The Templar Salvation

Chapter 19

Amad panic erupted inside the lead SUV as all six of its occupants lasered their attention onto the gathering crowd outside the entrance of the Patriarchate.

“Where?” Ertugrul asked as he craned his neck left and right and scanned ahead. “Where is he?”

“Right there,” Reilly growled, now leaning forward so far off his seat that he was almost climbing over the back of the legat. He fought to keep his target in view, but the man in the priest’s cassock was moving away and disappearing behind the crowd. “We’re going to lose him,” he rasped, and seeing that the cars weren’t going anywhere, he clambered over the back of the middle row of seats and over Ertugrul, flung the car door open and burst out into the street.

Just as he was exiting the car, he heard the police chief bark something angrily to their driver, spurring the young trooper to do what was probably the worst thing he could have done: slamming his hand down on the horn and leaning out of his window, shouting and gesturing at the driver of the car ahead of him to move out of the way.

Reilly was already charging away from the armored Suburban when he saw the bomber react to the misjudged outburst. Without slowing down, the man spun his gaze around and their eyes met.

Wrong move, Reilly cursed inwardly as he sprinted forward and drew his handgun. Wrong fucking move.

ZAHED SAW REILLY STORM OUT of the black SUV and spurred his legs to life. There wasn’t a second to lose. Reilly was now rushing toward him, gun drawn, a dozen or so car lengths away. Other men were also pouring out of the black Suburban and from another one just behind it.

All of which took him by surprise.

They’re good, Zahed seethed. No, not they, he corrected himself. Reilly. Reilly’s good.

He stowed the concern. There were more pressing matters at hand.

He’d parked his rental car down the hill from the Patriarchate’s gates, and he instantly realized he’d have to abandon it there. It was about fifty yards away down the lane, too far to reach safely, and besides, there was no time to coax it out of its tight spot.

He decided on a far more efficient escape route.

Moving with the cool facility of someone who’d practiced the routine a hundred times for the final of a reality show, he banked right and doubled back and headed uphill—cutting through the crowd toward Reilly but, more relevantly, beelining his way to the vehicles that were stopped outside the compound’s gate.

From underneath his cassock, he pulled out the big Glock.

And without missing a beat, he started firing.

He loosed his first six shots into the air, just firing into the sky as he yelled, “Get out! Move! Now!” while waving his arms in the air like a madman. The effect was instantaneous—a torrent of screams cascaded outward as the terrified onlookers stampeded for cover, heading away from him and running straight into Reilly’s path.

Zahed was still moving briskly and went right up to the driver of the vehicle at the root of the backed-up traffic. The man had been standing by the door of his van and was just rooted there, startled and confused. Zahed squeezed off a round virtually point-blank, and before the man even knew what hit him, the force of the .380-caliber shell ripped the driver’s chest open and flung him backward with a vicious snap. Zahed kept moving. Oblivious to the mayhem around him, he just loped past the driver’s open door and raised his handgun again, this time at the taxi that was stopped behind the van. The taxi driver, who was standing next to it, looked at the gun-toting priest in terror and raised his arms, his legs crippled with fear. A dark, wet patch bloomed around his crotch. Zahed held his gaze for a second, then his emotionless eyes swung away from the man in concert with his gun hand until both settled on the car’s right front wheel. Zahed pulled the trigger again, and again, then a third time, shredding the tire to bits and causing the car to lurch and drop heavily onto its rim.

He glanced over the hobbled taxi’s roof and caught a glimpse of Reilly battling the tide of escaping onlookers. The agent was now less than thirty yards away. He raised his handgun and tried to line Reilly down its sight, but there was too much commotion around the agent and Zahed couldn’t get a clean shot.

Time to vamoose.

With his weapon still in his grip, he leapt behind the wheel of the van, slammed it into drive, and floored it.

REILLY HAD LOST SIGHT OF his target for no more than a few intakes of breath before the first shots sent the crowd scurrying in his direction.

They were coming right at him—men and women of all ages and sizes, screaming and yelling and running for their lives. He tried dodging and cutting through the onslaught, but it was hard enough for him just to hold his ground. Precious seconds ticked away as blurred bodies slammed into him and scurried past, seconds during which he heard another shot, then a few more, each one of them whipping his neurons and urging him forward.

He held his gun up close to his face and used his other arm to clear a path through the frenzy, yelling and waving “Get down” as he fought his way forward—and then he heard it, the wail of a burdened engine and the squeal of scrubbed tires and the last of the crowd streamed by to reveal the van tearing down the lane.

Reilly sprinted after the van as fast as he could, then skittered to a stop and lined up a shot and pulled the trigger once, twice, a third time—but it was pointless at that distance. The van was already disappearing from view. He spun around, his instincts doing a lightning-fast assessment of the situation around him. He registered the black smoke now billowing out of a window on an upper floor of one of the compound’s buildings, the priests spilling out of the Patriarchate in panic, Ertugrul and the Turkish cops rushing toward him, the shot man sprawled on the ground, another man standing by a taxi with a petrified stare on his face, the taxi’s tilt and low stance on the driver’s side, the fact that it was blocking all the cars behind it and didn’t look like it was going anywhere, not soon enough anyway.

Which meant he only had one option.

To run, as fast as he could, and hope for a miracle.

Chasing after the van that was now disappearing around a bend down the road, he bolted forward, breathing hard, his palms cutting through the still air, his elbows rowing him forward, the soles of his shoes hitting the asphalt hard in a staccato of crisp slaps. He must have covered twenty or so car lengths before he spotted his miracle, a middle-aged woman who was getting into her car, a small burgundy VW Polo.

There was no time for lengthy explanations.

Within seconds, Reilly had blurted out a couple of apologetic words, snatched the keys out of her hand, jumped behind the wheel, and screeched out of the parking spot, leaving the woman’s incensed shouts in his wake as he rocketed after his prey.