Temple of the Gods - Andy McDermott [64]
‘Shut up!’ cried Agnelli, almost hyperventilating. ‘Everyone shut up! Move back.’
Nina willingly retreated a couple of steps, as did Popadopoulos, but Belardinelli stood his ground. ‘What are you going to do, Paolo? Kill us? Is that how you repay the Brotherhood for everything it has given you? Is that how you repay me?’
‘No, no, I – I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just want to get out of here,’ said Agnelli, wide-eyed. ‘Please, Agostino, move back!’
Instead, Belardinelli held out his hand. ‘Give me the gun, Paolo.’ He stepped forward. ‘We can—’
The gunshot was almost deafening in the confined space.
Belardinelli staggered, clutching feebly at his chest. He looked up at the younger man, face shocked and hurt . . . then slowly crumpled to the floor. Agnelli’s own features conveyed equal disbelief.
Silence and stillness for a moment. Then Popadopoulos fled down the tunnel.
The gun roared again. The Greek crashed against a wall, knocking items from a loculus.
Agnelli brought the gun back round to Nina—
She too was moving – but not running. Instead, she swept up the little stepladder and flung it at him. He reeled, pulling the trigger, but the bullet went well wide of its target.
Now Nina ran, leaping over the moaning Popadopoulos and sprinting down the tunnel. Behind her, Agnelli’s shout warned her that his fear had turned to anger.
She threw herself down a curving side passage as Agnelli fired again. Where it led she had no idea, but she had no choice except to follow it.
The Italian set off in pursuit. He reached the side passage, turned—
And stopped in momentary surprise. The tunnel was in near darkness.
Still running, Nina passed beneath another light bulb and, fist clenching her jacket’s cuff, reached up to smash it. Even with the material protecting her hand, she still winced as a glass splinter stabbed into the flesh.
But that pain was infinitely preferable to the burning hammer-blow of a bullet. She was in Agnelli’s domain, the Italian knowing every twist and turn of the tunnels. Her only hope of escape was to confuse him long enough for her to get past and make a dash for the elevator.
The passage twisted round to a four-way intersection. She carried on straight ahead, breaking another light – then doubled back into the left tunnel. A boxy dehumidifier grumbled away on the floor; she jinked past it and continued on, straining to pick out Agnelli’s pounding footsteps over the machine’s noise. How close was he?
Too close, almost at the intersection.
She flattened herself into the shadows of another arcosolium as Agnelli reached the junction. He glanced to each side before continuing ahead into the darkened tunnel. Nina held her breath. His steps faded – but was it because he was getting further away, or just that he was slowing?
It was hard to be sure over the dehumidifier’s thrum. She leaned out from her cover and looked back. Had her ruse worked? If she made a dash for the intersection, she might have a clear run to the entrance – or she might find herself face to face with Agnelli if he had realised her deception.
The longer she stayed in the catacomb, the more chance of her being cornered. She had to risk going back. She moved out of the shadows—
Agnelli reappeared at the junction.
Nina scrambled to reverse direction as he saw her. The gun snapped up, but in his haste he fired without aiming, the shot chipping the ancient stone wall several feet short. By the time reason overcame panic and he raised the automatic higher to look down its sights, she had rounded another corner.
More broken bulbs tinkled into the growing darkness as she ran through the archive’s ancient tunnels. The passage ahead split into two. On impulse she went left, smashing another light. She was outpacing the overweight Italian, the tunnel’s turns preventing him from lining up another shot, but if she found herself in a dead end he would catch up very quickly.
Or not. It sounded as though he were slowing down. He might be tiring . . . but Nina somehow knew that wasn