The Rome Prophecy

121

Major Lorenzo Silvestri stares at the clock on his office wall.

He wishes he had the power to stop it.

He’d give anything to be able to halt those hands and gain himself an extra twelve hours.

As one of the most experienced members of GIS, he knows he has to strike quickly. Unfortunately, speed and careful planning are not easy bedfellows.

If he rushes things, then whoever has Morassi will certainly kill her, and maybe other hostages as well.

But if he takes too long planning the search and rescue operation, then the kidnappers will cover their tracks and he may never find them.

‘Anything on Shaman’s phone?’ he asks Pasquale Conti.

The captain’s face answers before he does. ‘We had tech problems. We got a GPS lock and then lost it.’

‘What?’

‘I know. I could kill them too. They’re working on it.’

‘You got one location, right?’

‘Right. The phone company is playing ball and we managed to get a fix on where he called us from.’

‘Which was?’

‘He was near Parco di Porta, heading towards Via Appia Antica.’

Lorenzo drums his fingers on the desk. ‘How do you know he was heading that way?’

‘He turned his phone back on and we got a second brief fix on that, then it went dead again.’

‘Interesting. Who did he call after us?’

‘Morassi. The call lasted less than ten seconds.’

‘Sounds like she didn’t pick up.’

Lorenzo slides a sheet of paper across the desk. ‘The captain’s profile, from our intel unit. She’s a hotshot. A real high-flyer. Golden girl in Venice. That’s where she met this Shaman guy; they worked a murder case together.’

Pasquale taps Valentina’s photo. ‘You’re right about the hot bit. Man, she’s very, very hot!’

‘Enough!’ Lorenzo grins and slides over the brief on Tom. ‘Check out the boyfriend. The pic is from his visits to HQ.’

‘Not my type.’

‘Be serious. I called an old friend in Venice, Vito Carvalho. He used to be Morassi’s boss and briefly worked with Shaman. Turns out the guy used to be a priest in LA, until he stepped into a gang fight one night.’

‘What happened?’

‘Three on one.’ Lorenzo takes a beat. ‘The hoods were raping a young girl and had knives. Shaman beat the living daylights out of them. Left two dead and I think the third is still running.’

‘The original Good Samaritan.’

‘That’s not quite what Vito christened him.’

Pasquale’s intrigued. ‘Which was?’

‘Arcangelo Uriel.’

Pasquale is none the wiser. ‘Uriel?’

‘Heathen.’ Lorenzo shakes his head in mock disbelief and crosses himself. ‘If you were a good Catholic, you would know that Uriel means “Fire of God”. When the Almighty wants the dirty stuff doing, Uriel is the halo he hollers for. From slaying demons to burying Adam in Paradise, Uriel has always been the guy for tough jobs.’

Pasquale looks again at Tom’s ID picture. ‘And now he’s here in Rome, playing angels and demons. Lucky us.’