The Templar Salvation (2010) by Raymond Khoury Page B

man gave him a small shrug. “He was in the trunk of that car.”
    Not a flutter of emotion in his voice.
    The next question was bouncing inside Reilly’s head, kicking and screaming to get out. He didn’t want to let it loose. He knew the answer he was about to get—but his mouth voiced the words anyway. “And Tess?”
    The man’s eyes hardened a touch. “There’s another car back there. With another bomb.” He held up the phone for Reilly again, to press the point home. “Tess is in it.”
    A firestorm ignited inside Reilly’s chest as the cityscape flying past him went fuzzy, a blur of parked cars and gray walls. “What? You’re saying she’s here? In Rome?”
    “Yes. And closer than you think.”
    He’d assumed she was still in Jordan, which was where she was when she’d called him. When she’d been kidnapped by the sick bastard sitting next to him. Reilly’s heart was now pounding away, far beyond its red line, deafening him and flooding him with adrenaline and bile, the urgency of getting to Tess eclipsing all other thoughts. He zipped through dozens of potential moves at the same time, evaluating them, looking for an advantage, refusing to accept the notion that the son of a bitch next to him could walk away from this.
    “Alive?” He had to ask, even though he had no way of knowing if the answer he’d get was the truth or not. All he could do was look into the guy’s eyes and see if he could spot any tell as to what the truth was.
    The man’s face was maddeningly inscrutable. “Alive.”
    Reilly was too busy processing it to think of slowing down as the battered SUV blasted past the flower market and charged across a major crossroads at the Circonvallazione Trionfale as if it were on rails, causing oncoming cars to slam on their brakes and triggering a flurry of collisions.
    “Keep going straight, and stay focused,” the bomber ordered. “You won’t do Tess much good if you get us both killed. I don’t know how long she’ll be able to breathe in that trunk.”
    Reilly didn’t know what to believe. He blinked, mashing his teeth raw, finding it hard to resist just pummeling the guy. Instead, he scowled at the road ahead and took it out on the gas pedal, mashing it harder. The Merc’s engine strained as it propelled the armored SUV faster, and the Via Trionfale bent right and left gently before the rows of low apartment buildings on either side gave way to greenery and the road climbed up a forested hill.
    Reilly had the pedal floored, the big 4.3-litre engine growling as the trees whipped past. They were charging up what felt like a small forest in the middle of Rome but was actually a lush small park of fifteen acres that led to the Cavalieri Hilton at the top of the hill. Reilly’s eyes had darted sideways, noting that the man was gripping his armrest tightly to avoid sliding around, when a sharp left-hand hairpin came out of the blue, surprising him. He fought the wheel for control, struggling to keep the heavy SUV on the road, its tires screaming for grip. The car fishtailed out of the turn and roared up the hill—where another hairpin, a right-hander this time, loomed ahead.
    “I said easy, damn it,” his passenger barked.
    Fuck you , Reilly seethed inwardly—and saw it, a small, landscaped clearing that was mercifully deserted and sat there, calling out to him in the glorious sunshine, at the end of a small pathway just before the turn.
    He lifted off, feigning a slowdown for the turn, then blipped the throttle and threw the car in the opposite direction. It flew off the road and rumbled down the gravel path, slewing all over the place before Reilly jerked the wheel hard to the left and yanked the handbrake. The car spun around angrily, the tires pushing hard against the mounds of gravel that built up against them—and Reilly used its sideways momentum to launch himself onto the bomber, lifting up his elbow, jacking it in place, and aiming it right at his target’s face as he