The Lost Treasure of the Templars (14 page)

He picked up his computer bag, looped the strap over his shoulder, and led the way to the door of the apartment. He listened for a few seconds, concentrating on the noise of the approaching siren, then nodded: it sounded as if the police car was only a matter of a few hundred yards away.

Mallory turned the handle of the Yale lock and pulled the door open wide, the noise of the police siren immediately virtually doubling in intensity.

And for a moment, he just stood there, realizing that there was a third possible course of action that could be taken by the opposition that he had never even considered. In the same instant, he realized another fundamental truth: that in a dangerous situation having a weapon tucked away in a pocket and largely inaccessible was exactly the same as having no weapon at all.

Because standing right in front of him, a pistol held loosely in his right hand, was another black-haired and heavily built man wearing a dark suit.

Dartmouth, Devon

It was difficult to know who was the more surprised—Mallory or the unidentified stranger—but perhaps predictably it was Robin who reacted first and fastest.

As the man outside the door raised his right arm to aim the pistol, she stepped forward to put herself in front of Mallory.

A half smile appeared for the briefest of instants on the man's face as he watched the diminutive dark-haired girl approach him. Perhaps he was wondering who she was, but it didn't look as if he perceived her as any kind of threat.

A split second later, he realized his mistake.

Robin stretched out her left hand, the fingers and thumb open, settled it apparently quite gently on his right forearm and slid the web of her hand down to his wrist, as if she wanted to simply force the aim of his pistol away from her. But that was only a part of her attack strategy.

Moving with sudden speed, she ducked down under his arm and swiveled so that her back was toward him.
And then she pulled down with both hands on his right arm, her movements fluid and well practiced. Her back acted as a fulcrum, and the stranger, who weighed at least twice as much as she did, sailed apparently effortlessly over her to land flat on his back, his breath forced explosively out of his lungs. But she didn't let go of his right arm, and as he tumbled onto his back, she braced herself and tugged, instantly dislocating his shoulder.

The man took a sudden intake of breath, and almost immediately released it in a howl of pain.

Robin twisted his wrist sharply, and the pistol fell from his grasp to clatter against the top step of the spiral staircase. She took two steps forward and kicked out, flicking the weapon off the step and sending it tumbling into the darkness below. She knelt beside the man and applied pressure to his neck, rendering him unconscious, and quickly used a couple more cable ties to lash his wrists and ankles together. As a final refinement, she used another cable tie to secure the arm that she hadn't dislocated to the lowest part of the steel rail that ran along the edge of the balcony.

Then she turned back to look at Mallory, as the headlights of an approaching vehicle washed briefly over the scene, the flashing blue lights on its roof bar leaving them in no doubt about its identity.

“Now we really must go,” she said, and immediately began descending the staircase, holding on to the metal rail and taking the steps two at a time.

Before he followed her, Mallory bent down, checked the man's pockets, and took out exactly what he had expected to find—a spare magazine for an automatic pistol and a wallet stuffed with crisp new notes—then stepped over the recumbent figure lying on the external landing and quickly descended the staircase.

At the bottom, they turned toward the main street and ran down the alleyway, only stopping when they emerged at the other end, because a couple running would attract too much attention. But they walked as quickly as they could, side by side, heading away from Robin's shop.

*   *   *

On the street behind them, the interior light of a second Range Rover illuminated briefly as the doors opened and two men climbed out. At the same moment, the big engine of the SUV rumbled into life, and the vehicle moved slowly away from the curb and down the street, well ahead of the approaching police car.

One of the two men on foot ran quickly down the alleyway, taking exactly the same route away from the scene as Mallory and Robin were following, but perhaps nearly a hundred yards behind them. At the end of the alleyway, he turned right and continued running, looking ahead through the evening gloom until he was sure that he had identified his quarry. Then he slowed to a brisk walk, fast enough to catch up with them.

His instructions were quite clear: the girl was expendable, but the man Jessop had to be taken alive so that they could recover the relic. But “alive” didn't mean undamaged, and as he ran, closing the distance, he pulled his Beretta pistol from his pocket and screwed on the suppressor. As soon as he got close enough, he'd take down the woman and stop the man, maybe by shooting him in the leg. Then he could grab the relic, if he had it in his pocket, or drag him into the car and make him tell them exactly where it was. Either way, it would be the endgame.

*   *   *

Toscanelli climbed swiftly up the spiral staircase and walked into the apartment. He stared at the scene that
confronted him in the office with an expression of disbelief on his face, then walked the couple of steps to the desk, closed the lid on the laptop computer—Robin's machine—sitting there, and unplugged the power adapter, which he slid into his pocket.

Taking the computer was only the first of the actions he knew he had to take, and which had been made clear to him back in Rome. He looked down at both the unconscious men, reached into his other pocket to remove his Beretta pistol, took out the suppressor, which he attached to the end of the barrel, then walked across to the first man, Giacomo.

“You stupid, stupid man,” he said in Italian, crouching down to look at the injuries to the man's hands. “What happened in here?” he wondered, because he had no idea what could have caused the damage he was seeing.

He knew Giacomo would need medical attention, and quickly, and leaving him there was a risk Toscanelli knew he simply couldn't take. He stood up, slipped off the safety catch on the Beretta, and fired a single shot through the man's head. The report of the pistol sounded like a dull wet thud.

He walked over to the second man and shook his shoulder, trying to revive him. The man moaned softly, but was clearly still unconscious. Toscanelli listened for a moment. The noise of the siren had died away, and he could see from the flashing lights outside that the police car had come to a stop. That probably meant the occupants were already on their way over to the building, so he had no time to lose, and certainly no time to wait for his companion to recover his senses.

His orders from Vitale were clear and unambiguous: no information about their mission was to be revealed to anyone, so the last thing he was going to do was leave any
of these men alive to be questioned by the British police. He pulled the trigger of his Beretta a second time.

Still holding the weapon, he picked up the laptop, stepped outside the apartment to where the third man lay incapacitated and moaning, his wrist lashed to the balcony railing, and fired another single bullet through his head as well.

He took a final glance round, satisfied that he had sanitized the scene as well as he could in the circumstances, then ran swiftly down the spiral staircase to ground level and walked through the alleyway to the main street, where he turned left to rendezvous with the Range Rover, which was already illegally parked perhaps two hundred yards away, engine idling, the driver waiting for him.

*   *   *

“Where are we going?” Robin asked as they strode quickly along the street. As she spoke, she took a step closer to him.

“Away from here,” Mallory replied. “Apart from that, I really don't—”

He broke off as the shop window they were just passing suddenly shattered, shards of glass tumbling onto the pavement beside them.

Mallory looked behind them. He'd been checking the street at intervals, but he hadn't spotted anyone following them, a mistake that could have been fatal.

About forty yards back, a dark figure in a black suit was taking aim for a second shot at them with a silenced automatic.

“Run,” Mallory shouted.

As Robin dodged behind him and began sprinting along the pavement, Mallory pulled the Beretta pistol from his pocket, aimed the weapon vaguely in the
direction of their pursuer, clicked off the safety catch, and pulled the trigger.

The report was deafening in the near silence of the narrow street, and he had no idea where the bullet went: forty yards was a long distance for accurate shooting with a pistol, especially one he'd never used before.

But the shot had precisely the effect he wanted. The man who'd fired at them clearly hadn't expected them to be armed, and had ducked down low the moment Mallory fired.

Mallory aimed toward the pavement in front of the crouching figure, and pulled the trigger a second time. He hoped the bullet would perhaps shatter on contact with the stone, and that maybe one of the fragments would hit the man, slow him down a bit.

That might even have worked, because as he turned away he heard a strangled yelp from behind him.

And then Mallory was running, Robin about ten yards in front of him, both moving as fast as they could. Mallory glanced over his shoulder. Their pursuer was also up and running, so clearly if any part of the bullet he'd fired had hit him, it certainly wasn't slowing him down.

Mallory heard another dull thud from behind, and a bullet slammed into the wall of a property just to his right. But he kept on running, knowing that it would need to be a really lucky shot if either of them was hit while their pursuer kept moving.

He was gaining slightly on Robin, and when he looked back, the gunman had dropped back slightly and was now perhaps fifty yards behind him.

“Next right,” Mallory yelled as Robin approached a side street.

She gave no sign of having heard him, but when she
reached the corner she dodged to the right and vanished from sight.

Mallory followed her around the corner of the building, but when he'd covered about thirty yards up the street, he turned and waited for a moment, aiming the Beretta back toward the street they'd just left.

But within a few seconds he saw that the gunman was too experienced to just blindly run around the corner in pursuit of his quarry. Instead he came to a dead stop, his body shielded by the building, and just looked up the side street, his head the only part visible.

But that was enough for Mallory to shoot at, and he pulled the trigger twice, the noise of the shots again echoing from the surrounding buildings. Even as he fired, he saw the man pull his head back, ducking into safety behind the solid brickwork of the building on the corner.

Then Mallory turned and ran on, hoping he'd gained perhaps another ten yards, and that the gunman might wait for just a few more precious seconds before continuing the pursuit.

Robin was almost at the end of the side street, and at that moment she glanced back to see where he was.

“Go left,” he called, and watched her angle across the street and over to the opposite pavement.

Mallory stayed on the same side of the street, reached the end, and then turned to face back the way he'd come.

The gunman was still not in sight, but as Mallory looked, he stepped around the corner. Once more Mallory lifted the pistol and fired, and again their pursuer vanished from sight.

Immediately Mallory crossed the street to follow Robin. His hope was that the gunman would remain behind the
building until he himself had disappeared, so that he wouldn't know which way they'd run. That, too, might gain them more precious seconds. And he knew his car was now only a few dozen yards away. If they could reach that, they'd be safe.

As he ran after Robin, Mallory switched the pistol to his left hand and fumbled in the pocket of his jacket for his car keys. He pulled them out and pressed a button. Immediately the hazard lights on a black Porsche Cayman parked on the opposite side of the street ahead flashed obediently.

Robin obviously saw the car's lights flashing and immediately raced across the street toward it, running around behind the Porsche and wrenching open the passenger door as soon as she reached the vehicle, Mallory only yards behind her.

As she did up her seat belt, he pulled open the door and dropped into the driver's seat, sliding the key into the ignition and turning it as he pushed his computer bag into the space behind the passenger seat and dropped the pistol onto his lap. The engine started with a roar, and Mallory engaged first gear, hit the lights, turned the steering wheel, and powered the car out of the parking space.

As he did so, Robin reached over and behind him, pulling out his seat belt and clicking the buckle into place as quickly as she could. Like Mallory, she was panting from the unexpected exertion.

Mallory grabbed second gear, powered down his window, and picked up the pistol again. Seconds later, the car reached the end of the side street they'd run along, and they both saw the dark figure just reaching the junction.

The gunman saw the Porsche at the same instant, and immediately raised his pistol, taking aim at the car.

Mallory stuck his right arm out of the window, aimed
the Beretta, and pulled the trigger. He had no real hope of hitting the man, not from a moving car, but he hoped firing at him would spoil his aim.

The gunman fired at the same moment, the sound of Mallory's unsilenced weapon drowning out the dull thud of the suppressed pistol. Mallory clearly saw the man's arm move to absorb the recoil, but the bullet apparently missed, because he felt no impact anywhere on his car.

The gunman ducked and crouched down as Mallory fired at him a second time, and then the Porsche was past him, accelerating hard down the street.

Mallory was switching his attention between the street in front of him and his mirrors, and as he watched he saw the man step out into the street, aiming his pistol. There wasn't room in the fairly narrow street for him to swerve or try to dodge, so he just had to rely on speed. And Porsches were good at speed. That was what they were built for.

He left the gear lever in second, the speedometer needle hovering at around sixty miles an hour, the engine screaming its banshee wail.

Robin flinched slightly as the rear window of a parked car they were driving past exploded with the impact of a bullet, but then they were out of pistol range. But not, Mallory guessed, out of trouble.

“Thank God for that,” Robin said.

“We've still got problems,” Mallory said, slowing down slightly. “That man wasn't just shooting at us,” he added. “I was watching in the mirror. When he fired that last shot, he was also talking into a mobile phone.”