Lang started to reply, thought better of it, and said nothing. No point in speaking even if the acoustics would make it difficult to trace the sound. There was about as much chance Reavers's clique would simply walk away from the power of having a U.S. president under their control as there was the Agency would agree to be funded solely by the sale of Girl Scout cookies.
'We got a deal?' the man wanted to know.
This time Lang did speak. 'Sure. You turn on your light so we can make sure you're leaving.'
Pause, then: 'Damn thing's broken.'
Right.
Lang thought he had an idea as to the general position of the speaker. Reaching into the void with the hand that didn't have Reavers's gun in it, he touched a wall. Feeling his way upward, he came to an opening, one of the many windows that made these tombs look so much like the very houses the deceased had occupied in life. He moved up to his knees and considered his position.
The streets were narrow, with few places to cross onto parallel lanes. The tombs all opened the same way and were closed on the other three sides. It was almost certain, then, that Reavers's men were facing the same way he was. Since he had been at the top of the hill, or near it, the two gunmen had to be slightly below. The problem was, he was unsure of where Gurt was. He could only hope she, also, was on the same street and, therefore, looking out in the same direction.
'We're waiting,' came the same voice. 'No point in anyone else getting killed.' Lang hoped it was not mere optimism that detected an edge to the tone, one of mounting desperation.
He stuck the Sig Sauer in the waistband of his trousers and crawled around the interior of the tomb, feeling as he went. Halfway up the rear wall, his fingers found a niche. Further exploration 'discovered a form with irregular features. Sitting in the darkness, Lang used both hands to touch his find. A funeral bust, the head and shoulder of some rich Roman.
Holding the statue in his arms, he crawled back to where he recalled the entrance was and into the street. Sharp rocks, crumbs of jagged marble, and roughly edged cobblestones bit into his knees and elbows as he crossed to the other side and groped for the top of the structure. Again running his hand along the top edge, he ascertained it was fairly smooth, although he had no way of knowing whether the adjacent downhill sepulchre was taller, shorter, or the same height. His memory told him each mausoleum had its own individual form.
He stood the bust on the wall and retreated back into the tomb.
He was almost certain the two men had been carrying some sort of automatic weapons. It took extraordinary discipline in a firefight to put guns like that on single-round fire. He was counting on the fact that these men would not even think twice about spraying bullets at any target.
He gave the closest thing he knew to a prayer that Gurt was both alert and watching in this direction. He yelled, 'Gurt, go for it!' knowing she would recognize the ruse.
At the same instant, he flicked the flashlight on and off, illuminating the bust. Ordinarily, marble would not be mistaken for flesh and blood. Likely it wouldn't this time, either. But the impenetrable darkness, tense nerves, and the lightning-like flicker that robbed color from whatever it touched might, just might…
The reaction was instantaneous. Before Lang regained the shelter of the tomb, two geysers of ragged flame spouted from a tomb, almost next to Lang's like laterally held Roman candles. Although large, the necropolis's cover made the sound deafening, a single stream of explosions that beat against Lang's eardrums like fists, beat so hard as to be painful. He could clearly hear the splatter of fragments of stone and plaster as they pelted the outer wall of his sanctuary.
He couldn't duck completely out of sight, though. He had to see
… See and hold on to the flashlight, which he stuck into his belt.
Before the first long bursts of two automatic weapons had ceased their clatter, a smaller streak of fire came from somewhere across the street. One of the automatics' muzzle flash traced an arc upward and went dark.
One down, one to go.
The shooters had been so close, Lang could smell the acrid stench. of burned 'cordite. He had been lucky the men had been too intent on escape to hear his foray into the street.
His ears ringing from gunfire, Lang now could hear only his own heartbeat, a sound so loud he was surprised the man right down the street couldn't hear it, too.
Lang had marked the source of enemy fire, although the darkness prevented an exact measurement. He guessed fifteen feet, twenty at the most. Reavers's pistol in hand, he began a hands-and-knees approach to a spot in the curtain of black where he estimated his enemy might be.
In a couple of minutes, Lang calculated he was in front of the building that housed the remaining gunman. He held his breath, the better to hear the other man's, but silence alone greeted the effort. He knew he couldn't stay here, exposed in the street. Another burst of gunfire or the sweep of a flashlight would reveal his position.
His outstretched hand touched a number of pebbles. Shifting the gun to his left, he picked up the small stones, rolled them in the palm. of his hand for a second, and threw them in the direction of the gunman.
This time the man didn't fire. But he did move, a clear scraping sound as his feet knocked over rocks in the darkness.
Quickly switching hands, Lang fired two shots in the general direction of the sound as he swiftly rolled across the cobblestones..
As anticipated, automatic fire churned the street-where Lang had been. A short burst, but enough. Two more flashes of light, from somewhere across the road, a scream that sounded like it came from only a few feet away, and all was silent again, the quiet after the blast of gunfire seeming to have a physical weight of its own.
Lang felt the wall of something, a tomb or other structure, and slowly stood, pressing against the coolness of the stone. He fumbled at his belt and removed the light. Inching along the wall until he felt the opening, he held the Sig Sauer in his right hand, the light in his left. Pointing the gun into the darkness, he pushed the button on the light.
Even in the puny beam given by a shattered lens and cracked bulb, he could see the fight was over. One man stared into eternity with blank eyes; wherever he had been hit, death had been instantaneous, as there was no blood visible. The other sat stiff-legged in a red puddle against the rear wall of the little house, his hands uselessly trying to staunch the flow of crimson from his throat. He didn't look up as Lang stepped over and kicked away the M16 automatic rifle, thankful Reavers had not added nightscopes.
The man gave a final sound, a noise like a gargle, and slumped to his side. No breath was visible.
''You are glad to see me, Liebchen, no?' Gurt was right behind him. 'Or is that a gun in your pocket?'
The old Mae West line was one of her favorites.
He turned to embrace her. 'Frankly, my dear, I couldn't give more of a damn, Rhett Butler notwithstanding. You have no idea…'
She gently pushed him away. 'Later. Right now, we must leave this place. Someone could have the gunfire heard.'
Lang thought of the pressurized, climate-controlled part of the necropolis open to a limited segment of the population. 'Possible, but I'd say the insulation was enough to quiet an A-bomb.'
Gurt's eyes flickered around the small area lit by their flashlights. 'A-bomb? No one has-'
He put a finger to her lips. 'You're right. Later.'
She swept the beam of her light over the two dead men. 'And these?'
'They're already in a cemetery. What's the point of having them moved to another?'
She turned her head to peer up the slope. 'And Reavers?'
'Him, too. Let the Agency figure out where he disappeared.'
He went back to the top to retrieve his cassock.
Minutes later, a priest and a tall nun were walking away from St. Peter's Square. There was nothing particularly unusual about either. Unless the careful observer watched them long enough to note that they seemed to touch a great deal more than decorum would require.
And they laughed incessantly.
FORTY-SEVEN
