For a moment, all he could hear was his own shaky breath, but then a loud scrape sounded from above and a rain of debris sprinkled onto his hand. As he pointed his flashlight up he saw King descend in a blur. King landed next to him, grabbed Pierce’s flashlight, and switched it off.
“What’s wrong?” Pierce asked, his heartbeat pulsating hard in his throat.
“Guards. Four of them coming this way. Two from the north. Two from the east.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Keep looking.”
Pierce looked astonished. “What?”
“I saw something.”
“Up there?”
“To the northeast. It looks like a pit beneath a modern covering, across from the Basilica Julia.”
Pierce took a sharp breath and whispered, “The Lacus Curtius.”
“You know what it is?”
“No one really knows for sure. It’s been covered over with ancient stones and it has yet to be excavated. Probably never will be.”
“Why’s that?”
“Politics. Some in Rome believe archaeology does more harm than good. Every request I know of involving an excavation of the Lacus Curtius has been declined. But it’s said to be the entrance to a chasm. There are several stories about the site’s origin and name. One has Mettius Curtius falling into the pit during a battle with Romulus. Another has a horseman, Marcus Curtius, throwing himself, horse and all, into the pit because an oracle deemed it would save Rome. And another—”
Pierce took another quick breath, which King knew signified a revelation. “What?”
“It’s said that Gaius Curtius supposedly dedicated the site in 445 B.C. after…” He looked at King, barely seeing him in the darkness. “A lightning strike split the earth, forming the pit.”
“Lightning…”
“The favored weapon of Zeus,” Pierce said. “At the time, Zeus would have been seen as the source. That it’s not mentioned in the historical record—”
“Means it was erased.” A soft scuffing hit King’s ears. He put a hand on Pierce’s shoulder and pushed him down to a crouch.
“What is it?” Pierce asked with a rushed whisper.
“I must have missed two of them.”
Pierce listened, willing his ears to open wider. Then he heard them. Two sets of footsteps climbing over the pebble-covered ruins. But the sound wasn’t from outside the temple of Castor and Pollux, it was from within.
And close.
King leaned in to Pierce. “If one of them gets off a shot or shouts a warning, the others out there”—he motioned to the forum with his head—“are going to have an army of police descend on us. And even if we do escape, security will be beefed up for a long time to come. When was the last time you were in a fight?”
Pierce felt like he might vomit. “You fought all my fights for me.”
“Not this time,” King said. “I can’t be in two places at once. All I need is a few seconds.”
The shuffling shoes came closer, this time complimented by a pair of equally hushed voices speaking Italian. “When I tap you, count to three Mississippi, then go. Don’t hold back.”
“Okay.”
The tap came thirty seconds later, when the sound of footfalls was only a few feet away, just on the other side of the foundation they were hiding behind. Pierce counted.
One Mississippi …
Two Mississippi …
TWENTY-FOUR
Chaco Province, Argentina
THE SHOULDER-DEEP WATER of the Negro River slowed Bishop and his team, but also helped quiet their approach. It didn’t, however, help the nerves of the team following his leadership. Designated Bishop’s Pawns One through Five, they followed his orders without question. But that didn’t stop them assigning two men to watch the water for crocodiles. Not that their night vision goggles could penetrate the river, which really was as black as its name implied.
During the daylight hours Bishop and his team, dressed as tourists, split into three teams of two, casually seeking out a sixty-seven-year-old man named Miguel Franco and his forty-five-year-old son, Nahuel. The pair lived together in downtown Resistencia with the single son supporting his out-of-work father.
Casual interviews with neighbors, local bars, shops, and churches revealed that the pair often spent nights camped out on the Negro River where the father would make up for his unemployment by catching a haul of fish, sometimes enough to sell at the local market.
Bishop could feel several of those large fish swimming circles around his legs. He pushed through them, closing on the campfire that revealed the team’s two targets sitting on a small sandy beach, lines cast and fishing rod handles buried in the sand. A half-finished twelve-pack of beer sat between them, which complicated the fact that a shotgun, presumably for warding off crocs, lay in the younger man’s lap. He had no doubt that anything bigger than a fish emerging from the water would be greeted by an explosion of lead pellets.
Making a mental note to wait for the men to move away from the firearm, Bishop paused by a log as the team gathered behind him. He turned to whisper the game plan when a snapping branch somewhere in the jungle cut through the cacophony of nighttime calls.
His first thought was that a jaguar or croc might be stalking the group, but they were hidden from the shoreline by thick vegetation. It could just as easily be a wild boar … or a person.
The team fell silent as one, all listening for another sound. For thirty seconds there was nothing but silence. Then it was broken by the elder Franco’s loud, drunken laugh. As Miguel’s amusement dulled to a chuckle Bishop again heard movement.
This time he brought his handgun up and aimed it at the jungle. Timing an approach to coincide with surrounding noise was a hunting technique used by only one predator on the planet.
Man.
TWENTY-FIVE
Taipei, Taiwan
KNIGHT LOOKED GOOD dressed in black slacks and a dark blue button-down silk shirt. As he approached Mackay Memorial Hospital, flanked by two of the five Delta operators assigned to him, he wore a large grin required by his cover. As a wealthy benefactor looking to donate money to the hospital and to the Presbyterian church that ran it, the plan was to tour the facility where he would meet an exceptional ninety-five- year-old man, Walis Palalin, who for the past twenty-five years had spent three days a week volunteering in the children’s ward. Apparently, the man had lost his son in this very hospital twenty-five years ago and had been paying tribute to him ever since.
Upon meeting the man, Knight would offer a million-dollar donation—if Mr. Palalin would accompany him to a dinner. Right then and there. No delays. Just the two of them and Knight’s two security guards.
Once in their vehicle, getting the man onto a ship and back to America would be a simple thing … if the man’s health didn’t become a factor. He had a clean bill of health and could very well live another ten years— perhaps longer—but the emotional jolt of being kidnapped could undo the man’s well-being fairly quickly, especially if he was on any medication, which is why the missing three members of Knight’s team were rummaging through Palalin’s apartment looking for any medications or supplements that the man needed.
