vehicles were outside, and the plaza before the church was deserted. Everything around the church was dark and still, as if the plague had struck.
He found his Beretta and two spare magazines.
He was ready.
Just get this damn helicopter on the ground.
ASHBY WAS RELIEVED. “ABOUT TIME YOU SAVED ME FROM THAT.”
Thorvaldsen lay on the floor, blood gushing from a chest wound. Ashby could not care less about the idiot. Lyon was all that mattered.
“A hundred million euros of gold?” Lyon asked.
“Rommel’s treasure. Lost since the war. I found it.”
“And you think that will buy your life?”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
A new sound intruded on the monotonous drone of the storm.
Growing louder.
Lyon noticed it, too.
A helicopter.
SAM CREPT CLOSE TO WHERE ASHBY AND LYON STOOD AND SAW the gun in Lyon’s hand. Then he spotted Thorvaldsen on the floor, blood pumping out in heavy gushes.
Oh, God.
No.
“WHERE IS THIS GOLD?” LYON ASKED ASHBY
“In a vault. That only I can access.”
That should buy him a reprieve.
“I never liked you,” Lyon said. “You’ve been manipulating this entire situation from the beginning.”
“What do you care? You were hired, I paid you. What does it matter what I intended?”
“I haven’t survived by being a fool,” Lyon declared. “You negotiated with the Americans. Brought them into our arrangement. They didn’t like you, either, but would do anything to capture me.”
Rotors grew louder, as if right overhead.
“We need to leave,” Ashby said. “You know who that is.”
An evil light gathered in the amber eyes. “You’re right. I need to leave.”
Lyon fired the gun.
THORVALDSEN OPENED HIS EYES.
Black spots faded, yet the world around him seemed in a haze. He heard voices and saw Ashby standing close to another man, who was holding a gun.
Peter Lyon.
He watched as the murdering SOB shot Ashby.
Damn him.
He tried to move, to find his gun, but not a muscle in his body would respond. Blood poured from his chest. His strength waned. He heard wind, rain, and the pump of a deep bass tone thumping through the air.
Then another pop.
He focused. Ashby winced, as if in pain.
Two more pops.
A red ooze seeped from two holes in the forehead of the man who’d butchered his son.
Peter Lyon had finished what Thorvaldsen had started.
As Ashby collapsed to the floor, Thorvaldsen allowed the surprising calm coursing through his nerves to take him over.
SAM CAUGHT HIS BREATH AND STOOD. HIS LEGS WERE FROZEN. Was he afraid? No, more than that. A mortal terror had seized his muscles, gripping his mind with panic.
Lyon had shot Ashby four times.
Just like that.
Bam, bam, bam, bam.
Ashby was certainly dead. But what about Thorvaldsen? Sam thought the Dane had moved, just before Ashby died. He needed to get to his friend. Blood flooded the marble flooring at an alarming rate.
But his legs would not move.
A scream rang through the church.
Meagan sprang from the darkness and tackled Peter Lyon.
He struggled to see what was happening.
Meagan had attacked Lyon.
They were struggling on the floor.
Still, though, he could not move. His arms lay extended on either side of his bleeding chest. His legs were as if they did not exist. His hands and fingers were frozen. Nothing functioned. Hot pain gushed up behind his eyes.