Seichan held out her palm. “Concussive grenade. A flash-bang. We’ll detonate it in the center. As everyone goes rushing out the exits…out we’ll go, too.”
Gray frowned.
Vigor voiced his concern as they circled past a crowd of schoolchildren, all wide-eyed and fearful, clutched in a group. “If the snipers see any of us, they’ll open fire. On the crowd.”
“No other way.” Seichan sped faster. “We’ll have to take the chance. Nasser’s men may already be coming —”
A gunshot cracked loudly in the church.
Gray felt something whine past his ear. A bit of wall mosaic blasted in a shower of gold.
The crowd panicked, fleeing in all directions.
Vigor was knocked to a knee. Gray dragged him up as a second shot sparked against a marble column. The blast echoed.
Staying low, the trio fled to the side and down the length of the nave. As they reached the center, Seichan prepared to pull the pin on the grenade.
Gray grabbed her hand, restraining her. “No.”
“It’s the only way. There could be more shooters ahead of us. We’ll need to trample with them to reach the exit.”
He pointed. “There’s another way.”
Still holding his hand clamped to hers, he led them all to the south side, toward the wall of scaffolding he had scaled earlier.
“Up!” he said.
However, there remained one obstacle.
The scaffolding guard had not fled his post. He remained crouched behind a wooden barrier, his rifle up, ready to shoot.
Gray snatched the grenade out of Seichan’s fingers, pulled the pin, and tossed the bomb behind the barrier. “Close your eyes!” he yelled at Vigor, pulling the monsignor down. “Cover your ears.”
Seichan crouched, her head wrapped in her arms.
The explosion felt like a kick to the gut. A sonic boom trapped in stone. A flash seared through Gray’s lids, even with his head turned away.
Then it was over.
Gray yanked Vigor up. Screams echoed, sounding muffled through the residual ring in his ears. He rushed toward the massive scaffolding. The crowds parted, fleeing toward the east and west exits.
But they weren’t going with them.
At the scaffolding, the guard was down, dazed on his back, moaning.
He’d have a bad headache, but he’d live.
Gray took his rifle and waved Seichan and Vigor up the scaffolding staircase. They’d have to move fast. The stampede would slow the shooters, but only for so long.
He clambered up after Seichan and Vigor.
“Where are we going?” Seichan called down. “We’ll be sitting ducks up here!”
“Go!” Gray said. “Get your asses up there!”
They fled around and around, leaping steps.
They reached the halfway point when a spray of automatic fire rang off the bracings, wildly shot, but effective enough to chase them off the outer stairs and into the heart of the scaffolding. They pounded along the planked flooring of this level.
Gray pushed ahead of the others. “This way!”
Running in a half crouch, Gray raced toward the nearest wall.
They were at the level where the dome rested atop the church. A row of arched windows, the same windows that both Gray and Marco had marveled over, ringed the dome’s bottom.
Gray lifted his rifle and strafed the window that lay at the end of the level. Glass shattered out. He did not slow. He reached the window, used the butt of his rifle to clear more glass.
“Out!” he yelled to Seichan and Vigor.
They flew past him as more gunshots pursued them, ringing off the steel bars and chewing through wood.
Gray followed them out, perched on an encircling ledge.
The afternoon sun blazed.
Istanbul spread below them in all its jumbled beauty, its chaotic mix of ancient and modern. The Sea of Marmara glowed a sapphire blue. Farther out, the suspended length of the Bosporus Bridge was visible, spanning the strait that led up to the Black Sea.
But it wasn’t that bit of engineering that held Gray’s attention.
He pointed to the church’s southern facade, to where the exterior scaffolding clutched that side of Hagia Sophia, under repairs.
“Down there!”
Obeying, Vigor led the way around the dome, sidling along the narrow ledge. Once even with the scaffolding, Gray leaped off the ledge and onto the sloped lower roof. He slid on his backside down to the scaffolding, holding his rifle high.
He banged into the bracings and turned around. Seichan was already coming, keeping on her feet, half running, half skiing, heedless of the risk. Vigor was more cautious, on his backside, scooting in spurts and starts.
Seichan came to a steady stop, arms out to grab a strut.
She had her cell phone out, yelling into it.
Gray caught Vigor and helped the monsignor under the railing and over to the scaffolding stairs. They fled down. Luckily there was no guard on this side. The commotion must have drawn him off.
Reaching the ground, Seichan led the way across a small greenbelt to a side street. A yellow taxicab skidded in a wishbone around the far corner, spun its tires, and sped straight at them. Seichan backed away, with a wide- eyed look of confusion.
The beat-up taxi sideswiped at the last moment and braked to a squealing stop.
The driver leaned toward the open passenger windows. “What the hell are you all waiting for? Get your asses in here!”
Kowalski.
Gray climbed in front. Seichan and Vigor in back. Doors slammed.
Kowalski took off, smoking the tires and tearing away.
Seichan fought the acceleration enough to lean forward. “This isn’t the car I left you with!”
“That piece of Japanese crap! This is a Peugeot 405 Mi16. Early nineties. Sweet for speed.”
Proving it, Kowalski revved the engine’s rpms, downshifted for the next corner, twisted the wheel, throwing them all to the left, then planted back on the power and shot out of the turn like a rocket.
Seichan hauled back up, red-faced. “Where—?”
Sirens erupted behind them, streaking around the same corner.
“You stole it,” Gray said.
Leaning forward, nose by the wheel, Kowalski shrugged. “You say carjacking, I say
Gray twisted around. The blazing police car was fading back, outgunned by their engine.
Kowalski sped around the next corner, throwing them all in the other direction, dictating the features of the car. “It’s got a perfect weight-to-horsepower ratio, power steering stiffens at higher speeds…oh! And it’s got a sunroof.” He lifted his hand off the gearshift to point up. “Nice, huh?”
Gray leaned back.
Kowalski lost the police in another two turns. They found themselves a minute later, puttering with the busy traffic headed out of Istanbul’s old district, lost in a sea of taxis.
