Comes a Horseman (64 page)

Alicia moved her hand to his back and patted it gently. His face was kind when he looked at her.

“I only wanted to stop Scaramuzzi. Months ago, Pip was full of wine and complaining about how terribly Luco treated him. He said he wanted to stand up to him, give him his due. I reminded him Luco did not tolerate insolence. He scoffed at that, so I said, ‘Pip, the man killed his own mother'—a story everybody knew. Pip laughed and said it wasn't true. I knew then that I could trap Scaramuzzi in the lie, make him look like a fraud to the Watchers. Nobody cared if he murdered his mother or not; I had to make them care. I constructed the matricide prophecy, and Scaramuzzi, in his eagerness to win over the Watchers, he bought it.”

Alicia finished for him: “After the Watchers accepted it, with Scaramuzzi's approval, Pip would step forward and say Scaramuzzi had not really fulfilled the prophecy.”

“Better than that. Pip came back to me and confided that he had proof Scaramuzzi had not murdered his mother.”

“The file,” Brady said.

Ambrosi nodded. “He must be stopped. Not because he is Antichrist; he is no more Antichrist than was Mother Teresa. But he is a very clever con artist, even more so now that he has deluded himself into believing he truly is who he pretends to be. He will not bring about the biblical Armageddon, but for hundreds of millions, he may as well. Imagine Hitler with modern weaponry—this is Luco Scaramuzzi.”

Brady wasn't buying any of it. He said, “But because of your high opinion of yourself and your
calling
to watch for Antichrist, you're willing to sacrifice innocent people.”

Alicia scowled at him. “I think he's right. What are a few people compared to the millions who could die if Scaramuzzi gets his way?”

Speak for yourself.
He didn't say it. The only reason he would have said it was to be spiteful, because he agreed with her—and, he supposed, with Ambrosi. He simply did not like being used the way Ambrosi had used them.

Ambrosi lowered his gaze to the floor, whispered,
“Exitus acta paene approbat.”

Alicia gently touched his forearm. “What does that mean, Roberto?”

He met her eyes and bent his lips wryly. He said, “The end
almost
justifies the means.”

That made Brady smile, but only a little. He said, “I understand what you tried to do, even though I don't agree with the way you went about it. And I appreciate your own commitment and risk, to have infiltrated Scaramuzzi's camp. But couldn't you have done something before it went so far, before the murder of five innocent people, before
we
almost died?”

“This may sound heartless, but wasn't it Napoleon who said, ‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake'? Scaramuzzi's operation in America was going to shine a blazing spotlight on him. Simultaneously, I thought that Pip's evidence against him would find its way into the Watchers' hands by this time. He would have been squeezed from all sides. I envisioned the Watchers taking him out, and the FBI or Interpol wreaking havoc among the Watchers, making it difficult for them to regroup or salvage the assets they had already invested in Scaramuzzi's world. I wanted to cause as much harm to them as possible.”

Brady said, “Were you responsible for sending that Viking after me and Malik after Alicia?”

“Of course not. That was Scaramuzzi's plan moving along like clockwork. His intentions were to have you and Alicia murdered on American soil. The world press would have a field day over the slaughter of two federal agents—one of them killed in the exact manner of the crimes he was investigating. Within a day, the Watchers would know it was he who had ordered the killings, and he'd have the boost in credibility he was vying for.”

Alicia spoke up. “You and Pip were close to Scaramuzzi, yet you were working against him all along, and Pip was about to betray him.”

Ambrosi nodded. “That is the nature of deceit. Enter that world—that tangled web, as someone called it—and you never know whom to trust; you never know what schemes are working against your own schemes.” He sighed heavily, then continued. “People wonder why villains seem so ruthless, so decisive in their cruelty. It's because they operate in an environment that punishes anything less.”

Abruptly, he checked his watch and stood. “I must go.”

“Wait,” Brady said, rising from the cot. He staggered back, caught his balance, and drew close to Ambrosi. He grabbed the old man's arm, all bone.

“You can't leave us here,” he said.

“If you escape now, I'll be exposed. I'll come back for you later . . . tonight.”

“We may not be alive tonight!” He was pushing the words through clenched teeth. “We may not be alive in an hour! You got us here; you get us out.”

Ambrosi laid a gentle hand on Brady's shoulder. “I will, but you must wait. Don't forfeit everything now.”

“Forfeit? I've already—”

“Let him go,” Alicia said. “He'll be back.”

He leaned his head toward them. On whispered breath, he said, “Pip was not murdered, as I feared. I saw him today. I think he will contact me, and I will get the file. All is not lost.” He reversed a step and nodded sharply, as if to say,
That's what we have done. We will win this war yet.

He reached through the bars, felt for the keypad, and made it beep three times. The door opened, and he stepped into the breach.

Brady said, “At least give us the combination. Just in case.”

“Have patience, my son. I will not betray you . . . again.”

Alicia raised her arm, crossing it horizontally over Brady's chest—a gesture, not a genuine attempt to stop him if he were determined to leave.

“It'll be okay,” she whispered.

Ambrosi clanged the cage closed.

“But if you can get the file, you don't need us anymore,” Brady said.

The old man pressed his finger to his lips.

He turned and shambled toward the dark corridor on the left, the one Scaramuzzi had taken.

“Today?”
Brady pleaded.

“I pray it will be,” he said without stopping.

“You
said
today, later today!”

At the threshold of the corridor, he turned and rested his hand on the wall.

“Brady, you must trust—”

The bat arced out of the darkness and cracked into the old man's temple. Flesh and muscle and bone split under the impact. Blood sprayed as if exploding from a balloon. Ambrosi crashed against the wall and crumpled to the floor.

“Noooo!” Alicia screamed.

Brady ran to the bars, rattled the door with all his strength. He swore at Scaramuzzi as the man stepped from the shadows, straddling the downed man, surveying his handiwork. A crimson ribbon streamed from the tip of the bat, drizzling on Ambrosi's black sweater.

The cardinal's lifeblood pooled out from his head, tracing the joints in the stone, rising to cover the stones themselves.

Scaramuzzi stooped and plucked something off the sweater. He held it up. It was a transmitting device, about the size of a dime, with two thin-wire antennae jutting from it like legs. For the first time, Brady noticed the white iPod earbuds nestled in Scaramuzzi's ears. Undoubtedly, the iPod was rigged to receive signals from the transmitter. He stepped closer to the cell.

“I
thought
the old guy was acting a bit peculiar lately,” he said. “A shame, really. I liked him.”

An unearthly rasp floated up from the floor: “It's . . . what . . . you'd . . . expect,” it said.

All three of them looked to see Ambrosi propped up on his elbows, glaring at Brady and Alicia with wide-eyed wonder, an earnestness that made the hair on Brady's arms stand up.

“Oh, now,” Scaramuzzi said, raising the bat.

“No! No!” Alicia hurled the words at him like stones. But they had no effect. Gripping it in two hands, he brought the bat down on the already misshapen skull. The sound reminded Brady of an overripe watermelon he'd once dropped, carrying it to the trash.

Alicia ran to the corner and vomited.

Scaramuzzi caught Brady's eye, pointed at the body, and said, “Could have been you.”

He turned and disappeared into the corridor, the click of his heels fading with each step.

83

A
licia wept into her hands, raising her face only to curse Scaramuzzi. Brady sat beside her on the cot, rubbing her back. He held his fingers to his nostrils, preferring the odor of sweat and skin to that of vomit and blood. One good whiff of the air would have him adding to Alicia's mess.

“The old man amazed me to the last,” he said, trying to distract her. “He just had to tell us what it was like.” He cringed when he heard his own words. But he could not stop there; maybe there was hope of extracting his foot from his mouth. “What dying was like. ‘It's what you'd expect.' He must have seen the pearly gates, huh?”

Alicia's convulsions trailed off. She sat silently, her hands covering her face. When she looked at him, her eyes were red, her cheeks wet, but it was not sorrow shaping her expression, but disbelief.

“I said the wrong thing,” he admitted apologetically.

She stood, held out one finger, indicating,
Hold on a minute.

She went to the cell door. She reached through and fumbled with the keypad. Three beeps sounded. The lock mechanism clanked, and the door snicked open an inch.

Brady rose. “What the . . . ?”

Her lips pressed together, and he realized she was trying to smile and hold back tears at the same time. He stepped forward and took her in his arms. Cheek pressed against his chest, she said, “‘It's what you'd expect.' Not death, the combination. He kept his promise to you.”

“But what was it?”

She leaned back to view his face. “Antichrist? A guy who thinks he's clever and funny?”

He shook his head.

“Maybe you just have to know guys like that the way women get to know them. Come on.” She stepped through the door, averting her face from Ambrosi's corpse.

“You're not going to . . . ?” Then it dawned on him. “Six-six-six.”

She smiled, thin and strained.

Shaking his head, Brady reached out and took her arm. “Let's get out of here.”

They jogged into the tunnel on their right. Brady had used it earlier to reach Alicia; perhaps he could backpedal his way out. He didn't hold out much hope without the CSD.

“I've tackled these tunnels before,” he told her. “I was lost for two hours.”

“We have to try, Brady.”

The passageways to the left and right appeared less hospitable than their own—impossibly narrow, flooded, emitting foul odors. Everything looked different not viewed through the CSD's optics. Finally, they came to a lighted tunnel and took it. Another lighted passageway on the right—Brady turned into it and stopped. Alicia turned the corner, bumped into him, and peered around him.

They were in a chamber of some sort, boxes and crates and bags stacked all around the edges. A man was bent over a box, applying shipping tape. He looked up at them.

“Hey!” he yelled. He dropped the tape dispenser and reached for the small of his back. He was too far away for them to rush him.

“Back! Back!” Brady said, reversing and pushing Alicia into the tunnel. He caught a glimpse of the man pointing a pistol. He moved out of the threshold as a loud report roared out of the chamber and rolled like thunder through the tunnel. Another sharp sound snapped behind him—the bullet had hit the wall near his head.

“Stop!” The man sounded American. He would be directly behind them in the tunnel within seconds.

“Turn!” Brady said. “Now!”

Alicia arced into a wide but jet-black passageway.

The gun fired again, and stone chips blasted off the wall, stinging Brady's cheek. He made the turn.
The man would be as sightless as they were here, but he'd probably shoot blindly into the dark,
Brady thought.

“Turn again,” he instructed.

“I can't see anything!”

“Run your hand along the left wall. I'll cover the right.”

Instinctually, each held out the opposite arm as well until they clasped each other's hands.

The pistol roared behind them:
Bam! Bam! Bam!

Brady heard a slug zing past his ear.

“Brady?” Alicia called. Terror in her voice.

“Here!” he said and yanked her into the tunnel he'd found. It was equally lightless but narrower. They ran single file. If their pursuer fired into this tunnel, he could not miss.

The wall on the left kept pushing in on them as the tunnel bent right. Light drifted into view—an illuminated tunnel a hundred yards ahead. Suddenly, shadows flitted on the back wall of the approaching tunnel and shouts from a half dozen people drifted toward them. Brady braked hard.

“Go back,” he whispered harshly.

“But the guy with the gun—”

“He's only one,” Brady said. “There's a small army the other way.”

He heard her spin and dash away.

“Alicia, wait!”

He darted after her.

“What?” she called back.

“Hold your arms straight out in front of you, head-high. Both of them. Run as fast as you can.”

Their pace picked up.

“Get ready,” he whispered behind her.

He heard the man's footsteps and breathing two seconds before Alicia collided into their pursuer. Both let out heavy grunts. Brady crashed into Alicia's back, using his weight and momentum to give her the advantage, in case her outstretched arms had not done the trick. They tumbled onto the floor of the tunnel, rolling and pitching. Brady was up almost before he was down.

“Alicia!”

“Here,” she said, rising beside him.

“Where's—”

“I'm stepping on his chest. He's out.”

“Get his gun.”

From down low: “Can't find it.”