Chapter 5
THE Pakistani met Rapp’s gaze without so much as a flinch. While he’d been reasonably sure that he hadn’t been the one who’d spooked the scientist, this bit of confirmation was welcome.
The motorcycle cop roaring up to the intersection just behind the scientist was a different matter.
The bike’s lights were extinguished so the crowd didn’t react to the police officer’s presence.
Even the scientist didn’t so much as blink an eye.
Whether this was because the ambient noise had masked the motorcycle’s approach or because the scientist was too focused on getting away to look behind him didn’t matter.
Like a lacrosse ball rifled from midfield, the scientist kept moving unerringly toward the piazza and his unknowing rendezvous with the interdiction team.
The motorcycle cop was probably closing the police dragnet behind the fleeing scientist. With an expert kick, the officer deployed the bike’s kickstand, killed the engine, and set off after the scientist on foot.
So great was his haste that the policeman didn’t stop to shuck his helmet.
The scientist was about to be snatched off the street.
Rapp couldn’t allow that to happen.
No kids. No women. No cops.
Rapp could almost hear Hurley’s raspy voice reiterating the Orion team’s nonnegotiables. While he agreed with the first two tenets, the third might be a sticking point. He hoped that what he was about to do would follow to the spirit of his mentor’s commandment if not the letter.
Rapp strode past the scientist.
The Pakistani registered his presence with a flicker of his eyes.
Then the target was past Rapp and the motorcycle cop loomed.
Rapp had spent the last several years honing his skills.
Sharpening his edge in order to become a more lethal, efficient assassin.
In other words, the opposite of what he was about to do.
As if of its own accord, his toe found an upraised section of cobblestone.
“Shit,” Rapp exclaimed, putting his full American accent behind the expletive. He windmilled his arms for an instant before sprawling across the cobblestones.
Directly into the motorcycle cop’s path.
The man was already running. His leather boots, which made for great riding footwear, weren’t so nimble in a foot chase, but Rapp wasn’t taking any chances.
His fall was anything but graceful, but what happened next would have made his jiujitsu instructor smile.
Rapp turned his head to the side and slapped the concrete with the palms of his hands to keep from face-planting onto the hard stone.
Under the guise of scrambling out of the motorcycle cop’s way, he snagged the man’s leg with a perfect ankle pick.
The cop sprawled across the pavement.
Rapp tangled his long legs in the officer’s short ones as the cop tried to get up.
“So sorry,” Rapp said. He made a show of attempting to help the officer to his feet while still holding him down. “Are you okay?”
The officer spat a string of Italian that didn’t sound particularly complimentary of Rapp, his parentage, or the nation from which he hailed.
Then the officer stiff-armed him in the chest. The blow was an assault on his pride more than his person, but Rapp turned the strike into a flop that would have done Vlade Divac proud.
“Hey,” Rapp said, letting equal parts anger and surprise color his response, “I said I was sorry. Mi dispiace.”
“Stupido americano.”
The officer shot a look at Rapp that seemed to say he wanted to murder the assassin, but it wasn’t worth the trouble.
Then he sprinted after the scientist. The Pakistani was still moving north toward the piazza with his peculiar shuffling pace—not quite a leisurely walk but not fast enough to be considered a run.
Rapp had hoped his stunt would give the man an opportunity to disappear down one of the side streets, but he’d accomplished nothing.
Absent an act of God, the scientist would be in Italian custody in less than thirty seconds.
With an almost apologetic honk of its horn, a red panel van nosed its way south from the piazza on Via Cappello.
The honks turned less apologetic and more urgent when the lethargic Italian crowd appeared disinclined to make way for the vehicle.
Perhaps because the street the van was attempting to navigate was for pedestrian use only.
The van nudged past a bystander while continuing to sound its horn.
The crowd grudgingly moved out of the way.
Rapp got to his feet.
Clearly the van was in the wrong, but the vehicle’s slow speed and judicious use of the horn didn’t suggest a malicious intent. The motorcycle cop bellowed something unintelligible at the van’s driver as if the vehicle had taken a wrong turn.
Rapp thought differently.
He edged north, slipping around irate bystanders as he reached for the Beretta holstered at the small of his back with his left hand.
The van stopped, and the panel door slid open.
A pair of masked men exited.
Rapp wrapped his fingers around the Beretta’s grip.
The men surged into the crowd. The larger of the two pinned the Pakistani’s arms to his sides with a bear hug while his partner secured the scientist’s legs.
With an economy of movement that suggested practice, the pair hauled the scientist to the van, tossed him inside, climbed in, and closed the sliding door.
The entire incident lasted seconds.
The motorcycle cop watched with his mouth agape. A career spent issuing tickets and bickering with irate Italian drivers had not prepared him for the rendition’s speed and violence.
The van was about twenty yards away. Rapp felt confident he could place an aimed pair in the driver’s section of the windshield at this distance, but was less than certain about what those shots might yield.
Firing through safety glass produced notoriously unpredictable outcomes.
Maybe he’d put a round into the driver’s chest or maybe the bullet would fragment or ricochet in unpredictable directions inside the van.
But this uncertainty wasn’t what stopped him from bringing the pistol up to his left eye and putting the long hours he’d spent on the shooting range to work.
That honor belonged to the object pressing against his left kidney.
An object that felt an awful lot like a pistol.