The Templar Salvation (2010)

meaning “If only Christ could see this,” a jab at how, over the centuries, the popes had completely overturned Jesus’s original message of possession-free preaching. Another vaulted passage on the opposite side of the courtyard led them out on the other side of the library complex—and onto a clear run down the Via Del Belvedere to the Porta Sant’Anna and out of the city.

“We can’t stay in this thing,” Sharafi said. “It’s like a beacon.”

“We’re not out of here yet.” Reilly was staring dead ahead.

Two carabinieri cars—sleek, dark blue Alfa Romeos with menacing, sharklike grilles, spinning blue lights on their roofs, and shrill sirens—burst out of a side street between them and the gate and were rushing toward them.

Definitely not going according to plan, Reilly thought, scowling at the prospect of playing chicken with the Italian police in a stolen Popemobile. But he was doing it. And they were coming right at him, and didn’t look like they were about to blink first. And in that moment, Tess’s face burst into his consciousness—his mind picturing her in some vile lockdown, chained to some radiator, helpless, the psycho lurking nearby. He couldn’t back down, nor could he not get them out of there with the book. He had to make it—for her.

He kept his foot down.

“Agent Reilly—” Sharafi tensed up, his right arm clamping down on the armrest.

Reilly didn’t blink.

He was a nanosecond away from slamming head-on into them when the road opened up into a wide piazza outside the Tower of Nicholas V, a massive round fortification that was part of the original Vatican walls. Reilly jerked the wheel to the right—swerving off his arrowlike path just as the two black police cars shot past—then left again to get back on track. He glanced into his mirror to see the two Alfas do some synchronized hand-brake turns that lit up their tires and spun them around before they resumed the chase.

The road ahead was all clear, the gate less than a hundred yards away now. It was the way Reilly had been driven into the Vatican, twice now, a grand entrance with twin marble columns topped by a solemn stone eagle on either side of the heavy wrought iron gates—gates that some Swiss Guards were now rushing to close.

Not good.

Reilly kept the pedal jammed down, feeling a hardening in his gut. With the two Alfas close behind, he cannoned past a few cars that were waiting to be ushered out of the gate onto the main road, ramping the SUV’s left wheels over the curb to squeeze by, before blasting through the gates and obliterating them in a deafening frenzy of twisted iron and steel—instantly followed by an eruption of glass as the Popequarium’s tall viewing box slammed into the intricate overthrow that spanned the top of the gate and burst into smithereens.

Pedestrians on the busy street outside the Vatican wall scattered frantically, leaping out of the way as Reilly pulled a screaming left and tore up the Via di Porta Angelica. Sharafi looked back as the first Alfa burst out of the gate and hooked a screaming left to follow the SUV—and just then, a massive explosion rocked the street, its shock wave jolting Reilly forward off his seat.

What the—?

Reilly instinctively ducked with the blast, controlling the Popemobile as it swerved from the shock wave before slamming on the brakes and bringing it to a screeching halt. His ears deafened, his head dazed, his body rigid with shock, he glanced across at Sharafi in stunned, confused silence. Sharafi met his gaze, looking surprisingly cool and unruffled, as if nothing had happened. Reilly’s mind was too busy slowing down and trying to make sense of the surreal sight around him to process it, but the Iranian’s inscrutable look still registered inside him somewhere as he craned around for a better look.

The street outside the gates was apocalyptic, like something out of downtown Baghdad. Thick black smoke was billowing out of the flaming hulk of a car, a parked car that must have had a bomb in it. It must have exploded just as the lead Alfa was passing alongside it, as the cops’ car was plastered against the Vatican’s outer wall, thrown into it sideways. What looked like the second Alfa was also in the wreckage, piled into some parked cars. Debris was everywhere, clumps of concrete and metal still raining down around them. Shell-shocked people were limping around, dazed, looking for loved ones or just standing stiff in disbelief. There had to be deaths, Reilly was sure of it—and lots of wounded.

“We’ve got to go,” the Iranian said.

Reilly looked at him askance, still groggy from the blast.

“Get us out of here now,” the man insisted. “You need to think about Tess.”

Reilly glanced back—a couple of carabinieri were coming out of the smoke cloud, running toward them, weapons drawn—then they started firing. Bullets clipped the back of the wrecked SUV.

“Move,” the Iranian rasped.

Reilly ripped his gaze away from the pandemonium and hit the gas. And as the armored SUV stormed through the narrow streets without a specific destination in mind, a sudden realization stormed out of Reilly’s snarled mind—a realization that shot a piercing sensation through his chest.

Random observations clicked into place. The way the Iranian looked when they were on the run, like he was out for a jog while Reilly was gasping for breath. The way he took out the mechanic with the efficiency of a ninja. The way he didn’t even flinch when the bomb went off. The fact that mangled bodies didn’t seem to register with him.

Oh fuck.

He turned to the man sitting beside him. “Who the hell are you?”

Chapter 7

Reilly’s heart froze. The man sitting in the passenger seat was glancing at him without a trace of emotion. Not a taunting grin. Not a demented scowl. Nothing. Just an even, level gaze. You’d think he was just out on a Sunday drive, watching the scenery drift by while sharing chitchat with his driver.

His words, however, had a completely different ring to them.

“If you want her to live,” he told Reilly, “just keep driving.”

A frenzy of visual and audio snippets from every minute that had passed since Tess’s phone call rushed across Reilly’s mind. The clips all confirmed the same thing: He’d been played by the bastard sitting next to him.

His fingers choked the steering wheel, his nails biting into its padded leather. “The bomb … that was you.”

“Insurance,” the man confirmed, pulling a cell phone from his pocket and holding it up with his right hand, away from Reilly. “And as it turns out, one we needed.”

Reilly understood. The phone had triggered the bomb. His veins were boiling—he just wanted to reach over and rip the guy’s heart out and shove it down his throat and watch him choke on it. “And the real Sharafi?”

“My guess is he’s dead.” The man gave him a small shrug. “He was in the trunk of that car.”

Not a flutter of emotion in his voice.

The next question was bouncing inside Reilly’s head, kicking and screaming to get out. He didn’t want to let it loose. He knew the answer he was about to get—but his mouth voiced the words anyway. “And Tess?”

The man’s eyes hardened a touch. “There’s another car back there. With another bomb.” He held up the phone for Reilly again, to press the point home. “Tess is in it.”

A firestorm ignited inside Reilly’s chest as the cityscape flying past him went fuzzy, a blur of parked cars and gray walls. “What? You’re saying she’s here? In Rome?”

“Yes. And closer than you think.”

He’d assumed she was still in Jordan, which was where she was when she’d called him. When she’d been kidnapped by the sick bastard sitting next to him. Reilly’s heart was now pounding away, far beyond its red line, deafening him and flooding him with adrenaline and bile, the urgency of getting to Tess eclipsing all other thoughts. He zipped through dozens of potential moves at the same time, evaluating them, looking for an advantage, refusing to accept the notion that the son of a bitch next to him could walk away from this.

“Alive?” He had to ask, even though he had no way of knowing if the answer he’d get was the truth or not. All