The journalist peered from the doorway of the Church of the Holy Trinity. The Spanish Steps heaved with tourists. No sign of Davis, nor anyone fitting Jenny’s description of her boss. But it would be easy to lose yourself in this crowd. The steps were overlooked by dozens of windows. Jenny reckoned they wouldn’t shoot him; Waits needed Jake alive to extract the last two inscriptions. If she was wrong, it was from there he would be liquidated. Davis had to be watching. Once Jake stepped from the eaves of the church he was committed.
No sign of a red baseball cap. For some reason adrenaline always made the journalist need to urinate; a full bladder was one distraction he did not need. It was 11.45 a.m. They would already be in situ; there was no time to relieve himself. Jake took a step forward. The laughter of tourists was shrill in his ears as he moved from cover into danger. At any moment he expected his head to snap backward. Death would be instantaneous. He took another pace. Then another. Then another, until he was standing in plain view. The Baroque steps fell away beneath his feet, their width undulating elegantly. A memory entered Jake’s head. His grandfather had been inordinately proud of having hopped all the way up the Spanish Steps as a young man. He smiled at the recollection, despite all the fearfulness of the moment. There was still no sign of a red baseball cap. At the bottom of the steps a Hispanic man with matted dreadlocks was fishing coins out of the fountain. His positioning was suspicious. Jake felt a bead of sweat escape his forehead and trickle down his temple. To his left was the house where, the journalist knew, John Keats had died of tuberculosis in the nineteenth century.
Would I were steadfast as thou art …
Red baseball cap, at the bottom of the steps. It looked daft on the head of the elderly man who was waving at him. At first the pensioner took the stairs hesitantly – but he gained in confidence as he ascended and when he reached Jake he handed him the cap with a courtly flourish.
“I believe this is yours.”
Davis to his left, Waits to his right, both of them closing in. The spymaster drew a pistol. There was a bulge in Davis’s coat. How did they get so close?
The old man’s eyes skittered between them and his voice was tremulous. “What is this?”
“Hands up please, sir,” said Waits, blowing a forelock from his glasses. “If you would.”
“And you,” Davis growled.
The journalist lunged for the cover of a lamppost, which sprouted from its sizeable marble base a few steps down. Before Davis could retrieve his pistol he was behind the block: where the Suzuki scrambler he had hired that morning stood, engine running. Jake’s vision shimmered as he got a leg over the bike. He pulled the throttle too hard. At once the Suzuki leapt forward, front wheel rearing up into the air. Davis dived for the vehicle, catching the rail behind the pillion seat with his free hand. He was jerked clear of the stairway and for two seconds both of them were airborne, the gunman clinging to the furious machine. The bike landed a half a dozen steps down, unbalanced, leaning at forty-five degrees. Rubber met marble with a shriek and a puff of smoke; then the back tyre gripped and the bike flung itself into the air again, clearing another six steps with the second bound. It landed with a bump that re-dislocated Davis’s shoulder. Somehow the assassin held on. Jake had control of the bike now and he zigzagged down the steps, face jiggling with each bump – as though the flesh was disconnected from the skull. Tourists parted before the onrush of the machine, dropping cameras and tripping over each other in their haste. Still Davis clung on, lashed left and right behind the Suzuki like a human tail. An elderly balloon-seller juddered closer, frozen in shock. Instinctively Jake jerked the machine to the left. Their shoulders kissed and the pensioner let go of his balloons, arms wind-milling the air. Jake fought to steady the Suzuki, the marble fountain rushing to meet him. He wasn’t wearing a helmet: the impact would pulp his brains. At the last moment he threw the bike into a slide across the piazza that stripped the skin from his thigh. This was too much for Davis and he let go, slithering across the pavement as if in fast forward and crumpling into a heap. The bike spun on its side in the opposite direction and came to a halt. Terror gave Jake strength as he heaved it onto two wheels and kick-started the engine, pinning the machine between his thighs like a cowboy on a mustang. He yanked the throttle and the bike launched itself forward again, his cheeks sucked back with the g-force. Davis was already up and firing, but lack of control made the Suzuki’s turns erratic and his shots were wide. The gunman limped into the path of an oncoming scooter; menaced the rider with his pistol; dragged him off the moped by the neck; threw him to ground. Waits had vanished, the elderly prisoner with him.
The Hispanic guy seemed to be talking to himself.