The panting Agnelli ran up a flight of stairs, thumb clumsily swiping over his phone’s screen. Once he got outside into the Piazzetta Braschi, he would finally have cell reception and be able to call the number his contact had given him for emergencies.
Until now, his idea of what might constitute an emergency had been the Brotherhood becoming suspicious that he had secretly passed on information from the archives—not a madwoman chasing after him with a gun. The Brotherhood had killed her parents, and tried to kill her; after the ferocity with which she had attacked him in the catacombs, he had no doubts that she wanted to return the favor.
The thought sent a resurgent wave of fear through him, blowing away his fatigue. He glanced back. She was gaining. Oh God, help me!
Even in this holiest of places, God couldn’t assist him directly—but there was someone who could. He reached the top of the stairs and threw open a heavy door, tapping furiously at the screen as the phone finally got a signal. “Come on!” he gasped as he ran into the square, turning to head for an archway that would take him out of Vatican territory back into Rome—
He stopped abruptly. Beyond the arch, two men in brightly colored uniforms and black berets were sprinting toward him: Swiss Guards. Their elaborate, old-fashioned clothing might have looked ridiculous, but anyone who took the soldiers themselves lightly would quickly regret the mistake.
That escape route blocked, he ran for another. Nearby was an entrance to the basilica itself. He could get away through St. Peter’s Square—
A voice from the phone. “Yes?”
“Copel!” Agnelli cried in relief. “It’s Paolo, Paolo Agnelli! I’m in trouble—I need your help, now!” Another look back as he reached the doorway. The redhead had just burst from the grotto entrance, the Swiss Guards veering to follow her as they passed through the archway.
“Where are you? What’s happening?”
“I’m in the Vatican,” he said as he raced down a narrow connecting corridor. “The Brotherhood know what I did for you—and Nina Wilde’s chasing me!”
Another voice in the background, a woman’s, said something in English with a tone of aggrieved disbelief. “Paolo,” said Copel after a moment, “get to the Piazza del Sant’Uffizio. We can meet you there in three minutes.”
Even through his panic, Agnelli was surprised. “You’re that close?”
“Just get there.” The line went silent.
He had no further time to think about the oddness of the situation. Instead he hauled open another door and entered the great basilica of St. Peter.
Nina pounded down the corridor. She was gaining on Agnelli—but the two Swiss Guards were closing on her much more rapidly. She had to slow them down …
A fire extinguisher was mounted near the door into the basilica itself. She plucked it from the wall as she ran past, tugging out the safety pin, then spun to wedge it in the doorjamb as she pulled the heavy door shut.
Its weight forced down the lever—and a choking gush of carbon dioxide gas spewed from the nozzle. The Swiss Guards retreated from the freezing cloud, coughing and hacking.
Nina didn’t wait to see if her improvised smoke screen had worked. Instead she pursued Agnelli through the basilica. Even in her flight, the building’s sheer scale and magnificence were awe inspiring, the ceiling so high and the supporting pillars so huge that people seemed nothing more than toy figures beneath them. Glorious statues and paintings flashed past, altars and monuments to saints and popes, but she couldn’t afford to give the antiquities more than the briefest glance as she fixed her gaze on the Italian ahead. The two running figures were drawing attention, but the commotion from the grottoes hadn’t yet reached the vast church, the worshippers bewildered rather than scared.
Agnelli reached the doors, swatting aside an attendant who tried to block his path. He ran out into the open. Nina hurdled the fallen man and followed, finding herself looking out across the huge expanse of St. Peter’s Square. The name was something of a misnomer; the western end in front of the basilica was a trapezoid, beyond it a great elliptical plaza, at the center of which was a towering Egyptian obelisk. The nearer part of the square was hemmed in by the walls of long galleries, but the plaza was in the embrace of towering colonnades to the north and south—through which could be reached the streets of Rome.