Rios woke up, coughing herself hoarse. She stripped out of her Kevlar vest and felt her chest. One hell of a bruise, but one of many after being launched like a human missile into the stairwell.
Rios pulled herself up by a handrail and staggered down the first flight of steps, the stairway filling with dust and smoke. She made it down the fire escape, round and round, down and down. Stumbling out amid the shell-shocked, screaming residents of the apartment block.
When she came out at street level it was chaos, with clouds of black smoke rising high in the air. Buildings had their windows blown, streets were lined with shattered glass and there was mass confusion everywhere she looked.
But there she was. The girl by the fountain, with her backpack and glasses. Alive and well.
‘This is Jackdaw. They all made it,’ Rios said over the comms. ‘I think they all made it… Hello?’
Hearing only white noise in her earpiece, she looked above and saw the drone circling the area. It rose and fell, wings swaying left and right as if piloted by a drunk. Suddenly, it straightened out, gained altitude and banked left. The UAV turned all the way around and accelerated away, climbing high above the city.
It seemed as if the pilot had lost interest in another missile strike, so Rios turned to walk along the street. She saw a police roadblock ahead, officers on their radios, looking her way. Plus a SWAT team jumping out of a van. Rios pushed through the crowds and made her way along the nearest side street, looking for a car or scooter to steal. She didn’t find a single one, the roads having been closed for the visit of the minister.
Rios changed plan and walked around a corner into one of the main streets, only to come across plain-clothes police with handguns drawn. They ran towards her. She turned to see another police roadblock, heard shouting from the alleys behind – more carabinieri, with emergency sirens wailing all over the city. This was it, she thought. A public trial. Back to Aliceville and a triple life sentence. That’s if her old enemies from home didn’t catch up with her first. It would be a public trial, after all.
Rios shook her head with a wry smile. She’d got so close to that free pass. Resigned to her fate, she put her hands to her head and dropped to her knees.
Pope and Baptiste watched the missile explode in the Piazza di Spagna.
A flash of brilliant light. A cloud of smoke. The air clearing. A crater made in the square and a deep, long furrow ploughed into the Spanish Steps.
‘What happened?’ Baptiste said. ‘The crowd. They just turned and ran, like they saw it coming.’
‘Who cares?’ Pope replied. ‘So long as they ran.’ He gripped the stick tight in a sweaty palm. ‘Now what do we do with this bloody thing?’
The Australian looked at him for answers, yet Baptiste was as clueless as Pope.
‘What did you do?’ Guthrie asked, wandering into the cabin in a daze. She held a hand to her head. Saw the Turners face down on the floor. ‘Oh my God!’ Guthrie reached for her sidearm and met with fresh air.
‘Looking for this?’ Baptiste asked, holding up her pistol.
‘Um, yeah,’ Guthrie said, hands in the air. ‘Why do you sound French?’
‘It’s just the concussion,’ Baptiste replied. ‘You know how to land a plane?’
‘Uh, I guess, kind of—’
‘Then get over here,’ Baptiste said, beckoning her over with the gun.
Guthrie approached the console. ‘If the aircrew are dead, who’s flying the UAV?’
‘You are,’ Pope said. He kept his hand on the control as Baptiste waved Guthrie into the pilot seat.
She sat down, hesitant. ‘I’ve had a few lessons in a trainer plane. I don’t know how to fly a Predator.’
‘You don’t have to fly, you just have to crash,’ Pope said.
‘Safely,’ Baptiste added.
Pope took hold of her right hand. He wrapped it around the stick and backed away.
Guthrie took a deep breath. ‘Okay, let’s see…’ She familiarised herself with the controls and focused her attention on the screen. ‘Where do you want me to land?’
‘In the Med?’ Baptiste suggested.
‘Yep, the Med’ll be right,’ Pope said.
‘You mean the sea?’ Guthrie asked.
Baptiste pointed at a satellite map image on a screen. ‘It’s not far from Rome.’
Guthrie looked up over a shoulder. ‘But this is a forty-million-dollar plane.’
‘If you’d rather crash-land in the city, be our guest,’ Baptiste replied.
‘Okay,’ Guthrie said. ‘Well first we’ve got to turn around. Banking left…’
She worked the stick to the left. Blue sky filled the screen. The horizon came back into view as the drone performed a one-eighty turn. Guthrie increased thrust and altitude, pulling clear of the historic centre. The drone passed over the outskirts of the city, the suburbs, road networks and olive groves until it neared the coastline to the north of Rome.
‘That’s good. Now bring it in low,’ Baptiste said, ‘Take it out a few miles and then ditch it.’
Guthrie dropped altitude as the drone passed over the small seaside resort of Marinella. She banked right and brought the Predator down 100 metres from the water. ‘I’m going to regret this,’ she muttered, pushing the stick forward.
Seventy feet, fifty feet, thirty, twenty… The screen went blank, all readings dead. The altimeter fixed at zero.
‘There, it’s done,’ Guthrie said, turning in her seat. She was speaking to thin air, the flight deck empty except for the Turners lying dead on the floor.
Guthrie got out of her seat and walked to the open doorway. Only the cutting torch remained. The night was silent, the tarmac deserted. The two men had vanished.