The fingers of his left hand swung up and dug into the hard earth, barely supporting his weight. He heard footsteps scrapping his way. He pulled himself up and saw Kevin Hahn, his right arm sweeping downward toward him in an arc, the knife coming straight for his hand.
Crap.
Pivoting, he swung out, his right hand finding the edge, which allowed him to yank the other away and continue to support his weight.
The blade pierced the hard ground. The fingers on his right hand ached. Hahn moved to withdraw the blade for another blow. Luke planted both hands and pushed up, one knee finding hard ground, his left hand grabbing hold of Hahn’s ankle and yanking a leg out from under him.
He rolled out of the guva.
Hahn sprang to his feet, brandishing the knife.
Luke rose, too. “Are we seriously going to do this?”
“Let’s see what you’ve got.”
He gave the five-inch blade the respect it deserved, but he’d faced many a knife before. And what self-respecting east Tennessee redneck didn’t like a good fight every now and then. Besides, he had a ton of questions for this bastard.
Hahn jabbed a couple of times, which he allowed, trying to gauge his opponent’s potential. Which wasn’t all that much. Surprising, given this guy’s job. Maybe too many ftira and too long behind a desk.
“You bury those bodies?” he asked.
Hahn’s answer was another swipe with the blade.
Enough. He dropped back a step and allowed Hahn to advance. He feigned left, then shifted in the opposite direction, swinging his right fist up hard, catching Hahn’s jaw. The head whipped back and he followed with a left jab to the stomach. Hahn crumbled forward. He kicked the knife out of his grasp. Hahn tried to right himself, dazed from the two blows. But Luke grabbed two handfuls of shirt and wrenched him upright, swinging Hahn around and angling him out over the guva. Hahn’s arms flailed as he tried to find some semblance of balance but the only thing keeping him from dropping below was Luke’s two-fisted grip on his shirt.
“It’s a long drop,” he said.
He caught the fear in Hahn’s eyes.
“I’m going to ask some questions. You’re going to answer. If not, I let go. We have a deal?”
Hahn nodded.
“Let’s start with the question you ignored. Did you bury those bodies?”
He nodded again.
“You’re not going to make me ask, are you?”
“I was told to do it.”
He shook his head and pushed Hahn farther out at a dangerous angle, which immediately got the guy’s attention.
“Okay. Okay. Okay.”
He pulled him back.
“Pollux Gallo. I did it for him.”
“And the cardinal? What do you know?”
“He’s dead.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Who killed him?”
“Gallo. Brother-to-brother. He’s down there.”
“I want to hear it all. And talk fast. My fingers are getting tired.”
“Pollux and I go way back. He came to me with a plan and made me an offer. I went along with it.”
“You sold out Spagna and the Entity to Gallo?”
Hahn nodded. “I hated Spagna. He deserved what he got.”
This guy was a wealth of information. Stephanie and Malone both needed good intel, but to acquire it would take a little time.
He pulled Hahn back to solid ground.
The guy looked relieved.
But not for long.
Luke shoved him over the edge.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Cotton stepped from the DOJ jet onto the tarmac at Rome’s da Vinci–Fiumicino airport. The time was a little after noon and he was hungry. Some lunch would be great, but a white Vatican helicopter was waiting, its rotors turning. He hurried straight over and climbed inside.
The flight from Malta had been quick. He’d received no reports from either Stephanie or Luke. Obviously something was up, as Stephanie had managed to obtain the services of a Vatican chopper. Good thing, too. The drive from the airport to downtown would have taken a solid two hours. Rome traffic was some of the worst in the world, a cacophony of blaring horns, squealing brakes, and roaring engines.
And he had to admit.
Flying over it all was lovely.
* * *
Luke listened as Kevin Hahn dug in the guva below.
The moron had survived the fall and Luke decided Hahn would do the digging, retrieving the three bodies. He didn’t much care about the two. It was the cardinal’s that he needed exposed and fast. Hahn had been working for nearly ten minutes with steady swishes of blade to earth.
“You there yet?” he asked.
“Yeah. I have him,” Hahn said.
About time.
He peered down into the dark hole. At the bottom he saw Hahn use his cell phone as a light, illuminating the grave in the pit’s bottom. The light revealed pale-white flesh.
“It’s a shoulder,” Hahn said.
“I need a face.”
The light extinguished and he heard work resuming. He sat down on the ground at the hole’s edge, his feet dangling over the side.
“You ordered Laura killed, didn’t you?” he said to the void.
“Gallo did that.”
“You helped.”
The digging stopped. “I went along.”
It started again.
“She meant that little to you.”
“She meant nothing.”
Bastard. “What do you get out of this?”
“I was going to become head of the Entity.”
“How does Pollux Gallo think he’s going to be pope?”
“He has incriminating information on the cardinals. Stuff Spagna accumulated. We maneuvered Kastor Gallo to Malta to get that information from Spagna. What they didn’t count on was you and Malone.”
“We like to be underestimated.”
“You leave a lot of bodies in your wake.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
The digging stopped.
He peered down.
The light reappeared.
He saw a face in the ground.
“It’s the cardinal,” Hahn said.
“Did you know him?”
“Since we were kids. I never liked him.”
He found his cell phone and opened it to the home screen. “Catch this.”
He dropped it down.
“Take a picture of the face.” He watched as Hahn did as he asked. “Toss it back up.”
Hahn hesitated.
“You don’t want to piss me off,” he said.
The phone came up through the dark.
Everything about this guy ate at his stomach. He was a turncoat, a traitor, a guy who put himself before his duty. Even to the point of selling out one of his own. No question, Laura Price had been pushy and overeager, but she never stood a chance. She’d been a pawn in a game that she never understood. And the guy in the pit below caused all of her problems.
The rope that had dropped down earlier, when Hahn cut it, came up out of the void in a coil and landed on the hard ground.
“Get me out of here,” Hahn said. “I did what you wanted.”
He needed to report in, but that could not be done from here. He had to return to ground level and get outside. Kevin Hahn was going to be the main witness in the prosecution of Pollux Gallo. And what better place to keep him on ice.