

“We’re working with Inspector Rossi of the Italian state police to recover key technological files stored on Duncan Wells’ cellphone…and to prevent the sale of additional files that will give Cúnchú all the information they need to exploit this new technology.”

“How do I know you’re not full of crap?” asked the gunman. “How do I know you’re not just trying to talk your way out of getting busted in the middle of a sale?”

Alton decided he had to trust the man. His instincts told him the gunman, though wary, had no evil motives in mind. “Mallory and I are wearing wires supplied by the Italian police. Four plainclothes officers are monitoring us as we speak.”

At Alton finished the words, Feng Wu turned and bolted, ducking behind an open canopy to avoid presenting a clear target. Moments after he fled, Mallory gave chase.

The gunman raised his weapon.

“Wait! You’ll hit Agent Wilson,” said Alton. “Trust her. She’ll catch him.”

The gunman seemed to struggle for a split second, then lowered his Ruger and sprinted in the direction of the retreating figures.

“Home!” said Alton into his concealed transmitter. “Home! Home! Agent Wilson and an unknown law enforcement officer are in pursuit of Feng Wu. They’re headed back towards Trevi Fountain. Don’t let Wu get there, or he’ll lose himself in the crowd.”

Alton limped as quickly as possible in the direction the others had fled. He caught a glimpse of Wu flying down the street with Mallory in hot pursuit. Alton knew Mallory to be extraordinarily fast, especially for her stature, but Wu had shifted into a higher gear. Alton couldn’t be sure Mallory would reach him in time.

Wu veered into a side street before reaching the fountain, perhaps aware of the possibility of Italian policemen converging on that location.

Mallory darted in after him, with the hulking man—who exhibited surprising speed for his size—only seconds behind.

Alton remembered the map he had studied before setting out for the Trevi Fountain earlier that morning. Wu’s side street made a left turn, then curved in a great arc back to Alton’s current street. But where was the reentry point—ahead or behind him? Alton despaired of making this determination until he remembered the map’s depiction of a church’s bell tower just past the reentry point. Alton swung his head around and saw the bell tower there, behind him.

Alton jogged in the direction of the side street. As he passed a colorful vegetable cart, he grabbed an empty wooden crate lying next to it, thankful the owner had not observed this bit of thievery.

Alton approached the side street but did not enter it. Instead, he stood perfectly still and strove to quiet his breathing, willing his ears to pick up the sound of nearing footsteps.

Within a minute, he heard the regular tapping of several people sprinting at full speed. No one spoke, apparently conserving their breath for the chase.

Alton fought the urge to jump into the street at the first sound of approaching steps. Knowing timing would be crucial, he waited for the sound to come even closer. He raised the crate behind him in the stance of a baseball batter. Only when the steps sounded nearly on top of him did Alton move into the entryway.

Wu barely had time to register surprise before Alton swung the crate into the man’s chest, sending him crashing head over heels onto the cobblestones while wooden fragments rained down in a shower around the prone figure. Wu groaned and held his torso.

Mallory reached the scene within seconds and stood beside Alton, panting and watching her prey writhe about. Moments later, the hulking man reached the scene as well and stopped, huffing prodigiously. Apparently not wanting to take any chances, the man trained his Ruger on the dazed Wu.

Mallory reached down and patted down Wu’s clothing, issuing a grunt of satisfaction within seconds. “I think I’ve found it.” She applied pressure to a mid-thigh section of his shorts, and a rectangular outline underneath the cloth could be discerned.

Alton stepped forward and removed a compact, folding knife from his pocket. He made a deft incision down that section of Wu’s shorts, revealing a small object swathed in a thick, cotton cloth.

“Let’s see what we have here,” said Alton. He unwrapped the object to reveal a cellphone. After switching it on, his fingers danced over the surface of the screen as he unlocked the phone and read its contents. “This is Wells’ phone, all right.” He breathed a sigh of relief as he looked to Mallory. “We should tell Rossi’s men where we are. You know they must be looking for us.”

The comment seemed to settle something in their companion’s mind. He extended a hand to Alton and then Mallory. “Ernesto Vega—NSA Covert Ops. Pleased to meet you.”