“Julie,” Will mumbled, pleadingly.
“One …”
“TWO …”
“All right! All right. You can have it. Please, just let her go,” Will pleaded.
“Not until I see the vial.”
“Take this,” VanCleave said, trying to catch his breath after sprinting from the BMW to the church.
AJ set EDGAR down on the marble floor and took a stainless steel case from VanCleave. The case looked familiar; he had seen it before. “What’s going on?”
“Open it,” VanCleave instructed, while he powered on a tiny notebook computer. “Inside you’ll find a thermos-like cylinder with Abbey’s spiders. Unscrew the lid and dump all the spiders on the floor. Count them.”
AJ did as instructed.
“Seven.”
“Good,” said VanCleave, and he began typing furiously on his laptop. Three-dimensional models of different polyhedrons on x, y, and z coordinates appeared and then detonated on his computer screen. The sequence accelerated, flashing through permutation after permutation, and then suddenly stopped. The screen depicted an elongated hexagonal pyramid and flashed the text: OPTIMAL YIELD GEOMETRY.
“Activate all seven spiders; just like you did in Prague. Do you remember?”
“Yes, I remember.” AJ moved quickly, methodically performing the activation procedure for each spider, and then setting it on the ground.
“They’re activated. Now what?”
“Inside the case you will find six strips of plastic explosive. Three black. Three light green in color. Remove one of the green strips. Pinch off seven equal size portions. Roll them into a ball about the size of a gum ball,” VanCleave ordered, never looking away from his computer screen. AJ glanced at VanCleave’s screen and noticed that the exploding polyhedron graphics were gone, replaced by the spider interface control software.
“Are you crazy! I’m not touching plastic explosive!” AJ protested.
“This compound requires a detonator charge. It’s very stable. Now shut up, and do as I say.”
Reluctantly, AJ peeled a strip of green plastic explosive from a stowage slot in the briefcase. The feel and consistency of the material reminded him of modeling clay he played with as a kid. He pinched off seven blobs of the stuff, while trying to suppress gruesome mental images of his hands being blow off.
“Now what?” AJ asked, showing VanCleave his handiwork.
“I’ll take it from here,” VanCleave said. He pressed the blobs of plastic explosive firmly onto the backs of the robot spiders, taking care not to let any of the substance cover the head sensors or leg joints. Then cupping his hands together as if he was going to take a drink of water from a stream, he added, “Now, hold out your hands like this.”
AJ extended his cupped hands, and VanCleave then gently placed the seven explosive laden micro-machines inside.
“Okay, let’s go,” VanCleave said.
Will reached his right hand into his right pants pocket and felt for the vial. To his dismay, his fingers found nothing but pocket fabric. He began to panic. The vial was gone.
Raimond’s expression morphed from smug satisfaction, to dismay, and then to rage, as the realization of what was happening began to register.
He had been set up.
“STEFAN, SHOOT THE PRIEST,” Raimond yelled.
A hollow dissonant moan from the organ echoed throughout the church. The sound reverberated throughout the nave, reflecting off the marble walls and floor, filling the air with a baritone thrum — completely drowning Raimond’s voice before Stefan could hear the end of his brother’s order. Albane had been listening to the entire exchange from above, hiding in the shadows of the organ balcony. She had waited until the last instant to intervene and bravely played the organ, her back facing the nave. Stefan turned to the organ balcony. He trained the crosshairs of his night vision scope on the middle of her back and pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck her in between her shoulder blades. Her body fell forward onto the organ keys, adding new a new chorus of dissonant notes to the air for several seconds, before she collapsed onto the floor.
The organ fell silent.
Satisfied, Stefan chambered a second round in the sniper rifle and shifted his aim away from the balcony down to the center aisle below — zeroing in on the location where Will and the priest had been standing. He quickly found Will, but the priest was nowhere in sight. He scanned left, sweeping the viewing circle of his night-vision scope over to Raimond’s position. To his astonishment, he watched as the priest head butted his brother and then freed the American girl. Stefan adjusted his torso and slid his index finger over the trigger in preparation for his next shot. But the firing geometry did not offer him a clear shot at the priest without risk of hitting his brother. He would have to wait for the scuffle to play itself out; eventually he would have a clean shot. Stefan exhaled. Patience.
The organ blast gave Kalen the opportunity he needed. During the few seconds Zurn turned his head to look at the organ balcony behind him, Kalen closed the distance between them. Eyes forward, arms and legs and churning, he sprinted down the center aisle like an Olympic athlete out of the blocks. He decelerated to a stop in front of the bounty hunter.
Kalen saw shock in Zurn’s eyes when he returned his gaze to the front and found the priest’s face mere inches from his own.
Kalen grunted and smashed his forehead into Zurn’s right eye socket.
With his left hand, Kalen pushed Julie’s face to the left, away from the gun barrel pressed into her cheek, until her jaw was parallel to the muzzle. He then slid his fingers down her throat and into the small triangular gap between the piano wire and the two outside ligaments on either side of her neck. He pulled the wire away from her throat with both hands. The razor sharp wire sliced into the fleshy pads on the underside of his fingers as he created a triangular opening slightly larger than her head. He wailed in pain — a guttural primal bellow — but it was drowned out by the thunderclap of two successive gunshots.
Stunned by the priest’s precision head butt, Raimond wobbled and blinked his eyes. Coming to, he squeezed the trigger of the Sig Sauer, twice.
Julie yelped as the muzzle flares seared her left cheek, but the bullets sailed harmlessly by. The acrid smell of scorched hair and skin wafted through the air. She opened her eyes. The hot steel barrel of Zurn’s weapon was resting next to her left ear and cheek. She became acutely aware of her lips, her tongue, and her teeth, all intact and unmolested. She had not been shot. Thanks to the foresight of the priest, her face had been clear of the line of fire.
She wasted no time. This was her chance, and she knew it. The priest was holding the wire several inches away from her face, and suffering greatly for it. Julie tucked her chin to her chest and squatted. She felt the wire scrape against her ear, nose and forehead as she ducked her head through the triangular opening, but she was free.
Raimond yanked the wire noose, a split second too late to foil Julie’s escape, but before the priest could extricate both his hands. The razor wire cinched tightly around the priest’s left hand, compressing and cutting deeper into his fingers. Raimond grinned with sadistic pleasure as the priest dropped to a knee in front of him. With the butt of his gun, he struck a powerful blow across the priest’s face.
“Goodbye, Father,” Raimond sneered. Then, pressing the pistol against the priest’s forehead, he added, “See you in Hell.”