“Oh, I think a man with your background should know. Or didn’t the IR A use this stuff to blow up Protestant storefronts in Belfast? Boom!” Conte opened his eyes in mock astonishment and splayed his fingers.
How on earth could he have known that? That had been years ago— another lifetime.
“So best to blow it apart underground, wouldn’t you agree?”
Donovan wondered if Conte would hit him on the head with a shovel, then push him into the hole and detonate the explosives. Or was he concealing a gun? Perhaps the mercenary would elect to kill him with his bare hands.
Conte stood to face him. “You take that end.” He moved to one side, wrapping his hands round the ossuary’s base, while Donovan stepped forward to grasp the other end.
They heaved the ossuary out of the trunk, lugging it over to the edge of the pit.
“Drop on three.” Conte counted down.
Father Donovan felt a sudden dread as he watched the ossuary hit the earth with a dull thud. The lid slammed back onto the base, producing a crack along its etchings. He thought about Santelli sitting in his office, working diligently to preserve the huge institution created by the man these innocent bones might have belonged to. He thought about his meeting with Santelli weeks earlier when the initial battle plan had been mapped out. Once again, the Vatican seemed to have emerged victorious.
Conte turned around for his spade. Wrapping his hands around its handle he studied the sharp edges. One solid blow to Donovan’s skull should do it. He’d toss the body in with the box. Covered with dirt, the C-4 would do the rest. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that the priest was crouching down as if to tie his shoe.
Rising to his feet, a very different man now faced him. The priest was aiming a silver handgun directly at his chest. Eyeing him disdainfully, as if the gun-wielding curator was almost comical, Conte scrutinized the weapon—a standard issue Beretta, most likely lifted from the Swiss Guard barracks. The safety was off.
Donovan was determined to survive, not just for himself, but more so to preserve the innocent life of Charlotte Hennesey and anyone else he’d unwittingly involved in this fiasco. “Drop the shovel,” he demanded.
Shaking his head chastisingly, Conte squatted to rest the shovel on the spongy grass, then quickly went for the Glock strapped round his right ankle, beneath his pant leg.
The first shot was unexpectedly loud, striking Conte in the right hand with appalling force. The slug ripped cleanly through flesh and bone, grazing the mercenary’s ankle as it exited. Conte flinched, but didn’t scream. Blood bubbled out from the hole and his damaged hand curled into a tight claw. He peered up at Donovan. “Motherfucker. You’re going to pay for that.”
“Stand up,” Donovan demanded, daring to move a bit closer, leveling the gun at Conte’s head. Killing the son of a bitch wasn’t going to be nearly as hard as he had thought. Give me strength, Lord. Help me make this right.
At first, it looked as if the mercenary would comply. But what happened next was far too fast for him. Conte sprang forward, burying a shoulder in Donovan’s chest, forcing him back and then down.
Remarkably, the priest managed to maintain his grip on the Beretta. Conte reached for it with his left hand, but miscalculated, cupping the muzzle. A second shot cracked through the air and Conte screamed out in frustration. Now his good hand had been mangled too.
Badly wounded, Conte still managed to force Donovan’s gun-hand down to the ground. Cocking his elbow back, he landed a shot just below the priest’s wrist, forcing the Beretta away. Next he brought the elbow down hard on Donovan’s face, crunching bone and cartilage. The priest’s nose instantly spewed blood and he cried out in agony.
Thrashing viciously, Donovan tried to escape from under the assassin, but to no avail. Conte let go of the priest’s arm to prepare another elbow-shot. That’s when Donovan had a fraction of a second to strike the only vulnerable thing he could see through his blood-splattered bifocals. He jabbed hard with his fist at the purple lump on the side of Conte’s head.
It worked. Momentarily dazed, Conte teetered off to one side, allowing Donovan to stagger to his feet. Seeing there was no chance of getting the Beretta, he ran away.
After a few seconds, the blaring pain subsided, but Conte was still seeing stars through a haze of red covering his right eye. Blood poured down his face where Donovan’s ring had opened the hammer wound. Shaking his head, he spotted the priest retreating along the trail toward the Autostrada.
The fumbled Beretta was under Conte’s shoulder. He tried grabbing it, but neither crippled hand would obey. If picking the damn thing up was going to be a problem, firing it would be impossible. “Affanculo! Sticchiu! ” Abandoning the weapon, Conte sprang to his feet in pursuit.
Halfway to the Autostrada, Donovan was running frantically, glancing back over his shoulder. Not only was Conte back on his feet, he was in full sprint, quickly closing the gap. It would only be a matter of time until he caught up. Unarmed, Donovan knew he was no match for the trained killer, wounded or not. Please, Lord, help me get through this. Donovan heard Conte’s hoarse panting. He was only a couple of paces behind him, ready to pounce. Calling on all his reserve energy, Donovan pushed his body to the limit.
Five meters.
Two meters.
As Donovan’s front foot hit the Autostrada’s macadam he barely registered a fast-approaching car just on the periphery of his field of vision. A blaring horn. Headlights perilously close. Squealing rubber. He barely saw the yellow-painted line that divided the roadway. By some miracle, the car veered behind him... just as Conte’s feet touched the roadway.
Collapsing onto the roadway, he watched Conte’s legs bend and snap in the wrong direction against the car’s front end, his body hurled up onto the hood, striking the windshield, tumbling over the roof and onto the roadway.
Trying to compensate for the sudden maneuver, the Mercedes’s antilock brakes and traction control system simultaneously went into action. But the sedan couldn’t defy the physical combination of excessive speed, a sudden turn, and rain-slicked pavement. It careened into a large fir tree, the bodywork crumpling around the trunk in a horrible cacophony of twisting metal and breaking glass. The driver—a young female with long blond hair who apparently hadn’t been wearing a seat belt—was ejected through the windshield and hung limp across the hood of
