Bright sunlight flowed into the dark passageway.
Jordan smelled pine and loam.
Must be an emergency exit, one possibly designed to whisk the pope to safety in case of a threat at the castle.
Christian stepped through, then motioned for them to keep close.
Growing worried at all the subterfuge, Jordan shifted his assault rifle into a ready position and kept Erin between him and Christian. He wanted her protected front and back.
They stepped into a dense evergreen forest. It was cold beneath the shadowy bower. As he walked, his breath hung in the quiet air. A carpet of fallen pine needles muffled the sound of his feet.
Erin zipped up her wolf-leather jacket.
Even that small sound was too loud for this quiet forest.
Ahead of them, three figures melted out of the shadows. While Christian relaxed, Jordan kept firm hold of his rifle. Then he saw it was Nadia, leading Rhun and Bathory. Or at least he assumed it was the countess, as the woman was veiled from head to toe against the sun. But the silver handcuff secured to one of her thin wrists left little doubt that it was Bathory. The other cuff was fastened to Rhun.
The Sanguinists were taking no chances with the countess.
Personally, Jordan would rather be handcuffed to a cobra.
Nadia motioned Jordan behind the thick bole of a pine for a private meeting. It was unnerving that no one spoke. He gave Erin’s elbow a quick squeeze, leaving her with Christian, then followed Nadia.
Once out of sight. Nadia pulled out a single thick sheet of paper, folded and sealed with red wax, bearing the insignia of a crown with two crossed keys.
The papal seal.
With one long fingernail she broke the seal and unfolded the paper to reveal a hand-drawn map of Italy. A blue line traced north from Castel Gandolfo, ending near Rome. Highway numbers were marked, along with a timetable.
Nadia lifted a lighter and rasped a flame to life, ready to burn the paper, her eyes on him.
Clearly he was supposed to commit this map to memory.
Sighing silently, he memorized the highways and timetables. Once done, he met her eyes.
She mimed a driving motion and pointed to him.
Looks like I’m driving.
She lifted the lighter to the page. Yellow flames licked up the thick paper, consuming everything to ash. The purpose of all this pantomime was plain. Jordan, and Nadia, and whoever wrote the note—probably the cardinal—were the only ones who were supposed to know their destination and route.
They weren’t giving the bomber another chance to take them all out.
With the matter settled, Nadia led him back to where the others waited.
Once they were all together, they set off across the forest to a parking lot. Only two vehicles were parked there: a black Mercedes SUV with dark tinted windows and a Ducati motorcycle, also black and with lines that screamed speed.
He looked longingly at the bike, but he knew he would end up with the SUV.
Proving this, Nadia hiked a leg over the motorcycle and raised an eyebrow toward him. He grinned, remembering their wild ride through Bavaria a few months back. He’d never been so scared or exhilarated. Her preternatural reflexes had let her handle the bike at speeds he had not imagined possible.
But that wasn’t going to be today.
She tossed him the keys to the SUV before starting up her bike and roaring off.
Jordan’s group headed for the SUV. Rhun helped the countess into the back, flanked on her other side by Christian. Jordan held open the front passenger door for Erin. He was not about to let her sit in the back with Rhun and the countess.
Even the front seat was too close to that pair.
3:14 P.M.
As the vehicle fled up a road paved to a smooth black finish, Elizabeth clenched her free hand into a fist. Automobiles terrified her. In Rome, she had avoided their foul smells, their grumbling engines. She had no desire to get near one, and now she sat inside one.
It was very like a carriage from her day, except such carriages were never so fast. Never had a horse traveled across the ground at such a pace. How did the soldier maintain control over it? She knew the vehicle was a mechanical device, like a clock, but she couldn’t help thinking of it spilling them from its warm leather cocoon and dashing their brains against the hard road.
She monitored the hearts of the humans in the front, using them to measure the potential danger. Right now, both hearts beat at a slow, relaxed pace. They did not fear this belching, growling beast.
She did her best to mirror their emotions.
If they do not show fear, she could not allow herself to either.
As the minutes passed, her initial terror dulled into simple boredom. The black ribbon of road unspooled before her with an eerie sameness. Trees, villages, and other automobiles passed to either side, unremarkable and unremarked.
Once her fear settled, her thoughts returned to Rhun. She remembered him holding her hand, his lips on her throat. He was not so passionless and dedicated to the Church as he seemed—not now or before. He had come so close again to betraying his vows in the cell.