The lieutenant grabbed his end of the armoire and nodded to Larry. “Your Eminence, if you would be so good, on the count of three…One, two-”
Larry heaved at the wooden mass; it creaked away from the wall — and revealed a narrow, five foot high by two foot wide faded section of wall.
Sharon gestured toward the secret door. “Apparently put in by the first builders. Who never finished the job. But it should be enough to-”
“Ambassador,” Hastings interrupted with an apologetic tone, “your husband sent me back here, in part to help you lead these men out to safety, but also to ensure that you did, in fact, come with us. He is concerned about your-”
Without a word, Sharon turned and ran-surprisingly quickly, for someone of her size-back towards the staircase and Ruy.
Hastings sighed, shrugged, went to the panel and pushed; it swung into the wall, revealing a black, narrow staircase leading down at a precipitous angle. “Your Eminences, you will forgive me if that is the last time I bother with formal titles; time is short. I will lead the way, Mr. Fleming will follow.” The more plain-faced of the two Wild Geese nodded. “Then Cardinal Mazzare, His Holiness, the father-general, and Cardinal Barberini. Mr. McEgan and Mr. Sutherland will bring up the rear. We move until we are out of the villa. Once there, those of us who can will run north toward Lieutenant Taggart’s outpost. Any questions?”
“Yes,” said Larry. “Why weren’t we told about this secret passage the first day we got here?”
Hastings looked at him squarely. “So you couldn’t tell anyone else about it. A secret passage is only useful if it stays secret. Any other questions? No? Then follow me.”
Ruy heard the two off-duty Hibernians he had awakened along with Hastings cursing at buckles and lanyards. “Can you equip yourself no faster?” he hissed in their direction, then leaned an eye around the corner at the head of the staircase to look down into the great room.
Drifts of oily smoke. Puddles and spatters of blood. The bodies of men and women with whom he had shared almost two months’ worth of meals, laughter, and fear lay scattered about. Being a lifelong professional, he cordoned off the emotional consequences of what he was seeing with the suddenness of snapping down the safety of a gun. What remained was tactical data, all seen in a second.
The firebomb the attackers had heaved into the room had not been particularly effective at spreading flame, and several of the slain had fallen into the densest part of the smoldering olive oil, largely smothering it. Given time, it might start a house-threatening fire, but that was at least ten minutes off: an eternity, in a combat such as this one. Only two Marines of the ready guard in the great room were still alive, one of them armed with a Hibernian’s black powder revolver. If it wasn’t for that fellow, the whole band of cutthroats would probably be halfway up the stairs by now-but the Marines could not hold out much longer. Ruy could hear the rush of feet, some heading straight for their makeshift parapet of tables, others angling toward the staircase itself. Which was, of course, their ultimate objective. They-rightly-presumed that the pope would not be housed on the ground floor. The Marines needed some assistance-and right now.
As Ruy raised the heavy weapon in his right hand, he saw the Marines begin to fire in a panic, saw the leading edge of assassins come into view, two of them falling dead or wounded, but others preparing to push over the top of the tables. Another one appeared at the bottom of the stairs. What fortuitous timing, Ruy thought as he looked down the sights of the up-time weapon and began to fire.
Ruy was used to the kick of the S amp;W. 357 magnum revolver that Sherrilyn Maddox had forced upon him when she arrived, and upon which she had trained him. However, having only shot at targets, he had never seen what a lead hollow-point would do to a man at a range of less than fifteen feet.
The two assassins who had been about to clear the table barricade, swords readied, went sideways as if hit by a battering ram. The red crater each bullet punched into the side of a torso was startling enough, but the wide spray of blood and tissue from both of the exit wounds was more reminiscent of the effects of grapeshot, to Ruy’s mind. Still, he decided, as he tracked over until his sights were centered on the openmouthed assassin frozen in shock halfway up the stairs, it was a most inelegant weapon. He squeezed the trigger and saw another red crater appear where the base of the cutthroat’s neck had been.
He leaned back behind the corner as the inevitable spattering of inaccurate counterfire from the rest of the blackguards snapped and bit away at the mortar. Well, he reflected, that will give them something to consider for a few moments-but only a few moments. He calmly thumbed the release, swung out the cylinder, fingered a readied speed loader out of his bandolier, and turned at the sound of the approaching Hibernians.
Except it was not them; it was his wife.
Ruy was not often surprised, but this was the exception that made the rule. “Sharon, you are back? I told you to run, sent Hastings and George to assist you!”
She stared at him, her own, rather diminutive, revolver in hand. “And since when do you tell me what to do?”
“That very spirit-which may now be the death of you-is also why I adore you so. But if you refuse to leave, then you must perform a crucial task.” He shook his head when she raised the revolver tentatively. “No, my heart, as ambassadora, you must send word to our friends: you must rouse Odo and begin signaling.”
That stopped her-as Ruy had knew it would. “But-but, the staff downstairs-”
“Are beyond help, dear wife. Those who were able to flee, have. The others are no more.”
Sharon swallowed. “Then we don’t have the time to send radio signals. We’ve got to-”
“Dearest,” he interrupted, “I am your chief of security, yes?” From the corner of his eye, Ruy saw her nod as he snapped the cylinder back into place and strained to hear the orders being shouted back and forth downstairs.
“Yes,” she allowed grudgingly.
“Then, wife, trust me in this,” he said, as the two Hibernians finally- finally! — came out of their billet, lever- action rifles and revolvers ready. “Your superiors will want all the information you can send on this event. And any survivors among us may need help, or may be fleeing for our lives. The more your superiors know, the more swift and effective their first assistance will be. Now-and prettily I ask it-please go.”
Eyes shiny, and without another word, she turned and ran back the way she had come.
Ruy spent a split-second appreciatively watching-savoring-her movements seen from the rear. Then he began giving orders to the Hibernians. “They will come again any second, attempting to overrun both the Marines down in the great room, and us at the head of the stairs. They may also try to send someone farther into the villa, down the corridor into the north wing. You, Corporal, see if you can get an angle on the hallway into the north wing; we need to keep all their men bottled up in the great room for as long as we can…”
“ Minge! ” swore Valentino as he surveyed what had become of the men he had sent charging forward toward the tables and the stairs. At least half of them were down, most wounded and so severely shocked that they could barely move or moan. “Linguanti, get another of those firebombs ready.”
“ Si, but-”
“Just do it.” Valentino spent a precious second considering the claustrophobic battlefield. He could send more men to rush the barricade of tables again, but now that tactic had become very expensive-perhaps cripplingly so. Either the gunman hidden near the top of the stairs was very good, was not alone, or both.
Besides, men who fought for riches-even such as his had been promised-were more savage than stalwart. At this range, firearms could hardly miss and the damage they inflicted was shocking to see, even for hardened killers. True, far more of those who had fallen were wounded rather than killed outright, but here, in a villa at the ass-end of nowhere, those wounds were a death sentence, anyhow.
Which meant he needed to keep the men moving, fighting, busy-too busy to count their losses, and hear the keening moans of their dying fellows. Fortunately, the wailing would only start when the wounded tossed off the shock, by which time this battle would be over. Unless Valentino tarried here in this great room. So he had to act- now. Waiting for all his men to reload cost too much time, too-so the fire bomb was best. And once he got past the last two Marines…
Valentino measured distances: once his men reached the tables, the entry to the kitchen was only ten feet farther along to the right. About twelve feet directly behind the tables was the door leading out to the rear of the villa, where the firing had finally stopped; from the sound of it, Arturo’s group had run into one of the revolver- armed guards.
Valentino needed to secure those two areas-the rear door and the kitchen-even though his ultimate target
