The three men fire at one another; I can’t tell if anyone is getting hits.

I chance a look around the scooters and I see a muzzle flash coming from around the corner of the building housing the nightclub. Then, just ahead on my right, the door of the restaurant flies open, and instantly more muzzle flashes crack off. I dive back around just as men begin running into view, crouching down behind scooters on the other side of the alleyway.

It’s three on three now, I think, and we all have cover, but from the sound of new booming reports echoing around, one of the bad guys has a rifle.

I look back over my shoulder. Travers and his partner are backed up to the canal, both crouched behind pylons used to tie off boats.

This feels like a stalemate, but I have a strong suspicion that both sides have more men with guns on the way to this fight.

* * *

• • •

Chris Travers shot his head around the left side of the iron pylon he was crouched behind, and he spotted Court Gentry about seventy-five feet ahead of him, on his knees by a bunch of scooters in the alleyway.

He touched his push-to-talk button, then said, “Zulu elements, we are two blocks west of the casino, do not know the name of this alley. The Grand Canal is behind us. Three . . . possibly four hostiles one block to our north. Approach with caution.” Then he said, “But get your asses over here!”

He turned to Hume, a few feet away behind another pylon, and watched his teammate reload his Sig pistol.

“You good, Pete?”

“For now, yeah. We might have to jump into this nasty-ass water behind us, though. Not looking forward to that.”

Hume fired again, then ducked back down.

Travers heard the tone of his sat phone in the earpiece in his left ear, and he jammed a finger in his right ear to drown out some of the shooting.

“Go for Zulu.”

“Status report?” It was Brewer, and to her credit, she wasn’t wasting time with the identity check.

“We are in sight of Violator, but we have enemy contact at this time.”

“Negative! You are not to engage with the hostiles.”

“Well, it’s a little late for that, ma’am.” He leaned out to his right and fired his pistol, and saw a man thirty yards away duck back down behind a row of parked scooters.

Next to him Hume said, “There’s more of them.”

“Keep your eye on the canal. If these dudes have a boat, we’re in trouble.”

Brewer spoke again. “Zulu, your orders are to immediately disengage. I want you out of there, now!”

“We don’t have Violator. If we leave now, he’ll be running for his life.”

“And he’s damn good at that. Leave him, get back to your staging area in town, and await instructions.”

“But—”

“You can’t be compromised. End of discussion. Brewer out.”

“Fuck!” Travers shouted, and then he transmitted to his team again. “All Zulu, belay my last. Move to RP Foxtrot for exfil.”

More gunshots rang out from the north.

A Zulu officer replied to Travers’s command. “Roger that, but . . . uh, somebody’s still in contact.”

“No shit, that’s us. We’re moving off the X now.” He turned to Hume. “Bound to my left. I’m right behind you.”

Hume took off laterally while Travers emptied his Glock up the street and quickly reloaded. Once Hume arrived at the edge of the building that gave him cover from up the alley, Travers said to himself, “Good luck, Court,” then followed his teammate out of the line of fire.

Both men scampered over crates stacked canalside, and Hume lost his footing on stone polished by centuries of foot traffic and fell into the water on his left. Travers stopped and fished him out, and then the two men took off again to the west through a narrow passage.

* * *

• • •

I pause for a second to pound my last mag into the grip of my Glock 19, and this is when I realize I’m the only guy returning fire on the enemy. Looking back over my shoulder, I see Chris Travers disappear around the side of the building that runs along the canal.

Well, shit.

I don’t know what’s up, but I have a strong suspicion that Brewer is involved.

I’m just about to lean out around the scooters when behind me I hear the wail of a siren. I look back to see a large police speedboat shifting into view; spotlights train on me and up the street at the other shooters.

My gun is low between my knees as I squat, and I don’t think the cops could possibly see it, so I drop it on the ground and kick it down a drain next to me. Then I turn, raise my hands, and start screaming like a little bitch.

“Help me! Help me!”

The gunfire to the north stops. I figure the security dudes for the Consortium are unassing the area, and I decide to do the same. I take a deep breath, pray that the Italian cops are either bad shots or slow on the trigger, and then sprint across the alley, back towards the door to the restaurant. It’s unlocked, nobody shoots me, and once inside I pull my knife and move carefully through the building, concerned that bad guys might still be close.

But soon enough I’m mixed in with the crowd of clubbers and club employees fleeing the area, and with my leather apron I look like one of the crowd.

We all run together up to San Leonardo, where I drop my apron but keep running.

THIRTY-NINE

   Sean Hall raced with his protectee along the bank of the canal, in the opposite direction of the sound of gunfire a hundred yards or so behind them. Only two of the other six guards were shouldered up around the protectee; the rest had been in other parts of the auction site when the shooting began, and they were still catching up.

He’d been told that Riesling and the two girls at the Mala del Brenta safe house, Maja and Sofia, had been sheltered there by mafia men, and the MdB forces there were on high alert.

While Hall ran, his left hand on Cage’s shoulder, he shouted into his cuff mic. “I need those boats to pull up on the Grand Canal, two hundred yards from the casino! Principal will be there in forty-five seconds, and we aren’t waiting around!”

The driver of one of the two mahogany power boats radioed that they would comply, and soon both Spirit Yacht P40s came into view, racing out of a smaller canal.

Once Cage, Hall, and the others boarded and were speeding over the water, Hall spoke again into his mic. “Lion Actual? You copy?”

“Lion Actual.”