The Golden Vendetta (16 page)

B
ecca tried to hold herself together.

Dead guards and knights lay to her right and left and everywhere in between.

She held her breath, but she'd been doing it too long, and at the last moment was forced to take in a quick breath. It smelled heavily sweet, of desert plants and irrigation, even inside the house.

The soothing scent was worse than smelling death. It meant that people could die and the world would go on its way, not even notice.

“Where's the vault?” asked Wade.

Silva glanced at the schematic on his phone. He
nodded left. “The battle is moving away. Sara and K will join us—”

“We can't take that chance,” Becca said sharply. She bolted off, wove through the rooms, the hallways, feeling exposed in the dim emergency lighting. She followed her instincts. Isolated shots and clunks and shouts erupted behind her, but she pressed ahead and found the dark room.

Three shots popped down the hall. Becca crouched to the floor. No more shots. She rose to her feet. Silva was with her. Wade, Lily, and Darrell had fallen back. The two of them were alone in the room; then they weren't. The cat burglar darted through the room past their hiding place. Seconds later, another shape emerged from the shadows at the far end of the room. Galina. She paused in the darkness, completely still. Or . . . not
completely.
She was shivering. Why? What did she see? Becca's muscles ached, but any movement and she'd be seen. Galina turned, awkwardly, against the light of the doorway, and Becca saw the scar on her neck, inflamed to a bright crimson.

Holding her own breath, Becca heard Galina sucking air between her open lips, a habit she recognized, because she'd used it herself lately. Blinding pain could be eased a little by breathing that way.

Then the thief was back in the room, a handgun raised to the darkness.
Where is Drangheta? Already dead?

Galina burst from stillness, her arms like muscled steel cables. She swung hard at the thief, and something cracked. The gun flew across the room, and the woman's mouth made a sound like water splashing. She fell.

Silva touched Becca's arm, nodding. The vault chamber was across the room. But not yet. The thief was up again. Galina swung her arm back and wrenched a sword noisily from the wall, then slashed it forward across the air. Becca cringed, waiting for the thief's cry, but glass cracked instead. The thief slid a long curved dagger from a display case. The two women began parrying, thrusting, slashing, stabbing. No taunting like in the movies, just swift moves meant to kill.

Galina lunged forward, faked left, and her opponent's blade crashed into a vase, bursting it. It was Galina's chance. She thrust forward; the thief dodged the blade, swung her sword. Galina fell onto her, struggling hand to hand.

Silva pressed Becca's arm. Leaving the fight behind, she slid across the room into the vault chamber. It was cold, artificially refrigerated. There was nothing human about it. Silva moved in front of her and attached the explosive charge next to the safe door. They moved
back. A small concentrated blast blew the door from the safe, sending it crashing to the floor. Waving the smoke away, Becca reached into the vault. The small box she had seen in Monte Carlo was resting inside. She tipped open its lid. A bright silvery glow bathed her like a breath of frosty air.

“That it?” Silva whispered.

She nodded. She knew the glasses weren't heavy, but when she lifted the box, her hands and arms felt like lead. The weight of history? Of the Magister's long journeys? Of the horrors?

She swept the box into her bag. They slipped out of the vault room.

Galina was standing, her head hanging low, hair clinging to her face, her sword still in her hand. Mistral was nowhere in sight. Sara, K, and the others were there, their automatic weapons trained on Galina.

“You will regret this,” she said. Then, as Becca went past, Galina deliberately brushed her shoulder. “You, especially.”

Becca felt her blood turn to ice.

“This way, hurry,” said Wade. He helped Becca across the patio and down the stairs. Her bag was growing heavier as she ran. She didn't want to carry it. She already had the Copernicus diary. Having both
artifacts was one too many.

“Wade,” she started, reaching into her bag for the box, when shots rang out.

They ran, all of them, and ducked through a gap in the wall. An engine idled beyond it. Silva jumped past them all and into the driver's seat, Sara beside him, the others tumbling into the back. Silva hit the gas. The compound was still exploding with gunfire when they roared up the hill to the crest. Becca looked back. Galina was running through the garden, firing back over her shoulder.

“She's getting away. . . .”

“Doesn't matter,” said Silva. “We got what we came for.”

It was nearly five a.m. The sky was still purple black in the east. For a tiny moment, it was silent in Becca's mind. They had the glasses.
Ocularia arcanum.
She would read the diary as soon as she could. She would—

The thundering of engines broke into her thoughts. She turned back to the desert night.

They were being followed.

“T
en minutes, are you kidding?” Silva barked into his handset.

Silva twisted the wheel and took the Rover on what surely was not a road. Darrell knew the guy was angry. Was he also afraid? What did it mean when the person in charge was scared?

“The way to the airport is blocked by Drangheta's men,” Silva snarled. “He's friends with the police here. We're forced back into the city, at least for now.”

“There are two transports after us, maybe more,” Wade said, peering out the back. “And I think I see a couple of motorcycles.”

“The bikes could be Teutonic Order, the transports
maybe Drangheta. This is a bad-guy sandwich. Hold on!”

By the time the sky in the east began to turn rosy, the Rover reached Casablanca's outer streets, pursued by more vehicles now. Besides the transports and motorcycles, four black sedans had joined the chase, racing after them until they were in the winding streets. The city was just starting to wake up.

“We might have better luck in the medina,” Silva said. “That's the older part of the city, lots of narrow streets. The larger vehicles won't follow so easily in there; we'll be down to the motorcycles. I'll drop you at the nearest
bab
—gate. I'll circle back later and pick you up—”

“At the hospital,” said Lily. “And I mean that seriously. We'll meet there.”

Silva nodded. “Everyone hold on!” He raced along a crowded street, then turned right through a tall archway and into the crowded medina. Even early in the morning, with many shops not yet open, it was jammed with people. The streets were incredibly narrow, and jogged right or left with little advance notice.

“It's too tight!” Lily yelled. “We won't make it—”

The Rover careened into the corner of a blue-walled building, tearing off the vehicle's front end, then swung
around and plowed straight into one of the pursuing cars, and turned it over. The black sedan rolled, lifeless, into the front of a deserted café.

Silva backed up the Rover, but the steering was broken. They drove into several empty tables, scattered the men from the sedan. The Rover bounced once, then gave up. It was dead.

“Out!” yelled Sara. “Kids, come with me.”

They hurried through a second arched gate and into a world of ever-more-narrowing alleys, crowded with people in flowing robes and scarves, tea tables spilling out of shops, crisscrossing voices, calls, singing, music, and the aromas of dozens of different kinds of food.

Becca slid behind the others, her right thigh aching from when the crash threw her into the door handle. They entered one street, then zigzagged from it to another and another, trying to make it as far toward the other end of the medina as possible.

“We have to pull this off, we have to!” said Becca.

“We will,” said Lily.

“Move it!” Silva shot back at them. “Follow me.”

They did, deeper into the medina. Then came a sudden blast of gunfire; children screamed. Sara stumbled to a stop and hunkered down. Lily, Darrell, and Wade joined her, but there was nowhere for Becca to hide.
She jumped ahead of them and slid around a corner. More gunfire, she didn't know from where. She ran, then stopped. Where was the gunfire coming from? She couldn't move. The glasses, the diary—both were in jeopardy. Why hadn't she passed one of them off to someone else?

Suddenly, there was Wade, snaking down the alley toward her. “Are you hurt?” he gasped, looking her up and down. For what? Blood?

“No, I'm scared. They're all around us—”

“Not all around. The next street is clear. Silva and everybody will join us there. Come on.” He hurried Becca along the winding street from where he'd come. It bathed them in the odor of food and the smell of cooking oil and the coming heat of the day.

“You're a bit slow,” he said. “Can you run?”

She shook her head. “Sorry. A minute—”

“In here.” Wade slipped into an archway over the door of a small building, and she joined him. Beyond the arch, she saw curling letters painted on the walls inside. It was a mosque.

The sudden buzz of motorcycles was everywhere, roaring loudly over the echo of chanted prayers.

“Hurry,” she said.

They rushed down the street and under an arch
draped with carpets and emerged into a small open square. Wade's face tightened with fear and something else.
Indecision?
she thought.
Oh, please, not now.
No, he was checking out escape routes. “This way.” He headed left at a fast walk. Her bag suddenly weighed a ton. She hitched it over her neck, away from her left arm to the other side. Not much better.

They pushed out of the square into the first narrow alley they came to. Her thigh hurt more with each jarring step. Wade went halfway, then jerked to a sudden stop, listening.

All at once, a wooden door near the end of the alley crashed open. Two motorcycles bounced in over the scattered planks, then swung around to face her and Wade, revving loudly. Backing up, she spied the top of the passage wall nearest them. It was flat and wide.

“Up there?” she said.

“Yes!”

As the motorcycles accelerated toward them, she and Wade groped up the wall. He got up first and reached down for her. His grip was tight, his arm stronger than she expected. She clawed her way to the top. The bag came loose and slid down her arm. She grabbed it and slung it over her shoulder again just as the first bike roared down the street below.

“Becca!”

She swung around and spotted Lily. She and the others were on the rooftops along the next street. “Wade, we should be over there.”

“We'll meet up at the end.” Which sounded like something a priest would say at a funeral, but Wade was pointing to where the streets crossed and the rooftops met. “Keep going!” He was being short with her, angry almost.

He's right. I'm slowing us down.

The motorcycles' engines were muffled for a moment. Someone yelled, and Becca heard a crash of pots and pans. Both motorcycles suddenly thundered up a flight of stairs and out onto a nearby terrace, then up to the edge of the wall surrounding the roofs, then toward her.

“What the—” Wade gasped. “Becca, run!”

The motorcycles accelerated along the top of the wall. Wade scrambled on his knees to find a loose brick. He threw it hard at the first bike. It struck the rider, who slowed sharply, then sped up again.

The second rider started shooting.

As loud as the growling engines were, the unsuppressed gunfire crackled across the rosy morning air, bullets ricocheting on the pastel walls around them. More people were yelling from below now. A siren
wailed from too far away, not for them. The others scrambled up to the walls separating the rooftops on the other street, but the bikes weren't after them. Becca saw Sara rush ahead of Darrell more quickly than Wade in front of her.

I'm slowing him down. I'll get him hurt—

A spray of automatic gunfire riddled the wall ahead of them. Wade threw his arms around her shoulders and they were flat on the rooftop. Sara, Lily, or someone called out. More sirens wailed in the distance. Help? Maybe. Or maybe Drangheta owned the Casablanca police.

“Do you think you can run?” Wade whispered.

“Yes!”

They hurried across the rooftop walls and slid down the slanted, tile-topped roofs, ran straight across the flat ones. There were parapets on most houses. The sun was very hot now, washing the rooftops in rose and blue and yellow light.

“The bikers know we have the glasses. They don't care about the others.”

“So keep running!” Wade snapped. “Don't slow down!”

Releasing her hand, he climbed over the railing and jumped down to the lower roof. He was speeding across
the terrace before he realized she hadn't followed him. He whirled around. “Bec—”

Her whole upper arm felt like it was on fire, from the arrow wound outward. So much for antibiotics. It hadn't healed. Not completely. Her arm had no strength left in it. She slid back down the railing to the upper roof.

While one bike sped after Wade, the other bounced over the wall, did a somersault in the air, and landed on the roof with her, screeching to a stop on a single tire. Its rider yanked a pistol from inside his shirt and fired across at her, careful to avoid her bag.

She managed to duck flat under the railing.

Suddenly, there was a crossfire of shots. It was Silva, pumping his gun at the shooter. The shooter fell behind his bike and returned fire. Shots pocked the walls around her.
Pop-pop-pop!
Her brain was firing the same way:
pop-pop-pop,
the diary, the glasses, the relic. She was frozen, unable to move.

Or maybe not.

There was a set of stairs built into the roof some ten, twelve feet from her. Peering down, she saw that the stairs split on the landing below, one way going into the house, the other continuing down to the street. She caught a glimpse of people on the street below. She
could get to them if Silva kept the shooter pinned down.

“I'm going to try to make the stairs,” she yelled.

“Go for it!” Silva redoubled his attack.
Pop-pop-pop!

She hurled herself across the open space, then fell down the steps, catching herself halfway, and jumped down the rest. She reached the bottom, didn't see Wade anywhere, and didn't look back, didn't want to see Silva, the soldier who was risking his life for them.

She slid down a narrow alley, her chest heaving with fear and exhaustion. Praying silently that they wouldn't hurt Silva, wouldn't find Wade, that the others would get away, Becca pinned her bag between her arm and her side and padded down the passage. She slipped under a decorated archway along tall blue walls and out into the brightening street.