their ribs, frighten them, get them to tell us where their friends are. Then we take the map and kill them. Adami has no idea we are here, and Mr. Westgate doesn’t want to lose the map to him.”
“What about the witnesses?”
He didn’t answer, apparently because the question needed no answering. There were to be no witnesses. Period. Francesca dared a look from where she hid. The man started toward the fish cart, then stopped just in front of it, looking around. “You see them?”
“No.”
“Fresh fruit!” cried the vendor across the street.
The man ignored him.
“Fresh fish!” called the vendor beside the two men.
They started to move away, but the first man stopped. “I am looking for my friends,” he asked the vendor. “A man and a woman. Americans.”
“The woman, red hair?”
“Yes.”
The vendor narrowed his gaze. “Your American friends, they almost knocked my cart over.”
“They are in trouble. My apologies. Which way did they go?”
“Through there. I heard them say something about the basilica,” he replied, pointing across the street toward the catwalk.”
“Grazie.”
He gave a shrug, then turned away, calling out, “Fresh fish! The freshest!”
“Hurry,” the first man said. “They may have a car parked at the basilica.”
“Fresh fish!”
Francesca’s breath caught. They ran right past her. She waited until their footfall faded down the catwalk before she emerged. She dug all the money she had from her pocket, then handed it over to the fish vendor the moment the two henchmen disappeared from sight at the other end of the catwalk. “Grazie, signore.”
The vendor smiled. “My pleasure, signorina. If you are smart, you and your friend will go to the end of the street, then turn south. My friend has a horse and cart for tourists. He can give you a ride to wherever it is you need to go. Tell him that Pietro sent you. He will help.”
They thanked him again, then raced down the street, where, as promised, his friend waited and gladly took them on at the mention of Pietro’s name. Within minutes they were seated in a covered carriage, the sound of the mare’s hooves clopping down the cobbled street at a brisk trot. Xavier offered the man some money, but he refused, saying he was going that way anyway, and their thanks was enough. Fifteen minutes later, he dropped them off a half block from the coffee shop where they were to meet Dumas.
Sydney watched as Griffin took the rope from his backpack, the one they’d used the first time, then looped it around her waist. That done, he shimmied up a few feet into the tunnel to show her it could be done, his back wedged against one wall of the tunnel, his feet against the other. She followed him up, thinking it was rough enough to allow some hand purchase, and wasn’t as hard as she first thought. Nor as easy, she realized. Especially after another shift of stone, as though the earth finally settled. She looked down. Nothing but blackness, an unsettling feeling, not having any idea how far they’d traveled. Or how far she’d fall if she slipped. The very thought made her dizzy.
“Don’t recommend that,” Griffin said.
“Now you tell me. How much farther?”
“Hard to say. Another ten feet?”
She could do ten feet.
After about fifteen, she figured he’d lied to her. Probably a good thing. She’d lost her right glove when she’d pulled it off during the firefight down in the cistern. And now her nails shredded against the rough surface, the rock dug into her fingertips. She was stretched out, one foot on each wall, her hands gripping the sides.
A low rumble pulsated along the tunnel walls.
“Griffin?”
“Just the earth settling. Don’t worry.”
But the rumbling didn’t stop. It grew louder, deeper, vibrated through the stones into her bones. She braced herself against the walls, tried to hold on. Rocks hurtled down, hit her helmet, her arms. The earth shuddered one last heave. Her bloody hand slipped, and she plunged down into the blackness, nothing beneath her feet.
36
Francesca and Xavier met Dumas at the café, and Francesca’s pulse shot up again as a third fire truck zipped past. Alfredo had left to get his van, in case they needed more equipment for a rescue. He had not yet returned. A second building midblock had collapsed, just sank into the earth, and, from the talk around them, the citizens of Naples were blaming it on yet another crumbling tunnel, long forgotten, finally giving way.
Xavier shook his head. “How does a man set a trap