“I guess so,” he volunteered.
“Good. I think you can. I need to know, are you a fast runner?”
The boy seemed to cheer up slightly, and answered her query with a dramatic nod.
“Are you faster than most of the boys in your school?” she asked, pressing the line of questioning.
He gave the same response.
“Good,” she said, “because I’m going to need you to run very, very fast. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes,” he said, still nodding.
“Now, we are going to play a little game with these men. It’s called escape from Alcatraz.”
Niki giggled a little at the last word.
“I know, Alcatraz is a funny word, isn’t it?”
He gave two huge nods.
“Well, today we are going to play that game, and if you can get to the church in the little town down the road, you will be the winner. Do you want to play?”
“Yes,” Niki answered.
“Now if the men catch me, you have to promise me that you will keep going. After all, you want to win the game, right?”
“Okay,” he said with a final nod. “I promise.”
“Good.” She ran her hand on his soft, young cheek. “I’m going to lure one of the guards in here to start the game. I’m going to pretend to knock him out, but he is just pretending to be asleep. It’s all part of the game, but you must not say anything to the guards. No matter what, stay close behind me, and when we reach the road start running and never look back.”
Adriana stood up and grabbed a small wooden step from the base of one of the wine racks. She positioned it directly under the narrow window in the corner and put one of her feet on it to boost herself up. She stretched as far as she could to reach the latch on the window, and was relieved to find that it opened easily.
“Are we going through that window?” Niki asked?
She smiled down at him as she stepped off the stool. “No. But we want to make it look like we did.”
She moved quickly back to the wine rack and grabbed one of the bottles. “Come over here, and remember to stay perfectly still when the guard comes in.” Adriana grabbed Niki’s hand and pulled him over to the interior wall, near the doorway.
“Are you ready to start the game?” she asked, looking at the boy to make sure he was still composed. Surprisingly, he appeared to be fine, and was smiling at the proposition of doing something fun for a change.
“Good,” she said. “Here we go.”
Adriana stepped forward and fired the wine bottle toward the wall near the window. She grabbed another two and chucked them in quick succession into the same area, spilling dark-red liquid all over the floor and wall as the glass shattered on stone.
The guard’s reaction was faster than she anticipated. The sound of a key being inserted into the door lock clinked throughout the room. A few seconds later, the door swung open, and one of the guards stepped in, holding a gun in his hand. He looked around for a second, and then noticed the open window on the other side of the room.
As soon as he saw it, his suspicion kicked in. He touched an earpiece that dangled from his right ear and spoke into a concealed microphone. “We have a problem,” the man said in a heavy Greek accent. “The prisoners have escaped through the window. Everyone be on the lookout for the woman and boy.”
He took a few more steps toward the corner where the gentle sea breeze rolled up the hill and down through the little window. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore accompanied the fresh air. Adriana put her finger on the boy’s mouth, her last warning for him to stay quiet as she stepped lightly from the shadows. She tiptoed across the hard floor, careful to step as stealthily as possible.
The guard had reached the window and was inspecting the broken glass and spilled wine. He never saw or heard Adriana take the final step between them before she wrapped her hands around his head and snapped it to the left, breaking his neck in one quick movement. The body collapsed to the floor amid the shards of splintered glass. Adriana wasted no time, taking the man’s handgun and the extra clip he had attached to his belt.
She spun around to make sure Niki was still there. The frightened boy stood with mouth and eyes wide as Adriana returned to his side with the weapon in hand. “He’ll be okay, Niki. He’s just pretending. Remember, stay behind me until we get to the road. Then you run as fast as you can toward the town. Where are you going when you get to the village?”
The boy hesitated for a second, reluctant to speak. Finally he said, “The church.”
Adriana rubbed his head, tousling his hair, and smiled proudly at him. “That’s right. You head for the church. Now, stay close. These men may shoot at us, but they aren’t real bullets. They’re just bb’s. If I hit one of the guards with it, they have to fall down and pretend to be dead. That’s part of the game. Understand?”
Niki nodded eagerly.
“Good. Let’s go.”
She stepped into the open doorway with the weapon drawn in front of her. The staircase was clear. She grabbed the boy’s hand and led him up, careful not to pull on his arm too hard. They reached the top of the stairs, and she let go of his hand and motioned for him to wait for a moment. Adriana peeked around the corner of the doorsill and found a large, empty kitchen. She started to step out of the stairwell when she heard footsteps coming from the left. Instinctively, she retreated into the shadows for a moment to wait. With the weapon she’d taken from the guard downstairs, shooting the current threat would be no problem. She had the element of surprise, but firing the gun would draw too much attention. If at all possible, Adriana needed to wait to shoot the gun as an absolute last resort, at least until the boy was out of harm’s way.
A set of kitchen knives on top of the kitchen’s island caught her eye. As a child, her father had let Adriana play with dangerous things most parents would never dream of allowing their child to even touch. Throwing knives at the oak trees on her family’s estate had been one of her favorite activities. She remembered the warm summer days out in the yard with her father as he went through the correct motion of how to throw a knife with deadly accuracy. At the time, Adriana never imagined she would need to use that skill for any real-world applications. Since becoming a reclamation thief, she’d made use of the ability more times than she could count.
The guard seemed on edge, and walked over to one of the far windows in a hexagonal dining area. He pulled down one of the blinds to take a look outside. It was the moment Adriana needed. She moved quickly over to the island and withdrew one of the large blades from its sheath. She gripped the tip of it in a sleight of hand motion and flung it at the unsuspecting guard. The sharp edge struck deep into the base of his neck. He started to collapse, but managed to turn around just in time to see Adriana leaping toward him. Her knee caught him square in the jaw, rendering him unconscious. The man slumped over onto his side. She yanked the blade out of the bloody wound and returned to the island to grab two more like it.
Niki was peeking out from the staircase with apprehension. She called to him, “It’s okay, Niki. Come on. We have to go.”
The boy reached out his hand for Adriana. She smiled weakly at him and clasped it tight. “I promise, everything is going to be all right.”
Chapter 29
Thanos’s driver parked the car outside a small cafe on one of the quieter streets of Ostia. The coastal Italian town was known as one of Italy’s favorite vacations spots. Being a borough of Rome made it extremely appealing for Romans who needed to get away from the craziness of the city. The only problem was that so many of them seemed to have the same idea.