She knew what he meant. All those times she’d told him what a lousy husband and father he’d been, calling him a liar, a fraud, culminating at her mother’s funeral when she demanded he leave.
“Nothing to say?” he asked.
“I wanted you to open the grave. I knew you wouldn’t do it if I simply asked.”
“I wouldn’t have. But you still should have asked.”
They stood at a junction where the main passage continued ahead and another disappeared left. A placard indicated that the bone rooms lay that way. Movement to her right caught her eye.
Fifty feet away Brian appeared.
Her father saw him, too.
Their pursuer reached beneath his jacket. She knew what he kept there.
The shoulder holster.
A gun appeared.
———
TOM REACTED TO THE SIGHT OF THE WEAPON, DECIDING INSTANTLY that they could not flee straight ahead, as this man would have a clear shot at them. Earlier, when he’d reconnoitered the catacombs, Inna had shown him the shortest way out—which, unfortunately, waited where they could not go.
No choice.
He grabbed Alle’s hand and they raced down the connecting passage toward the bone rooms.
———
ZACHARIAH DESCENDED THE STAIRS THAT LED INTO THE CATACOMBS. Light from below illuminated the flooring, and he caught the faint movement of a shadow disappearing to his left.
He grabbed Rocha’s arm and signaled for them to slow down.
He also gestured with his head and Rocha found his weapon, a sound suppressor already attached to the automatic’s short barrel. He was hoping for a few undisturbed minutes down here. The problem of Brian Jamison irked him, as did something else.
Had Sagan provided him everything?
They ended at the bottom of the stairs in a long room with pews. Some kind of underchurch. A Baroque crucifix hung above an altar. Carefully, he peered around the edge of the wall. A corridor led out. Jamison stood fifty feet away, a gun in hand, turning left around another corner.
He and Rocha followed.
———
TOM WAS CONCERNED. THIS WAS NOT GOING AS PLANNED. HE should have entered the catacombs with Alle, the iron gate locking behind them to keep Zachariah Simon at bay. He hadn’t expected a third party in the mix and certainly had not expected his own daughter to be in collusion with the other side. From the catacombs diagram in the guidebook, he knew that the route they now were following would eventually lead to the exit he’d planned on utilizing, just in a longer and more roundabout path.
Inna was waiting there, at the top of another stairway beyond the church’s east facade, the exit opening into a side alley, there for centuries, rarely used. A metal door, which could be opened only from the inside, protected that entrance, but Inna had managed to convince her contact at the diocese to allow her reclusive American visitor to leave from there once his private tour of the catacombs had ended. Inna herself assumed the responsibility to make sure the door was closed after they left. The diocese’s PR person had been more than willing to accommodate, knowing he was accumulating a favor from the press that might come in handy.
Tom understood that currency.
Once he’d been a world-class trader in it.
They came to the end of the corridor and turned.
Niches opened to their right and left, each blocked by iron bars. Beyond the bars, illuminated by more incandescent fixtures, bones were stacked eight feet high. Some in precise piles, others in a bewildering mix, as if tossed there. The sight was troubling and surreal. So much death packed so tight. Who were these people? How had they lived? What was their story?
He noticed Alle’s gaze was drawn toward them, too.
He just wanted to get out of here. But the corridor that bisected the bone rooms was long and straight. Maybe sixty feet from end to end with stone arches and iron bars lining both sides. Little cover. Not good.
“Stop right there,” a voice said behind him.
He and Alle halted and turned.
Their pursuer stood twenty feet away.
A gun pointed straight at them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
BENE SAT IN THE CABIN OF THE KING AIR C90B, A SMALL TURBOPROP that he chartered whenever he traveled anywhere in the Caribbean. Luckily, the plane had been available on short notice and he and Tre Halliburton had climbed on board in Montego Bay. Tre had said there might be more information in Cuba, so he’d made a call and gained them access to the country. He regularly did business with the Cubans. They knew him and had been eager to cooperate. The plane could accommodate up to seven passengers, but with just the two of them on board there was plenty of room. What he liked about this particular charter was the service. The galley
