The Aztec Prophecy

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The ex-SBS man watched as Mendoza and his men sprinted into the sunshine and crossed the Belvedere Courtyard. For five hundred years the courtyard had been an impressive example of High Renaissance landscape architecture serving to connect the Vatican Library with the Palace, but now it was a car park giving Mendoza an escape route toward the Sistine Chapel.

Hawke saw the sun flash on Mendoza’s gun just before he slipped into the shade of the Borgia Tower. He knew the tourist situation in that part of the palace wasn't going to make for an easy escape and if they weren’t careful they could easily redefine the word ‘bloodshed’ in the next few minutes.

He tracked across the car park, powering up to full speed as his boots pounded on the courtyard’s tarmac. He was flanked by Lea and the erstwhile Agent Snowcat, and a few yards further back by the unremittingly unfit Ryan Bale whose idea of a workout was rolling his own blunt, as he liked to brag. Now, weaving through the tourists as they swarmed in the Vatican, this seemed to lose its humor.

Two men in the Swiss Guard saw Mendoza approach the courtyard entrance to the Apostolic Palace and immediately raised their halberds to stop him. The Mexican cartel man made short work of the guards, raising his pistol and firing into their chests. They fell to the ground, dead, and Mendoza was through. The group of people taking photos of the fountain now saw instead the murder of two men and screamed in response, scuttling out of the courtyard in a dozen directions.

Hawke and the others leaped over the dead Swiss Guards and burst into the Raphael Rooms. These were originally designed as reception rooms and were now one of the few public parts of the papal apartments. Lined from floor to ceiling with frescoes painted by Raphael, they were second only to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel as examples of the greatest renaissance frescoes on the planet.

“You see ’em?” Lea said, gun raised.

“I’ll say,” Ryan mumbled. “These are incredible frescoes!”

“Not the paintings, you dope.”

Hawke scanned the chamber, staring through the confused, frightened tourists. “Not yet…” Then he heard a scream and a gunshot in the southwest of the chamber and saw a female museum assistant fall back in a doorway. She slumped to the floor, clutching at her stomach. “Bastard’s over there.”

“Jesus, they just shot that woman down!” Ryan said.

Maria, hardened by her years in the FSB didn’t share Ryan’s shock. “Let’s go.”

They sprinted through the enormous chamber with only Ryan glancing up at the dazzling frescoes on display all around them. They reached the door with the murdered woman, and stepped out into the less impressive cortile delle sentinelle, a dank courtyard separating the Raphael Rooms from the Sistine Chapel. A moment later they followed Mendoza into the chapel itself.

Maria gasped when they burst into the famous room, staring up at the vaulted ceiling in wonder as she saw Michelangelo’s artwork for the first time.

“There!” Lea said, pointing behind the marble transenna which divided the chapel into two sections. Originally designed to keep the members of the Papal Chapel and the commoners separate while in prayer, it was now giving the fleeing Mexican gangsters some much-needed cover.

Now at the far end of the chapel and followed closely by his two goons, Mendoza turned and fired blindly at Hawke and the shots rang out in the solemnly quiet space. The tourists who had been looking at the frescoes in respectful silence now bolted for their lives, and began falling over each other in their bid to reach the closest exit.

Hawke raised his gun and fired over their heads at the Mexicans, striking one of the goons in the back and downing him like a wounded moose. The man’s screams grew quieter as he lost consciousness from the drop in blood pressure, but Joe Hawke had already moved on to the next target. He fired a second shot. More screams, but another success. The bullet ripped into the second goon’s leg as he tried to slip out of the chapel ahead of Mendoza, spinning him around like a ballerina. Hawke fired again and hit the man in the chest, killing him in an instant.

Mendoza ducked down behind the altar and fired his gun at Hawke and the others. Hawke ducked to avoid the hot lead which traced over his head and drilled into the far wall, blasting chunks of Michelangelo’s frescoes all over the floor. What had been one of the greatest works of art for centuries was now no more than painted plaster dust, but this didn’t concern Silvio Mendoza, who fired a second time, raking a second volley of bullets up the wall and puncturing more frescoes on the vaulted ceiling.

Hawke returned fire, missing the Mexican who had ducked behind the altar once again for cover as he reloaded. Then the cartel man dashed out of the chapel, pausing only to throw something at the ECHO team.

“Grenade!” Hawke screamed, diving for cover.

The grenade exploded with savage velocity in the deceptively small chamber, its force knocking massive chunks off the transenna and blasting the glass in the arched windows into a lethal shower. Thousands of glass shards and splinters now rained down on the courtyards outside.

“He’s getting away!” Lea yelled.

Hawke thought for a second. “Ryan — what’s that door he just used?”

“Definitely an original High Renaissance.”

“Ryan!”

“Oh, sorry — I think it leads to the eastern part of the Basilica and St Peter’s Square.”

Hawke, Lea, Maria and Ryan sprinted to the door and emerged into a well-lit corridor leading to the east. They followed it until they reached daylight and the crushing sight of Silvio Mendoza climbing into a long, black limousine.

Lea threw her hands up in frustration as Maria spat out a string of Russian curses. Behind them, a wheezing Ryan Bale was trying to get his breath back, doubled over with his hands on his knees for support.

Hawke heaved a low sigh of disappointment as he realized he’d failed again, and his feeling of failure was compounded when Silvio Mendoza appeared through the rear sunroof of the limo. He gave him a mock salute and waved the codex at him before disappearing back inside the car.

Filmed by literally hundreds of tourists, the limousine accelerated away and skidded across St. Peter’s Square before hanging a left and slipping out of sight into the maze of Roman backstreets.

And with that, the codex was gone.