When I was within a few feet of the first row, I heard a distinctive sound that chilled me. I ran forward to find him lying on his back, blood pooling on the tiled floor around him, the hilt of an old-fashioned steel dagger sticking out of his chest. He was pawing at it weakly, but his eyes shifted and focused on me when I rushed to his side.
He gasped and moaned in pain. As I checked his pulse and tried to overcome my shock at finding him this way, I realized he was trying to speak.
I’ll never forget the choking, gurgling noises he made as he frantically sucked air into lungs that sounded as if they were full of fluid. Finally he managed to say, “I… tried… to… do… right… Matteo… is… lying.”
His eyes went blank. I tried mouth-to-mouth but it was no use. He was gone.
I couldn’t believe another man had died in front of me. And that, with his dying breath, he had warned me not to trust my latest Private recruit. I’d managed to convince myself of Matteo’s innocence, but could I continue to do so now?
“Jack Morgan, we know you’re inside. Surrender immediately!”
I recognized the voice of Inspector Mia Esposito. She was talking through a bullhorn.
I’d been completely set up and had no doubt this death would be pinned on me too. I heard movement around the church, the tramp of boots, the catch and lock of weapons being checked, radios crackling to life with terse commands.
There was no way I was fighting my way out of here or escaping unscathed.
I got to my feet and walked toward the main entrance with a sense of weary resignation.
When I opened the door, I saw Esposito had brought what looked like half of Rome’s police officers with her. Many were armed and had their weapons trained on me.
They needn’t have bothered. I put up no resistance when Esposito climbed the steps and turned me around.
“Jack Morgan, you are under arrest,” she said as she put me in handcuffs.
CHAPTER85
ROMA MUST HAVE won because when I was transported from the Basilica to whichever police station I was destined for, the streets were filled with loud and cheerful fans, singing and chanting.
Mia Esposito sat up front, next to the driver—a plainclothes officer who kept giving me hate-filled looks. He was the kind of cop who took the job personally and had probably swallowed the line that I was responsible for Bernardo Baggio’s death.
They exchanged words in Italian and laughed at the sight of some of the raucous celebrations. A few of the Roma fans had their shirts off and were running around, clearly very drunk.
“I didn’t kill them, you know?” I said to Esposito. “Christian Altmer, Bernardo Baggio and Father Carlos Diaz. Someone has set me up.”
“Then you took a risk coming to the Basilica if you’re the victim of a conspiracy, Mr. Morgan,” Esposito replied.
“I thought Mr. Altmer was behind whatever got all these people killed. So it seemed worth the risk to come and talk to him,” I replied. “I never expected to find him the way I did, but the fact that he’s been murdered tells me he was just a bit player in whatever’s happening.”
“And you think you are going to be left alone to sit out the rest of it, do you?” Esposito challenged me. “Not while there’s a theory that you’ve killed anyone who might testify against your colleague, Matteo Ricci! You will remain in custody until you can prove your innocence to the satisfaction of Rome’s prosecutors.”
“Or I’m conveniently killed in jail,” I said, and Esposito and her colleague exchanged looks.
“Did you find Bernardo Baggio?” I asked.
“We did,” the hostile cop said. “And I want to know how come you knew about him.”
“I don’t know anything about the circumstances of his death. All I know is he was on duty the night my colleague is supposed to have tried to take his own life.”
I leaned forward, my arms locking against the cuffs.
“Inspector Esposito, if you can’t see you’re being played, you’re not the cop I thought you were.”
She considered my words but didn’t respond.
We were in the thick of the revelry by now, and the traffic was making slow progress through cheering crowds on both sides of Via Marco Aurelio. I could see the Colosseum up ahead, theancient monument beautifully lit against the night sky. The bars either side of the street were packed with exuberant fans spilling out onto the road. At the intersection with Via Claudia we had to wait for a herd of Roma supporters to migrate south to north over the zebra crossing. When the street finally cleared, the hostile cop at the wheel inched forward only to find our path suddenly blocked by a bus full of Roma fans that had stopped at the mouth of the intersection.
The driver cursed and hit his horn, starting a cacophony of other car horns from behind us, the sounds merging with the celebratory cheers and shouts to add to the general air of chaos. The driver had no more idea than Inspector Esposito what was about to happen, but I did, and when I saw Amr Badawi sitting near the front of the bus, I steeled myself for what was to come.
