Chapter Five

 

Rome - Wednesday, March 25

Just after 5:00 pm, people began to arrive at a run-down second-floor office above a vacant warehouse in a shabby section of Rome.

The earliest arrivals came from Italy three days ago, and as the week progressed they came from southern France, Switzerland, Austria, and southern Germany. The last came from the UK. Most came by train, but some used private cars. Some came to the warehouse in taxis, but most arrived on foot, preferring to walk the last few blocks. Some were fit, trim, and moved with the easy confidence of athletes. Others were the everyman in the street. Some looked like maids, and some like fashion models. A surprising number were in their seventies and eighties.

One by one they entered a ground floor garage where four men with FN P90s stood back from the doors. Two more with sniper rifles sat on the roof across the street. The arrivals took little notice of the armed guards and quietly followed instructions. None spoke or showed any signs of recognizing each other.

Inside the garage, each sat in a metal chair, placed a thumb on a glowing pad connected to a computer, and looked into an eyepiece jutting from a small box connected to the computer. A silent man pointed a sawed-off shotgun under the table, watched the computer monitor, and nodded toward Callahan as each thumbprint and retina scan was identified. Callahan pointed them toward the stairs to the second floor.

Upstairs, they first checked out small and large caliber pistols, with silencers where needed. Most slipped a knife in a pocket or purse, and each picked up a packet of one thousand Euros for emergencies. Then they went to their strike teams.

A Templar strike team had at least one controller with a computer in the control center, a Watcher, driver, and shooter. Some had more, depending on the target and location of the strike. Each had a single mission, a single target.

The last to enter was a tall white-haired man and a much younger and very attractive dark-haired woman. The woman sat down and passed the identity check. Marie Curtis, Callahan noticed. She smiled at Callahan and said, “Good to see you again, Callahan. They said you were all beat to hell.” She laughed. “They were right. Is it contagious?”

“No, your beauty is safe. It’s not contagious.” He thought about his problem with Santini in the library. Marie was just what he needed, an expert in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. “Say, will you be around after this?”

“I’m driving back with the Marshall. Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Ok. I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning. We better get moving here.” He pointed upstairs.

“Ok,” she said, then paused at the stairs. “What’s with you, Callahan? In Costa Rica you smash up your face, and now you do it again in Rome. Lookin’ good.”

Before he could answer, she had taken the stairs to the second floor two at a time.

“Hey,” he called after her, “I thought you were a blond.”

“I see you still have a way with women, Callahan.” The Templar Marshall approached and looked him up and down. “Hmmph. You couldn’t get laid with fifty pieces of gold in a whorehouse.”

“She’s weird, Sir.”

The Marshall lowered his voice and moved closer. “Your face looks like something chewed on it. But, you know, when you run toward the bomb, you’re running into the battle, Callahan. I like that.”

He slapped him on the back, sat in the metal folding chair for his ID check, then went upstairs.

The teams were all assembled and were going over photos, maps, and GPS equipment. Each team member wore a GPS unit that allowed the controller to track the shooter, driver, and Watcher on a detailed computer map of the city.

“Alright. Pay attention.”

All eyes snapped to the Marshall in the middle of the room.

“Tomorrow we will kill thirteen Hashashin and Al Qaeda in Rome. That’s our mission. Each team here has its own target.  When the mission is complete, most of us are going back where we came from. Most will not come back to this building. You all have safe house addresses and numbers. If you get in trouble, that’s where you go. Talk to your controllers. If you have a problem, let them know. If you get in trouble, we’re going to come in after you. We’re not going to leave you out there. But communicate. The more we know, the better we can respond.”

He walked by each station and looked at each Templar individually. “You young people. You’re shooters. You have the gun, but you are not in command. Listen to your controller, look at your Watcher, know where your driver is.”

He silently looked from one face to another, then continued. “Each Watcher has put these operations together. They know where the target goes, when he gets up in the morning, what kind of coffee he likes, where his girlfriend lives, and they know the target area. They know where to take him. So, when the Watcher signals ‘Go,’ you take the target. When he signals ‘Wait,’ you wait. And when he signals ‘Abort,’ you abort. Let me say that again. When the Watcher signals ‘Abort,’ you abort. No questions. Think of it this way. You are the Watcher’s weapon.

“You don’t appreciate it now, but these Watchers once were shooters just like you. They are the best because they are still alive. Karl over there,” he pointed to a smiling man of about eighty. “He first went to battle as a Templar sixty years ago, and he’s been in it ever since. And he’s still with us. Pay attention. They have the experience, and they have the judgment. Do what they say. Do what the controller says. These are team operations, not solo performances.

“When you complete your mission or abort, leave your weapons with your driver, or ditch them in pieces if you have to.”

He looked around the room. In fifty years, the young ones would be the Watchers, or perhaps one would be the Marshall giving this same speech to a new generation of Templars. That’s how it had worked in an unbroken chain for nine hundred years.

“It’s unusual for us to move on so many at once, but these guys just delivered a bomb to the Vatican that killed a thousand people, and they’re still sitting in the sidewalk cafes sipping nutmeg lattes and watching the girls go by. They’re safe because the police don’t have ‘probable cause’ to arrest them. They have human rights. They’re laughing at us.

“Laughing at us,” he said very slowly. “Well, they’re right. The police don’t have probable cause to arrest them, but the Knights Templars know who they are, know what they did, know what they plan to do, and have probable cause to kill them.”

 

Rome - Thursday, March 26

Ahmed Al Mishari paused on the steps of his girlfriend’s flat on the Via Monserrato in Rome and took a deep breath. He remembered some old American movie. Springtime in Rome? Paris? Roman Holiday?  He actually felt like dancing up the street. What would his family and friends back in Saudi Arabia say if they saw him swinging around a Roman lamp post on a beautiful spring morning? But he resisted the urge and skipped lightly down the steps to the street level.

Callahan saw him come down the stairs from half a block away, and he could see the Watcher was fiddling with a bicycle chain across the street from Ahmed. Patience. Let it unfold as planned.

Ahmed was a man at peace with himself. He worked for his uncle’s shipping company a few hours a day, slept many afternoons, shopped for whatever he wanted, and made the nightly circuit of the latest and trendiest clubs. And the women? Oh, so many, and so very, very willing. How different from back home in Riyadh. Life in Rome was good. And life in Riyadh?

He didn’t actually work for his uncle. In fact, he wasn’t really his uncle. The Lebanese owner of the firm was surprised to learn one day that he had a nephew who would soon start working for him. If he didn’t like that arrangement, the uncle’s real family would begin to die off until the new nephew was accepted into the family and business. Everybody wins.

Ahmed had to admit his lifestyle lacked serious attention to Islamic teaching and principles. He truly regretted that, and hoped one day to have an opportunity to return to a proper Muslim society, but not too soon. Not yet. He would suffer for the cause.  And perhaps, he thought, he would be obliged to suffer the indignities of the decadent West for many years.  A warrior must be strong. A warrior must sacrifice. Ahmed considered himself a warrior.

The great success the movement had achieved in the destroying of the core of Christianity was a strike for all Muslims. In fact, he was ecstatic. For hundreds of years infidel Popes had trained their followers to kill and enslave Muslims, plunder their lands, and steal their learning. Remember the Crusades? But now they had replied. They had spoken, they had roared, the West would listen, and the West would tremble with the terrible echoes of that blast in the Vatican. 

Al Mishari regretted he had no direct role in the bombing, but he valued himself too much to think of sacrificing himself as a suicide bomber. He was a thinker, a planner. Others carried out the directives that came from people like him. They all had a place according to their talents. He really hadn’t planned the bombing, but he could have.

He was the banker for the various fanatical groups in Europe that were one day going to destroy that arrogant continent. It wasn’t a particularly difficult job, but he told himself that its importance justified his own.  He simply made overpayments to certain shipping forwarders in major cities, and, after taking their cut, they passed the excess to a specific employee. Ahmed even got his special cut.

Perhaps one day all of St. Peter’s could explode in a fireball? Maybe all the Vatican? Or that London Ferris wheel by the River Thames? The Eiffel Tower? Big Ben’s head exploding? The Chunnel? Maybe the Acropolis? Europe was what one could call a target-rich environment. Yes, his day would come, hopefully many days. But he wanted to push the button and watch from safety. And when the history of these times was written, his name would be among the heroes who would be honored for a thousand years.

The fact that he wasn’t the only Hashashin source of cash for these groups in Europe was disappointing, and it might diminish his status a bit, but he appreciated the need for compartmentalization and secrecy. Too many operations had failed in the past because too many people knew too much.

He walked a block past apartments and shops, and turned in to a small parking garage where he always left his car when he visited Francesca. When the attendant saw him, he dropped his newspaper and raced up the stairs to an upper level. A minute later the attendant stood at attention, holding open the door of Ahmed’s black Mercedes SL. At over one hundred thousand Euros, it was the best combination of performance and comfort available. The car reflected the man, he thought, and this car reflected Ahmed Al Mishari, sleek, powerful, fast, and admired. It turned heads.

He strutted slowly around the car looking for any damage, frowned, wiped a finger at a speck on a fender, leaned in to check the back seat, and casually looked back at the attendant. “Thank you, boy,” said Al Dosari as he handed the thirty-year-old attendant a twenty Euro tip. He wanted people to know he was a big tipper. He wanted them to remember him. He liked the way they looked at him. And he wanted the attendant to appreciate him and his generosity.

“Thank you, Sir,” replied the man. “And have a fine day, Sir.” The attendant considered smashing that smug face to a pulp, grabbing the head and slamming it in the door, thought about police and jail, then fingered the twenty Euros in his pocket and shrugged. Twenty Euros three or four times a week added up. “Jerk,” he mumbled to himself while standing back and smiling at his benefactor.

Al Mishari revved the engine unnecessarily, adjusted the mirror that needed no adjustment, and pulled on his Le Mans driving gloves. He lurched out of the garage, and when he stopped to let cross traffic pass, Callahan took the opportunity to glance at the Watcher, and push a four key combination on his cell phone.

The small package in the headrest received a coded signal from the cell phone and sent a pulse to an electric fuse which ignited a primer. The primer charge heated the main charge to a temperature where the shaped solid explosive transformed to a gas. And due to the shape of the charge, the gas expanded mainly in a single direction, straight forward into the back of Al Mishari’s head. The force of the gas slammed his head forward and, since his head didn’t move fast enough for the racing gas, bored a large crater in the back of his skull. It was all finished in a few milliseconds.

Callahan sent a text message from his cell phone and watched from the window of the crowded café across from the garage. He looked up from his newspaper, saw there was no injury to anyone other than Al Mishari, and no damage to any other vehicle. Textbook case, he thought. Just enough to do the job.  Too bad about the car. He put the specially modified cell phone back in his pocket.

The garage attendant just gaped at the car. The jerks’s head blew up. Twenty Euros three times a week. Gone!

 

*     *     *

Callahan pushed out of the café with the other patrons who rushed the door, all jostling for position to see what had happened.  He shook his head in dismay and disgust, then walked past the car rather than away from it. Walking away would seem odd to most people, and possibly draw attention. He stopped for a moment to watch with the crowd, and then kept on walking down the street at a normal pace. He passed the Watcher, who made eye contact, but nothing further. Mission accomplished. Al Mishari would never be a problem again. The small, shaped charge had obliterated the man’s head, but left everything except the driver’s window intact. It was messy, but a good cleaning job and a new window would put the car back on the road.

Six hours earlier the Watcher had parked, blocking part of the garage driveway. When the attendant went out to deal with him, Callahan slipped in to the garage and up the stairs to Ahmed’s car. He had a master key for the Mercedes, and it slipped into the well-oiled lock without a sound. He removed the zippered headrest cover on the driver’s seat. The package he left behind the first layer of padding in the headrest, red side forward, was no larger than a pack of cigarettes, and designed to do just one job. He had been told by the technicians who designed the device that it could kill the driver while leaving passengers unharmed. Perfect.

He flipped the arming switch, confirmed the red light blinked twice, then sealed the headrest and zipped the cover back in place. The device would stay armed for ten hours. After that it would turn its radio receiver off, short circuit and drain the battery, and might stay peacefully in the headrest for the life of the car.

Police cars and an ambulance raced past him, and he exhibited the proper amount of gawking for Rome. He continued walking, and when he turned a corner, a black taxi pulled to the curb and Callahan jumped in the back seat.

“Everything Ok?” asked the driver.

“Just fine,” said Callahan. “It was quite a show. The information you and the Watcher provided couldn’t have been better. And my compliments to the techs. Quite a useful little package.” 

“Damn glad we got that bastard. We’ve been watching him live the high life for a while, now. Sometimes I’m tempted to just walk up to them and give ‘em a little present behind the ear.” He gave a loud laugh. “Hard to teach an old dog new tricks, eh?” He laughed again.

Callahan dropped both cell phones over the back of the front seat. “You should take these.” Then he pulled out the gloves he had worn when he planted the bomb. “These, too.”

“No problem. Might use the fancy one again. Hope so. This almost feels like I was back in the field again.” He stuffed them in the large pocket of his jacket.

“How long have you guys been watching that moron back there?” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

“We picked up on him about eighteen months ago. He came in from Saudi. Acted like the crown prince. Nothing too good for him. Only the good life. But he was just too regular in his habits. We knew the time to take him out would be when he left the girl’s house in the morning. We just hoped he didn’t lose interest in her. She moved once. I think he must be paying for this place.” He nodded backward. “Always the same pattern. No finesse. No brains. Didn’t really understand how this business works.”

“Did you see Gus back there?” asked the driver about the Watcher.

“Yeah, he was right up there in the crowd of ghouls trying to get a good look.”

A Templar never really retires, Callahan thought, just moves to a new phase. The older people simply moved to surveillance and intelligence. They were smart and experienced, and also invisible. Nobody pays much attention to a grey-haired old man with a cane and a slight limp who takes a daily walk through the neighborhood and stops at a bench to feed the pigeons. He can also take pictures of people entering the restaurant across the street. He was just like any old man, except he had probably been fighting the Hashashin for forty years.

When the taxi stopped around the corner from Mancini’s warehouse, the driver turned and said, “Give the Marshall my best. I don’t go any further here. I go over to the Coliseum and park there now. They’ll call me if one of the other teams needs any help.” He pointed a finger at Callahan. “And if you have a chance, tell that skinny old French bastard back in Zurich we’re ready for whatever happens. Tell him Joe Petrelli says to get off his ass. We’re ready.”

Callahan walked toward the warehouse entrance and couldn’t see the outside guards. Good. He rubbed the bandage on his head and saw blood on his hand. It was leaking. How did that happen?

 

Rome - Thursday, March 26

“Like they say, the waiting is the worst part.” The Templar Marshall paced between the tables of controllers at their computer screens. “Rather be out there in the thick of it.”

“We should start hearing pretty soon, Sir,” said Mancini.

The Marshall looked at the controllers. “You guys have anything interesting?” He waved a hand. “Forget it. Do your job.”

All the teams were deployed and the controllers were in voice contact with the Watchers. They could also see the locations of each member of their team on the GPS maps on their screens.

“How many do you think we will get?” asked Mancini.

“Ten would be great,” said the Marshall. “We have thirteen targets, and if we can get half of them, I’ll consider that a huge success. We can’t keep this up forever. I’d even call it a success if we only got the three Hashashin. I’m still surprised they are in the open after the bomb.”

“Yeah, but I guess our luck can’t hold up forever, and we might as well clear the board of as many as we can while they are still being stupid.”

The Marshall walked up to the thirteen pictures taped to the wall. Each had a number above it.  “Stupid isn’t what we face here, gentlemen. If they were stupid, they wouldn’t have lasted this long. The Hashashin have been around for a thousand years. Longer than us. They’ve survived it all, and are anything but stupid. Actually, I think we may be pushing it a bit here, but they hit us in Rome on our own turf, so we may as well chase as many of them out of town as we can.”

“Oh, I know they aren’t stupid,” said Mancini, “but everyone does some stupid things, no matter how smart they are. I think these guys have been lulled into a sense of false security because they have been operating in Western nations so long. They think they can kill by night, then sit around basking in the protection of all the human rights groups.”

 “Amen to that, but times are about to change.” The Marshall agreed with Mancini. The Hashashin had been establishing cells under front names all over Europe for the past twenty years, and limousine liberals had been cheering them on in the name of diversity and world peace. Most of the cells didn’t even know the Hashashin existed, and had no idea they were just pawns in a larger game. They demonstrated, preached murder and hate, killed people who spoke against them, raised money for more killing, and justified it all under the banner of religious freedom. But the Hashashin were the invisible hand behind it all.

One of the controllers at the table shouted, “Confirmed kill on number six. Parking garage in the Navona district. Headrest bomb. No collateral damage.” He pressed his headset to his ear. “Watcher says Callahan is walking around the corner now.” He sat watching his screen. “I see him on the GPS approaching the pickup point. Driver moving in. Driver reports Callahan in the car and they’re away.”

The Marshall took a yellow sticky from the desk, drew an “X” across it with a marker pen, and handed it to Mancini, who stuck the “X” on the face of Ahmed Al Mishari, a Saudi whose picture was labeled “6.”

“Confirmed kill on number four. Strangled in bed.”

“Probable kill on the Via Appia Nuova. No collateral damage. Successful exfiltration," said another of the men. “Abdul Rizak Al Ghamdi, Saudi. Bomb planted last night in a planter outside the girlfriend’s ground floor apartment. Got him on the way out. Nobody else hurt.”

“We should start paying these girls,” said Mancini.

The Marshall circled the room as reports continued to come in. After one hour, reports had come in from nine teams. Eight had been successful, and one had been aborted.

Callahan came up the stairs and spoke briefly to his controller.

“Good work, Callahan,” said the Marshall.

“So, we have four left out there,” said Mancini. He glanced at his watch. “Come on, guys, let’s hear something.”

“Abort on number eleven. Watcher says our man is limping away from the target building with blood on his leg.”
     Callahan moved behind the man who had given the report, but said nothing. The Marshall kept pacing and scanning the entire control center.

The screen showed GPS blips on a detailed neighborhood map. The controller pointed to the blip of the wounded Templar. “We have two cars converging on primary and alternate extraction points… one in position… second car reports our man… is in the first car… and moving away.” Two blips converged, then only one moved off. The man said something into the headset he wore. “Confirm our man is being extracted in one of our cars.”

Mancini flipped through a clipboard. “Sami Ba Isani. Gaza experience. Jordanian. Looks like he got some practice in Iraq, too. Too bad. He doesn’t deserve to live. At least our man got out.”

“Abort on numbers seven and eight. A car pulled up in front of their building and they jumped in. They left their own motor scooters parked in front.”

“Sounds like they got the word from someone,” said Mancini. “Damn. One of them was Hashashin.”

“That’s twelve accounted for. Right?” Callahan looked at one of the men at a computer terminal.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Who’s left?”

“Number two,” said the man. “Only name we have is Saad. Hashashin.”

The Marshall looked at his watch. “Who’s the shooter on that?”

“DeLarossa, Sir” replied the controller.

“Watcher?”

“Karl Koch.”

“Koch and DeLarossa,” repeated the Marshall. “It’s been too long.  Anyone else, we should call them off. But nobody, and I mean nobody, is better than those two. Let them run a while.”

The Marshall pointed to the man at the terminal. “Call the Watcher and see what’s happening.”

The man held his hand to his earpiece as he listened. “The Watcher… says DeLarossa is sitting in a sidewalk café half a block away from the target drinking coffee and eating a Danish. The target is across the street and down a bit at another café, at a table with two others.”

“Anyone we know?” asked Mancini.

“Arab looking guy. Middle-aged. Overweight. And a woman. Brown hair. Thirty to forty.  Says she has a frog tattooed on her ankle. They’re all studying something on the table, some papers.”

“Mancini!” Callahan shouted, “A fat Arab guy, a woman in her thirties, and a frog. Ring a bell?”

The man at the terminal held a hand to his earpiece and waved a hand. “Our man… DeLarossa… is moving toward the target. The Watcher says it’s a ‘Go.’ Looks like he can get a clear shot and get away.”

“Abort. Abort now,” yelled Callahan. “Abort.”

 

*     *     *

“Show me your Latin transcription,” the man ordered Jean.

She slipped the Latin transcription of the Treaty of Tuscany from her bag and laid it on the café table before him. He produced a page and laid the two side by side. Then he put one finger on the first word of Jean’s Latin, and another on the first word of his paper. Mumbling to himself and moving one word at a time, he put a check above each word on the pages.

He stopped and looked up. “This word.” He pointed at Jean’s transcription. “Look. Is it correct?”

Jean bent over and looked at the Latin. She pulled a copy of the original treaty from her bag and consulted it. “Yes, that’s correct. It’s ‘et.’ That’s Latin for ‘and.’”

“Mine says ‘ut.’” He showed her his page. She quickly scanned it and saw he had brought a Latin transcript of the treaty. Now where did he get that?

“Well, if that’s supposed to be a copy of the treaty, it’s wrong.” She looked straight at him. “I don’t know where you got this, but somebody on your side of this doesn’t know Latin. ‘Ut’ means ‘in order to.’ It makes no sense in that sentence. The phrase is ‘Pope and king.’ It makes no sense to say ‘Pope in order to king.’”

“Don’t tell me what we know or don’t know, woman. We have had this for centuries.” He flicked his page with his fingers.

Woman? Does this guy think he’s back on his camel? “Well, man… then you’ve been wrong for centuries. I don’t give a damn how long you have had it. This is what I do every day, and I can tell you that’s right.” She jammed a finger down on her transcription.

Hammid intervened and the two men had a quick exchange in Arabic. “Let’s just get on with this,” he said to Jean.

The man scowled and continued comparing the two pages. When he finished, he shrugged and said something in Arabic to Hammid.

“My colleague says the transcription you have provided matches what we know about the treaty. We have had the words for hundreds of years, but without the original…” He shrugged.

“Your colleague says so? Why do we even have this guy checking it?” Jean nodded at Saad. “Why couldn’t you check it?”

“What can I say? Our management likes to double-check when we are paying large amounts of money for things. Saad will now call and confirm you have delivered the correct manuscript, and our management will transfer your fee to your account.”

Which means, thought Jean, that someone doesn’t completely trust Hammid, or they are awfully careful with their money.

They waited while Saad made his call. When he finished, he asked Hammid in Arabic, “Why don’t we kill this stupid cow? We have what we want. Why waste good money on her?”

Hammid studied Saad and wondered as he often did why so many people think killing is a solution to any situation. But he had to be patient. “We don’t kill her. First, we made a bargain and she fulfilled her end. Second, we might need her services again. Third, what is she going to do? Will she run to the police and say she was involved in bombing the Vatican? I doubt it.”

Hammid sipped of his coffee and continued in Arabic. “Actually, if one had no regard for her, far better than killing her would be to tip the police to her. Let them put her on trial and have her testify the treaty did, indeed, come straight from the Vatican Library.” The Old Man’s wisdom came easily to him.

Hammid turned to Jean. “Check your account in about five minutes.”

They waited and made small talk. Two minutes…

 

Rome - Thursday, March 26

The man at the window table left a few euro notes, daintily dabbed a napkin to his lips, folded the napkin back on the table, put on his sunglasses, and picked up his shopping bag. He pursed his lips, looked over the tops of his sunglasses at his reflection in the window, and carefully smoothed back one of the few remaining hairs on his smooth head.  One arm held the shopping bag, while the other was bent at the elbow and swayed with him as he took small, quick steps. He was the bank teller who smirks as you reach the front of his line and slams down a CLOSED sign. 

At the cafe door he stretched, coughed into an embossed handkerchief, and looked left and right several times deciding which way to go. He glanced at his watch with a large face and a bright blue band, chose to go right, and walked out of the café at a leisurely pace. He nodded at pedestrians he met, and paused a few times to shake a disapproving head at displays in the windows of the expensive shops.

The target had led them on an unexpected chase. All the intelligence they had said Saad would leave his apartment and ride his Vespa to the university for his morning classes. He was an excellent student. So, the Watcher had simply let the air out of the Vespa’s back tire. Then DeLarossa had planned to approach Rashid as he investigated the flat, nod in sympathy, and shoot him.

But Saad had ignored the Vespa that morning and hastily walked in the opposite direction, talking on a cell phone. DeLarossa figured he wasn’t going far, since he had left the Vespa parked. He knew they should have aborted the mission at that point, but they weren’t quitters. The Watcher was following Saad and had given no abort signal.

Now he could see the back of his target sitting with a man and woman across the street in a sidewalk cafe. He couldn’t see the target’s face, but his back was just as good. The target was smoking and bent over a table, engrossed in whatever they were inspecting. Good.

He could see the Watcher about a quarter block on the other side of the target’s café, slowly moving up the street with a walker. He moved the walker, settled himself, moved one foot, settled himself, moved the other foot, and paused. Then the whole procedure started again. Every few steps, the Watcher would carefully focus the long lens of his camera on the street scene and take a picture. He was quite obvious about this, pulling lenses from a bag hanging on the walker, adjusting camera settings, and waving the light meter around. The Watcher would no doubt have pictures of the target and anyone else who was with him. He had to remember that the Watcher had once done the same job he had now. Time passes.

The Ruger Mark III .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol swung easily in the shopping bag. He looked down into the bag and saw the gun with its attached silencer sitting on top of a folded jacket. A round was in the chamber, the safety was off, and ten additional rounds waited in the magazine.

When the traffic cleared, he crossed the street at a diagonal toward the café where the target was bent over the table in discussion. The woman looked up at him when he reached the curb, but registered nothing and went back to gesturing at the papers.

The Watcher fished in his bag, pulled a Michelin travel guide from his pocket, and held it up pretending to consult it. That was the abort signal, but DeLarossa was no longer looking at the Watcher. He locked on his target and closed for the kill.

The target was twenty feet away. He paused at the edge of the café, where a low fence separated it from the sidewalk. Should he stop for a latte, or continue on to whatever important business he had? The latte won out.  He looked at his watch, and entered the open gate of the café.

He glanced around, frowned, and then spotted a waiter offering a table. He nodded to the waiter with an annoyed and audible sigh that caused the waiter to retreat back into the building, lifted his shopping bag up and peered into it, rooting through its contents with his right hand. As he moved, Saad’s back came within one foot of his left side. He held the handles of the bag at chest level with his left hand so it hid his right hand holding the Ruger. His right forearm was parallel to the ground, with the end of the silencer six inches from the back of Rashid’s head.

He fired three times. The small caliber bullets hardly made a sound with the silencer attached. They penetrated the skull, tunneled around inside the brain, but didn’t have the power to leave an exit wound. He dropped the gun back into the bag, continued looking through the bag with an annoyed expression, never interrupted his stride toward his table, then moved out the gate on the other side.

The other patrons in the café noticed nothing and continued conversing or perusing their newspapers like normal Romans. Behind him, the woman at Saad’s table gave a choked sob, and he heard a chair fall. Then he heard screams and dishes crashing as the patrons saw the blood soaking the tablecloth and running onto the ground.  What happened? That man on the table? So much blood! Oh, my God! Good. He walked out of the café and continued down the street, passing the Watcher who stayed buried in the Michelin Guide. DeLarossa noticed the guide, caught the Watcher’s eye, and shrugged.  A beat up fiat with stolen license plates was waiting around the corner. He got in the back seat and the car moved off and turned at the first intersection.

 

*     *     *

 “Target is down. Repeat. Target is down.”

“Damn,” shouted Callahan. He wanted them alive, not dead or running all over the city.

Callahan turned to the Marshall. “The woman the Watcher reported on… tattoo of a frog on her leg… same as the one who robbed the library… the man with her fits her partner. It’s a bomb connection… the only one we have.”

Callahan spun and faced the controller. “Tell the Watcher to follow the man and woman at all costs.” Damn. What if they split up? Which one? “If he has to make a choice, follow the woman.” Why her? Instinct?

The Marshall came around behind the terminals. “You, you, and you,” he pointed at three controllers. “Move all your people into the area. Get the descriptions out to them. We have a Watcher on the woman with the tattoo on her leg. We need a tail on the fat Arab.”

He pointed at DeLarossa’s controller. “If your Watcher has any pictures, see if you can get them back here.”

Then he pointed to Callahan. “Go!”

Callahan grabbed an idle controller. “You know Rome? You have a car?”

“I was born and raised in Rome.”

“Let’s go!” He ran for the stairs.

 

*     *     *

When Saad’s head fell forward onto the table, Jean felt herself lifted up like a rag doll and placed on her feet. Hammid shoved her briefcase into her hands and said, “Go. Run. Go now. And I do mean run. Get out of here.”

Jean took one more look at Saad, put a hand on the fence around the café, and vaulted over it.  She held the case in both hands for balance and sprinted down the street in the direction opposite from the shooter. She turned at the first corner, then settled into a comfortable but brisk walk, pretended to look at the items in the shop windows, and tried to get her breath under control.

It wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t TV. The dour Arab was just sprawled in a puddle of his own blood. Right in front of her, at her table. Pop, pop, pop. Just like that. Hardly a sound. She could have reached out and touched him. The cigarette still glowed in his mouth. And that eye. That single open eye, dead, but looking right at her. Why hadn’t they shot her and Hammid? Why just that Arab? And who were “they?” Who was the little wimp with the shopping bag and gun? Some wimp.

She wore a light blouse, slacks and running shoes. Hammid made her change from the more fashionable sandals she had chosen because he said they had to be prepared. When she had asked what they had to be prepared for, he had just shrugged and said, “Contingencies.” Now she thanked God she had changed shoes. Contingencies? Had he known? Suspected? Did the bank transfer go through?

She was four blocks from her hotel when she saw the first police car skid around a corner and head toward the café. She paused and watched it, figuring that was what most people would do. It was just a few minutes run to the hotel, but she forced herself to slow down and walk at the same speed as everyone else on the sidewalk. Run and she would be stopped. Relax. Breathe. She even paused to inspect some shop windows, using the reflection in the glass to look for tails. Tails? What did a tail really look like? Some guy in a trench coat?

At one block from the hotel her heart stopped racing and her hand ached. She released the death grip on the briefcase holding her translations, transcriptions of the treaty, and a few copies of the original. Hammid had the original, so no trace was left at the café. Hammid was leaning back in his chair and talking about the beauty of Alexandria when Saad was shot. That ended the travelogue. Now the Arabs probably wanted her dead, too. Whoever the Arabs were. Who did Hammid work for? The group with the long view of history? Who shot the guy? Why?

So where was Hammid? Probably sprinting in the opposite direction right now. That picture brought a bitter smile. Would he be back at the hotel? And how was she supposed to do the laser analysis on the treaty when Hammid had it with him?  That was his problem now. She was finished. It wasn’t worth it. Not her fight.

And Saad. He had an excellent transcript of the treaty in Latin. Where did that come from? They said they had it for hundreds of years. Perhaps some copy from when it was written? He had checked every word against her transcript. What would have happened if they were different?

When she reached her hotel room, she collapsed on her back on the bed, then jumped up and connected her laptop computer to the hotel wireless Internet. She waited while the connection to her Swiss bank was confirmed. Account number, then three passwords in response to three questions.  More waiting. Then the numbers flashed up. The transfer had been completed. The account showed one million euros.

She fell back on the bed again. She had one million euros and she was wanted by the whole world as a mass murderer. She didn’t know where Hammid was. And she had no idea how to get out of Italy. Why not just take the train? Nobody knew anything about her. And who was that little mouse of a man who had shot Saad? Who cares? He didn’t want to shoot her. He had the chance. So she stared at the ceiling wishing she had never set eyes on Hammid, but grateful for all that money.

 

*     *     *

The Watcher had received the abort message when the shooter was halfway across the street and closing on Saad. He slid his small knapsack from his shoulder and pulled out a Michelin travel guide. That was the abort signal, but the shooter was focused on the target, not the Watcher. He had no other options. Protocol demanded he simply give a clear signal, and he had not been ordered to break cover to contact the shooter. So he fumbled with the guide while DeLarossa pranced into the café, shot the target, walked through the café, and exited toward him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if DeLarossa had sat down and ordered a cappuccino. The man was gifted.

He was still looking at the guide when DeLarossa passed him. DeLarossa looked at the book, and cocked questioning eyebrow. The Watcher shrugged, DeLarossa shrugged, and they continued in opposite directions.

The Watcher reported to control through the wireless Bluetooth earpiece he wore. He knew something had gone bad. Wrong target? Mistaken identity? He didn’t know, and continued slowly making his way down the street in the direction of the café. People were now running by him, but he was able to see the woman jump the fence and run. No way could he keep up with her on foot. Her feet hardly touched the ground. The Arab she was with slipped across the street with a briefcase and went up a cross street.  Then control said the woman was the priority, so he dropped the walker, kept the camera bag, and hopped on his Vespa by the curb.

The Watcher followed her down the avenue for half a block, then around a corner. He was about half a block back, with enough people on the street that he didn’t have any problem staying out of sight. He relayed his progress to the controller, and was told to watch for two men on a motorcycle and call them on his cell phone. When the motorcycle shot by he called the number control had given him.

 

*     *     *

Callahan sat on the back of a Ducati Hypomotard 1100 street racer being driven by a maniac.  He hated motorcycles.  A broken wrist from his first ride still ached in the cold. But the maniac managed to keep them alive every time Callahan saw death ahead. When they neared the area, they fell in behind a speeding police car and let it lead the way.

The controller told him over his Bluetooth earpiece that the target was down, a Watcher on a Vespa was tailing the woman, and backup Templar cars were looking for the man. Callahan said he would take the woman, and left control to coordinate efforts on the Arab.

The Watcher called a few seconds later and gave him the location of the woman.  Callahan told him to maintain surveillance while he and the motorcycle driver came into position.

The driver slowed when Callahan tapped on his helmet. They pulled into an alley while he explained the situation, then they went back the way they had come, spotted the Watcher, and saw the woman at the next intersection. They circled the block so he could fall in behind her as she entered the next intersection. He slipped off the motorcycle, told the driver to let the controller know he and his bike were available, and took up the chase on foot.

The woman came to the intersection and waited patiently for the red light. He moved up behind her, got a good look at her, and looked at her ankle as he crossed the street with her. The frog tattoo looked back at him. She was probably in her late thirties, and in excellent shape. Runner? Gym rat? He dropped back so she didn’t get a good look at him, and called Mancini asking for more help so their quarry didn’t get away. They were not prepared to take her off a crowded street, and they would like to see where she went before taking the next steps. Callahan was walking behind the only lead they had in the bombing of St. Peter’s and the confusing library theft.