Page 132 of One Minute Out

My gun is low between my knees as I squat, and I don’t think the cops could possibly see it, so I drop it on the ground and kick it down a drain next to me. Then I turn, raise my hands, and start screaming like a little bitch.

“Help me! Help me!”

The gunfire to the north stops. I figure the security dudes for the Consortium are unassing the area, and I decide to do the same. I take a deep breath, pray that the Italian cops are either bad shots or slow on the trigger, and then sprint across the alley, back towards the door to the restaurant. It’s unlocked, nobody shoots me, and once inside I pull my knife and move carefully through the building, concerned that bad guys might still be close.

But soon enough I’m mixed in with the crowd of clubbers and club employees fleeing the area, and with my leather apron I look like one of the crowd.

We all run together up to San Leonardo, where I drop my apron but keep running.

THIRTY-NINE

Sean Hall raced with his protectee along the bank of the canal, in the opposite direction of the sound of gunfire a hundred yards or so behind them. Only two of the other six guards were shouldered up around the protectee; the rest had been in other parts of the auction site when the shooting began, and they were still catching up.

He’d been told that Riesling and the two girls at the Mala del Brenta safe house, Maja and Sofia, had been sheltered there by mafia men, and the MdB forces there were on high alert.

While Hall ran, his left hand on Cage’s shoulder, he shouted into his cuff mic. “I need those boats to pull up on the Grand Canal, two hundred yards from the casino! Principal will be there in forty-five seconds, and we aren’t waiting around!”

The driver of one of the two mahogany power boats radioed that they would comply, and soon both Spirit Yacht P40s came into view, racing out of a smaller canal.

Once Cage, Hall, and the others boarded and were speeding over the water, Hall spoke again into his mic. “Lion Actual? You copy?”

“Lion Actual.”

“Did you get him?”

There was a long pause. “Negative. We encountered other hostiles. I have one man dead.”

Hall put his head in his hands. The organization he worked for had just shot it out with CIA personnel. As bad as things were for him already, he knew they’d just gotten worse.

While still reacting to the worry that he was in even deeper shit if it ever came out that he worked for the Director of the Consortium, he felt a hand squeeze his knee. He looked up to see Cage leaning over from the other side of the boat. Over the sound of the engine and the pounding of the hull against the water, he said, “Thanks, Sean.”

The forty-year-old ex-SEAL thought he was going to be sick to his stomach. Distractedly, he said, “You bet.”

Cage added, “I want Claudia and the two girls coming to the U.S. brought to the jet, and we’ll all go back together.”

Hall couldn’t believe it. “They are on another flight, tomorrow. You never travel with the merchandise.”

Cage shook his head. “I want them out of here, now! Make it happen.”

Hall angrily brought his cuff mic back to his mouth. His last two men would pick up Dr. Claudia, Maja, and Sofia from the Mala del Brenta safe house and take them to Marco Polo Airport. Then Cage, Verdoorn, the two girls, and God knows who else would climb into the Gulfstream for the flight back to the States.

Hall couldn’t wait to be airborne, to get the danger behind him and his protectee, so he could pound vodka when the coast was clear.

•••

An hour and a half after the gunfight by the Grand Canal, I climb out of a taxi in the city of Treviso, Italy, on the mainland twenty-two miles northwest of the island city. During the drive I called Talyssa, twice. The first time she did not answer, but the second time she picked up, and though there was obvious stress in her voice, she assured me that Maarten Meyer was right in front of her and working his magic to break into the banking records Talyssa had targeted. I ask her for regular updates, and then I tell her I’m going to America.

She is surprised by this, but she shouldn’t be. Roxana said she was being taken to the West Coast, and her captor was American. All roads lead west, and I want to be there when Talyssa gives me someone or something to target.

I have the cabdriver take me to a bridge overlooking the Sile River, and when he is out of sight I walk through manicured trees until I reach a dry concrete drainage ditch. On the other side of this I drop to my knees, pull out my binoculars, and train them through openings in the large chain-link fence in front of me.

A hundred meters ahead is a fixed operating base for private jets coming to and leaving from Aeroporto di Treviso. On the far side of the building, I know from experience, will be a hangar and a ramp and, undoubtedly, several high-end corporate aircraft.

I’m hoping that also among them will be a CIA transport jet.

The plane that’s been sent to haul me back to the United States.

The plane I plan on hijacking.

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