The Prometheus Deception (22 page)

“What does that mean?”

“It means they consider you at the very least an accessory, if not an outright accomplice.”

“Great,” Layla moaned, then flashed a discordant smile.

“I'm sorry—I didn't ask you to get involved.”

“I know, I know. I made the choice.”

“As long as we're hemmed in like this by all these people, you're free to move your hands below waist level. But you should assume they can see all movements from mid-torso up.”

She nodded.

“Tell me when you have your gun out.”

She nodded again. He could see her reach into her large woven handbag.

“Got it,” she said.

“Now, with your left hand, lift the camera from around your neck and take a picture of me with the cathedral behind me. Go for a wide-angle shot; that'll allow you to see the blond woman at the same time. Take your time doing it: you're an amateur photographer, and you're not good with cameras. No hurried motions, nothing smooth or professional.”

She put the camera up to her face, squinted her right eye.

“All right, now I'm going to seem to be joking around with you, pretending to take a video of you taking a picture of me. As soon as I hold the video camera to my face, you will react with annoyance; I'm ruining your perfect frame. You whip the camera away from your face with unexpected force, a sudden movement that will distract and confuse the watchers. Then, aim right and squeeze off a shot. Take down the blond woman.”

“At
this
distance?” she said incredulously.

“I've seen your accuracy. You're one of the best I've seen; I have confidence. But don't wait for a second go; dive right for the ground.”

“And you? What will you be doing?”

“Aiming at the bearded guy.”

“But there's a
third
—”

“We
can't
cover all three, that's the maddening thing about this damned arrangement.”

She gave another disconcerting false smile, then put the 35mm camera up to her face, clutching her Heckler & Koch .45 in her right hand at about waist level.

He smiled impishly as he drew the video camera to his face. At the same instant, with a small, barely detectable movement, he reached his free hand around to the small of his back and pulled the Beretta from his waistband. His hands were trembling; he could hardly breathe.

Directly behind her, visible through the video camera lens and some fifty to eighty feet distant, the bearded false priest lowered his binoculars. What did that mean: that they had decided to hold their fire, confused by Bryson's ruse? That they did not want to fire indiscriminately with innocent bystanders just inches away? If so, they had just bought themselves a little time.

If not …

Suddenly the bearded man shook his wrist, ostensibly an innocent gesture designed to restore circulation in a tired hand, but clearly a sign to the others. A signal, delivered moments before Bryson had anticipated it would come.
No!

They had
no
time.

Now!

He dropped the video camera just as he swooped the gun upward, squeezing off three rapid shots just over Layla's shoulder.

At the exact same moment, she let her camera drop from its neck strap, whirled her .45 magnum up and over, and fired over the heads of the crowd.

What followed was a bewildering sequence of explosions, shot answering shot in rapid-fire fashion, provoking terrified screams from all around. As Bryson dove to the ground, he was able to catch a glimpse of the bearded man staggering, sinking, obviously hit. Layla threw herself downward, tumbling against Bryson, slamming against the limbs of those surrounding them, knocking a young woman over. Someone very near had been struck by a stray round, wounded but not fatally so, a collateral injury.

“She's down!” Layla gasped as she rolled to her side. “The blonde—I saw her go down.”

The gunfire ceased as abruptly as it had begun, but the shouts, the horrified clamor, continued to rise.

Two of Bryson's would-be assassins were down, perhaps permanently so; but at least one certainly remained standing: Paolo, the assassin from Cividale. And surely there were others as well; Paolo's brother was almost certainly in the vicinity.

Running feet kicked at them, others tripped over them, stumbled. Once again a crowd had become a stampede, and as they plunged into the middle of the chaos, Bryson and Layla managed to get to their feet, rushing headlong with the others, disappearing into the maddened crowd.

Weaving in and out of the onrushers, Bryson saw a narrow cobblestone street, almost a lane, coming off the
praza
. It was little more than a lane, barely big enough for one car to pass through it. He ran toward it, weaving around human obstacles, determined to follow it as far as he could until they lost the Italian brothers or whoever else was chasing him. It appeared likely that there would be small, ancient houses on this street, perhaps small courtyards, alleys leading to other alleys. Mazes in which to lose themselves.

His shoulder wound was once again throbbing, blood oozing thick and hot; what had begun to heal had been wrenched open. The pain had become incredible. Yet he forced himself to run faster. Layla kept up easily. Their footsteps echoed in the empty street. As he ran, he was searching the narrow, shadowed street, searching for a courtyard, a shop, any place into which they could duck. There was a small, Romanesque church tucked between a couple of even older stone buildings, but it was locked; a handwritten sign pasted on one heavy wooden door declared that it was closed for repairs. In this town of churches and cathedrals, the smaller houses of worship, which did not attract tourists, probably got little attention and less funding.

Approaching the church, he stopped short, grabbing a massive iron door handle and rattling it.

“What are you
doing?
” Layla asked, alarmed. “The
noise
—come on, let's keep going!” She was breathing hard, her chest heaving, her face flushed. Footsteps echoed in the street, approaching.

Bryson did not reply. He gave the door handle one last, mighty tug. The padlock was small and rusted, and it looped through an even rustier hasp, which easily came off the door with a splintering sound. People did not break into churches as a rule; the lock was mostly symbolic, all that was required in this town of the devout.

He yanked the door open and entered the dark central portal. Layla, giving a small grunt of frustration, followed, shutting the door behind them. Now the only light in the dim narthex came from small, dusty quatrefoil windows high above. There was a dank, mildewy smell here, and the air was chilly. Bryson looked around briefly, then leaned back against a cold stone wall. His heart was pounding from the exertion, and he felt weak from the searing pain of his wounded shoulder, and from loss of blood. Layla was pacing the length of the nave, presumably looking for exits or hiding places.

After a few minutes he had caught his breath, and he returned to the entrance doors. The broken lock would draw the attention of anyone who knew the town; either it should be reassembled so that it looked intact, or it should simply be removed entirely. As he reached for the handle to pull the door open, he listened for any approaching footsteps.

There
was
the sound of running feet, and then a voice, a shout in a strange language that was neither Spanish nor Gallego. He froze, glancing at the floor, at the narrow bands of light that came in through a small louver at the bottom of the door. Kneeling, he put his ear against the slats and listened.

The language was oddly familiar.

“
Niccolò, o crodevi di velu viodût! Jù par che strade cà. Cumò o controli, tu continue a cjalà la ‘plaza'!
”

He recognized it, understood the words.
I thought I saw him, Niccolo!
the voice was saying.
Down the street. You watch the plaza!

It was an obscure, dying language called Friuliano, a tongue he had not heard in years. Some said it was an ancient dialect of Italian; others believed it was a language in its own right. It was spoken only in the northeast corner of Italy near the Slovenian border, by a dwindling number of peasants.

Bryson, whose facility with languages had often proved as useful a survival mechanism as his ability with firearms, had taught himself Friuliano a decade or so ago, when he had hired two young peasants from the remote mountains above Cividale, remarkable hunters, assassins. Brothers. When he had hired Paolo and Niccolo Sangiovanni, he had made it a point to learn their strange tongue, largely so that he could keep close tabs on the brothers, listen to what they said to one another, though he never let on that he understood what they were saying.

Yes. It was Paolo, who had indeed survived the shootout in the Praza do Obradoiro, shouting to his brother, Niccolo. The two Italians were superb hunters and had never failed him in any assignment he had given them. They would not be easy to evade, but Bryson did not intend to evade them.

He heard Layla approach, and he looked up. “I need you to find us some rope or cable,” he whispered.

“Rope?”

“Quickly! There must be a door off the chancel, maybe leading to a rectory, a supply closet, something. Please,
right away!
”

She nodded and ran back down the nave toward the sanctuary.

He stood quickly, opened the door a crack, and called out a few words in Friuliano. Since Bryson's ear for languages was almost pitch-perfect, he knew the accent would closely approximate that of a native. But more than that, he pitched his voice higher, tightening his throat to match Paolo's timbre. His mimicry was uncanny, he knew; it was one of his most useful talents. A few snatches of muffled, shouted phrases, heard at a distance and distorted by echoes, would sound to Paolo like his own brother.
“Ou! Paulo, pessèe! Lu ai, al è jù!”
Hey! Paolo, come quick! I've got him—he's down!

The response came rapidly.
“La setu?”
Where are you?

“Ca! Lì da vecje glesie—cu le sieradure rote!”
This old church—the broken lock!

Bryson got to his feet quickly, spun to one side of the portico, flattening himself against the doorframe, the Beretta gripped in his left hand.

The footsteps accelerated, slowed, then approached. Paolo's voice now came from just outside the church door. “Niccolo?”

“Ca!”
Bryson shouted, muffling his voice in the cloth of his shirt.
“Moviti!”

A brief hesitation, then the door was flung open. In the sudden flood of light, Bryson saw the swarthy skin, the lean, sinewy build, the tight black curls of the close-cropped hair. Paolo squinted his eyes, his expression fierce. He entered warily, looking from side to side, his weapon down at his side.

Bryson sprung forward, slamming into Paolo with the full force of his body. His right hand was a rigid claw, smashing against the cartilage of the Italian's throat, twisting the larynx enough to disable, not to kill. Paolo let out a loud scream of pain and surprise. Simultaneously, with his left hand, Bryson cracked the Beretta against the back of Paolo's head, aiming with precision.

Paolo slumped to the floor, unconscious. Bryson knew the concussion was minor, that Paolo would be out no more than a few minutes. He grabbed the Italian's weapon, a Lugo, and quickly searched his body for any concealed weapons. Since Bryson had trained the Sangiovannis in field tactics, he knew there would be another weapon, and he knew where to find it: strapped to the left calf, under loose-fitting slacks. Bryson took that, too, and then removed a jagged fishing knife from a scabbard on the Italian's belt.

Layla was watching, stunned, but now she understood. She threw Bryson a large spindle of insulated electrical wire. Not ideal, but it was strong, and in any case it would have to do. Working quickly, the two of them bound the Italian's hands and feet so that the more he struggled, the tighter the knots would become. The design was of Layla's invention, and it was a clever one. Bryson tugged at the knots, satisfied that they would hold, and then he and Layla carried the assassin into a sacristy off the north transept. Here it was even dimmer, but their eyes had by now become accustomed to the low light.

“He's an impressive specimen,” Layla said dispassionately. “Powerful—almost like a coiled spring.”

“Both he and his brother were supremely gifted natural athletes. Hunters, both of them, with the innate skills, the instincts, of mountain lions. And just as ruthless.”

“He once worked for you?”

“In a past life. He and his brother. A few brief assignments and one major one, in Russia.” She looked at him questioningly; he saw no reason to hold out. Not now, not after everything she had put herself through for him. “There's a Russian institute known as Vector, in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk. In the mid- to late 1980s, rumors circulated in American intelligence circles that Vector was no mere research institute, but was involved in the research and production of agents of biological warfare.”

She nodded. “Weaponized anthrax, smallpox, even plague. There were rumors…”

“According to a defector who came over in the late eighties—the former deputy chief of the Soviet biological warfare program—the Russians were targeting major U.S. cities for a biological first strike. Technical intelligence told us very little. A compound of low-rise buildings surrounded by high electrified fences and patrolled by armed guards. That was all the conventional U.S. intelligence agencies had, CIA or NSA. Without concrete evidence, neither the U.S. nor any other NATO government was willing to act.” He shook his head. “Typically passive response on the part of the intelligence bureaucrats. So I was sent in to do a high-risk, dangerous penetration no other intelligence agency would ever dare. I assembled my own team of black-bag specialists and muscle, which included these boys. My employers had a shopping list—high-res photographs of containment facilities, air locks, fermentation vats for growing viruses and vaccines. And most of all, they wanted actual samples of the bugs—Petri dishes.”