White Heat (34 page)

“Oh, the end for you will only be the beginning for me, my dear Emily.”

She redirected her gaze to the traffic passing them. “I’m bored already.” The Lungotevere. The one-way street running parallel to the Tiber. There were
dozens
of bridges crossing the river. Every one with a light. Every one of which was green.

The woman beside her bit off her chuckle when Norcroft shot her a fulminating glance. “I was an ambitious young man,” he said, pleased with himself. “But it was hard to move out of the abject poverty I lived in with my family. Oh, by the way? I’ve ensured that the lights will continue to remain green until we reach our destination. So you may give me your full attention. We will not be stopping between here and there.

“Now, where was I? Oh, yes. My father was an annoying drunk who could barely hold a job. I killed him for the insurance money. That was my first kill. I was seventeen, and the check was a miserly five thousand dollars, but it got my mother and me out of Idaho. A four point oh—”

She’d been watching the lights up ahead for them to change, and it had taken a second or two for what he was saying to register. “You killed your own father?” He was right. The
semafori,
the traffic lights, had been green all the way.

Norcroft gave a half shrug. “A homeless man was convicted of the brutal crime. Where was I? MBA from Wharton. All well and good. But I still had no money to repay student loans. I answered an ad to become the assistant of a very wealthy older man.”

“Richard Tillman.”

“No. Hugh Stillwell. He was old, wealthy, and very, very trusting. I’d only been working for him for a matter of months when he took a fall right after he attempted to fire me for some minor infraction. I couldn’t have that. I was comfortably ensconced in my new life, and quite enjoying it. The fall didn’t kill him, but he was incapacitated and without the power of speech until the day he died, ten years later. Extremely unfortunate to take that kind of tumble at his age. He taught me a lot.”

There was an entire unsavory story behind Norcroft’s casual words. Emily really didn’t want to hear it, but she had to ask. “Did you push him?” They passed the old gate to the city and the gray stone pyramid called
Piramide Cestia.
They could be going
anywhere
north!

“You’re astonished at my patience aren’t you? I remained in his employ for every one of those ten years. A faithful and devoted right-hand man. Ten years to collect everything. In those ten years, I distributed most of his funds and made my own informed investments. He had no family, and of course left everything to me.”

“He was a vegetable?”

“His eyes were very expressive.”

Emily pressed her bound hands against her stomach where nausea roiled. “He knew you pushed him?”

Norcroft smiled. “Every miserable, immobile day of his life.”

The car turned left on
Ponte Vittorio Emanuele.

They were heading toward the
Vatican.

Oh. My. God. Surely not? “Are you planning to bomb St.
Peter’s?”

“Tsk. Tsk. Now see? You’ve jumped to the end of the story and spoiled my surprise.”

“Are you insane?!”

“Now that isn’t a smart question to ask a man, my dear Emily. What if I
were
insane? And your question incensed me so much I had to do
this.”
He half flung his upper body over the seat and hit her so hard across the face Emily’s head bounced against the window.

She tasted blood in her mouth and brought her hands up to touch her split lip as he subsided, his elbow casually hooked over the back of his seat again. “Does that answer your question?”

Stark raving mad.

His pale eyes flickered to the woman seated next to her. “Do you have any concerns, dear Greta?”

Dear Greta with the very red lips was squished into her own corner trying to become as small as possible. “None whatsoever.”

“Then,” Norcroft continued as if there’d been no interruption, “I had great wealth, but no power. Power requires wealth and contacts. I merely had wealth. And wealth I wasn’t eager for people to look at too closely. And I needed a hobby. Everyone should have a hobby. Richard Tillman became mine.”

“A
man
became your hobby?”

“Are you asking if he was my lover?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Actually, no. People usually learn to play the piano, or decoupage, or bird-watch as a hobby.”

“The answer of course—turn here, Georgiou—is yes. Richard and I became lovers several years after I went to work for him. That was almost twenty-five years ago. Almost as long-term as any marriage. What made it even cozier was that I began an affair with his dear wife Esther at the same time.” Norcroft smiled fondly. “Sweet woman, rather empty-headed, but well-meaning. I much prefer women as sexual partners, but since men tend to have more power I’ve never been adverse to sleeping with either sex to get what I want. Dear Esther became tiresome after a few years, and I had to stage a break—in to get rid of her.”

The man was a sociopath.

“I found the art of death fascinating, and while I led the police around by the nose, tried my hand at various other methods of death by natural and unnatural causes. It was really too easy. Fun. But no challenge at all. The police were convinced they had
two
serial killers on their hands.” He looked dreamy, and Emily shuddered. “But no. I got bored and decided to stop. Really, all that killing was better for me than any sex, any time. But I needed to keep my mind and body clean and clear to focus on what my real calling was.

“Richard was a besotted fool, introducing me to all his wealthy and influential friends over the years. I became everything to him. Friend, lover, nurse, and right-hand man.” Norcroft smiled. “I gave him servitude with my right hand, and robbed him blind, and started my little hobby, with the left.”

“I’ve become exceedingly fond of the Sydney Funnel-web spider over the years. Really, one could hardly find a better, more discreet partner in crime, could one? One bite mimics a variety of unpleasant, and fatal, deaths by natural causes.

“His son Prescott and I have been enjoying the fruits of our labor ever since. Such a pleasant young man, didn’t you think?”

In the few minutes she’d been in the same room as Richard Tillman’s son Prescott, she’d summed him up as an arrogant, rude ass. “Not really.”

Norcroft glanced over his shoulder to see where they were, then instructed the driver to go around the back.

They’d arrived at the side entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica. Despite the warmth of the spring sunshine streaming into the vehicle, Emily felt a chill permeate her blood.

“Come along, my dear. I’ll finish the story when I have you neatly tucked away inside.”

MAX PRESSED THE EARPIECE A LITTLE MORE FIRMLY INTO HIS LEFT ear as he listened to a conversation between Marc Sawn and Dare.

“He’s not going to believe we did a billion—dollar wire transfer that quickly,” Savin argued.

“Now
that
I can agree with,” Dare said, clearly puffing on one of the cigars he favored. “We hold off on the transfer until three fifty-eight.”

“Christ,” Max interjected. “That’s cutting it damn close to the bone.” He was in charge of the over two thousand men and woman who were combing their respective grids all over the Vatican’s dozens of buildings. And others were still attempting to get the civilians off Vatican property.

Just under two hours to go, and that short amount of time wasn’t going to make a dent in what there was left to search. With ten times as many people and a hundred times the time margin— maybe.

“My concern is this,” Max said, running his hands, with the delicacy of a lover, down the sides of a small gilt picture frame. The church was cool, but he was sweating, his entire focus on finding the fucking bomb.

“We’ve checked all the paintings on Tillman’s list of donations to the Vatican. Nada. But just in case we missed something, we’ve had all the paintings moved off site. The bomb disposal unit is going over them again, this time with a fine lice comb. Frankly, I don’t think they’re going to find a fucking thing. And if the damned device
isn’t
in one of those painting’s frames, then where the hell
is
it?”

“Your gut could’ve steered you wrong,” Savin offered. “Possible it’s located at any one of the hundred
other
locations. Someone will find it.”

“Maybe,” Darius said flatly. “But I trust Aries’s gut. Still think the bomb is located where you are?” he asked Max.

“Yeah, I do.” Max wiped away a bead of sweat from his temple. He was about to stake is life, and those of his team on the fact that his gut was telling him that the explosive device was
here.
Somewhere. “But I don’t want any of the other teams to slow down any. Time is running out. Here or somewhere else, something holy is going to go up with a big boom, and a shitload of collateral damage if we aren’t fast enough, and
smart
enough to find it in time.”

“Then we’re screwed,” Savin pointed out the obvious. “And everything that’s holy goes up with a big boom! Find me that bomb.”

Nineteen

LOOKING INTO THE WINDOW, EMILY COULD SEE THERE WAS NO one inside the
Ufficio Scavi,
the telephone booth—sized office tucked against the side of the building. Tourists would stand in line for hours waiting to get tickets so that they could visit the tomb of St. Peter beneath the Basilica.

She noticed with a twist of fear that there were no tourists lined up outside the tiny office. Just two Swiss guards standing outside the closed door. She swallowed. The same two guards who’d lifted the gate so that Norcroft’s car could pass through the Holy Office Gate, through the colonnade to the left, on
Via Paolo VI.
The moment their car had passed through, the gate was lowered.

Taking a better look at the two men in their Swiss costumes Emily knew immediately that they were no more Swiss guards than she was. While they wore the colorful uniforms, their jaws weren’t smoothly shaved, and their hair was too long. Norcroft’s men?

Yeah. Without a doubt.

Since there was nowhere for her fear to go, she got a grip on it. Panicking and getting hysterical, while appealing at the moment, wouldn’t get her anywhere. There must be some big event about to happen, she thought almost absently, glancing at the crowd. The Pope making a special showing or something? The oval
Piazza San Pietro
was filled to capacity with thousands upon thousands of milling people, and the noise of their raised and agitated voices was deafening.

As soon as the car had stopped, they’d boxed her in, giving her no chance to make a break for it. Red Lips, carrying a black duffel bag, instantly came up to take her position behind Emily. The two men flanked her. Norcroft linked his arm with hers, a small handgun pressed against her ribs.

The cacophony of the masses gathered in the Piazza beyond the gate precluded conversation. Which was fine with Emily. She really,
really
didn’t want to hear any more of Norcroft’s sick stories. She wanted to use every atom of her concentration to wait for, and take, the first opportunity for freedom.

Norcroft guided her inside the opening to the Necropolis.

Emily’s window of opportunity slammed shut with a reverberating thud.

“I DON’T GIVE A RAT’S ASS IF THERE
IS
A F—IS A TRAFFIC JAM
,”
MAX snarled into the lip mic. He was lying on his back on the floor near the Chapel of the Column, west of the left transept, checking beneath the pews. “I want every man, woman, and child not actively involved off this property in the next hour. No, I don’t give a shit
how.
Just
do
it.”

There was going to be collateral damage. No logistical way around it. People would die today. A lot of people. Max knew that no matter how good, how organized, or how motivated, his people couldn’t move thousands of confused and frightened pilgrims, worshipers, and tourists out of range fast enough. He could only hope to God that they were able to move most of the crowds a safe distance away in time. They’d estimated that there were over sixty thousand people on the Vatican City’s grounds. Sixty thousand people to mobilize without panic.

Christ.

He hoped God was paying attention today.

He listened to the odd conversation on his headset, but pretty much everyone was quiet, heads down, searching. Every now and then he’d hear one of the bomb-sniffing dogs give a sharp bark, and he’d feel a shaft of anticipation spear through him that they’d found something. But so far no one, not even the dogs, had found the bomb.

They might not have discovered its hiding place, but Max heard every tick of the timer in his head. He counted off the minutes. He had the actual countdown on his visual headset, but for now it was off. He knew to the second how much time was left.

And then he’d be done.

He should, he thought, sliding back another few feet, have spent five more minutes with Emily yesterday. Five minutes and the truth. She deserved that much from him.

It was a damned joke that he’d tasted love while kissing her. But he couldn’t think about that, and regret left a bitter aftertaste on his tongue. He ran his fingers slowly beneath the ancient wood as he used his feet to inch his body along, used his eyes and his fingers to search for wires, for plastique, for any sort of detonation device.

All he could do now was his job. If he survived, then he’d consider his uncertain future.

He found nothing more under the pew than a bunch of little wads of chewing gum stuck to the wood. And he inspected those as well.

“AFTER YOU,” NORCROFT GESTURED FOR EMILY TO DESCEND THE narrow metal stairs ahead where a Ray-Banned man, looking like he’d stepped straight out of the movie
Men in Black,
stood cradling a mean-looking gun in his muscle-bound arms.

He shifted slightly to let them pass, then repositioned himself to guard the opening to the
scavi.