And she could not escape the feeling that it was all her fault.
She had led him directly to it
.
As they arrived at the stairs back to the fourth-century church above, Malchus went up first. The rest followed.
At the top, Ava was again grateful for her head lamp. The floor was treacherously uneven, and the vast brick pillars seemed to rise out of the gloom in unexpected places.
She could hear the wheels of the flight case rolling on the ground behind her.
It was torture knowing she was about to lose what lay nestled inside it.
But she was also aware she had a more urgent concern. Now that Malchus had the Menorah, he had little further practical use for her. The likelihood he would now put a bullet into her head had increased exponentially.
She glanced at Ferguson. From his granite expression, she figured he was thinking the same.
There was suddenly a loud clunking sound, and with no warning the lights came on.
Even through the lighting in the lower church was dim and subtle, it was still far too bright for Ava’s eyes, which were accustomed to the gloom downstairs.
She squinted and lifted a hand to her face, but as she did so, saw a figure standing up ahead, at the far end of the low-lit fourth-century church.
She immediately recognized the black and white habit of the Dominican priest from upstairs. His medieval costume fitted perfectly into the old church—like a painted image from an illuminated manuscript or one of the wall frescoes. The only thing that spoiled the picture was the large double-barrelled shotgun he was pointing at them.
He looked anything but pleased. “You can stop right there.” He waved the weapon at them. His voice was loud, his accent broad Irish.
Malchus held up a hand, and the group drew to a halt in the left aisle beside the large excavation hole leading down into the mithraeum.
“Gas indeed,” the priest chuckled. “There’s no gas in this church. We can barely afford electricity.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t know what you fellas are up to, but the boys-in-blue will be here in a jiffy.”
Malchus indicated for his men to make their guns less obtrusive.
The elderly priest moved forward, swinging the shotgun from side to side at them as if it was a thurible billowing incense.
He glowered at them. “I was thirty-five years in a slum parish off the Falls Road in Belfast. I’ve seen more guns and yobbos than you have, and I know how to deal with them all. I’m afraid you picked the wrong place for your little craic.”
Ava smiled to herself. Maybe not a PhD in physics, but certainly full of surprises.
He eyed the flight case. “Thieves is it?” He looked unamused. “Well, I’ve dealt with a lot worse.” He paused, looking around. “What’s in the case then?” He kept his gun trained on the group as he approached it.
“Be my guest.” Malchus smiled. “A man of your learning might find it interesting.”
The priest moved over to the flight case, keeping his shotgun on the group all the while. As he got closer, she could see it was an antique, but she was under no illusions that it probably had just as much stopping power as anything Malchus’s men were carrying.
The old priest flipped the flight case’s catches, and pushed the lid back, a look of incomprehension crossing his face as he saw the large grimy candlestick inside.
“Now where did you get that, I wonder” he began. But before he had got any further Malchus lunged towards him.
The priest swivelled the shotgun, pointing it directly at Malchus.
But he was not quick enough.
Malchus emptied two rounds into the old man’s chest and one into his skull, before pushing his white-haired head backward over the low rail guarding the hole down into the mithraeum. Malchus kept pushing, and suddenly it was over. The priest toppled backwards over the railings—the weight of his head and gravity carrying him sailing down into the mithraeum below.
With a sickening crunch, Ava heard his head hit the temple’s flagstones.
As the priest fell, Ferguson seized the opportunity to make a dive for a weapon. He launched himself at the stocky gunman nearest him, bringing a shoulder and bent upper arm hard into the man’s face, splintering his nose into a bloody mess as he made a grab for the machine pistol he was loosely carrying.
But the bulky man was strong. Too strong. He kept hold of the gun, and Ferguson was left trying to wrench it from his grip.
“Enough!” Malchus commanded, as his man was poised to smash a fist into Ferguson’s face. “We don’t have time. Get the ropes.” He pointed to the coils in the bottom of the Menorah’s flight case. “Tie them.”
The men retrieved the ropes and directed Ferguson, Max, and the others to move over to a dim arcade of columns, where they began tying them to the vast uprights.
Ava was left standing by the flight case.
She watched with contempt as Malchus approached her. “Are you going to cooperate for once? Or am I going to have to hurt you?”
Ava gave him a defiant stare, unable to conceal her loathing. “Tricky choice. I’ll give you three guesses.”
His nostrils flared momentarily with anger, before he pushed her roughly to the floor, forcing her arms back around the column behind her. Tying them tight so she was firmly lashed to the pier, he returned to face her, his nose only an inch from hers, his gun rammed into her temple.
She gazed at his revoltingly hairless head, into his lizard-like green eyes, her heart hammering. “That’s it?” she spat. “A simple execution? No speech? No self-congratulation?”
Malchus did not flinch. When he spoke, his voice was honey soft. “Dr Curzon, your eventual death at my hands will be a thing of beauty, not a squalid shooting.” He paused, allowing his eyes to run lustfully over her face and down to her chest, “I’m going to keep a close eye on you, and I look forward to a more thorough collaboration. Another time.”
He was so close she could feel his hot breath on her lips. “So please, always remember that wherever you are—I’ll never be far away.”
She turned her head away in disgust, wanting nothing more than to wipe the loathsome expression off his face. She pulled hard at her arms, but the ropes had been bound tight, restricting all movement.
With that, Malchus and his men were gone.
And so was the Menorah.
Ava sat for a moment, breathing heavily—too overwhelmed by everything that had just happened to speak.
Three people were dead, and she could only imagine how many ancient bricks, tiles, frescos, and other irreplaceable artworks now had ammunition rounds lodged deep in them.
She thought of the sign she had seen in the courtyard on entering the basilica. It had been put up by an eighteenth-century pope, Clement XI, and read simply:
THIS ANCIENT CHURCH HAS WITHSTOOD THE RAVAGES OF THE CENTURIES
She prayed it could take today’s anarchy in its stride, too.
——————— ◆ ———————
Basilica di San Clemente
Via Labicana
Rione Monti
Rome
The Republic of Italy
Ava concentrated on slipping her hands out of the tight knots binding her to the vast stone column. At the same time, she tried to erase from her mind the grotesque image of Malchus leering over her.
Her arms were aching from their unnatural position, and every movement sent bolts of pain shooting through her stretched shoulders.
Looking around the dimly lit crypt, she could see that the second Malchus had left the ancient chamber and headed up the stairs to the grand basilica above, Ferguson and the gasmen had also begun trying to tear themselves free of the great piers.
She knew she had to get loose quickly. If Malchus was still close by, then there remained a chance the Menorah was not completely lost.
All she had to do was get free of the constricting ropes.
Gritting her teeth, she scrunched up her hands to make them narrow enough to slip through the knots. Pulling hard, she felt the bones and cartilage crunching together as she struggled to drag her hands free.
She closed her eyes, and focused on finding a quiet spot within herself where she could blank out the searing pain. She disconnected herself from the present, and shut out the feedback coming from her senses. So she was not at first quite sure whether the noise she heard was real or imaginary.
“Quiet!” ordered Ferguson, confirming it was real, cocking his head as the room fell silent.
Ava stopped pulling at her hands, and dragged herself back to reality, listening intently.
It was definitely there.
She could make it out more clearly now.
It was footsteps coming down the stairs.
A fresh burst of adrenaline coursed through her system.
There were limited possibilities who it could be. And few of them were welcome.
If it was Malchus returning to finish them off, there was little she or any of them could do. They were all immobilized, tightly lashed to the enormous columns—sitting ducks for any executioner.
On the other hand, if it was the police, alerted by the gas vans or the noise of the shooting, then they could expect an uncomfortable reception.
The
Polizia
would certainly want to know about the pockmarks and chunks of masonry taken out of the ancient walls, and the dozens of empty cartridge cases littering the floor—not to mention the three dead bodies down below.
It would all lead to many hours of dogged and unpleasant questioning at the gloomy
Questura Centrale
downtown—and all their different and hurriedly invented accounts would not hang together for a moment. They had not had time to prepare a common story, and the likelihood of them all spontaneously offering the same explanations was zero.
All in all, if it was the police, things would get serious very quickly, and Ava had no desire to languish in the Italian criminal justice system. It would almost certainly take an intervention from Prince and DeVere to resolve it, and that would raise a whole new line of unwelcome complications. She and Ferguson had not exactly kept Legoland in the loop about their trip to Rome, and she had no desire to sit through another self-righteous lecture from Prince.
As her eyes travelled down the gloomy nave, she barely noticed the world heritage frescoes this time. Her sole focus now was the hope that the visitor was not Malchus or the police.
Through the half-light, she saw a figure emerge into the low-ceilinged basilica.
He was moving quickly towards them, his head swivelling from side to side as he took in the chaotic scene.
Her heart in her mouth, it took her a few seconds to recognize the tall lanky frame and smooth head of full silver hair as the man moved out of the shadows into the light.
Saxby
.
She breathed an audible sigh of relief, feeling the tension dissipate.
Thank God.
“There’s a knife in the toolbox,” she called over to him urgently, nodding towards the slim flight case. “Hurry!”
Saxby reached the flight case and glanced down through the hole in the floor to the mithraeum below, where the priest had fallen head first.
“Christ.” He turned pale at the spectacle below, before quickly grabbing the knife and hurrying over towards Ava.
He had her free in no time, then turned to slice open Max’s bonds.
“What in God’s name happened here?” He was looking around in bewilderment, shell-shocked. He passed the knife to Max, who quickly set about freeing the others.
“Come on!” Ava jumped to her feet, rubbing her numbed wrists to get the blood circulating again. “We need to find him. He can’t have got far.”
“We’re already on it.” Saxby was close behind her. “The vans are following him.”
In an instant, the despair and anger that had been building lifted a fraction. She felt a sudden surge of hope.
Of course!
She had forgotten about the vans—they had been waiting outside with their engines running.
She bolted for the stairs, desperate to be out of the church and in a car.
To be moving.
She had to be there when they caught up with Malchus.
She had unfinished business with him.
Sprinting up the stairs, she halted dead in her tracks on the top step, grunting with unexpected pain as she squeezed her eyes closed against the blinding brightness.
Her pupils were still dilated from the long period in the subterranean gloom, and entirely unprepared for the Roman morning sunlight bouncing off the millions of tiny golden and glass mosaic tiles studding the apse and coffered ceiling.
She opened her eyelids again more slowly, allowing her irises time to adjust.
Moving surprisingly fast for a man of his age, Saxby arrived at the top of the stairs beside her.
“Does he have it?” he was slightly breathless, uncertainty etched into his face. “Did you find it? Was it here?”
Ava opened her eyes in a narrow squint and looked at him bleakly. She could not bring herself to say the words in case they unleashed the volatile cocktail of disappointment, frustration, and anger she was feeling.
Ferguson arrived at the top of the stairs behind them, closely followed by Max. “If the vans are on him,” he looked purposeful, “we still have a chance.”
Heading for the basilica’s central door, Max leant in towards Saxby and spoke quietly and hurriedly to him. Straining to listen, Ava heard him report that one of his men was dead. Saxby replied that he would make the necessary arrangements with the commandery at Aubagne.
Ferguson moved closer to Ava. “That’s one mystery solved then. There’s only one outfit I know headquartered at Aubagne.” He had clearly also been eavesdropping.
He turned to Max. “You’re
Légionnaires
?”
The short Frenchman hunched his shoulders and turned down the corners of his mouth in a classic Gallic shrug. “Depends who’s asking.”
It was not a resounding confirmation, but it was enough. “I did a job with your thirteenth in Djibouti a few years ago.” Ferguson placed a hand on Max’s shoulder for a second. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“
Merci.
” Max’s lined face was set like granite. “He and I served together side-by-side for seven years. And today I watch him executed like a dog.” He shook his head, a murderous expression darkening his eyes.
“Come on.” Ava was nearing the door, spurred on by a determination that Malchus could not be allowed to add the Menorah to his collection, in which the Ark was already the centrepiece.
As she hit the door and burst out into the bright sunlit courtyard, she heard Saxby barking rapid orders into his phone for all airports to be watched, and for a clean-up team to come in and remove the bloodied bodies from the basilica’s lowest level. He confirmed he would take care of the Italian police, then he hung up.
Ava froze in her tracks, not believing what she was hearing.
Who gave orders like that?
Did he really have the Italian police and border control in his pocket? Could he actually make corpses quietly disappear from a public place in a major European capital city?
Who on earth was he?
The questions that had been welling up for days now exploded in her head.
At first, she had been content to accept Saxby’s assurances that the Foundation was a private institute interested in ancient artefacts. It had suited her to give him the benefit of the doubt.
But recent events had changed all that decisively.
It was absolutely clear that Saxby had not been straight with her at all.
Since meeting him, her life had become distinctly more dangerous. But that was not what was bothering her most. She had never had, or wanted, a quiet existence.
What was profoundly troubling her was the realization that she truly had no idea who Saxby was, what the Foundation did, or what she was getting herself mixed up in. She was offering her services to an organization she knew absolutely nothing about.
As the conflicting thoughts tumbled through her head, she spun around to face the old man, her eyes blazing. “Who on earth are you, Saxby? Now would be a good time for answers.” She glared at him. “You owe me an explanation.”
Saxby’s eyes narrowed as he strode between the arches of the portico and across the cobbled courtyard.
Nearing the archway separating the tranquil quadrangle from the noisy street, he looked back over his shoulder, his expression set grimly. “Have it your way then, Dr Curzon. If you’re truly ready for the answer, then come with me.”