No One Takes My Child

Chapter 8

On the terrace, Cardinal Felici felt sure that his heart would fail him at any moment. Each step took him closer to the balustrade, where tourists of all different colors and nationalities stood waiting. They all knew that there were guns trained on their backs, but the only decision to be made was resting on his shoulders.

Deny his God, his church and his pope before the world, or risk the lives of the innocents standing next to him. In one sense, he knew that there was no choice at all — God would not want these people to suffer needlessly in His name — and he also knew that there was no way they would all simply be set free if he bowed to the terrorists’ demands. He had reached some level of peace with the fact that he would die today. It was a matter of which course of action could minimize the number of souls he’d take with him.

And what would God say when he stood before Him, if his last words had been a denial of everything he had lived for? 

The cardinal reached the balcony edge and joined his fellow hostages. Below him there was a crowd waiting and a world watching. 

A gunshot. A person at the end of the row fell. 

God, have mercy on us.

Ten seconds.

Clay lifted Zoe to her feet. Her face was covered in tears and her muscles were as limp as raw chicken. Rachel rushed to her, held her and looked down at the body of Ahyad, his balaclava split open to reveal something no one would recognize as a face. The panicking eyes were gone.

She turned to John Clay as though she wanted to say something, but her throat was dry and caked with the burnt taste of gunpowder. There was relief, confusion and thankfulness all swirling in her head. Nothing came out.

‘We need to keep moving,’ Clay said, holding the assault rifle.

He turned. Rachel wiped some of Zoe’s tears with the soft side of her thumb and cleared her own with the back of her hand. 

‘You said you’d stay with me, Mom.’

Rachel felt the muscles in her throat clench on her vocal chords as a fist might lock on to a rope. She hugged Zoe and made some kind of promise to her conscience that they could work this out when it was all over. ‘We’re almost out, honey.’ It was hardly a whisper. 

At the end of the room they stopped. Through this doorway to the right would be a clear view all the way to the front of the building, and they didn’t know what they would see up there. To their left was the stairwell
going down. 

Clay turned to them. ‘I’ll cover you to the right. You step behind me and start down the stairs. I’ll be right behind you.’ He gestured for them to follow, then stepped through the doorway and waved for them to run behind him. He held the gun up, following the sight line through the next few galleries, seeing the bodies of Cardinal Felici’s entourage scattered on the floor. At the far end of the building were three gunmen, their attention held by something happening outside.

Clay slipped down the stairwell behind the other two, quickly moving in front of them, sweeping the gun sights down the spiral staircase, eyes peeled for any movement. There was nothing but bodies. 

Down one level and a door onto the stairwell had been blown open. 

‘Normally these stairs only connect to the basement level,’ Clay whispered. ‘This is the ground floor and its entrance is at the front of the building. It seems they’ve come through here already.’ Clay stepped over the broken door and moved quickly into a room dominated by a sculpture of Apollo and Daphne. There was an old man’s corpse propped up against it.