The Templar Salvation

Chapter 6

Reilly and the Iranian professor reached the bottom of the ramp and just kept running.

The Carriage Museum, the most recent addition to the museums of the Vatican, was a vast underground showcase that looked like it tunneled on forever—which suited Reilly. He slowed right down as he entered the first exhibition hall, giving his mental MapQuest a second to kick in. The space around him was sleek and modern, in stark contrast to the gaudy displays that it housed: from sumptuous sedan chairs to nineteenth-century horse-drawn carriages of gold, velvet, and damask, an astounding collection of twenty-four-carat masterpieces on stilts and wheels.

His accomplice looked around, confused. “Why are we down here? It’s a dead end, and—I don’t think these are going to get us anywhere, not without horses.”

“We’re not here for the carriages,” he replied, before leading Sharafi deeper into the museum.

The gilded carriages gave way to an array of motorcars. They stalked past a trio of hulking black limousines from the 1930s that were straight out of an Al Capone movie, their hand-built coachwork, drum headlights, and flowing fenders harking back to a more elegant age.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Sharafi allowed himself a mild chortle.

Before Reilly could answer, he heard some commotion behind them, by the entrance. A clutch of carabinieri and Swiss Guards were bursting into the exhibition hall, storming past startled tourists. One of the cops had spotted Reilly and the Iranian through the clusters of tourists and was pointing at them and shouting frantically.

Reilly frowned. “Have faith,” he told Sharafi as he got moving again. He drew the Iranian past a white three-wheeled rickshaw—complete with papal crest on its canvas doors—and into the farthest section of the museum, where more recent Popemobiles were housed. Heading for the very back of the museum, they blew past a Mercedes 600 landaulet, a Lincoln Continental four-door convertible, and a Chrysler Imperial, all from the 1960s and gleaming like black obsidian.

Sharafi glanced back. The posse was closing in. “How are you going to get us out of here? Can you hot-wire one of these cars?”

“I’m hoping I won’t have to,” Reilly replied as he spotted what he was looking for: a doorway next to a wide roller shutter, tucked into the rear wall and painted to match. “There,” he pointed as he took off toward it.

The professor followed in his wake.

As they reached it, the door swung open and two maintenance technicians in white overalls came through, oblivious to the mayhem. Reilly shoved them aside as he swooped past them, catching the door before it slammed shut. As angry shouts echoed behind him, he ushered Sharafi through the door and followed him into a tunnel that was wide enough for a car to get through. He sped up, his lungs and thigh muscles burning, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the professor was keeping up—which, to Reilly’s surprise and relief, he was. The tunnel ferried them to a large garage where three mechanics were working on the current Popemobiles: an open-top Mercedes G500 SUV, which the pope used locally, and a couple of modified Mercedes ML430 “Popequarium” SUVs with the elevated bulletproof glass boxes out back, for when he traveled abroad, all finished in what the German manufacturer called “Vatican-mystic white.” Another ramp led away from the garage, in the opposite direction to the way they’d come in.

A way out.

Maybe.

Reilly did a split-second triage in his mind and beelined for the ML that was being worked on. It was facing the wrong way, its back to the exit ramp, but trumping that was the fact that it had its hood propped up—and its engine running. The startled mechanics did a double-take and moved to confront them, but Reilly was overflowing with adrenaline and out of time. He didn’t break step. He just strode straight up to the first mechanic, grabbed him by the arm, twisted it around, and used it to fling him at his colleague, sending them both toppling back into a set of tool trays. The third mechanic hesitated and faltered back, reached into a tool tray and pulled out a big wrench, and started moving forward again.

“Get in,” Reilly barked to Sharafi, yanking the hood’s support arm out of its cradle and slamming it shut before scrambling into the driver’s seat.

He watched as Sharafi hustled around the back of the car, losing sight of him behind the big glass box—then spotted the mechanic with the wrench rounding the passenger side of the car and heading straight for him. He hesitated, unsure about whether or not to jump out and help the professor, then glimpsed him in the side mirror of the car—and was stunned to see the Iranian dispatch the mechanic with a surgically efficient and vicious pair of kicks to the knee and face.

Sharafi climbed in next to him, breathing hard but looking unruffled, his hands still clutching the heavy book. Their eyes met—a split-second, unspoken acknowledgment of the Iranian’s efficient handling of his challenge—then the carabinieri burst into the garage from the museum side, yelling at them and waving handguns. A deep whirr coming from behind snagged Reilly’s attention. He spun back to see the roller shutter at the far end of the exit ramp gliding down. One of the mechanics had recovered and stood by the wall, his hand on the shutter’s control button, his face locked in a self-satisfied grin.

“Hang on,” Reilly roared as he slammed the car into reverse and floored the pedal. The four-ton vehicle lurched backward, its tires squealing loudly on the acrylic floor. Reilly guided the SUV through the tunnel and up the short ramp—trying to avoid bouncing off the side walls, eyeing the shutter as it inched its way down—and just managed to slip through under it, the edge of the glass box scraping harshly against the lip of the shutter, metal biting into toughened safety glass—then they burst into daylight, at the far end of the road he and Sharafi had cut across only minutes earlier.

He spun the wheel to turn the big SUV around, wrenched the gear lever into drive, and charged forward. The road was narrow and lined with parked cars, hugging the long facade of the Apostolic Library.

“Nice move on that mechanic back there,” Reilly remarked as he slid a sideways glance at the Iranian professor.

“My country’s been more or less constantly at war ever since I was born,” he shrugged. “Like everyone else, I had to do my time in the army.” Glancing around, he asked, “You know where we are?”

“More or less. The gate’s on the other side of this building,” he said, pointing at the library rushing past them on the left. “If I’ve got it right, there should be a passage into the courtyard with the parked cars just about here—”

He had it right—and swerved into the narrow tunnel that led into the Belvedere Courtyard.

He slewed the car around the parked cars, startled visitors scrambling out of the way of the lumbering Popequarium bearing the license plate SCV 1—for Stato della Citta del Vaticano, meaning Vatican City State, though most Romans joked that it really stood for Se Cristo Vedesse, meaning “If only Christ could see this,” a jab at how, over the centuries, the popes had completely overturned Jesus’s original message of possession-free preaching. Another vaulted passage on the opposite side of the courtyard led them out on the other side of the library complex—and onto a clear run down the Via Del Belvedere to the Porta Sant’Anna and out of the city.

“We can’t stay in this thing,” Sharafi said. “It’s like a beacon.”

“We’re not out of here yet.” Reilly was staring dead ahead.

Two carabinieri cars—sleek, dark blue Alfa Romeos with menacing, sharklike grilles, spinning blue lights on their roofs, and shrill sirens—burst out of a side street between them and the gate and were rushing toward them.

Definitely not going according to plan, Reilly thought, scowling at the prospect of playing chicken with the Italian police in a stolen Popemobile. But he was doing it. And they were coming right at him, and didn’t look like they were about to blink first. And in that moment, Tess’s face burst into his consciousness—his mind picturing her in some vile lockdown, chained to some radiator, helpless, the psycho lurking nearby. He couldn’t back down, nor could he not get them out of there with the book. He had to make it—for her.

He kept his foot down.

“Agent Reilly—” Sharafi tensed up, his right arm clamping down on the armrest.

Reilly didn’t blink.

He was a nanosecond away from slamming head-on into them when the road opened up into a wide piazza outside the Tower of Nicholas V, a massive round fortification that was part of the original Vatican walls. Reilly jerked the wheel to the right—swerving off his arrowlike path just as the two black police cars shot past—then left again to get back on track. He glanced into his mirror to see the two Alfas do some synchronized hand-brake turns that lit up their tires and spun them around before they resumed the chase.

The road ahead was all clear, the gate less than a hundred yards away now. It was the way Reilly had been driven into the Vatican, twice now, a grand entrance with twin marble columns topped by a solemn stone eagle on either side of the heavy wrought iron gates—gates that some Swiss Guards were now rushing to close.

Not good.

Reilly kept the pedal jammed down, feeling a hardening in his gut. With the two Alfas close behind, he cannoned past a few cars that were waiting to be ushered out of the gate onto the main road, ramping the SUV’s left wheels over the curb to squeeze by, before blasting through the gates and obliterating them in a deafening frenzy of twisted iron and steel—instantly followed by an eruption of glass as the Popequarium’s tall viewing box slammed into the intricate overthrow that spanned the top of the gate and burst into smithereens.

Pedestrians on the busy street outside the Vatican wall scattered frantically, leaping out of the way as Reilly pulled a screaming left and tore up the Via di Porta Angelica. Sharafi looked back as the first Alfa burst out of the gate and hooked a screaming left to follow the SUV—and just then, a massive explosion rocked the street, its shock wave jolting Reilly forward off his seat.

What the—?

Reilly instinctively ducked with the blast, controlling the Popemobile as it swerved from the shock wave before slamming on the brakes and bringing it to a screeching halt. His ears deafened, his head dazed, his body rigid with shock, he glanced across at Sharafi in stunned, confused silence. Sharafi met his gaze, looking surprisingly cool and unruffled, as if nothing had happened. Reilly’s mind was too busy slowing down and trying to make sense of the surreal sight around him to process it, but the Iranian’s inscrutable look still registered inside him somewhere as he craned around for a better look.

The street outside the gates was apocalyptic, like something out of downtown Baghdad. Thick black smoke was billowing out of the flaming hulk of a car, a parked car that must have had a bomb in it. It must have exploded just as the lead Alfa was passing alongside it, as the cops’ car was plastered against the Vatican’s outer wall, thrown into it sideways. What looked like the second Alfa was also in the wreckage, piled into some parked cars. Debris was everywhere, clumps of concrete and metal still raining down around them. Shell-shocked people were limping around, dazed, looking for loved ones or just standing stiff in disbelief. There had to be deaths, Reilly was sure of it—and lots of wounded.

“We’ve got to go,” the Iranian said.

Reilly looked at him askance, still groggy from the blast.

“Get us out of here now,” the man insisted. “You need to think about Tess.”

Reilly glanced back—a couple of carabinieri were coming out of the smoke cloud, running toward them, weapons drawn—then they started firing. Bullets clipped the back of the wrecked SUV.

“Move,” the Iranian rasped.

Reilly ripped his gaze away from the pandemonium and hit the gas. And as the armored SUV stormed through the narrow streets without a specific destination in mind, a sudden realization stormed out of Reilly’s snarled mind—a realization that shot a piercing sensation through his chest.

Random observations clicked into place. The way the Iranian looked when they were on the run, like he was out for a jog while Reilly was gasping for breath. The way he took out the mechanic with the efficiency of a ninja. The way he didn’t even flinch when the bomb went off. The fact that mangled bodies didn’t seem to register with him.

Oh fuck.

He turned to the man sitting beside him. “Who the hell are you?”