The Atlantis Code (18 page)

Ignoring the anxiety that rattled through her, Natasha scooped the pistol up in her left hand, took aim through the open front windshield, and clicked off the safety. The pistol chugged in her hand as she fired. Brass spun against the broken windshield as she squeezed off rounds as quickly as she could.

The bullets slammed into the driver’s side of the oncoming car’s window. Natasha watched the driver jerk under the impacts. Then the car slewed out of control. The vehicle caught the front corner of Natasha’s car, crumpled the fender, and slid past them to crash into the side of a clothing store.

Natasha shoved the gearshift into reverse and backed out into the street. She ground the gears, burned rubber, and shot through the traffic.

She glanced at Lourds. “We’re going to talk, you and I. Then I’m going to figure out what I’m going to do with you.”

The sounds of sirens filled the air, closing in on the wreckage behind them.

The crowd that gathered at the crash site choked traffic. Gallardo gazed in frustration as the car he drove became mired in the vehicles. Giving up, he flung the door open and strode forward. Snarling curses, he roughly pushed through the crowd. A few men cursed him back, but none of them tried to stop him.

Four men still remained inside the wrecked vehicle. The driver lay slumped over the steering wheel. Taking care not to touch the car and leave fingerprints, Gallardo grabbed the man by the hair and pulled him back.

Bullets had almost destroyed his face.

Cursing again, Gallardo released the dead man. The body teetered over to the side onto the man in the passenger seat. The man seated there roughly shoved the dead man from him and cursed.

“Move it!” Gallardo ordered. “Out of the car!”

Police sirens split the air as the authorities got closer.

“Follow me!” Gallardo turned and retraced his steps through the crowd. All the gawkers remained at a distance. They backed up even farther as the three men still alive got out of the vehicle with weapons in their hands. They ran after Gallardo, weapons up and ready.

Returning to his car, Gallardo climbed inside, motioned for the others to pile in, and looked at DiBenedetto. “Get us out of here.”

As the doors slammed shut behind them, DiBenedetto backed rapidly through the alley.

Seething with rage, Gallardo fished his own phone from his pocket. He still remembered the ease with which the woman had come up behind him and taken him. Like he’d been a child. It was embarrassing and unforgivable. He promised himself he would see her again. When he did, he was going to kill her. Slowly.

He dialed Murani’s phone number.

CARDINAL STEFANO MURANI’S QUARTERS
STATUS CIVITATIS VATICANAE
AUGUST 21, 2009

The knock on the door woke Cardinal Murani. Fatigue held him in its thrall. He felt like he’d been drugged. He still lay abed in pajamas. One of the heavy tomes he’d been studying lay in his lap.

“Cardinal Murani,” a young man’s voice called.

“Yes, Vincent,” Murani replied in a hoarse voice. Vincent was his personal valet. “Come in.”

Vincent opened the bedroom door and entered the bedroom. He was little more than five feet tall and thin as a rake. His bones stuck out at his elbows and forearms. As a result, his head looked too large for his body. He wore an ill-fitting dark suit and had his hair neatly parted.

“You weren’t at breakfast, Cardinal,” Vincent said. He didn’t look Murani in the eye. Vincent never looked anyone in the eye.

“I don’t feel well this morning,” Murani said.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Would you like to have breakfast brought to you?”

“Yes. See to it.”

Vincent nodded and excused himself from the room.

Murani knew the young man didn’t believe him, but he also didn’t care. Vincent was the least of his concerns. The young man was his vassal, totally under his control. Vincent had seen Murani call in sick several times over the last few weeks.

Sitting up, Murani reached for the phone and called his personal secretary. He gave orders to cancel his appointments and the lunch he’d scheduled with one of the pope’s yes-men.

Clearing the day to work on the secrets hidden within the bell and cymbal felt good. He switched the television on and watched CNN. There was no mention of the dig at Cádiz, but Murani knew there would be in short order. The dig had taken over the news like the sudden death of some drug-addicted starlet.

He got up, intending to shower before breakfast, but his cell phone rang. He answered and recognized Gallardo’s voice at once.

“Things haven’t gone well,” Gallardo said without preamble. “We lost the package.”

Murani easily read between the lines. “What happened?”

“We followed the package to the state university here,” Gallardo said.

“Why did he—it—go there?”

“There was another package waiting. He got it.”

Murani’s heart thudded.
Another package?
“What was in the other package?”

“We don’t know.”

“How did he know the package was there?”

“We don’t know that either. But we do know we were followed. And we do know that the person who followed us is now there with the package. What we don’t know is why.”

Black anger stole over Murani. On the television, CNN had started spinning the story about Father Sebastian’s dig at Cádiz again. Murani knew time was working against him now. Every moment was precious.

“I don’t pay you not to know things,” Murani said coldly.

“I’m aware of that. But you don’t pay me well enough to take the risks I’m taking now.”

That declaration was a shot fired across Murani’s bows, and the cardinal knew it. This far into the search for the instruments, there wasn’t anyone else he could call in on such short notice, much less anyone of Gallardo’s caliber, and with his connections. He made himself breathe out and remain calm.

“Can you retrieve the packages?”

Gallardo was silent for a moment. Then he said, “For the right price, we can try.”

“Then do so,” Murani replied.

MOSCOW, RUSSIA
AUGUST 21, 2009

Lourds sat braced in the passenger seat of the car as Natasha Safarov sped through traffic. She spoke quickly on her cell phone. Though he was fluent in Russian, she spoke so quickly and cryptically that he wasn’t certain exactly what the conversation was about.

Leslie and Gary sat quietly in the back. They’d had enough. Leslie had demanded to know what was going on and then asked to be taken to the British Consulate. Natasha had addressed the young woman only once. She’d told her that if she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, she would be taken to the nearest police station.

Leslie hadn’t said anything since.

After traveling for nearly an hour through traffic, passing through historic parts of Moscow that Lourds had often visited before as well as old residential areas he doubted a tourist had ever seen, Natasha pulled up in a small parking area behind a nondescript building.

Natasha switched off the engine and pocketed the keys. She opened the door and got out. Leaning down to the window, eyeball to eyeball with Lourds, she ordered, “Get out. All of you.”

With some concern, Lourds got out. His legs shook—aftershocks from the enforced stillness of the ride and the emotional letdown from the escape and the gun battle.

The building was six stories tall and looked like it had been constructed back in the 1950s. Its grim and forbidding appearance tied a knot in Lourds’s stomach.

“What are we doing here?” Leslie asked.

Natasha’s immediate irritation tightened her face. Lourds saw the emotion and felt certain the woman wasn’t going to answer.

But she gained control of herself.

Her expression once again emotionless, Natasha said, “It’s a hideout. You’ll be safe here. We need to talk. I want to see if we can sort this out before anyone else has to die. I’m sure you want the same thing.”

When Natasha gestured to the fire escape clinging to the building’s side, Lourds nodded and took the lead. The front-door entrance wasn’t an option. He put his foot on the first rung and started climbing. He knew that Leslie and Gary would follow.

Natasha stopped them on the fourth-floor landing. She used a key to let them inside the building, then directed Lourds to the third door on the left. Another key allowed them entrance into a small apartment.

The apartment consisted of a living room/dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. There was a shower but no bathtub. It wasn’t spacious and it didn’t look comfortable for the number of people in their group, but it felt safe.

Still, Lourds knew that was probably an illusion.

“Sit,” Natasha told them.

“Are we under arrest?” Leslie challenged. She made no move to sit.

Lourds folded himself into a wingback chair and relinquished the floor. He’d suspected Leslie would show some resistance and didn’t intend to add to the confusion. Unless he had to.

And deciding which side to support would be tricky. He felt loyalties to Leslie, but Natasha might offer the best opportunity to decipher the puzzle of the cymbal and the bell.

She was clearly a cool head in a crisis.

The hard edges of the plastic case under his jacket pressed against his side. He was surprised Natasha hadn’t demanded possession of it so far.

“Would you like to be under arrest?” Natasha responded. “I can arrange it.”

Bulldog fierceness swelled onto Leslie’s face. “I’m a British citizen. You can’t frivolously cast aside my rights.”

“And you can’t just walk into my country, drag carnage behind you, and take something produced by a government employee—my sister,” Natasha retorted. “I’m quite certain your government wouldn’t condone your actions.”

Leslie wrapped her arms under her breasts and stuck her chin out. No signs of surrender there.

“Perhaps,” Lourds interjected as smoothly as he could, “we could all keep in mind the fact that no one wants us incarcerated at the moment.” He shot Natasha a glance to underscore what he meant by
no one
.

Natasha shrugged slightly. It was an unconscious body movement that not many might have noticed. Lourds had trained himself to watch for inaudible communications as well as verbal ones—it was a part of being a linguist. Often the most important parts of human communication weren’t spoken. Those little gestures—and the meta-messages they conveyed—were generally the ones that crossed cultural barriers first, long before words.

“This is a safe house,” Natasha said. “We use this place and others like it to keep important prisoners safe. The Russian mob has a long reach.”

Leslie bridled at the word
prisoners
. Thankfully she didn’t voice her objections.

“The men who pursue you should not be able to find us here. We’ll have some time to work through things,” Natasha went on.

“That depends,” Gary said. “I mean, if your cop buddies know about this place and they see you’ve gone missing, they could come round here looking for you. And if they think we’ve kidnapped you, which might explain why you didn’t come back round there, they might come in guns blazing, mightn’t they? Makes sense, dude, doesn’t it?”

Despite the way it was phrased, Lourds had to admit it was an astute observation. Gary obviously had a fertile mind when it came to projecting scenarios.

“They won’t come here,” Natasha said. “Even they don’t know about this place.”

“Why not?” Leslie asked.

“Because I haven’t told them about it. I am a high-ranking officer. I pursue the most dangerous cases. I’m given a certain amount of . . . latitude . . . in my investigations.”

“I don’t suppose the police will come round later,” Leslie said. “When it’s more
convenient?
”

“Nothing about spiriting you people off the street is convenient,” Natasha said. “I killed a man back there. I don’t know what kind of impression you have about my country, but killing is frowned upon here as well as in your country. In fact, judging from the leniency in your court systems versus ours, I’d say America is much more lenient than Russian judges.” Her voice grew sharper.

“I’m not American,” Leslie said. “I’m British. It’s a civilized society compared to either Russia or America.”

“If we’re through with all the posturing,” Natasha said, “maybe we could get on to figuring out what we’re going to do next?”

“If I may,” Lourds stated quietly, “I’d like to suggest that we cooperate. For the moment, I think we can all agree that we have something to gain by learning more about our present predicament, and quite a lot to lose if we’re caught.”

The two women stared at each other. Leslie acquiesced first, with a short nod that Natasha finally echoed.

“Good.” Lourds took the plastic case from his jacket and popped it open to survey the micro flash drive inside. “Then first let’s all have a look at what Yuliya left.”