Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment (8 page)

“
Polizia
,” he shouted. “Back inside.” He spoke in Italian. His accent was Germanic. The woman retreated, slamming the shutters closed behind her. The two boys didn’t budge. They spoke in excited whispers. The second one pulled a phone from his pocket, tapped the screen, and aimed it at the scene. Renzo could imagine the online hit-counter spinning ever faster beneath the live feed.

The shorter man kept his pistol trained on Renzo. He removed his sunglasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket.
His bald head shone. His glare was predatory. “If you try anything,” he whispered in Italian, “they die as well. This will be your only warning, Mr. Bronson.”

The name held no meaning for Renzo, but he had no difficulty understanding the threat. He was dripping wet and out of options. His shoulders sagged. “I understand.”

The man held a finger to a point just beneath his ear and spoke. “We have him. Teams two and three, report to the evacuation point.”

Two minutes later, Renzo was seated on the floor at the rear of the motorboat. Flex-cuffs secured his hands and ankles. A blanket had been thrown over his shoulders to hide the bindings from onlookers. The boat idled slowly down the canal. The driver was apparently searching for a secluded spot that would become Renzo’s final resting place, at least until someone discovered the body. One guard sat in the open bow. Another sat beside Renzo. The bald team leader sat across from him. The windbreaker on his lap barely covered the pistol in his hand.

“You killed three of our brothers yesterday,” he said. One of his shoes rested atop a cinder block. A rope linked the block to Renzo’s ankle cuffs.

Renzo knew the end was moments away. The hopelessness of the situation brought a swell of emotions that issued from locked memories. Of loyalty, sacrifice, and loss.

And defiance.

The fear of death should not rule a man’s actions, he thought. Rather, its rushing inevitability should inspire the moments of his life. He realized that the unbidden philosophy had come from the man he used to be. The brief glimpse of his former self emboldened him. He sat taller, gritted his teeth, and returned the man’s stare.

“They died poorly,” Renzo said. “I won’t.”

The bald man’s face reddened, but he didn’t react as Renzo would have expected. Instead, his eyes glazed over. As if reciting from a ritual, he said, “The death of a few for the many.
Cæli Regere
.”

“W-What?”

The leader ignored the question. He issued a sharp order in German, and the driver cut the motor. The boat drifted to a stop. A quick scan forward and back, and the driver nodded. One of the guards lifted Renzo to his feet. The other hefted the cinder block. The boat wobbled. Their leader stood to face him. Renzo’s world narrowed to a close-up view of the silencer at the end of the man’s pistol.

Cæli Regere?
Renzo recalled the tattoo he’d seen on yesterday’s lead assassin. It was Latin. Something about the heavens? He was about to die for a religious cause?

When the executioner brought his other hand up to shield his face from the splatter, Renzo took what he knew would be his final breath. He abandoned his confusion. He wouldn’t carry the question into eternity. Instead, he closed his eyes and filled his mind with the image of the woman whose eyes haunted his portraits.

A smile found the corner of his lips.

In that final moment, when the mind shines its brightest and sensations increase tenfold, Renzo heard a faint beep. It was a digital alert. He opened his eyes.

The leader lowered the pistol. The index finger of his free hand pressed a point under his earlobe. The other guards did the same as the team listened to an incoming transmission. The leader stiffened. Protruding veins at his temples pulsed at double speed. “
Jawohl
,” he said to whoever was listening at the other end of the implant. His tone was deferential. However, Renzo saw bitterness in the man’s eyes as he holstered the pistol.

The driver pounded a fist on the dash. One of the others grumbled. Apparently, they’d all wanted to see him dead. But when the guard holding the cinder block removed a knife from his pocket and severed the rope linking it to his ankles, Renzo knew it wasn’t going to happen right now. He blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Don’t get too excited,” the leader said. He stepped forward so that his face was inches from Renzo’s. His breath smelled of sauerkraut. “There are worse things than dying with a bullet to the head.” He shoved Renzo onto the rear bench seat.

The driver gunned the engine and the boat started off.

Venice, Italy

R
IDING IN THE
gondola brought Tony a flash of memories. The last time he’d been in one of these rigs had been more than six years ago, when he and Francesca’s uncle Vincenzo had infiltrated the masked ball at Battista’s palace. That mission and this one had the same goal—to rescue Jake. People had died, including Vincenzo. That’s because shit happened when Jake was around, Tony thought. He patted the knife strapped to his shin. He was gonna make damn sure it happened to the other guy this time around.

He still couldn’t believe that Jake was alive. He’d gone over and over it in his mind. His buddy had jumped off the V-22’s ramp in Venezuela in order to put an end to Battista. Fifteen minutes later, there was a nuclear explosion. End of story. Or so he’d thought. He shook his head. If anyone coulda figured out a way to survive, it woulda been Jake. Hell, he’d gotten outta more fixes than a magician in Vegas. Tony was still pissed that Jake had kept him in the dark. But he buried the emotion under his determination to rescue the most selfless man he’d ever known.

Answers would come later.

The gondolier sang “ ’O Sole Mio” as he pushed the boat across the Grand Canal. A score of gondolas drifted nearby. Their gondoliers joined in the song. The tense tenor of their voices gave the tune an edge that sounded more like a soldier’s call to arms
than a romantic accompaniment. Each boat had one or more riders, several of them with cell phones to their ears. Although they were disguised as tourists, none of them were paying passengers.

The wake of a passing vaporetto rocked the boats as they converged near the entrance to an offshoot canal. A water taxi idled nearby. Francesca’s father was at the helm. Marshall and two of Mario’s gondolier buddies were in the back. They nodded to Tony. It was time to get wet.

Renzo’s hands and feet were still bound. He sat in the port corner of the rear bench seat. The blanket draped around his shoulders disguised his predicament, but it did nothing to dampen the burning rage that grew inside him. He was tired of being in the dark, of running for his life. It was time to take charge. He may not have a past, he thought. But he swore to himself that the future would include sweet vengeance against the men around him.

And their leaders.

They’d made a critical mistake—they’d let him live. For how long, he didn’t know.

Long enough.

He studied them. He saw hard edges and muscles. No strangers to violence. But there was something more. He sensed in them a calm strength of purpose. These men believed in a cause.

They passed under an arch. Pedestrians strolled overhead, but no one paid them undue attention. Renzo didn’t have any options. If he shouted, innocents would die. If he jumped overboard, he’d drown. So he’d watch.

And wait.

The flat stares of his guards weren’t encouraging.

The boat’s motor reverberated between the buildings. He saw the Grand Canal up ahead. From there, the open water of the lagoon was minutes away. The driver slowed the boat as it neared
the intersection. Traffic congested the large waterway, where a couple dozen gondoliers had joined voices in an impromptu group serenade. Their tourist charges held up cell phone cameras to capture the moment.

The guards pulled their jackets over their pistols, and the driver nudged the boat into the teeming mass. The perimeter boats gave way. The German leader edged closer to Renzo as the motorboat inched forward. Hulls bumped and tourists smiled. Gondolas bobbed all around them.

The motorboat wedged between them, slow but steady. They were halfway through when an altercation broke out on their starboard side. Angry shouts. A gondolier dropped his oar and leaped onto another’s boat. Fists were thrown. A knife was pulled. A woman screamed. The singing stopped. All eyes followed the action.

Renzo gasped when a huge arm grabbed him from behind and yanked him out of the boat. Sunlight turned to a murky green swirl. A swallow of water, and panic took over. Arms and feet flailed, but the man behind him held him fast, pulling him downward with powerful strokes.

It was the initial signal of oxygen deprivation from Renzo’s lungs that pulled the memory from the darkness of his mind—of a boy underwater at the community pool, holding his breath while all the others in the class pushed to the surface. Though many had challenged him, no one had ever beaten him. He clamped his mouth closed and stopped struggling. The big man behind him reacted by spinning him around and giving him a thumbs-up sign, signaling that he was there to help. The blanket swirled between them. The man pulled it loose, and it drifted away like a black wraith. Then his savior unclipped a soda can–size cylinder from his belt and pushed it toward Renzo’s face. It had a mouthpiece. He clamped his lips around it and sucked in a deep breath. The man across from him did the same with a duplicate canister. He gave Renzo a questioning look, making an okay sign with the fingers of one hand. Renzo nodded. The man pulled
a knife from a shin strap. Three or four quick saw strokes, and the plastic cuffs around his wrists and ankles were gone. Another okay sign, and the man motioned for him to follow.

Shadows passed overhead. Renzo saw that the gondolas had created a barrier around the motorboat. But the dam would break soon. Already, he heard the motor revving up and down as the driver pushed his way through the gaggle. Renzo and his new best friend swam in the opposite direction. Another powerboat idled just ahead. They passed beneath its hull and surfaced on the opposite side. Anxious faces peered down at them. Hands reached out. Strong arms pulled them into the water taxi.

The boat took off at full speed.

The trailing powerboat throttled forward, crashing through the line of gondolas, pushing them aside like flotsam before an ocean liner. Lacquered wood split. Men dove for the water.

The boat raced after the taxi.

The taxi driver was a middle-aged man. He had a Bluetooth device in his ear. He dodged and weaved through traffic with a deftness that could only have come with years of experience. The older man beside him issued orders into his cell phone. It sounded to Renzo as if he was coordinating the efforts of others who were part of the escape plan. Their eyes met. The old man’s eyes glistened.

The man who had pulled Renzo into the boat wore patent leather shoes, black slacks, and an open white shirt with cuff links. Renzo recognized him as the groom from the wedding party.

“Su-weeet Jesus, Jake!” the man said, escorting Renzo into the taxi’s covered seating area. He handed him a towel and smacked him on the shoulder. “I can’t believe it’s really you!”

The big man beside him was dripping wet. He dried his balding pate with his own towel and pulled a Yankees baseball cap over his head. He wore tux slacks and a gondolier’s striped shirt. It appeared two sizes too small. “Damn, pal,” he said. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”

Renzo looked from one to the other. They spoke English. He didn’t. He saw the recognition in their expressions, and he was glad for it.

But their faces—and their words—meant nothing to him.

The boat swerved to port. All three men braced themselves in the cabin. There was a seesaw of sirens behind them. Renzo looked back and saw that the trailing speedboat was being pulled over. The taxi driver eased off on the throttle.

Renzo breathed a sigh of relief. “
Grazie per avermi salvato la vita
,” he said.

“Huh?” the groom said.

They all stared at one another.

The old man stuck his head into the cabin.