The Secret Chapel

were alone with no witnesses around and nothing to stop these men from getting to them. He knew they could defend themselves for a while, but the odds were not in their favor.

As if they had read his mind, a loud explosion rocked the tower as the trap door flew upward and shattered against one of the heavy wooden beams above. In a flash, a man jumped through the hole in the floor. Daniel fired a burst from the Uzi, knocking the man back against the wall. A second man was halfway through the opening when Sarah fired the shotgun. The man seemed to freeze for a moment before dropping back through the hole. Daniel threw another clip into the Uzi and aggressively advanced toward the hole while firing short bursts until he was directly overhead, looking down into the stairwell. A burst of automatic weapons fire spewed up from below, forcing him to retreat back against the wall with Sarah.

Bullets came ripping through the wooden floor, barely missing them as they crouched against the wall. It was only a matter of time now.

Chapter 52

A young Italian couple sat on an ancient stone wall overlooking the coast. They had driven their car to a scenic observation point overlooking the sea and were watching the surf crash below. The moon was full and reflected off two dots in the distance that grew in size and captured the young couple’s attention. The moving dots continued to grow in size until two large gray helicopters loomed right in front of them and passed overhead, almost blowing them off the wall.

The helicopters hugged the treetops, racing inland toward preprogrammed GPS coordinates. The men inside wore night-vision goggles that made the hilly terrain of the countryside below appear painted in an iridescent green light.

Down on the highway leading to the isolated village, Leo and the others were speeding along the tight, narrow road in the black SUV en route to Morelli’s house. They were still about ten minutes away when the two choppers passed overhead. Leo said a silent prayer. Please let us be in time. Off in the distance, they could see the glow of a fire. The men in the SUV exchanged glances. Oh, God, they were too late.

Daniel and Sarah had taken a bold step. They had known from the beginning that they were decoys. The only thing these men could be after was the backpack they had carried to throw off anyone trying to follow Leo and John to the Vatican. Luckily, Daniel had used the backpack to carry his radio gear into the tower, and it now rested in the corner beside them. He picked up two pieces of wood from the blasted trap door and placed them inside. They were about to play their trump card.

Bullets continued to fly up through the floor as he took a deep breath and ran forward in a zigzag pattern across the floor and threw the backpack down into the stairwell below.

Suddenly, the firing stopped. They could hear excited voices and footsteps running down the stairway inside the tower. Daniel pushed his eye against the slit in the stone wall, while Sarah kept the shotgun pointed directly at the hole in the floor. He saw the men standing in the circular driveway surrounding the short priest who now held the backpack.

The priest opened it and pulled out the pieces of wood before throwing it to the ground and glaring up at the tower. As he stood there, shaking with anger, his cell phone rang. Reluctantly, he answered it and began talking with someone. He clinched his fist and snapped the phone shut while screaming in fury and shouting orders to the men. Three of the men in suits grabbed something out of the trunk of one of the cars and ran toward the tower. Now what? Daniel wondered.

Within moments, he had his answer. The smell of gasoline preceded the smoke that began to drift up from below. The men hadn’t gotten what they wanted and were now taking their revenge. He ran to the opening in the floor and stared in horror as flames enveloped the bottom of the tower and began to climb the wooden stairway. There was no way out. They were trapped in the top of a chimney.

The smoke grew thicker as Daniel peered out through the narrow slit. The men weren’t leaving. They were standing in the driveway, watching the fire. They wanted to watch them burn!

Daniel had to think. The fire was raging closer, and the only way out was up. He searched the beams below the wooden roof and turned to face Sarah. “Lock your hands together, and give me a boost.”

She understood immediately as he stepped into her intertwined fingers and pulled himself up into the rafters.

“Hand me the shotgun,” he shouted through the smoke. She grabbed it and passed it up to him before he reached down with one strong arm and pulled her up beside him. Without waiting, he fired the shotgun into the old wooden shingles, blowing a hole in the roof.

Sarah looked into his eyes. “I’m afraid we’re only delaying the inevitable.”

He paused to look at her. This was one brave girl. She hadn’t flinched throughout this whole ordeal. “As long as we’re alive, there’s always hope. Maybe there’s a pile of hay or something we can jump down into.”

She smiled back at him as they climbed through the hole onto the sloping roof. Smoke poured from the opening beside them as they peered over the edge. The men below were watching. They were smiling. A rage boiled up in Daniel as he searched for a way out.

Suddenly, a loud noise filled the air as a fierce wind almost knocked them from their perch. A large gray helicopter with a blue Star of David on its side sped overhead and began circling above, while another flew in low and hovered over the circular driveway. The once-smiling men below began running in panic as ropes descended from the helicopter over the driveway and a team of Israeli commandos slid down to the ground while firing in all directions.

The fire was now flicking out of the hole in the roof and the smoke was burning their lungs. Above them, a line with two harnesses attached had been lowered from the first helicopter and was now dangling before them. Daniel strapped Sarah in and grabbed on before signaling the pilot. The helicopter lifted skyward as the roof of the tower became fully engulfed in flames and began to collapse. Daniel and Sarah held each other tightly as they flew over the treetops in the moonlight before finally being winched onboard.

Racing up the highway, the SUV containing Leo and the others turned into the driveway just in time to see the Israeli commandos chasing the men into the forest surrounding the house. Several of the men had made the mistake of trying to take on the Israelis and had opened fire on them with their automatic weapons before they were instantly dropped by three commandos.

Leo and the others leapt from their vehicle and ran to the clearing where the second helicopter was landing. Daniel and Sarah stepped out of the open door of the aircraft and were immediately embraced by their friends. They turned back to look at the burning tower and watched with sadness at the loss of such a historic structure and their former place of refuge. It had offered protection to men hundreds of years ago and had protected them tonight.

Luckily, with most of the wood inside the tower already burned, the fire had begun to die out, and the thick stone walls kept it from spreading to the rest of the house. A half-dozen commandos surrounded Leo and the others, while the security men who had survived were rounded up and herded back to the house to be handed over to the Italian police. Not wanting to explain their presence in Italy, or the six bodies on the ground, the Israelis handcuffed the remaining men together below the statue of the angel and headed for their chopper.

Daniel noticed that the short priest was not among them, but they had no time to search for him. In the distance, they heard the sound of sirens and saw a line of flashing blue lights coming up the narrow country road. The Israeli commander began motioning for the Bible Code Team to get onboard one of the helicopters, and after a few more high-fives, everyone jumped onboard and strapped themselves in. Both choppers then filled with grinning commandos before finally lifting off in the direction of the sea, while the Swiss Guard security men in the SUV stood guard over the men shackled together in the fountain under the angel and waited for the Italian police.

A mile up the road, a black limousine pulled to a stop. Within minutes, a short priest emerged from the brush and opened the door. Inside the limo, a young, handsome dark-haired man sat bathed in the blue glow from the screen of his laptop computer. He was impeccably dressed, as befitted one of the richest and most powerful men in Italy. He motioned for the priest to get in, and they slowly drove off into the night.

The priest looked nervously at the silent man next to him. “I’m sorry about the book, sir.”