League of Night and Fog Page 34

  "Do I sense you hoping that the husband will find a way to remove the bomb without setting it off?"

  "What would be the harm if he did? The drug kept her from seeing us. She can't identify--"

  "The harm,"

  Seth said, "is to my pleasure. Why should this woman, a stranger, matter to you?"

  "Why should she matter to you? She isn't a threat to us. She doesn't have to die."

  "But she does, my friend. To teach you a lesson. Never interfere with me again." Seth aimed a finger toward the detonator. Even then Icicle might not have acted if it hadn't been for the cruel look Seth gave him.

  Rage broke Icicle's control. Like a tightly wound spring suddenly released, he flicked the switch to deactivate the detonator and yanked it out of Seth's hand. His movement was so forceful he ripped a flap of skin from one of Seth's fingers. Seth's face contorted when he saw his own blood. "Give the detonator back."

  "We've got too much at risk for you to delay. We'll seme this later when we get away from here."

  "We'll settle it now." in a blur, Seth drew a pistol. It had a silencer on the barrel, but even so, the confines of the Citroen made the muffled shot feel as if hands had slammed Icicle's ears. The moment he saw the weapon, he twisted away and took the bullet intended for his chest through the flesh of his upper left arm. The proicecicle exited from his arm and slammed against the dashboard. Icicle ignored the shock of pain and lunged again, deflecting the pistol's aim before Seth could fire a second time.

  They struggled for possession of the gun. Blood dripped from Icicle's arm. Despite his force of will, his weakened biceps were no match for

  Seth. Inexorably the pistol's barrel shifted toward Icicle's face.

  Seth's lips curled. "I should have killed you before. The same as I did your father." Icicle's eyes widened. "You killed my father?"

  Perhaps Seth had hoped that the statement would distract him, make him falter sufficiently for Seth to move the pistol the last few inches toward Icicle's face. If so, Seth miscalculated. Instead of faltering.

  Icicle screamed insanely and, with a savage burst of strength, he rammed the pistol back toward Seth's face, cracking the silencer against Seth's forehead. Seth's eyes lost focus. Icicle scrambled over the seat, punching Seth's mouth. "You bastard, what do you mean you killed my father?" He punched Seth's lips a second time, mangling them. 'Tell me!" he shouted, yanking the pistol out of Seth's hand. Just as he twisted it around to put his finger on the trigger, a taxi stopped behind (he Citroen, its doors flying open. Icicle saw the man and the woman who'd been dressed as a priest and a nun in the Vatican gardens.

  Seth struck Icicle in the stomach. Doubling over. Icicle felt Seth grab for the pistol, but Seth didn't get a firm hold, and the gun thumped onto the floor. Outside, the man and the woman were running toward the

  Citroen. With no time to do anything but obey his instincts. Icicle pivoted, grabbed the detonator off the front seat, shoved open the curbside door, and raced into the crowd. His wounded arm hurt terribly.

  He heard a muffled shot. A window shattered. Pedestrians scattered, screaming.

  When Drew saw the gray Citroen stopped ahead at the side of the street, he yelled for the taxi driver to pull over. Through the rear window of the Citroen, he saw two men struggling. For an instant, he thought one of them was Father Dusseault, now sufficiently alert to put up a fight.

  But then he saw the blond and red hair of the two men grappling for what appeared to be a gun and realized that Icicle and Seth were trying to kill each other. Their struggle was so intense. Drew realized they wouldn't notice until he and Arlene were in position to overpower them.

  The taxi stopped. Drew darted out, followed by Arlene, racing toward the Citroen. But Icicle's rugged face turned abruptly in their direction. His look of shocked comprehension was replaced by one of pain as Seth punched him in the stomach. In quick succession, Icicle grabbed something from the Citroen's front seat and lunged from the car just as

  Seth picked up an object from the rear floor, gaped at Drew and Arlene about to reach the Citroen, and raised a pistol, firing. The rear window shattered. Pedestrians screamed. Drew and Arlene dove to the street.

  Drew hadn't wanted to alarm the taxi driver by showing his handgun earlier, but now he pulled it out, prepared to return fire. The detonator, he kept thinking. Have to get the detonator. But he now identified the object that Icicle had grabbed from the front seat before rushing out of the Citroen. He could see the small rectangular control in Icicle's right hand as the blond assassin surged through the scattering crowd. At the same time, he noticed the stream of blood on

  Icicle's left arm. Hat on the street. Drew shifted his attention back toward the Citroen, aiming at the shattered rear window.

  The moment Seth showed himself. Drew was prepared to pull the trigger.

  But Seth stayed low, charging out the open curbside door and racing into the crowd. Powerless, Drew couldn't shoot without hitting bystanders.

  He watched Seth escaping. Or was he escaping? Seth didn't seem to want to get away so much as to chase after Icicle. The blond man ran along the Via. Labicana and veered to the right, disappearing around a corner

  Holding his pistol, the red-haired assassin sprinted after him. What had happened to turn them into enemies? Drew wondered.

  He stared into the Citroen. The priest was slumped across the backseat

  "Arlene, get him out of here. Make sure you're not followed. Take him back to the hotel."

  "But what about--?" Drew shouted as he ran. "I'm going after them!"

  The son of a bitch is coming after me! Icicle thought. Even when he's almost cornered, he still wants to kill me! Icicle hadn't even been aware that he'd grabbed the detonator as he ran from the Citroen. The gesture had been reflexive. Only when he reached for the pistol wedged behind his belt beneath the back of his jacket did he realize that he was holding something in his right hand. The detonator. He switched it to his blood-smeared left hand, pulled out his pistol, and darted right off the Via Labicana. He expected Seth to shoot at him, but not to kill, at least not right away. Seth would want to bring him down, disarm him, and make him watch the detonator being pushed. A few blocks away from the Colosseum, they would be able to hear the blast. Only then, having gained the maximum pleasure from his victory, would Seth kill Icicle and still have time to escape. It didn't have to be this way! Icicle raged.

  If it hadn't been for the woman, we wouldn't have argued! Seth wouldn't have told me he'd murdered my father! We'd be safely out of here! The woman means nothing to me! Why did I protect her from him? Another thought was equally distressing. Seth's arrogance, his pride and hate, had such control of him that, in taunting Icicle, he'd lost the chance to question the priest and find his father. He's more insane than I imagined. Racing down the side street. Icicle felt an excruciating jolt against the back of his right shoulder. The impact threw him off balance, twisting him to the right, almost shoving him to the pavement.

  Blood sprayed ahead of him. The muscles along his right arm refused to obey his mental commands; his hand opened involuntarily. His pistol clattered onto the sidewalk.

  Still able to make his wounded other arm respond, he clutched the detonator to his chest and ran with greater determination. But his loss of blood had weakened him. His vision blurred. His legs became wobbly.

  He hadn't heard the spit of Seth's silenced weapon. He didn't expect to hear it the next time either, but he had no doubt that Seth would aim toward one of his legs. I'm too easy a target. Have to get off this side street. Find a place to hide. Ahead, to his right. Icicle saw a structure that took up half the block and whose shadow filled the street

  An ancient church! He rushed unevenly toward it. At that moment, Seth fired, his bullet missing Icicle's leg, smacking against concrete twenty feet ahead. Arms throbbing. Icicle realized he was too exposed, too likely to be shot if he went up the steps to the huge main entrance to the church. He hurried forward, his face dripping sweat, In p
ain, he came to an intersection and veered toward the right once more. But along this further street, he saw a side entrance to the church. A sign said st. clement's basilica. Seth rounded a corner about to aim. With no other possibility of escape. Icicle lurched toward the church's small side door, mustering strength to shove it open. Inside, he slammed the door and tried to lock it, but there wasn't a bolt to slide into place, only a slot for a key.

  Whirling, he raced onward, finding himself in a massive chamber that stretched to his right and left. Frescoes of Christ and the apostles lined the walls. Two aisles were broken up by towering columns. A guide appeared, telling him that the basilica was closed to tourists after six-thirty. Icicle scurried past him, sensing rather than seeing the altar far to his left. His impulse was to hide in what appeared to be the sacristy across from him, but the tour guide kept objecting to his presence, and when he heard the side door bang open, he knew that the guide would attract Seth to him. I've got to find somewhere else to hide. To the right of the sacristy, stairs descended. He started down them just as the side door slammed shut and Seth's footsteps echoed urgently after him. It was possible that Seth hadn't seen him, but he couldn't fail to see the trail of blood. He came to a landing, turned right to descend another tier of stairs, and groaned not only from pain but also from desperation when he saw that he'd entered a long empty corridor. He heard Seth's footsteps coming nearer and rushed lower toward a door along the right side of the corridor. He entered yet another basilica. The must of fourteen hundred centuries swelled his nostrils. Pale lights fought to dispel the darkness. But the ancient shadows couldn't hide him, not with the blood from his arms dripping across the floor. He staggered past faded frescoes depicting a Roman nobleman and his servants, all of whom had apparently been blinded by the aura of a holy man, and heard Seth's footsteps charging down the stairwell. He stared toward the left of the altar toward an exit. If I can get through it before Seth takes another shot at me, maybe I can find a way to surprise Kill. He's so confident, he might not expect me to attack. Quit kidding yourself. You don't have the strength. You've lost your pistol. But I've got a knife. He flinched as a bullet spattered pieces of fresco from a wall. Seth's footsteps rushed closer.

  But at once the tour guide entered this lower basilica, shouting at them. Seth shot the man. Hearing the body fall. Icicle could barely breathe. By the time Seth aimed again toward the front of the church.

  Icicle had reached the exit to the left of the altar. He rushed through, hearing a bullet crack against a wall behind him, and saw only more stairs. Even older than the lower church that he'd just left, these stairs led down as well. There was no other choice--he had to follow them. A landing. A turn to the right. He passed a sign mat said

  Mithraeum and stumbled into an eerie underground structure that might have dated back to the birth of the Catholic Church. Directly below the altar of the lower basilica, the remnants of two Roman houses had been joined to form a temple, but the temple was, astonishingly, not

  Christian but pagan. Beyond two parallel stone benches that reminded

  Icicle of pews, there stood a statue of the Roman god Mithras.

  The center of the temple was taken up by an altar upon which another statue of the god--clean-shaven, resplendently handsome--performed some kind of sacred rite by slicing open the throat of a bull. A dog, a scorpion, and a serpent were trying to kill the bull before Mithras could complete the sacrifice.

  In the time it took him to scan the temple, he realized he was trapped.

  He heard Seth scramble down the lower stairs and chose the only possible hiding place: behind the altar. His blood pooled on the ancient stone floor almost as if blood from the bull's slit throat were streaming off the altar down to him. Putting the detonator into a pocket, he used his more mobile left hand to withdraw a knife from a sheath strapped above his right ankle. He held his breath, wiped sweat from his face, quivered with pain, and waited. Seth stalked into the temple. "Blood hides no secrets. I know where you are." His shoes scraped on the ancient stone floor. His shadow loomed over the altar.

  Icicle peered up toward the red-haired man, whose punched lips were swollen, crusted with blood. Seth's eyes had never been brighter. "The detonator." Seth held out his hand. "I hid it before I came down here."

  "Then you won't mind if I search you." Seth stepped closer.

  Icicle squirmed backward. "Give it to me," Seth said, "and maybe I won't kill you."

  "You'll kill me, all right. But not until after you force me to watch you press the button."

  "Our few days together have been like a long-term marriage, I see.

  You've learned to understand me." Seth stepped even closer. "Give me the detonator." Icicle continued backward. "You'll have to take it"

  Seth shook his head. "What I'll do is shoot you again, in the stomach this time, before I come closer. You'd live to see the press me button, but you wouldn't have the strength to attack." Seth raised his pistol.

  Icicle's mind raced, desperate to think of a way to distract his opponent

  "Did you mean what you said in the car?" Seth hesitated. "Did you really kill my father?" Icicle asked. "Would I lie when the truth is so satisfying? Of course, I killed him."

  "Why?"

  "It was Halloway's idea to bring you into this. I told him I didn't need help, but Halloway insisted. The trouble was, your father hadn't disappeared. Mind you, he might have been next on the list, but I didn't want to use up valuable time waiting for it to happen. So I got my hands on him myself." Seth's mangled lips formed a smile. "I did it at your dive shop in Australia.

  Used a silencer. Shot your father and your salesclerk while you were meeting with Halloway's emissary. I wrapped your father's body in a tarpaulin and loaded him into the trunk of my car. Did it in plain sight of everyone on the beach. No one paid attention. Does anyone ever pay attention? Went back to the shop and set fire to it. Drove away. I might as well have been invisible." Icicle wanted to vomit.

  "What did you do with the body?"

  "Rented a boat. Took it out to sea. Let the sharks have a feast" Icicle made a choking sound. "The body had to disappear," Seth said, "to make it seem as if the Night and Fog was responsible. So you'd join us and help look for the rest of our fathers."

  "What about Halloway's emissary? Why did he disappear?"

  "I waited for him at his hotel. Identified myself. Took him for a drive. Shot him. Fed him to the sharks the same as I did your father.

  The theory was that if he too disappeared you'd think Halloway had something to do with the disappearances. I wanted to force you to seek out Halloway..."

  "And when I did, like a fool I let both of you convince me you were innocent. I joined you."

  "And proved of some help, I admit, when it came to grabbing Medici. But really," Seth said, "Halloway was wrong-- I didn't need you. We could never have gotten along. Your father stole the woman my father loved.

  Your mother could have been my mother. You would never have been born.

  If my father's still alive, if I can manage to find him, I'm sure he'll be overjoyed to learn that I killed both his enemy and the son of his enemy. It's ironic, don't you think? Like our tamers, we fell out over a woman. Give me the detonator. I promise your death will be quick after you watch me push the button." Loss of blood made Icicle sleepy.

  Concentrate, he told himself. Don't let the bastard win. "Your word?"

  he asked. "You'll kill me cleanly?" He raised his almost useless right arm to point toward the soft spot behind his right ear.

  "You have my promise." With the same arm. Icicle reached in his pocket and took out the detonator, holding it out to his enemy. "Set it on the floor. Slide it over to me," Seth said. 'Too weak."

  "I don't think so." His heart sinking in despair. Icicle did what he was told, hearing the detonator scrape across the stone floor.

  "Excellent" Seth stooped to pick up the detonator. He shifted his gaze from Icicle only for a second. That second would be the on
ly chance

  Icicle got He whipped his agonized left arm from behind his back and threw the knife with all his remaining strength. Seth jerked his head up. With a curse, his eyes fierce, he aimed. Not soon enough. The knife struck his throat the blade entering his Adam's apple, splitting it The tip made an obscene scraping sound against his neck bone The handle's guard stopped against fractured cartilage. Seth stumbled backward, his face twisting in shock, his skin almost chalk white in contrast with the crimson spewing from his throat The massive trauma to his Adam's apple would cause swelling that would shut off the passage of air to his lungs. Icicle knew. He'd die from asphyxiation before he bled to death. But he wouldn't die instantly. Icicle watched horrified as Seth squinted at him. You think you've won, his eyes seemed to say.

  But you haven't I still have the strength to shoot you again. We'll both die. But not before you watch me do this. Seth grasped the detonator and flicked the activation switch. Icicle screamed, scrambling to stop him, but slipped and fell in the pool of his blood. Seth staggered back out of reach and lowered a finger toward a button. A shadow lunged from the stairwell, the man who'd been dressed as a priest in the Vatican gardens. The stranger yanked the detonator from Seth's grasp at the same time that he twisted the pistol away from him. Seth turned toward his sudden assailant Wheezing, he tried to remove the knife from his throat but the stranger rammed the bun of the knife so the blade reentered Seth's throat The impact made the knife twist sideways, widening the gap in Seth's Adam's apple. Crimson gushed.