Temple of the Gods

12

Agnelli was shaking, the small silver automatic trembling in his hand, but his index finger was tight around the trigger. ‘D-don’t move,’ he stammered.

A chilling fear coursed through Nina. In his frightened, agitated state, Agnelli might shoot her by accident. ‘Okay, let’s, ah, let’s all stay calm, huh? Nobody wants to get shot. I have been before, and I didn’t like it.’

‘Paolo!’ exclaimed Belardinelli. ‘What is this?’

‘I–I am sorry,’ said the sweating Agnelli. ‘I needed the money, and they gave me fifty thousand euros for a picture of the parchment. Only that one page! I didn’t give them anything else. I didn’t betray the Brotherhood.’

‘And yet you are pointing a gun at us,’ Popadopoulos said in an acid tone.

‘Why were you even carrying a gun?’ Nina asked. ‘Expecting to get caught, were you?’

‘Shut up!’ cried Agnelli, almost hyperventilating. ‘Everyone shut up! Move back.’

Nina willingly retreated a couple of steps, as did Popadopoulos, but Belardinelli stood his ground. ‘What are you going to do, Paolo? Kill us? Is that how you repay the Brotherhood for everything it has given you? Is that how you repay me?’

‘No, no, I–I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just want to get out of here,’ said Agnelli, wide-eyed. ‘Please, Agostino, move back!’

Instead, Belardinelli held out his hand. ‘Give me the gun, Paolo.’ He stepped forward. ‘We can—’

The gunshot was almost deafening in the confined space.

Belardinelli staggered, clutching feebly at his chest. He looked up at the younger man, face shocked and hurt… then slowly crumpled to the floor. Agnelli’s own features conveyed equal disbelief.

Silence and stillness for a moment. Then Popadopoulos fled down the tunnel.

The gun roared again. The Greek crashed against a wall, knocking items from a loculus.

Agnelli brought the gun back round to Nina—

She too was moving — but not running. Instead, she swept up the little stepladder and flung it at him. He reeled, pulling the trigger, but the bullet went well wide of its target.

Now Nina ran, leaping over the moaning Popadopoulos and sprinting down the tunnel. Behind her, Agnelli’s shout warned her that his fear had turned to anger.

She threw herself down a curving side passage as Agnelli fired again. Where it led she had no idea, but she had no choice except to follow it.

The Italian set off in pursuit. He reached the side passage, turned—

And stopped in momentary surprise. The tunnel was in near darkness.

Still running, Nina passed beneath another light bulb and, fist clenching her jacket’s cuff, reached up to smash it. Even with the material protecting her hand, she still winced as a glass splinter stabbed into the flesh.

But that pain was infinitely preferable to the burning hammer-blow of a bullet. She was in Agnelli’s domain, the Italian knowing every twist and turn of the tunnels. Her only hope of escape was to confuse him long enough for her to get past and make a dash for the elevator.

The passage twisted round to a four-way intersection. She carried on straight ahead, breaking another light — then doubled back into the left tunnel. A boxy dehumidifier grumbled away on the floor; she jinked past it and continued on, straining to pick out Agnelli’s pounding footsteps over the machine’s noise. How close was he?

Too close, almost at the intersection.

She flattened herself into the shadows of another arcosolium as Agnelli reached the junction. He glanced to each side before continuing ahead into the darkened tunnel. Nina held her breath. His steps faded — but was it because he was getting further away, or just that he was slowing?

It was hard to be sure over the dehumidifier’s thrum. She leaned out from her cover and looked back. Had her ruse worked? If she made a dash for the intersection, she might have a clear run to the entrance — or she might find herself face to face with Agnelli if he had realised her deception.

The longer she stayed in the catacomb, the more chance of her being cornered. She had to risk going back. She moved out of the shadows—

Agnelli reappeared at the junction.

Nina scrambled to reverse direction as he saw her. The gun snapped up, but in his haste he fired without aiming, the shot chipping the ancient stone wall several feet short. By the time reason overcame panic and he raised the automatic higher to look down its sights, she had rounded another corner.

More broken bulbs tinkled into the growing darkness as she ran through the archive’s ancient tunnels. The passage ahead split into two. On impulse she went left, smashing another light. She was outpacing the overweight Italian, the tunnel’s turns preventing him from lining up another shot, but if she found herself in a dead end he would catch up very quickly.

Or not. It sounded as though he were slowing down. He might be tiring… but Nina somehow knew that wasn’t the case. Dread rose inside her. He had stopped running because he no longer needed to.

She had nowhere left to go.

Even with that frightening knowledge, she kept moving, destroying more bulbs. The passage bent round, another light ahead. She reached up to break it—

And saw the end of the tunnel as it opened into a chamber lined with burial niches, all packed with ancient records. A cool breeze from an air conditioner wafted around her as she skidded to a halt.

No way out.

And no hiding places either. The room was cramped enough for Agnelli to find her even in the dark. She would have no choice but to fight — against a much larger and heavier foe armed with a gun. Despite having been taught the basics of unarmed combat by Eddie, she didn’t like the odds.

But it was that or stand there and wait to be shot. She was about to hit the bulb when an idea came to her.

The air conditioner. Its power cord snaked back down the tunnel…

Nina burned its position into her mind — then smashed the final light.

Agnelli blinked as the passage ahead went completely dark. He slowed to a cautious walk. The only remaining illumination was a dim glow from far behind him, and even that would be gone when he rounded the next bend.

But he knew exactly what lay ahead. ‘You can’t hide from me!’ he called, growing more confident despite the adrenalin making the blood hiss in his ears. ‘And — and I can tell the Brotherhood that you shot everyone before I stopped you. They’ll believe me — they know you hate us!’

‘You’ve got to find me first,’ came an echoing voice from the end of the tunnel. ‘You fat fuck!’ it added, New York accent becoming more pronounced.

Agnelli’s face tightened with pricked pride. She was insulting him? ‘Give up and — and I’ll make it quick for you,’ he said, dredging up half-remembered dialogue from some movie in an attempt to sound more threatening.

It didn’t work. ‘You couldn’t be quick if you tried, you fucking greaseball! Come on, get your fat ass down here — if it’ll squeeze through the door!’

Anger rising over his anxiety, Agnelli started to jog, right hand stretched out to feel his way along the tunnel wall as he held the gun at the ready in his left. There was no way she could slip past him in the passage, so she would be trapped in the end chamber. He went round the last turn, total darkness enshrouding him. Now he’d show her that he had more muscle than fat—

Something snagged round his ankles — and he went flying over the makeshift tripwire Nina had made from the air con’s power cable, slamming down face-first in the small room. Before he could recover a foot drove into his side, followed by another kick that caught his elbow. He yelled, then panic returned as he realised he had let go of the gun.

Nina heard the clatter of metal on the floor. Run while Agnelli was down, or go for the gun and turn the tables? She chose the latter, crouching and fumbling in the blackness. Stone and dirt were all she felt. She heard the Italian also groping blindly for his fallen weapon. Where was the damn thing?

Cold, angular steel. She grabbed the gun, trying to flip it round to get a proper hold—

Agnelli gripped her wrist.

He was too strong for her to pull free, dragging her towards him. She lashed out with her other hand, hitting the side of his face, but before she could go for his eyes he bashed her hand against the floor.

She gasped in pain. Agnelli pounded her hand down again, harder. The pistol jolted loose and clacked on to the stone. The Italian batted savagely at her body with his other arm, then scrambled for the weapon—

A bell sounded, its clamour echoing through the catacomb.

Agnelli let out a gasp of horror as he realised what it meant. The wounded Popadopoulos must have managed to drag himself to the archive entrance and set off the alarm. More members of the Brotherhood would be on their way — and the old man would tell them everything.

He abandoned the gun and leapt back to his feet, scrambling down the tunnel. Ribs aching where he had hit her, Nina found the pistol in the blackness, then quickly followed the panicked Italian.

She soon reached the lit junction and paused, listening. Agnelli was heading deeper into the tunnels. She ran after him. Where was he going?

Another exit, maybe one even Belardinelli didn’t know about. The old man had said that Agnelli spent a lot of time exploring the catacombs.

The bell faded as she went further into the maze. She noticed that some passages were unlit, their loculi empty. Not even the Brotherhood’s vast collection of stolen records could fill the space donated to them. But the running man was following the lights, with a specific destination in mind…

She slowed sharply as she realised she could no longer hear Agnelli’s steps. But he couldn’t be far away; she had been gaining on the lumbering youth. Cautious, gun raised, Nina advanced. There was a room ahead, a larger chamber than any she had seen so far — and straining sounds of movement came from it.

A glance through the entrance simultaneously told her the room’s purpose and excited her aesthetic and archaeological sensibilities. It was a crypt; not the dank Gothic tomb of vampire lore, but a high-ceilinged space decorated with elaborately carved pilaster columns and painted friezes, tiers of large burial nooks built for the members of an entire family round the walls.

But no Agnelli.

Confused, she warily entered. The crypt was lit by only a single bulb above the entrance, the farthest corners in shadow. She aimed the gun at each in turn, but still saw no sign of the Italian — until a noise from above made her whip the weapon up.

Despite his size and weight, Agnelli clearly had some skill at climbing. He had scaled the loculi before pulling himself up one of the pilasters, and was now over twenty feet above and still ascending. ‘Stop!’ Nina shouted, taking aim.

He ignored her, toes scrabbling at footholds as he headed for a dark opening where a block had either fallen or been removed from the vaulted roof. She repeated her command, but knew she couldn’t shoot an unarmed and terrified man — and also that if he died, which a gunshot wound and the subsequent fall would all but guarantee, there was no way to discover who had paid him to photograph the Kallikrates text. All she could do was watch in impotent frustration as he reached the opening and squeezed inside.

‘Son of a bitch!’ she spat as she realised where his escape route led.

Into the Vatican.

The city state’s own catacombs — those which had been mapped, at least — were centred beneath the vast basilica of St Peter. If Agnelli had discovered a way into the Vatican’s lower levels, from there he could enter the basilica itself… and then simply walk out into the streets of Rome.

Nina shoved the gun into a pocket and started after him. ‘Two places in two days where I’ve been shot at,’ she muttered as she climbed. ‘If I get back to New York and someone tries to kill me there, I’m gonna kick their ass so hard…’ She reached the uppermost niche and took hold of the column set into the wall. It didn’t look the least bit safe — though the fact that someone of Agnelli’s bulk had scaled it without breaking it apart gave her some limited reassurance.

Without the secure footing of the loculi, her ascent was now much slower. As she inched her way closer to the opening, the muffled sounds of Agnelli’s passage through the narrow tunnel faded. He was getting away from her.

‘No you goddamn don’t,’ she growled, pulling herself higher and refusing to succumb to the awful temptation to look down at the ever-increasing drop. Instead she fixed her eyes on the dark hole as she brought herself within reach. It was a few feet to the pilaster’s side — she would have to stretch across to it, taking her weight on one hand.

No choice. Nina took a deep breath, then clutched the ancient stone as tightly as she could with her left hand as she reached out with her right, hooking her fingers over the lip of the new passage—

Her left hand slipped.

She screamed, clawing desperately at the wall. Her right foot jolted from its hold, leaving her suspended and straining between two very precarious points like a human tightrope. She scraped her toe against the ancient stonework for a terrifying eternity before finally finding purchase on a jutting brick. That gave her just enough leverage to bring her left hand up to the hole and grip the edge. A few seconds to recover her breath, then she pulled herself into the low passage.

Heart rate dropping from that of a frightened rabbit, she looked ahead. The passage, what she could see of it in the dim light from below, was about thirty inches wide and slightly lower, angling upwards into darkness. She could hear a distant rustle as Agnelli crawled up the incline.

The gun was a hard lump pressing into her side. She drew it and headed after him.

Very quickly, she was in total darkness. An instinctual fear rose: simple unreasoning terror at being in a confined space, unable to see. ‘If he can fit,’ she whispered to herself in an attempt at reassurance, ‘so can I. I don’t have a fat ass. Well, it’s not huge or anything. I mean, I work out. Kind of. When I have the time…’

The distraction did its job, the encroaching panic retreating. Looking ahead, she saw a faint glimmer of light marking the tunnel’s end. It was mostly obscured by the silhouetted form of Agnelli — who as she watched pulled himself out and disappeared.

Her anxiety returned, but now for a more concrete reason. Agnelli might be waiting in ambush at the top of the shaft. She slowed as she drew nearer, listening intently. Nothing. Had he already fled — or was he preparing to smash a brick down on her head?

She hesitated a foot short of the exit… then scrambled through as quickly as she could.

No stones dashed out her brains. Agnelli had already left the softly lit chamber. It appeared to be an archaeological excavation, crumbled walls having been dug out of the pale brown soil. But there was no indication that the dig was an ongoing project; instead it seemed frozen in time, as much a part of history as the ruins it had unearthed…

Nina suddenly knew where she was.

Beneath the Vatican, uncounted tombs and burial chambers dated back as far as Imperial Rome, layer built upon layer over centuries. The passage from the Brotherhood’s maze of archives emerged in the Scavi, a necropolis hidden under St Peter’s basilica. It had been unearthed in the 1940s at the instigation of Pope Pius XII during a search for the tomb of St Peter himself. Since then, the site had been left largely untouched — partly out of reverence, and partly for the more pragmatic reason that it was directly below the magnificent bronze baldachin of St Peter within the basilica, and further excavations ran the risk of damaging the foundations. Agnelli must have discovered the passage during his explorations of the catacombs — and now had his own private emergency exit into the Vatican.

That thought spurred her back into action. She clambered over the ruins to a low opening in one wall. Drifting dust motes told her that Agnelli had squeezed through the gap not long before, dislodging chunks of crumbling plaster. She followed with more care, emerging in a narrow brick-lined passageway. Holes in the walls led to other ancient chambers, including St Peter’s tomb, but Nina’s concern was something of more recent construction. A doorway led to a flight of metal stairs, heading upwards. Between the necropolis and the basilica were the Vatican grottoes: the tombs of the popes.

Nina pounded up the stairs. A sound reached her — the low echoes of many voices speaking in hushed reverence. The Scavi was only opened for a handful of visitors each day, but the tombs above were a destination for pilgrims from all over the world. At the top, a door was swinging closed. She flung it back open and rushed through.

Agnelli had clearly been through here — several people on their way to view the nearby Clementine Chapel were staring in shock down a hallway, having just been barged aside by the fleeing Italian. Nina added to their outrage by following suit.

‘Excuse me! Sorry,’ she called out as she ran down the hall, weaving between the visitors.

Agnelli was leaving an audible trail of protesting voices. She followed it, emerging from the hall into a larger and more spacious section of interconnected chapels and shrines. This part of the grottoes was much busier: the tomb of John Paul II, a recent and highly venerated pope, was situated within.

Nina slowed, scanning the throng of pilgrims. Where was Agnelli? Trying to blend in with the crowd — or using them as cover to escape?

A woman’s cry told her it was the latter. She saw an elderly lady in black lying on the pale marble floor, her companions still reeling. Agnelli’s path was as clear as a ship’s wake.

‘Let me through!’ Nina shouted as she ran after him. Even giving a warning, she still had to sweep an arm ahead of her like a snowplough to push past the startled mourners — until a shriek of ‘Pistola!’ told her that someone had seen her gun.

The chamber erupted into chaos, frightened people scattering in all directions. Nina cursed. She had briefly spotted Agnelli’s distinctive haircut over the crowd — now it was lost again in the confusion.

A man called out ahead. From his authoritative tone he was clearly a member of the Vatican’s staff, trying to restore order. A woman shouted behind her; Nina’s Italian was limited, but she knew enough to pick out capelli rossi — red hair. Two attendants in dark uniforms swung in her direction, yelling ‘Scostare, scostare!’ as they pushed people out of their way.

Nina ducked lower, angling away from the guards into the milling mass. She could no longer afford to be polite — if she were caught, by the time she explained the situation Agnelli would have escaped.

A broad set of steps ahead. She jumped them, almost slipping on the marble as she landed and careering against a burly man. The gun was snagged from her grasp by his camera strap and clattered to the floor. Shit!

No time to stop and pick it up. All she could do was keep running. Another glimpse of Agnelli. He was heading along the right side of the new room, passing the tombs set into the alcoves along it.

He rushed into one of them. Nina glanced back. One of the guards had tripped on the steps, bowling over a tourist as he fell. His comrade was lost to sight behind a knot of panicking people.

She reached the alcove, home to a stone sarcophagus, and charged through the doorway behind it. Ahead was a museum, archaeological discoveries from beneath the Vatican on display behind glass. No time for sightseeing; she continued to chase Agnelli through the rooms. He now had something in his hand — a phone, she realised.

Who was he calling? And was he trying to get help — or backup?

The panting Agnelli ran up a flight of stairs, thumb clumsily swiping over his phone’s screen. Once he got outside into the Piazzetta Braschi, he would finally have cell reception and be able to call the number his contact had given him for emergencies.

Until now, his idea of what might constitute an emergency had been the Brotherhood becoming suspicious that he had secretly passed on information from the archives — not a madwoman chasing after him with a gun. The Brotherhood had killed her parents, and tried to kill her; after the ferocity with which she had attacked him in the catacombs, he had no doubts that she wanted to return the favour.

The thought sent a resurgent wave of fear through him, blowing away his fatigue. He glanced back. She was gaining. Oh, God help me!

Even in this holiest of places, God couldn’t assist him directly — but there was someone who could. He reached the top of the stairs and threw open a heavy door, tapping furiously at the screen as the phone finally got a signal. ‘Come on!’ he gasped as he ran into the square, turning to head for an archway that would take him out of Vatican territory back into Rome—

He stopped abruptly. Beyond the arch, two men in brightly coloured uniforms and black berets were sprinting towards him: Swiss Guards. Their elaborate, old-fashioned clothing might have looked ridiculous, but anyone who took the soldiers themselves lightly would quickly regret their mistake.

That escape route blocked, he ran for another. Nearby was an entrance to the basilica itself. He could get away through St Peter’s Square—

A voice from the phone. ‘Yes?’

‘Copel!’ Agnelli cried in relief. ‘It’s Paolo, Paolo Agnelli! I’m in trouble — I need your help, now!’ Another look back as he reached the doorway. The redhead had just burst from the grotto entrance, the Swiss Guards veering to follow her as they passed through the archway.

‘Where are you? What’s happening?’

‘I’m in the Vatican,’ he said as he raced down a narrow connecting corridor. ‘The Brotherhood know what I did for you — and Nina Wilde’s chasing me!’

Another voice in the background, a woman’s, said something in English with a tone of aggrieved disbelief. ‘Paolo,’ said Copel after a moment, ‘get to the Piazza del Sant’uffizio. We can meet you there in three minutes.’

Even through his panic, Agnelli was surprised. ‘You’re that close?’

‘Just get there.’ The line went silent.

He had no further time to think about the oddness of the situation. Instead, he hauled open another door, and entered the great basilica of St Peter.

Nina pounded down the corridor. She was gaining on Agnelli — but the two Swiss Guards were closing on her much more rapidly. She had to slow them down…

A fire extinguisher was mounted near the door into the basilica itself. She plucked it from the wall as she ran past, tugging out the safety pin, then spun to wedge it in the door jamb as she pulled the heavy door shut.

Its weight forced down the lever — and a choking gush of carbon dioxide gas spewed from the nozzle. The Swiss Guards retreated from the freezing cloud, coughing and hacking.

Nina didn’t wait to see if her improvised smokescreen had worked. Instead she pursued Agnelli through the basilica. Even in her flight, the building’s sheer scale and magnificence were awe-inspiring, the ceiling so high and the supporting pillars so huge that people seemed nothing more than toy figures beneath them. Glorious statues and paintings flashed past, altars and monuments to saints and popes, but she couldn’t afford to give the antiquities more than the briefest glance as she fixed her gaze on the Italian ahead. The two running figures were drawing attention, but the commotion from the grottoes hadn’t yet reached the vast church, the worshippers bewildered rather than scared.

Agnelli reached the doors, swatting aside an attendant who tried to block his path. He ran out into the open. Nina hurdled the fallen man and followed, finding herself looking out across the huge expanse of St Peter’s Square. The name was something of a misnomer; the western end in front of the basilica was a trapezoid, beyond it a great elliptical plaza, at the centre of which was a towering Egyptian obelisk. The nearer part of the square was hemmed in by the walls of long galleries, but the plaza was in the embrace of towering colonnades to the north and south — through which could be reached the streets of Rome.

Agnelli was running for the southern colonnade, having knocked down a barrier to cut diagonally across the square instead of being channelled around its edge. She raced after him, startled tourists watching her. Some had cameras and phones raised. Great, she thought, I’m going to be in the news again…

That was something to worry about later, after catching Agnelli. He was about thirty yards ahead, gaining a second wind now that escape was in sight. The Italian ran for another section of barrier. Much to Nina’s astonishment, the overweight youth successfully hurdled it with barely a break in his stride. Reaching it a few seconds later, she was forced to halt and scramble over the metal obstacle, losing precious time. By the time she cleared it, Agnelli had reached the colonnade and ducked between its great stone pillars.

She followed. When she regained sight of him, he was on a wide street, the Piazza del Sant’uffizio — outside Vatican territory, a gate to her right marking the boundary of the Holy See. The Italian looked about frantically, apparently expecting to see someone in particular. The person he had phoned must have arranged to rescue him.

‘Agnelli!’ she tried to shout, but it came out as a strangled croak. In her adrenalised state she hadn’t realised how tired she was becoming, but her muscles were now rebelling against their endocrinal manipulation. ‘Stop!’

If he heard her, he showed no sign. Instead the Italian kept running, himself showing growing fatigue that not even fear could overcome. He was still searching the street with increasing desperation—

Tyres screeched. Nina leapt for the sidewalk as a glossy black Range Rover with darkened windows skidded round the corner behind her and swept down the street, engine roaring. Agnelli turned to face it, face filled with relief.

The Range Rover didn’t stop.

Its blocky nose hit him square on, sending him flying into the air, broken limbs flailing. He smashed down on the tarmac in a heap — and the 4×4 drove right over him with a horrible crunch of bones. Pedestrians screamed and ran for cover as the big SUV made a skidding handbrake turn to power back the way it had come.

Straight at Nina.

She had stopped in horror at the sight of Agnelli being mowed down, but now she broke back into a sprint, terror overpowering her body’s protests. The only place that offered even the slightest protection was the doorway of a nearby building. She ran to it, grabbed the handle—

Locked!

Nina turned. The Range Rover was rushing at her, about to smear her along the wall—

It abruptly veered off and came to a squealing stop. Even though the windows were tinted, she could see figures inside. The passenger was apparently as surprised by the manoeuvre as she was. He remonstrated with the shadow in the driving seat, then opened the door and jumped out.

The man, blond-haired, wearing expensive suit and sunglasses, had a gunmetal automatic in his hand. He regarded Nina coldly and raised the pistol—

His chest erupted with bloody exit wounds as the Range Rover’s driver fired several shots into his back.

The man crumpled to the sidewalk, a crimson pool rapidly forming around him. Shocked, speechless, Nina tore her gaze from the corpse to see who had saved her.

It was the last person she had expected.

The driver was Sophia Blackwood.

Sociopath, killer — and Eddie’s first wife, from a time before her insane rage at the system that had bankrupted her father and wiped out her inheritance had seen her try to destroy the West’s economy by nuking Wall Street. The last time Nina saw her, Eddie had thrown her off the top of a waterfall.

Clearly, she could swim.

She had not survived the experience unscathed, though. Even through the shadows, Nina made out a long scar running down the left side of her face and neck. There was also something different about the rest of her features, a hard to define yet impossible to miss shifting of shapes and proportions. Plastic surgery?

Not that it mattered. Sophia held a gun in a black-gloved hand, its smoking muzzle now fixed on the American. Their eyes met, locked. Nina was frozen, knowing that the instant she moved, the raven-haired aristocrat would kill her.

She waited for the shot…

The gun flicked up, and Sophia dropped it almost casually on to the passenger seat. As the stunned Nina watched, she smiled, then raised a finger to her lips. The meaning of the gesture was unmistakable.

Shh. This is our little secret.

Then she floored the accelerator, spinning the wheel to peel the Range Rover away. The door slammed shut as it turned, Nina’s last sight of Sophia that same unfathomable smile. It roared into the crowded streets of Rome, leaving Nina standing there, utterly lost, as police sirens rose in the distance.