The Eighth Trumpet (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) (31 page)

Kimberlain and Danielle had hit the floor by this time, struggling for their pistols and searching out each other’s eyes as if to confirm the impossible sight each was trying to respond to.

The bullets were coming from the altar, fired by members of the boys’ choir! A boys’ choir with weapons tucked beneath their robes instead of music sheets.

“Hashi!” Danielle gasped in realization, covering her head as more wood splinters flew dangerously about, with the children’s automatic fire homing in on them.

Kimberlain accepted her words incredulously. He could believe her story about children trained to be killers, but to see them actually
as
killers …

Danielle gazed over at the still corpse of Brother Valette, her eyes filled with rage. Her pistol was a fourteen-shot FN Highpower, and the one she’d given Kimberlain was similar. There were eighteen boys to use the bullets on at most, and time was on their side because the few tourists who’d managed to flee at the first sign of fire would certainly summon help. Young figures danced about the altar from the choir platform to better their positions and angles.

Danielle raised her pistol.

“No,” Kimberlain told her firmly, hand latched onto her wrist.

“They’ll kill us otherwise!”

“We’ll find another way.”

He looked forward and up beyond the altar. Danielle began firing shots very near the boys to ensure they would remain behind what cover there was on the altar and not venture down for a rush. Kimberlain was focusing his eyes on the brilliant Caravaggio painting, the
Beheading of St. John
, which hung behind the altar and overshadowed all else, except …

Stretching down from the ceiling across virtually the entire length and width of the altar and choir stalls was the ancient tapestry featuring the Knights’ coat of arms with accompanying cross. It was held in place by beautifully braided rope strung to each of the four corners, the ropes joining together over the center and suspended from a chain which began at the ceiling thirty feet above the altar. If he could shoot out the chain, the tapestry would tumble and temporarily entomb all who lay beneath its weight. But he needed to get close enough to assure himself of the perfect aim and angle required to pull off such a feat.

Kimberlain’s hand eased over to the bloodied robes of Brother Valette. Bullets flailed the air around him as he pulled the dead man’s pistol free and handed it to Danielle.

“Keep firing up at them,” he instructed her. “Not to kill. Just to keep them pinned down. Use both guns, different angles. Make them think it’s still the two of us returning the fire.”

Without waiting for a response, the Ferryman crawled to the far side of the pew, toward a narrow aisle that ran between it and the wall. Once there he pushed himself forward toward the head of the oratory, relying purely on his sense of direction to get him close enough to the altar to make the shots he needed. He would have to expose himself to fire, and it would in all probability take at least three hits on the chain to bring the tapestry down.

His ears rang with the echoing volleys of automatic fire, intermixed with the purposely errant shots fired by Danielle to keep the boy killers where they were. The approaching din of sirens joined the chaos, and Kimberlain knew help was coming fast, but would it really be “help”? The children would discard their guns with the arrival of the authorities, killers turned into apparent victims; as simple as that. He and Danielle would be cast as the offenders here, and even if they lived to tell their side of the story and witnesses corroborated it, valuable time would be lost in the process, while the Hashi would be able to reach them at their leisure. Under either scenario, the society of assassins would come out victorious.

The Ferryman reached the third row from the front and rose to a crouch. He could see the overhanging tapestry clearly now, as well as the chain supporting it. To obtain the firing angle required he would indeed have to chance standing up. His only hope for survival at that moment was Danielle: she had to intensify her fire at that very instant to provide him with the time he needed.

He had barely cleared the pews concealing him when Danielle’s gunfire became more rapid and her bullets closer to the mark, both pistols firing away. He reached a full standing position with aim already locked on, pulling the trigger just as the first of the boy killers spotted him. He managed to get off five shots before the expected onslaught of their fire forced him back down, but not before three of his bullets had done the job. It must have been the fifth and final shot that did the trick, for the steel chain snapped and the tapestry slid into a floating fall. Descending, descending, it seemed to move in slow motion as the first of the children gazed up helplessly.

It landed upon them with a
plunk
, followed by the sounds of the altar’s rostrums and pedestal ornaments toppling under its weight. The children were taken down as well, encased in the weighted darkness, struggling against the heavy material, in search of a way out.

Kimberlain charged back to Danielle, and together they rushed down the center aisle of the oratory past the trembling, prostrate forms of tourists who had dived for cover at the first sign of trouble instead of chancing flight. Passing into the small entryway, they caught the sound of footsteps pounding toward them from the cathedral nave beyond.

“This way!” signaled Danielle, directing him to a set of stairs that led up to the church museum and an alternative exit from the building. She had realized, as had Kimberlain, that with the wail of sirens still approaching, the footsteps could belong only to Hashi who’d been lying in wait to serve as backup, perhaps even dressed as Maltese police in cool-weather khaki uniforms.

Halfway up the staircase, Kimberlain grabbed her when his ears detected similar pounding coming from the museum above. More backup! They were surrounded, the enemy charging from both directions!

Kimberlain could see the results clearly in his mind. Maltese security police would shoot and slay the gunmen who had killed a monk and fired on innocent children in the sanctuary in an obvious act of terrorism. After the Egypt Air fiasco that had left a planeful of corpses, the Maltese people would embrace such a response. The police involved would be hailed as heroes—if they were ever found.

With no other choice, the two of them fled back down the steps. Just past the bottom, Kimberlain threw open another door, only to find a narrow closet. No help at all until he saw what was hanging within.

The pounding steps were closing on them from both directions.

“Quick!” he said, tearing the first of the robes from its hanger and thrusting it at Danielle, then reaching back in for a second. He had it on, its hood covering his head, when the doors at the top of the staircase crashed open.

Danielle was pulling her robe tight when Kimberlain yanked her down. She caught his intention instantly, and in the next instant a sea of khaki-clothed figures converged upon them from the steps. Danielle rested her head on his lap, hair tucked beneath the robe’s hood, feigning serious injury.

“They shot him!” the Ferryman screamed as if these were really the police. “Holy Lord Jesus, they shot him!”

The men in uniforms looked at the downed pair of clergy and then at each other. “Where did they go?” one demanded.

“Back into the oratory. A door behind the choir. An exit corridor. Stop them!
You must stop them!
”

The uniformed figures responded as if to do precisely that. They charged toward the door leading back into the narthex just as the second set from the cathedral nave crashed through it. The two groups joined up, numbering nine in all, and rushed off down the aisle in the direction of the altar with guns drawn.

Kimberlain and Danielle rose together with the awareness that they had to continue their ruse until safely out of the cathedral. He feigned sobbing as he passed back into the third bay off the nave and swung left toward the main cathedral doors, never even looking at the group of children just now emerging behind him, who had by now freed themselves from the fallen tapestry.

“A doctor! I must get the father to a doctor!”

By this time the real Maltese police were inside the cathedral and did not challenge or accost Kimberlain but simply moved aside. The children, meanwhile, were all crying, their weapons miraculously gone. The truth was so impossible to believe that no sense could be made from it, and a more rational explanation would be created in its place by the authorities. The murder of the nameless monk would be pinned on the pair of escaped strangers to fill at least part of the scenario.

They were nearly to the open cathedral doors now, the courtyard in view and their steps clacking against the stone. People were rushing past at each second, several stopping to offer assistance. One of these blocked their way in the process. “May I help, Father?”

“Yes,” Kimberlain told him. “Make sure the call has been made for an ambulance and help clear a path for me down the steps.”

“Yes, Father!”

Almost there now! Almost there!

The collection of pattering footsteps coming from the rear alerted him to the approach of the robed choirboys even before their sobs reached his ears. They had figured out the ruse and were coming for them, to finish now what they had been unable to finish before. Kimberlain gazed down at Danielle and could tell she realized it as well. He had only two bullets left in his gun, and even the idea of using it in this situation was ludicrous. The children might even hope for that, for it would accomplish their goal just as surely as killing the targets themselves.

Not children, Kimberlain reminded himself, Hashi. Escape would be on their minds as well as completion of the task. The strike would not come until they were outside. Quick and sure. Kimberlain felt chilled as another thought struck him. A number of the boys would have hidden their guns again where they would never be found: within their robes.

Kimberlain and Danielle passed under the cathedral’s portico, with Danielle walking just enough under her own power to discourage the approach of bystanders. A huge crowd had gathered down the cathedral steps and within the courtyard. A quartet of Maltese police struggled to hold them back.

“Move aside,” one of them ordered and began to clear a path as Kimberlain approached, still supporting Danielle.

The children were closing in, forcing more tears, victims of the panic rather than the makers of it.

More sirens wailed close by. Down the street just a few blocks, the Ferryman could see the first of the ambulances approaching. He had never really expected to make use of one, but with only a few slight moves they might be able to use it to make their escape. The ambulance was very near now.

But so were the boy killers, and they would never let their targets escape alive. They would kill them and take their chances that the chaos would shield the true origin of the shots. The crowd would scatter in panic, and they would scatter with it, joining the chaos they had created.

The boys were making their way down the steps now, moving quickly through the crowd.

The ambulance was screeching to a halt within a lane created for it within the mass of bodies. The boy killers were in range. The Ferryman could feel them tense, starting the process of moves that would surreptitiously allow them to bring out their guns once more, the bodies of some shielding the others.

In a motion as sudden as it was surprising, Kimberlain swung back toward the crowd gathered on the steps, his face solemn and proud.

“Lord Jesus be praised,” he said, loud enough to be heard by all, with one arm still holding on to Danielle. “It was those children who saved us!” Pointing at them now for the crowd to see. “It was the children who pulled us out when those murderous heathen dared invade a holy place. Beaten back they were, beaten back by young lads who keep God close to their hearts. Lord Jesus be praised!”

The crowd took his final call as the sign to rush the boys with a hero’s welcome, showering them with all due praise and adulation.

Almost to the ambulance’s open rear doors now, Kimberlain looked back long enough to see the dust-streaked sea of white robes being swallowed by the throng. He met the eyes of one of the boy killers and expected to see hate, or at least disappointment.

But the face was empty, emotionless, as cold as the innocent blue eyes that framed it.

Chapter 28

THE MAN ACCOMPANYING
Kimberlain and Danielle in the rear of the ambulance quickly realized the truth, but just as quickly Kimberlain showed his gun. After a few words of explanation, the man and the driver both pledged their cooperation. The Ferryman had them drive the vehicle into the countryside fifteen minutes outside of Valletta where he bound and gagged them, leaving them in the woods. He and Danielle continued on in the ambulance back to the outskirts of the city. They abandoned it in a parking lot, not wanting to risk being seen in a vehicle that might already be linked to them.

“They’ll pin Brother Valette’s murder on us,” Danielle told him. “You know that.”

“You’re right,” Kimberlain agreed.

“We must get out of the country. I have a route. It will be no problem to—”

“No,” the Ferryman interrupted. “Utilizing any route would take too much time, and we can’t afford to lose
any
if the proper authorities are going to be of any use. I’ve got to call the States— that man I mentioned. He’s got to get help to Outpost 10. With the Hashi in possession of that submarine …”

“They’ll be looking for us! Everywhere!”

“They’ll be looking for a couple, not a single woman who checks into a hotel and says her bags were lost by the airline. She gets a room.” He stopped. “I’ll join you in it a bit later.”

She looked at him, amazed at the pace at which his mind worked. It was as if he was constantly weighing every possible angle to arrive at the most logical and safest strategy to pursue. She sighed, feeling embarrassed by her failure to reach the same conclusion. She nodded her acknowledgment.