Justine:Where?
“Where should we meet?” I asked Faduma. “Somewhere public with lots of people.”
“Centro Commerciale Aura,” she replied. “It’s a shopping mall not far from here.”
Me:Centro Commerciale Aura. Food court. One hour.
Justine:Okay.
I disconnected, cleared the cache as an extra precaution, and returned the phone to Faduma.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No problem,” she replied. “When are we meeting them?”
“In one hour. The mall should give us plenty of cover.”
One hour later, as Faduma and I walked through the beautiful glass and lattice metalwork entrance to the mall on Viale di Valle Aurelia, I started to regret my decision. There were so many people around, it was impossible to secure early warning of a threat. But I told myself the throng of people would work in my favor too, masking Faduma and me, giving us cover from prying eyes.
We followed the mass of pedestrians heading along thewalkway between the luxury stores, high-end clothing boutiques, and fragrance shops that filled the air with the sweetest scents.
Adrenaline flooded my body, heightening my perception as we took the escalator up to the next level. I scanned the eyes of the people around me, particularly those riding the down escalator, but there wasn’t the slightest flicker of recognition from anyone.
Faduma and I made it to the food court and saw Sci, Mo-bot, and Justine seated at a large round table next to a luxury bakery and sandwich bar. There was a fire exit behind them. I couldn’t imagine the choice of table was accidental. The green door offered a quick escape route.
I saw Justine register our arrival and draw Mo-bot’s and Sci’s attention to us. Looking back on that moment, I’m not sure whether that was the trigger or whether the cops had simply picked us up as we arrived, but when we got within a few feet of the table, the food court was swarmed by police officers, most of them not in uniform, who had been seated at adjacent tables. They ran at us, shouting, weapons raised.
Mo-bot got to her feet and walked toward them, saying, “What the heck is this? What do you guys want?”
She was roughly manhandled and handcuffed, but the distraction bought us a heartbeat’s reprieve. I grabbed Faduma and pulled her through the fire door.
I ignored the commands to stop. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Sci and Justine, face-down against their table, being handcuffed.
Every fiber in me wanted to go to Justine’s aid, but Faduma pulled me away.
“Come on!” she said. “You can’t help her if you’re dead.”
I nodded and ran after her as she raced down the stairs. Above us, I heard the hammer of footsteps, but we had a decent head start and reached the ground floor quickly.
We burst through the fire door, startling two cops who had obviously been given what they thought was the light duty of standing guard by an emergency exit.
I grabbed the larger of the two and slammed his head against the door, dazing him. As he fell to his knees, I unclipped his pistol and drew it on his colleague.
Faduma spoke in Italian and clearly told the men to lie down because that’s what they did.
I heard shouts coming from the stairwell and looked around urgently. I caught sight of an elderly couple walking to their car, a classic sky-blue Peugeot 505, parked in a disabled space.
“Come on,” I said to Faduma, and we ran over to the man and woman.
I grabbed the car keys from the man’s hand and Faduma and I jumped in the beautifully maintained old car before the guy had really registered what had happened.
He started yelling as I turned the ignition, and the prone cops got to their feet and staggered toward us just as the pursuing officers burst out of the fire exit and ran our way.
I put the Peugeot in gear, floored the accelerator and we shot to safety, leaving a dozen angry people yelling in our wake.
CHAPTER69
FADUMA AND I abandoned the Peugeot a couple blocks away. Other than the engine enduring a bit of a workout, the car was unscathed, thank goodness. I didn’t feel great about the theft, but sometimes doing the right thing under intense pressure involves breaking a few rules.
