The Templar Concordat (19 page)

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.