The Templar Salvation (2010) (21 page)

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.

Chapter 20

M
ansour Zahed scanned the view from the van’s windshield with heightened concentration.

He was somewhat familiar with Istanbul, a city he’d visited on a number of occasions in the course of various assignments. But he didn’t know its road configuration that well, and he certainly didn’t know the narrow streets of the Phanar district well enough to know where he was going. He didn’t really care where he ended up. He’d gotten what he wanted from the library of the Patriarchate. All he needed to do now was put a reasonable buffer zone between him and the Orthodox compound while making sure he hadn’t been followed, then dump the van and grab a cab to join up with Steyl and their captive archaeologist.

He reached an intersection and turned right, heading toward the waterfront and the dual highway that snaked up and down the south bank of the Golden Horn. If he could make it onto it, he was home free. It was a major artery that he could comfortably ride to distance himself from Reilly and his posse. It had to be close to the water, he thought, the tension across his body starting to dissipate. No more than a handful of streets away.

The squeal of a car sliding around a corner brutally guillotined his reprieve.

He glanced in his mirror. A dark hatchback had skidded into view and was eating up the road behind him.

A glimpse of the driver was enough to tell him it was Reilly.

Madar jendeh
, he swore under his breath as he mashed the gas pedal and tightened his grip on the wheel.

He reached a busy intersection, and punched the brake pedal before hitting the horn and barging through. He scrutinized his rearview mirror for a couple of tense heartbeats before he heard the long dopplery howl of a car horn and spotted the hatchback emerge from the chaos of the intersection and scurry after him like an angry terrier.

He stormed through a couple of more intersections, cutting past infuriated drivers and using the van’s bulk to bully them out of his way as if he were in a demolition derby, and managed to put a few cars between him and Reilly. He dove into another street just ahead of a big truck and motored away, keeping an eye on his side mirror to see how many car lengths he’d gained by the maneuver—and then disaster struck. He’d reached the on-ramp to the coastal road, a dual parkway that consisted of two separate two-lane roads, one heading north and the other south, that ran alongside each other in places and were far apart in others.

The problem was, the access road he was on was blocked by traffic.

He slammed on his brakes and scanned ahead. The road that the ramp was leading to, the one heading north, was totally swamped. Frustratingly, the one heading south was clear, but he couldn’t get on it, not with cars and trucks now backed up behind him and two-foot aluminum barriers on either side.

He was boxed in.

Worse, he glanced in his mirror and, about seven car lengths back, spotted a burgundy-colored car door swinging open and Reilly bursting out.

He grimaced, impressed and angered in equal measure by the agent’s relentlessness, and lunged out of the van.

He sprinted down the access road, clambered over one of the barriers, and cut across a parched grassland to reach the main road. He glanced back and saw Reilly rushing after him, and thought about pulling out his gun and taking a shot, then decided against it. Instead, he kept moving, snaking through the stalled cars, hurdling over another barrier, and tearing across another bit of grassland, then over a farther barrier to reach the south parkway that was flowing with cars.

He looked back. Reilly was closing in. He turned and sized up the oncoming cars. He spotted a white sedan with a single occupant coming toward him, and stepped into the middle of the road, his hands held out high and wide, waving them as if calling out for help. He calculated that the priest’s cassock he was wearing would help—which it did, as the car slowed right down and pulled in close to the barrier. A couple of cars behind it slid to a halt, tires and horns shrieking. Zahed ignored them. He just approached the driver with a sheepish, friendly look on his face. The driver, a slight, balding man, started to open his window. It had barely slid down a few inches when Zahed’s hand darted in and wrenched the door open, then he reached in and released the hapless driver’s seat belt, grabbed him, and yanked him out of his car in one ferocious move. He flung him onto the asphalt as if he were unloading a duffel bag, sending him tumbling across the lane divider and causing an oncoming truck to swerve away to avoid flattening him. Zahed didn’t notice. He was already behind the wheel of the human skittle’s Ford Mondeo and streaking away down the open road.