The Alexandria Link

FIFTY-FOUR

LISBON

9:30 PM

MALONE ROUNDED THE COUNTER AND CROUCHED WHERE McCollum was searching the dead man’s pockets. He’d watched the so-called treasure hunter kill their attacker with expert precision.

“Those two are rounding back through the church and headed here,” he said.

“I understand,” McCollum said. “Here’s a couple of spare magazines. And another gun. Any clue who they are?”

“Israeli. Have to be.”

“Thought you said they were out of the picture.”

“And I thought you said you were an amateur. Lot of skill you just showed.”

“You do what you have to when your ass is on the line.”

Malone noticed something else clipped to the dead man’s waist. He unsnapped the metal unit.

A transceiver locator. He’d used one many times to follow an electronically tagged target. He activated the video screen and saw that it was tracking something in silent mode. A flashing indicator showed the target was nearby.

“We need to go,” Pam said.

“That’s going to be a problem,” Malone said. “The only way out is through that gallery. But the other two gunmen must be near the stairs by now. We need another way down.”

He pocketed the locator unit. Weapons in hand, they slipped out of the gift shop.

The two gunmen burst from an archway ninety feet away and started firing.

Sounds like popping balloons snapped through the cloister.

Malone dove to the gallery floor, taking Pam with him. The corners were not ninety degrees, but flared, making the cloister octagonal. He used the angle for cover.

“Head that way,” McCollum said. “I’ll keep them busy.”

A continuous stone bench lined the outer perimeter, connecting the arches and forming an elaborate balustrade. Crouching down, he and Pam scampered away from the gift shop, where McCollum was firing at the two gunmen.

Bullets pinged off the stone wall ten feet to his left, some behind, others leading. He realized what was happening. Their shadows, cast from the incandescent fixtures that dimly illuminated the gallery, were betraying their presence. He grabbed Pam, stopped their advance, and hugged the floor. He aimed and, with three bullets, obliterated the lights ahead.

Darkness now sheathed them.

McCollum had stopped firing.

So had the gunmen.

He motioned and they hustled ahead, still crouched, using the arches, tracery, and stone bench for protection.

They came to the end of the gallery.

To their right, the inside wall of the next gallery stretched. No doors. At the far end was another unbroken wall. To his immediate left rose a set of glass doors, one swung open, inviting guests inside. A placard identified the room as the refectory. Perhaps there might be a way down inside?

He motioned and they entered.

Three thuds pounded the glass as bullets slammed against its exterior. None penetrated. More bulletproof material. Thank heaven for whoever selected the doors.

“Cotton, we’ve got a problem,” Pam said.

He stared into the refectory.

Through the darkness, broken only by the scattered rays seeping in from the windows, he saw a spacious rectangle topped by a ribbed ceiling, similar to that of the church. A low stone cornice encircled the room, below which ran a colorful tile mosaic. No doors led out. The windows were ten feet overhead with no way to get to them.

He spied only two openings.

One was at the far end, and he trotted the fifty-foot length and saw that it may have once been a fireplace but was now only a decorative niche.

Sealed.

The other opening was smaller, maybe four by five feet, recessed three feet into the outer wall. The refectory was once the abbey’s dining hall, so this may have been where food was prepared before serving.

Pam was right. They had a problem.

“Climb in there,” he told her.

She didn’t argue and wiggled her body up onto a stone shelf above an empty basin. “I must be out of my mind to be here.”

“A little late to be noticing that.”

He kept his eyes on the doors leading out to the upper gallery. A shadow grew in the dim light. He saw that Pam was safely inside and climbed in after her, atop the basin, pressing his spine against the shelf as far into the niche as possible.

“What are you going to do?” she asked in his ear.

“What I have to.”

SABRE HAD SEEN THE MEN DIVIDE. ONE CHASED AFTER MALONE; the other slipped into the archway that led back down to the church. He decided the high ground would be better, so he carefully inched his way to the same doorway, hoping it led to the upper choir, where Malone and his ex-wife had stood earlier.

He liked the hunt, especially when the prey offered a challenge. He wondered about the identity of these men. Were they Israelis, as Malone thought? Made sense. He knew from Jonah that an assassination squad had been dispatched to London, but George Haddad had already been handled. He’d heard that encounter on the tape, confirmed by Malone. So what were Israelis doing here? After him? Unlikely. But who else?

He found the doorway and slipped inside.

To his left dropped the stairway to the church. Through the blackness he heard footsteps below.

He entered the choir, stopping where the balustrade met the outer stone wall and carefully looking below. Windows high in the church’s south façade glowed with ambient light. The blackened figure of a man, gun in hand, crept down the aisle formed from the end of the pews to the church’s north wall, keeping to the shadows, trying to make his way to the lower choir.

He ticked off two shots.

The suppressed bangs popped through the cavernous nave. One found the mark and the man cried out, reeled, then staggered against a pew. He readjusted his aim, made only moderately difficult by the dimness, and with two more shots sank the man to the floor.

Not bad.

He released the gun’s magazine and replaced it with a fresh one from his pocket.

He turned to leave. Time to find Malone.

A gun appeared in his face.

“Drop the weapon,” the voice said in English.

He hesitated and tried to find a face to the voice, but the blackness revealed only a shadow. Then he realized the man wore a hood. The chilly prick of another gun barrel nipped his neck.

Two problems.

“One more time,” the first man said. “Drop the weapon.”

No choice. The gun clattered to the floor.

The pistol in his face lowered. Then something whirled through the air and slammed into the side of his skull. Before any semblance of pain registered in his brain, the world around him went silent.