Malone fired again and his bullet found the man’s thigh.
A cry of agony, but the attacker did not go down.
Malone planted a third bullet in the gunman’s chest. He teetered, then dropped spine-first to the floor.
“You’re a tough man to kill, Malone,” a male voice said from beyond the doorway.
He registered the voice. Adam, from Haddad’s apartment. Now he knew. Israelis. But how had they found him?
He heard footsteps. Running away.
He hesitated, then rushed to the doorway, intent on finishing what he’d started in London.
He stopped and peered out.
“Over here, Malone,” Adam called out.
He stared across the open cloister, diagonally to the far side where Adam stood beneath one of the arches. The face was unmistakable.
“You’re a good shot, but not this good. It’s just you and me now.”
He saw Adam disappear into the doorway that led down to the church.
“Pam, stay put,” he said. “Defy me this time and you can deal with the gunmen yourself.”
He bolted from the refectory and raced down the gallery. Where was McCollum? Two gunmen were definitely down. He’d seen only three earlier. Had Adam killed McCollum?
He decided that following Adam down into the church would be foolish. Do the unexpected. So he hopped onto one of the benches that lined the outer edge of the gallery and stared below. The ornamentation and tracery decorating the cloister were both impressive and substantial. He stuffed the gun in his belt and swung his body out, gripping the top of the stone bench and allowing his feet to find a projecting gargoyle disguising a drain. Balancing, he bent down, gripped the stone, and pivoted himself to a ledge that extended from one of the arch supports. From there it was six feet to the grass of the cloister garden.
Adam suddenly appeared from the church, in the far gallery, running down its length.
Malone gripped the gun and fired, the bullet missing but definitely attracting his quarry’s attention.
Adam disappeared downward, using for cover the same waist-high benches that Malone had.
The Israeli appeared and clicked off a shot.
Malone dove between two tracery supports into the lower gallery and hit the floor tiles hard. The breath left him. His forty-eight-year-old body could only take so much, regardless of what he’d once done on a daily basis. He scampered back to the bench and carefully stared across the cloister.
Adam was running again.
He sprang to his feet and bolted left, rounding a corner and heading straight toward Adam. His target disappeared into another set of glass doors, custom-fit within two elaborate arches and framed by statues.
He made his way to them and stopped outside.
A sign identified the dark space beyond as the chapter house where the monks had once congregated for meetings. Opening the glass door would be foolish. Not enough light to see much on the other side; only windows, two, their definition clear.
He decided to use what he knew.
So he swung open one glass door and kept his body behind the other, which should protect him from any shots.
None came.
A huge tomb filled the center of the towering rectangle.
He searched with his gaze. Nothing. His eyes were drawn to the windows. The right set were shattered, glass strewn across the floor, a rope disappearing upward, being pulled from the outside.
Adam was gone.
Footsteps slapped off stone, and he saw Pam and McCollum running toward him. He stepped out into the gallery and asked McCollum, “What happened to you?”
“Got slammed across the head. Two of them. Up in the choir. I took one out in the church, then they got me.”
“Why are you still breathing?”
“I don’t know, Malone. Why don’t you ask them?”
He did the math. Three down. Two more supposedly accosted McCollum. Five? Yet he’d only seen three.
He leveled the gun he was holding at McCollum. “Those guys break in here, come after us, try to kill me and Pam, but you they whack on the head and leave. A bit much, wouldn’t you say?”
“What’s the point, Malone?”
He fished the locator from his pocket. “They work for you. Here to take us out so you didn’t have to.”
“I assure you, if I wanted you dead you would be.”
“They came straight upstairs to that gift shop. Circled it like buzzards. They knew the geography.” He held up the locator. “And they were tracking us. I killed one upstairs and was damn close to getting the third. Then he just leaves? Strangest assassination squad I’ve ever seen.”
He flicked on the unit and pointed it at McCollum. He changed the setting from mute and a soft pinging indicated that the receiver had found its target.
“They were tracking you. This will tell us for sure.”
“Go for it, Malone. Do what you have to.”
Pam had been standing to the side, silent, and he said to her, “Thought I told you to stay up there.”
“I did until he came. And, Cotton, he does have a nasty bump on the side of his head.”
He wasn’t impressed. “He’s tough enough to take a shot delivered for our benefit by his hired help.”
He aimed the locator at McCollum, but the rhythmic pulse of the beep stayed constant.
“Satisfied?” McCollum asked.
He swung the unit left and right, but the beeping remained unchanged. McCollum was not the source. Pam walked past, studying the inside of the chapter house.
The beeping changed.
McCollum noticed, too.
Malone kept his gun aimed, which told McCollum to stay put. He pointed the unit Pam’s way and the pulse intensified.
She heard it, too, and turned toward him.
He lowered the gun and took two steps closer, still swinging the unit. The pulse weakened, weakened again, then solidified when pointed straight at her.
A look of astonishment came to her face, and she asked, “What is it?”
“They were tracking you. That’s how they found George. You.” Anger surged through him. He tossed the locator down, stuffed the gun in his pocket, and started to pat her down.
“What in the hell are you doing?” she yelled.
She was clearly nervous, but he didn’t spare her feelings.
“Pam, if I have to strip you naked and search every cavity, I’m going to find what’s on you. So tell me where it is.”
Her mind seemed to reel with incomprehension. “Where’s what?”
“Whatever that locator is tracking.”
“The watch,” McCollum said.
He turned. The other man was pointing at Pam’s wrist.
“Has to be. Has a power source and it’s plenty big to accommodate a pinger.”
He grabbed Pam’s wrist and unclasped the watch, which he wrenched free and sent sliding across the gallery floor. He yanked up the locator and pointed. A solid beat signified that the watch was indeed the target. He pointed the unit back at Pam and the pulse subsided.
“Oh, my God,” she muttered. “I got that old man killed.”
FIFTY-SIX
