Vatican City
Below St. Peter's Basilica
The present
This time, Lang had known what to expect. He spread a plastic sheet on the dirt before kneeling in front of the altered column. He switched on the fluoroscope and, once again, was astounded by how quickly the purple light made obliterated letters jump into view.
"Accusatio… rebellis… " Pretty much the same diatribe as he had seen at Montsegur, except… He moved the light slightly. Except supposedly the very indictment itself was contained inside.
What did that have to do with whatever Skorzeny had wanted?
He was about to find out. Standing, he took two steps back, playing the flashlight over the column. He could see now that the spot he had noted earlier was only the bottom part of a larger segment. A section almost five by three feet had been cut out of the pillar and replaced, presumably to hide something inside. Taking the short crowbar from underneath his cassock, he was surprised at how easily it fitted between the new and old stone. Almost as if someone had pried it open since Julian had sealed it sixteen centuries ago. Maybe someone had, someone like Skorzeny.
On second thought, there wasn't a lot of "maybe" to it. The picture on Don Huff's CD showed" the German in front of the Vatican. Unlikely he had come here as a mere tourist.
What if there was nothing here, what if whatever clue he was seeking was gone? What if…?
The last question went unfinished as he put the iron bar down, turned off his flashlight, and listened. He was greeted by overpowering silence, an absence of sound that is a sound within itself, just as white, an absence of color, is itself a color.
What had he heard? He was unsure. Another rat, scurrying about what had been his ancestors' exclusive domain? No, something more substantial than that.
But what?
He counted off a full minute, then another and another. Could he have simply overheard part of a tour of the necropolis on the other side of the plexiglass? Possible, but he thought he 'remembered a sign announcing that the office through which those excursions began closed for the day at six.
He recalled the old Gypsy woman he had almost struck in the darkness of an alley, the one who had sought no more than a few euros. The paranoia that became the constant companion of all Agency personnel had almost cost that crone dearly. Could the same thing be happening again?
He looked around the inky darkness. Alone, in the permanent midnight of an ancient burial ground, by stealth rather than by right. Anxiety could not find a more fertile breeding ground.
Besides, who would be here at night?
No one but the spirits of Romans dead for millennia.
And they didn't employ magical curses for those without coins to give them.
Probably didn't pick pockets, either.
Switching the light back on, he returned to prying the stone loose from the base of the pillar. With the gravelly crunch of grit grinding grit, the rock fell out of its socket. Lang bent down, spraying the hole with light.
He had stayed in cheap hotels that had smaller closets.
But never one that came with a large amphora.
The Greek jar loomed out of the shadows with a suddenness that startled him. He reached for it before freezing in midgrasp. He stepped back, surveying the entire opening. In front of the vessel he was looking at was an impression in the dirt, a circle that could have been made by a similar container.
But if so, where was it? If Skorzeny had found the two of them, why would he take only one? Only one way available to answer the questions that kept bubbling tip in his mind: See what's inside.
He tipped the jar over slightly to examine its gracefully slender neck and rimmed top. Sealed with wax, wax bearing some sort of insignia. The imperial crest of Julian? He rocked it back and forth. Were it not for the fact the thing was sealed, its lack of weight would have made him guess it empty. But people did not close up empty containers.
Perhaps the contents had drained out or evaporated. He rolled the jar in a rough circle, finding no cracks or holes. Whatever had been put in there was still there. He laid the large urn on its side and fished under his cassock for a pocketknife, which he found and opened. The wax had had a long time to dry and crack. It yielded quickly, giving off an odor of dust, long-dead mold, and faint rot. If Lang had ever wondered how eternity smelled, he now knew. Shining the light into a darkness even more intense than that around. him, Lang saw something wrapped in what looked like a shroud, a roll of old, dusty linen. He stuck the light between his. teeth, leaving one hand free to prevent the amphora from rolling down the slope and the other to reach inside.
It was like touching cobwebs. He saw, rather than felt, the cloth dissolve at his fingertips. Light still in his mouth, he stood and lifted the bottom of the jar, gently shaking its contents onto the ground.
The whitish cloth looked as though it were melting as it touched the dirt. Underneath was more robust material, a scroll still wrapped around two wooden sticks, the sort of thing large enough to be seen in the hands of an official by a multitude gathered to hear some ancient proclamation. The part exposed to light was written on what Lang guessed was vellum or parchment. Large patches were missing, holes that consumed whole sentences. Still, Lang knew he was lucky. Other documents of like age, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the' Oxyrhynchus Papyri, had been discovered sealed in jars but had been in fifty thousand or more crumbs that scholars had been piecing together for half a century. Wary of touching a manuscript so old, he leaned down on hands and knees to see what he might have found. The text was in Latin, Hebrew, and a script he did not recognize, most likely Aramaic, the pastoral tongue common to the peoples of the Middle East at the time of Christ.
He started to put the scroll back into the jar, then stopped. He knew he should do whatever seemed necessary to preserve such an ancient and possibly historically significant writing, the only known contemporaneous evidence Christ had even existed. He was aware that, should his harming of it become known, he would be excoriated by academic, archaeologist, and historian alike.
On the other hand, he neither knew nor associated with any of the above.
And the contents of this jar might well give him a clue as to Gurt's killer.
A no-brainer.
He separated the two rolls and began to read the tattered paragraphs.
What he saw was surprisingly similar to the abstruse phraseology of the indictments returned against his own clients. No wonder the lexicon of the law was founded in Latin.
The Romans had perfected legal obfuscation long before modem lawyers.
The part of the scroll he was looking at charged the reus, defendant, with publicly encouraging the people retinere, to withhold, legally due taxes by equivocating or questioning what was actually due Caesar. Another accused of attempting to foment, fovet, distrust of Rome's ability to fairly distribute food by pretending there was a shortage of fish and loaves when in fact an ample supply was at hand, as evidenced by what remained. Refusing to recognize the divinity of Caesar, insisting on exclusively worshiping the god of the Hebrews.
Lang could have spent the rest of the night reading of the offenses against Rome, all of which would have been treason, all of which would have carried a sentence of death by crucifixion.
He sat down hard. Not only was he looking at the only surviving simultaneous record of Christ's existence, he was seeing a Christ quite different from the man portrayed in the Gospels. Leb Greenberg, the Emory professor, had been right: More Lenin than Gandhi. He was also right that the Gospels perpetrated perhaps the greatest historical revision known by blaming the Jews for the death of an enemy of Rome. This was definitely not something the Church would want known.
He could understand why the modern-day Catholic Church would go a long way to make sure the words in front of him never saw light. In fact, he was surprised the scroll had been left here instead of either destroyed or removed to those very secret archives available to few besides the Pope himself. Another look at the columns gave him a possible answer: Until the excavation was done here, no one could have gotten to the amphora even had its existence been known. By the time the dig was under way, it would have been difficult to tell what was actual support and what was simply a part of the original supplanted St. Peter's Basilica.
The Church, had it known of Julian's prank, his secret, would have thought it safe from discovery. Had the Vatican known of the inscription at Montsegur?
No way to know.
The medieval Church, the Inquisition, would have suppressed any trace of Julian's secret along with any who even mentioned it. But today? Would they kill to quell knowledge of it? The Church had, after all, survived Galileo, Luther, and Darwin.
Even Dan Brown.
The parchment could well explain why Pius had remained silent, apparently indifferent to Nazi atrocities, maybe even explain why so many Nazis escaped to South America on papal passports issued for fear of revelation of Julian's secret. But today? Things were very different than in the thirties and forties. Advocates of abortion, stem-cell research, gay rights, and other causes opposed by the Church weren't assassinated.
And there were probably those socially conscious souls who would even see Christ the revolutionary more appealing than Christ the submissive. The Church might even gain converts, or at least attract a larger audience.
It had, after all, been playing the same feature for two thousand years.
But if not the Church…?
What had Franz Blucher called the organization that had helped escaping Nazis? Die Spinne, the spider. But old Nazis would hardly be interested in shattering Church dogma; they would want to protect their kind.
Like Skorzeny.
But Skorzeny was dead, wasn't he?
Lang stared for a moment into the darkness. Julian, Skorzeny and
…
It was. like a mental meteor shower, brain neurons firing synapses at each other, the Gunfight at the Cerebral Corral. Phrases, faces, places blurring into a realization Lang knew he had unconsciously possessed long before now. He had been an idiot to concentrate so hard on discovering new facts that he had paid little attention to the ones he had.
Ah'm damned sorry to hear someone survived duty in Berlin back then only to get shot.
No one had told Reavers Don Huff had been shot. In fact, the close, all-but-prohibitive regulation of firearms in most European countries made murder by gunshot unlikely. Unless administered by the police or some form of government agency.
Any government.
An attack in a jail shared by federal prisoners. And by a prisoner of whom there was no record.
A trainload of treasure that had largely disappeared.
Operation Paper Clip.
A politician's face on television, familiar but unremembered. Because there was no scar. A politician who had reentered the United States on a regular basis from Madrid.
Or somewhere in Spain.
A politician whose plan to strengthen American politics presumably included strengthening the intel community.
Assassins who appeared, knowing he would be on a bridge.
A sniper at Herculaeneum.
How could he have overlooked so much?
Again reaching into his cassock, he took out the communication device Reavers had given him, checking to make sure it was switched off. In fact, he couldn't remember ever turning it on.
He hadn't needed to.
He slammed the contraption against a stone pillar. He was gratified to see it shatter, not surprised a small red eye winked, an LED, light-emitting device, indicating it was operative no matter off or on.
The nature of all cellular phones operating from satellites made them traceable by GPS, but only when in use.
Reavers's gadget had GPS, all right, but not only when actually communicating with satellites. Not only had the identity Reavers furnished him with given advance notice of his travel plans, every move he had made had been tracked to within fifty feet or less.
Lang stood shakily, trembling with rage. Not only had he been deceived, his stupidity in pursuing secrets of early Christianity had cost Gurt her life. He couldn't bring her back, but he could sure get even for her. He could…
The top of the slope was suddenly flooded with light, as if the sun had risen on the Vatican hill for the first time in nearly two thousand years. Shielding his eyes, Lang turned slowly.
"Take it easy, pard'nuh," a familiar drawl ordered. "No need gettin' shot this late in th' game."
Lang let his arms drop, denl0nstrating he had no weapon. Thirty feet away and at the edge of the glare Reavers stood. From the snakeskin boots to the belt buckle the size of a hubcap to the ten-gallon hat, he looked the part of the cowboy. But no Colt Peacemaker. 44.
Instead, a Sig Sauer P 229 9mm in his right hand.
That was contemporary Agency.
Just like the one sitting uselessly in Lang's bedside table back in Atlanta.
Lang thought there were at least two more men, each carrying something heavier than a side arm. He could not be certain, because the light was too bright, intentionally so.
"So you were tracking me all along," he said lamely. "No doubt Gurt, too."
"No doubt."
Play for time, that had been drilled into him from his earliest training. When faced with capture or worse, talk, keep your enemy occupied. Sing "Dixie" and tap-dance if necessary. Of course, Reavers had the same training. Lang was betting the man's ego would make him ignore it while he savored his victory.
Lang slowly lowered his hands and tried not to be obvious as he cut his eyes right and left looking for a possible weapon.
There was a long silence before Lang spoke. "What is it you want, Reavers?"
The chief of station shifted his weight as though leaning on something Lang couldn't see. "I think you know, pard'nuh."
Lang's foot touched something hard. A quick glance down showed him the short crowbar at his feet. "Maybe you want what's in this amphora. It could cause the modern Church a lot of grief if someone made its content public."
Reavers frowned, shaking his head. "Don' bullshit me, Lang. You know damn well what I want."
"My silence."
The man leaned even farther toward the invisible prop, grinning, his tone as calm as though he were discussing a roundup just finished. "That's about it, pard'nuh. Sorry."
Lang's foot crept toward the crowbar. "At least let me see if I understand. Tell me if I'm right or wrong. You can do that much."
Reavers nodded amiably. "Shore can. Jus' one caveat: You try somethin' funny, my friends here'll shoot. Even if you got heat from somewhere, you can't get 'em all. So fire away."
He laughed at the double entendre.
"Skorzeny," Lang began, feeling the iron beneath his foot. "He was involved in that train from Budapest in 1945, the one with all the treasure on it, right?"
Again the grin. "One o' th' things always impressed me 'bout you, Lang: You could draw a line from A to Z without botherin' about the rest o' them letters."
Lang's foot began a slow movement back, no more than the nervous shifting of weight a man about to be executed might exhibit. "And he, Skorzeny, helped himself to part of the treasure, a treasure he had known about since he deposed the independent government of Hungary virtually by himself."
"So far, you're battin' a thousand. Hell, why do need me? You already know the answers."
"Not quite. Indulge me. In 1945 the Agency, then OSS, decided they would bring some Nazis to the US, those that might be helpful, like Von Braun. Skorzeny was one of them' because he knew where the rest of the train's treasure was and he sure as hell wasn't going to tell anyone while he was awaiting sentence from some war crimes tribunal."
Reavers shifted again, becoming tired of the game. ''You're guessing."
"True, I am. But I'm right, aren't I?"
"Go ahead," Reavers said noncommittally. "I'm listening."
"I'd bet Skorzeny never told you and someone decided to send him back."
Reavers nodded. " 'Cept you couldn't jus' put him on a plane or ship and deport him. Wasn't that easy."
Lang began to scratch. "This damn priest's robe's gettin' hot. Mind if I take it off?"
Reavers gestured with his pistol. "Take off whatever you like, 'Cept I see a weapon, you're dead meat."
"Thanks."
As he slipped the cassock over his head, Lang stooped to lay it on the ground. With the hand away from Reavers, the one in the dark, he picked up the crowbar. Now. he was armed. What use the tool was going to be against automatic weapons was unclear.
Stall.
"So, the Agency made arrangements to ship him off to the only Fascist country left, Franco's Spain. But there was one very serious, unanticipated problem."
For the first time, Reavers appeared interested. "And that would be?"
"While he was in the States, Skorzeny fathered a son. Having been born there, you couldn't just bundle off a U.S. citizen, even one a few months old. I'd guess his mother was making threats, too."
"Bitch!" Reavers spat. "Never met her, came on board long after she had a fatal auto accident, but I unnerstan' she was a real pain in the ass, always askin' for more money."
Lang was trying to look into the lights, ascertain exactly where they were. "That wasn't the only problem. The kid, Skorzeny's son, knew damn well who he was, insisted on visiting his father in Spain almost every year from 1960, when he would have been fifteen or so, until Skorzeny died in 1974. In case you're interested, the tip off was 1974. The visits ended the year Skorzeny died."
Reavers was not amused. "You couldn't know that about where the kid went, not unless you knew…"
Lang was guessing now, putting odd pieces together to gain precious time. "That Harold Straight is Skorzeny's illegitimate son? Look at the man, Reavers! Add a scar down his right cheek and he couldn't belong to anyone else. You guys created a whole identity for him but you left the Immigration and Naturalization records of his frequent travels to Spain. Seemed a little peculiar that in all the rhetoric of his he never mentioned foreign travel. You invented an identity for him, too. Problem was, it wasn't secure enough. The media, even his political opponents, ran their background checks on computers, I bet. First time someone wants to see the actual records, birth certificate, maybe, school records, et cetera, you have him killed. That was a huge red flag, Reavers."
Reavers nodded again. Was that sweat beginning to glisten on his face? "Yeah, 'bout the time of Skorzeny's death, I was the new boy on the block, trying to cover up Paper Clip. We knew there'd be a public howl, always is, we do somethin' isn't 'xactly Goody Two Shoes. My predecessor had some of our best forgers fiddle the local paperwork up there in Minnesota. 'Course, anyone who knows documents is likely gonna spot a fake sooner or later but we figger'd the newsies, they'd take a quick look an go away. Fact is, by '74 we'd gotten all the goody outta all those Krauts and congressional committees were beginin' to ask embarassin' questions. We didn't want no more honey, just wanted the bees off'n us. By that time the Skorzeny kid was a big deal in state politics, sure-fire to make it to Washington in some capacity. His old man, Skorzeny, was sort of a mystery man, few if any photos lying around to compare to Straight. That's why we had to take care of Huff. Pity."
''Yeah, shot him in the back of the neck, same way the Russkies executed prisoners at the Lubyanka while you were there. He was getting too close to learning about Skorzeny's son. He wouldn't have let that go, would have kept digging till he found out the boy was very much alive. From there, it's a short step to seeing Straight as your man, the Agency's champ, right?" Lang was almost certain he had located the source of the light; the same two men with automatic weapons were holding powerful torches. Could he get them both at once? No matter, he had to try. "Put Straight in the White House and surprise! The old Cold War level of funding comes back. You've got a rubber stamp for every plot gets hatched out at Langley. Want to blow up Saudi Arabia? Go to it! Sabotage the French economy, rig an election in Turkmenistan? Your man, Straight isn't in a position to say no. That's really what all this is about, isn't it, keeping me from finding out the Agency is trying to put its very own stooge in the Oval Office?"
Reavers's amiable manner vanished. "Damn right! An' we'll succeed, 'least America better hope we do. Bunch of mamma's-boy bed wetters runnin' the country, 'fraid of a bunch o' rag-heads we shudda bombed back into the Stone Age right after 9/11. We need Straight like…"
"Like Germany needed Hitler in 1933." Lang was coiling his body, getting ready to throw the crowbar. "Wouldn't do that, I was you," Reavers advised. "Throwin' things like that, somebody's gonna get hurt. More'n likely, you. Be a good boy and drop the crowbar."
Now or never, as the books say. Lang dropped a shoulder, ready to sling the crowbar at the nearest light. If he hit it, the man holding it, or even came close, there was a chance the distraction would give him a split instant to dive for protection behind one of the mounds of dirt, tombs, or columns.
"Hold it!" Reavers shouted, the Sig Sauer coming up.
"No, you hold it!" The voice came from Lang's left, Reavers's right. A very definitely feminine voice. "And moving those lights you should not consider even!"
Lang thought he was seeing some sort of wraith, perhaps one of those Roman spirits he'd thought about minutes ago. But ghosts, particularly those of Romans, probably didn't wear nuns habits as did this one. Tall, her face hidden by the shadow of her wimple, she stood at an angle where she could clearly see Reavers and his two men without being blinded by the light. Lang could see only the top half of her body. The rest was in shadows, giving the impression she was somehow floating in air.
Reavers froze, turning only his head. "Now look, Sister, you got no dog in this fight an' there's no reason for you to get hurt. You jus' mosey on back to where you came from, an' everthing'll be just hunky-dory."
She didn't move. "Down drop your weapons and put hands high. Now!"
It was a ghost! Lang knew that voice, that inflection, even the choice of words.
Reavers came to the same conclusion. Or at least a similar one. "Fuchs, the Kraut bitch! That idiot I sent to the hospital…"
Reavers complaining how hard it is to get good help.
He spun, raising the Sig Sauer.
It was a big mistake, the last one he would ever make.
From somewhere beneath the floating head, a quick jet of flame leaped into the darkness and there was the sound like someone clearing their throat, a weapon with sound suppressor.
To Lang, everything seemed to move at a sluggish pace, to take on the tempo of a film in slow motion.
Reavers stood on tiptoe and did a graceful pirouette that belied both his size and the fact that he was wearing boots instead of ballet slippers. The anger in his facial expression was replaced by one of astonishment as his eyes crossed at his nose as though trying to see the grayish-red hole between them.
Just as Reavers's knees buckled, Lang was on him, snatching the gun from his limp grasp before diving into the shadows.
Lang crashed into unforgiving masonry.
It went dark.
A darkness of centuries, the gloom of the pre-creation universe, a night so black it could be felt as well as seen.
It also was very, very quiet.
The quiet of the tomb, Lang thought, suppressing a post-traumatic giggle at his own wit.
Seconds, minutes, hours, could have passed before a man spoke. "Okay, we got us a Mexican standoff here. We go out and then you do. Nobody else get hurt."
There was too much of an echo in the enclosed space to be sure as to the source of the voice, but it came from close by.
Lang started to reply, thought better of it, and said nothing. No point in speaking even if the acoustics would make it difficult to trace the sound. There was about as much chance Reavers's clique would simply walk away from the power of having a U.S. president under their control as there was the Agency would agree to be funded solely by the sale of Girl Scout cookies.
"We got a deal?" the man wanted to know.
This time Lang did speak. "Sure. You turn on your light so we can make sure you're leaving."
Pause, then: "Damn thing's broken."
Right.
Lang thought he had an idea as to the general position of the speaker. Reaching into the void with the hand that didn't have Reavers's gun in it, he touched a wall. Feeling his way upward, he came to an opening, one of the many windows that made these tombs look so much like the very houses the deceased had occupied in life. He moved up to his knees and considered his position.
The streets were narrow, with few places to cross onto parallel lanes. The tombs all opened the same way and were closed on the other three sides. It was almost certain, then, that Reavers's men were facing the same way he was. Since he had been at the top of the hill, or near it, the two gunmen had to be slightly below. The problem was, he was unsure of where Gurt was. He could only hope she, also, was on the same street and, therefore, looking out in the same direction.
"We're waiting," came the same voice. "No point in anyone else getting killed." Lang hoped it was not mere optimism that detected an edge to the tone, one of mounting desperation.
He stuck the Sig Sauer in the waistband of his trousers and crawled around the interior of the tomb, feeling as he went. Halfway up the rear wall, his fingers found a niche. Further exploration 'discovered a form with irregular features. Sitting in the darkness, Lang used both hands to touch his find. A funeral bust, the head and shoulder of some rich Roman.
Holding the statue in his arms, he crawled back to where he recalled the entrance was and into the street. Sharp rocks, crumbs of jagged marble, and roughly edged cobblestones bit into his knees and elbows as he crossed to the other side and groped for the top of the structure. Again running his hand along the top edge, he ascertained it was fairly smooth, although he had no way of knowing whether the adjacent downhill sepulchre was taller, shorter, or the same height. His memory told him each mausoleum had its own individual form.
He stood the bust on the wall and retreated back into the tomb.
He was almost certain the two men had been carrying some sort of automatic weapons. It took extraordinary discipline in a firefight to put guns like that on single-round fire. He was counting on the fact that these men would not even think twice about spraying bullets at any target.
He gave the closest thing he knew to a prayer that Gurt was both alert and watching in this direction. He yelled, "Gurt, go for it!" knowing she would recognize the ruse.
At the same instant, he flicked the flashlight on and off, illuminating the bust. Ordinarily, marble would not be mistaken for flesh and blood. Likely it wouldn't this time, either. But the impenetrable darkness, tense nerves, and the lightning-like flicker that robbed color from whatever it touched might, just might…
The reaction was instantaneous. Before Lang regained the shelter of the tomb, two geysers of ragged flame spouted from a tomb, almost next to Lang's like laterally held Roman candles. Although large, the necropolis's cover made the sound deafening, a single stream of explosions that beat against Lang's eardrums like fists, beat so hard as to be painful. He could clearly hear the splatter of fragments of stone and plaster as they pelted the outer wall of his sanctuary.
He couldn't duck completely out of sight, though. He had to see
… See and hold on to the flashlight, which he stuck into his belt.
Before the first long bursts of two automatic weapons had ceased their clatter, a smaller streak of fire came from somewhere across the street. One of the automatics' muzzle flash traced an arc upward and went dark.
One down, one to go.
The shooters had been so close, Lang could smell the acrid stench. of burned 'cordite. He had been lucky the men had been too intent on escape to hear his foray into the street.
His ears ringing from gunfire, Lang now could hear only his own heartbeat, a sound so loud he was surprised the man right down the street couldn't hear it, too.
Lang had marked the source of enemy fire, although the darkness prevented an exact measurement. He guessed fifteen feet, twenty at the most. Reavers's pistol in hand, he began a hands-and-knees approach to a spot in the curtain of black where he estimated his enemy might be.
In a couple of minutes, Lang calculated he was in front of the building that housed the remaining gunman. He held his breath, the better to hear the other man's, but silence alone greeted the effort. He knew he couldn't stay here, exposed in the street. Another burst of gunfire or the sweep of a flashlight would reveal his position.
His outstretched hand touched a number of pebbles. Shifting the gun to his left, he picked up the small stones, rolled them in the palm. of his hand for a second, and threw them in the direction of the gunman.
This time the man didn't fire. But he did move, a clear scraping sound as his feet knocked over rocks in the darkness.
Quickly switching hands, Lang fired two shots in the general direction of the sound as he swiftly rolled across the cobblestones..
As anticipated, automatic fire churned the street-where Lang had been. A short burst, but enough. Two more flashes of light, from somewhere across the road, a scream that sounded like it came from only a few feet away, and all was silent again, the quiet after the blast of gunfire seeming to have a physical weight of its own.
Lang felt the wall of something, a tomb or other structure, and slowly stood, pressing against the coolness of the stone. He fumbled at his belt and removed the light. Inching along the wall until he felt the opening, he held the Sig Sauer in his right hand, the light in his left. Pointing the gun into the darkness, he pushed the button on the light.
Even in the puny beam given by a shattered lens and cracked bulb, he could see the fight was over. One man stared into eternity with blank eyes; wherever he had been hit, death had been instantaneous, as there was no blood visible. The other sat stiff-legged in a red puddle against the rear wall of the little house, his hands uselessly trying to staunch the flow of crimson from his throat. He didn't look up as Lang stepped over and kicked away the M16 automatic rifle, thankful Reavers had not added nightscopes.
The man gave a final sound, a noise like a gargle, and slumped to his side. No breath was visible.
''You are glad to see me, Liebchen, no?" Gurt was right behind him. "Or is that a gun in your pocket?"
The old Mae West line was one of her favorites.
He turned to embrace her. "Frankly, my dear, I couldn't give more of a damn, Rhett Butler notwithstanding. You have no idea…"
She gently pushed him away. "Later. Right now, we must leave this place. Someone could have the gunfire heard."
Lang thought of the pressurized, climate-controlled part of the necropolis open to a limited segment of the population. "Possible, but I'd say the insulation was enough to quiet an A-bomb."
Gurt's eyes flickered around the small area lit by their flashlights. "A-bomb? No one has-"
He put a finger to her lips. "You're right. Later."
She swept the beam of her light over the two dead men. "And these?"
"They're already in a cemetery. What's the point of having them moved to another?"
She turned her head to peer up the slope. "And Reavers?"
"Him, too. Let the Agency figure out where he disappeared."
He went back to the top to retrieve his cassock.
Minutes later, a priest and a tall nun were walking away from St. Peter's Square. There was nothing particularly unusual about either. Unless the careful observer watched them long enough to note that they seemed to touch a great deal more than decorum would require.
And they laughed incessantly.