And damn it, she could already start to feel her knee stiffening like a rusted door hinge: unwilling to bend, threatening to break. But that was just too bad. Even if she was doing irreparable damage to it, she had to push it to the limit; the next five minutes could, quite literally, decide the future course of the Western World.

  Refusing to limp, she glanced north toward the western skirts of Monte Cengio; two lamps burned brightly there. That signal meant Taggart had heard the attack and was even now collapsing inward toward the villa with most of his pickets. But there had been too little warning; he would not arrive in time, given how quickly the attackers were pressing their advantage. Sherrilyn could already see wisps of smoke rising up from the villa and heard gunfire at the front and then the back.

  As she reached the root cellar and knocked a “shave and a haircut-two bits” tattoo on the door, she calmly accepted that she was the only relief force in a position to rescue her friends.

  The cellar’s storm door banged back, and Rolf, the largest of the hidden reserve of three Hibernians emerged. She drew her Glock, waved it toward the villa, and resumed running. “Follow me,” she hissed at the forms already trailing her at a crouch.

  As soon as the defenders’ two pistols fired pointlessly out the window, Valentino sent his men through the southern door of the villa.

  Gunfire-flintlocks and one or two up-time weapons-barked a lethal salute as his men went through; three fell, a fourth staggered, but the next wave was in and firing back into a vast chamber seething with desperate, human chaos.

  From what Valentino could make out as he entered in the third rank and dodged quickly to the side, they had been lucky enough to come directly into the villa’s large, and surprisingly plain, great room-which, to his eyes, was appointed more in the style of a vast, well-to-do farmhouse. The long, plain tables were littered with trenchers, utensils, a few pewter plates, all in the process of pre-cleaning, the leavings mostly scraped into feed buckets bound for whatever livestock they had out back. A dozen-maybe a score-of domestics of all shapes, sizes, and sexes were now running to and fro, some focused and purposeful, most shrieking and confused. A few were pushing smaller trestle tables over for cover; a few more-workers who had no doubt been furnished with the weapons of off-duty Marines-were attempting to reload, their quiver-fingered haste and inexperience ensuring that they would likely be dead before they even got the wadding snugged down against the ball.

  Valentino yelled, “Fire at will!” but hardly needed to: the murderous pack he had brought with him only needed the scent of blood to start killing indiscriminately. The second and third ranks had already fired their pistols into the milling crowd, many throwing the discharged weapons aside. Valentino conceded they were probably right in their implicit assumption that they would not have the time, opportunity, or need to reload them. Swords out, they began hacking through the mob. Men fell, the pink-froth of their rent lungs exposed; women screamed, run through, their bodies’ own weight dragging them off the swords that had mortally transfixed them. One, a heavy, sweat-stained cook, came roaring out of the press, a frying pan held ready behind her shoulder. Odoardo watched her approach with a sneer, and as she drew close, used one hand to casually flap his axe at her midriff. The woman stopped suddenly, stared down, saw her entrails coiling out, went down to her knees.

  Screaming, crying, fists flailing, a young boy appeared from behind her, assaulting Odoardo, who barked out a laugh as his axe came down, hard.

  The mortally wounded woman folded down over the small, ruined body with a great wail, and Valentino watched as Odoardo paused for the briefest of moments, clearly considering whether he should finish the job. An equally short-lived smile curled the left side of the ogre’s mouth; having evidently decided to let her die in both emotional and physical misery, he moved on-just as the discharge of an up-time gun cut down the mercenary who had been standing behind him.

  Valentino peered through the falling bodies. His men were doing a lot of damage, but not to the right people. There were at least four of the renegade embassy’s Marines, now sheltered behind overturned tables near the base of the only obvious staircase to the upper level. As Valentino watched, the Marine with the up-time weapon put a bullet into any of the assassins who tried dodging through the thinning crowd to engage them directly. In the meantime, the other three were reloading their USE regulation flintlocks. If this went on “You men,” Valentino shouted, beckoning toward the musketeers who had just followed them in, “look there: the Marines behind the tables. Volley at them on my command-”

  Valentino watched another of his own men fall to the Marine with the revolver, who then ducked down, apparently preparing to swap a freshly loaded cylinder into his weapon. As he did, there was a momentary break in the press of running, falling bodies “Now! Fire!”

  Four miquelet muskets roared just to Valentino’s left. Two of the Marines went down, one trailing a rooster-tail of blood behind him as he fell.

  Now almost deaf in his left ear, Valentino rose up, pointed with his sword, and screamed, “At them! Quickly!”

  Sharon, having led the four clerics into her suite, moved purposefully toward its large, rough-hewn armoire against the wall. “Larry,” she said, “give me a hand, here.” One of the two Wild Geese guarding the doorway hastened to help; she shook her head, jerked it back towards his post. “You keep protecting us; Cardinal Mazzare can help me move the furniture.”

  Larry Mazzare, deciding that the composure with which she made the odd request indicated that she was not succumbing to hysterical distraction, jumped over to comply — but was interrupted by the sound of heavy footfalls crossing the threshold. Looking up, expecting to see the approach of his death, he instead saw Lieutenant Hastings-in armor-with George Sutherland limping eagerly after him.

  Sharon stepped away from the armoire at Hastings’ gesture.

  The lieutenant grabbed his end of the armoire and nodded to Larry. “Your Eminence, if you would be so good, on the count of three…One, two-”

  Larry heaved at the wooden mass; it creaked away from the wall — and revealed a narrow, five foot high by two foot wide faded section of wall.

  Sharon gestured toward the secret door. “Apparently put in by the first builders. Who never finished the job. But it should be enough to-”

  “Ambassador,” Hastings interrupted with an apologetic tone, “your husband sent me back here, in part to help you lead these men out to safety, but also to ensure that you did, in fact, come with us. He is concerned about your-”

  Without a word, Sharon turned and ran-surprisingly quickly, for someone of her size-back towards the staircase and Ruy.

  Hastings sighed, shrugged, went to the panel and pushed; it swung into the wall, revealing a black, narrow staircase leading down at a precipitous angle. “Your Eminences, you will forgive me if that is the last time I bother with formal titles; time is short. I will lead the way, Mr. Fleming will follow.” The more plain-faced of the two Wild Geese nodded. “Then Cardinal Mazzare, His Holiness, the father-general, and Cardinal Barberini. Mr. McEgan and Mr. Sutherland will bring up the rear. We move until we are out of the villa. Once there, those of us who can will run north toward Lieutenant Taggart’s outpost. Any questions?”

  “Yes,” said Larry. “Why weren’t we told about this secret passage the first day we got here?”

  Hastings looked at him squarely. “So you couldn’t tell anyone else about it. A secret passage is only useful if it stays secret. Any other questions? No? Then follow me.”

  Ruy heard the two off-duty Hibernians he had awakened along with Hastings cursing at buckles and lanyards. “Can you equip yourself no faster?” he hissed in their direction, then leaned an eye around the corner at the head of the staircase to look down into the great room.

  Drifts of oily smoke. Puddles and spatters of blood. The bodies of men and women with whom he had shared almost two months’ worth of meals, laughter, and fear lay scattered about. Being a lifelong professional, he cordoned off the emotional consequences of what he was seeing with the suddenness of snapping down the safety of a gun. What remained was tactical data, all seen in a second.

  The firebomb the attackers had heaved into the room had not been particularly effective at spreading flame, and several of the slain had fallen into the densest part of the smoldering olive oil, largely smothering it. Given time, it might start a house-threatening fire, but that was at least ten minutes off: an eternity, in a combat such as this one. Only two Marines of the ready guard in the great room were still alive, one of them armed with a Hibernian’s black powder revolver. If it wasn’t for that fellow, the whole band of cutthroats would probably be halfway up the stairs by now-but the Marines could not hold out much longer. Ruy could hear the rush of feet, some heading straight for their makeshift parapet of tables, others angling toward the staircase itself. Which was, of course, their ultimate objective. They-rightly-presumed that the pope would not be housed on the ground floor. The Marines needed some assistance-and right now.

  As Ruy raised the heavy weapon in his right hand, he saw the Marines begin to fire in a panic, saw the leading edge of assassins come into view, two of them falling dead or wounded, but others preparing to push over the top of the tables. Another one appeared at the bottom of the stairs. What fortuitous timing, Ruy thought as he looked down the sights of the up-time weapon and began to fire.

  Ruy was used to the kick of the S amp;W. 357 magnum revolver that Sherrilyn Maddox had forced upon him when she arrived, and upon which she had trained him. However, having only shot at targets, he had never seen what a lead hollow-point would do to a man at a range of less than fifteen feet.

  The two assassins who had been about to clear the table barricade, swords readied, went sideways as if hit by a battering ram. The red crater each bullet punched into the side of a torso was startling enough, but the wide spray of blood and tissue from both of the exit wounds was more reminiscent of the effects of grapeshot, to Ruy’s mind. Still, he decided, as he tracked over until his sights were centered on the openmouthed assassin frozen in shock halfway up the stairs, it was a most inelegant weapon. He squeezed the trigger and saw another red crater appear where the base of the cutthroat’s neck had been.

  He leaned back behind the corner as the inevitable spattering of inaccurate counterfire from the rest of the blackguards snapped and bit away at the mortar. Well, he reflected, that will give them something to consider for a few moments-but only a few moments. He calmly thumbed the release, swung out the cylinder, fingered a readied speed loader out of his bandolier, and turned at the sound of the approaching Hibernians.

  Except it was not them; it was his wife.

  Ruy was not often surprised, but this was the exception that made the rule. “Sharon, you are back? I told you to run, sent Hastings and George to assist you!”

  She stared at him, her own, rather diminutive, revolver in hand. “And since when do you tell me what to do?”

  “That very spirit-which may now be the death of you-is also why I adore you so. But if you refuse to leave, then you must perform a crucial task.” He shook his head when she raised the revolver tentatively. “No, my heart, as ambassadora, you must send word to our friends: you must rouse Odo and begin signaling.”

  That stopped her-as Ruy had knew it would. “But-but, the staff downstairs-”

  “Are beyond help, dear wife. Those who were able to flee, have. The others are no more.”

  Sharon swallowed. “Then we don’t have the time to send radio signals. We’ve got to-”

  “Dearest,” he interrupted, “I am your chief of security, yes?” From the corner of his eye, Ruy saw her nod as he snapped the cylinder back into place and strained to hear the orders being shouted back and forth downstairs.

  “Yes,” she allowed grudgingly.

  “Then, wife, trust me in this,” he said, as the two Hibernians finally- finally! — came out of their billet, lever-action rifles and revolvers ready. “Your superiors will want all the information you can send on this event. And any survivors among us may need help, or may be fleeing for our lives. The more your superiors know, the more swift and effective their first assistance will be. Now-and prettily I ask it-please go.”

  Eyes shiny, and without another word, she turned and ran back the way she had come.

  Ruy spent a split-second appreciatively watching-savoring-her movements seen from the rear. Then he began giving orders to the Hibernians. “They will come again any second, attempting to overrun both the Marines down in the great room, and us at the head of the stairs. They may also try to send someone farther into the villa, down the corridor into the north wing. You, Corporal, see if you can get an angle on the hallway into the north wing; we need to keep all their men bottled up in the great room for as long as we can…”

  “ Minge! ” swore Valentino as he surveyed what had become of the men he had sent charging forward toward the tables and the stairs. At least half of them were down, most wounded and so severely shocked that they could barely move or moan. “Linguanti, get another of those firebombs ready.”

  “ Si, but-”

  “Just do it.” Valentino spent a precious second considering the claustrophobic battlefield. He could send more men to rush the barricade of tables again, but now that tactic had become very expensive-perhaps cripplingly so. Either the gunman hidden near the top of the stairs was very good, was not alone, or both.

  Besides, men who fought for riches-even such as his had been promised-were more savage than stalwart. At this range, firearms could hardly miss and the damage they inflicted was shocking to see, even for hardened killers. True, far more of those who had fallen were wounded rather than killed outright, but here, in a villa at the ass-end of nowhere, those wounds were a death sentence, anyhow.

  Which meant he needed to keep the men moving, fighting, busy-too busy to count their losses, and hear the keening moans of their dying fellows. Fortunately, the wailing would only start when the wounded tossed off the shock, by which time this battle would be over. Unless Valentino tarried here in this great room. So he had to act-now. Waiting for all his men to reload cost too much time, too-so the fire bomb was best. And once he got past the last two Marines…

  Valentino measured distances: once his men reached the tables, the entry to the kitchen was only ten feet farther along to the right. About twelve feet directly behind the tables was the door leading out to the rear of the villa, where the firing had finally stopped; from the sound of it, Arturo’s group had run into one of the revolver-armed guards.

  Valentino needed to secure those two areas-the rear door and the kitchen-even though his ultimate target was probably up the stairs. However, once he cleared the Marines, he could, so to speak, turn the tables on the defenders; the trestle tops would not protect his men from up-time ammunition at that range but they would provide full concealment until they popped up to shoot. And if he could get a half dozen sheltered there to send a volley up the stairs…

  “The firebomb is ready,” said Linguanti.

  “Good, get ready to throw it just short of the base of the stairs on my count of three.”

  “But, Valentino, there is no target there. And it might prevent us from assaulting up the stairs once we-”

  “I don’t want the bomb to kill people; I want its smoke to blind them. And don’t throw it on the stairs, but a few feet in front, so we can still get up them. Now, Odoardo, look there-” Valentino pointed. “You see that corridor just to the right of the main entrance?”

  “ Si.”

  “It apparently goes off into the north wing. There might be another staircase back there. At any rate, when you take a group in that direction, it will distract the bastards at the head of the stairs.”

  “I’m not putting myself in the sights of that-”

  “If you go first, you won’t be the one shot-not if you move fast enough. Just make sure the next man is close behind you.” He needed to get Odoardo out of there before he started balking at the casualties. If the big man did so then others would, too. Every man Odoardo took with him was one more who wouldn’t be looking nervously around to see if his mates were fearful, if they were starting to think more about retreat than riches.

  “Okay. And if there’s no staircase?”

  “Come back here, report, and prepare to assault up the stairs.”

  “I told you, I’m not going to-”

  Valentino wished Odoardo was dead already. “Idiot. Listen: we will have the stairs blocked by smoke, and will have cleared whoever is at the corner. And you’re not to be in the lead; you command from the second rank.”

  Odoardo smiled. “I’ll get a dozen men.” He turned to inspect the clutter of faces behind him. “Hey, you three, and you-”

  Valentino turned to Linguanti. “On my count of three, you throw the bomb where I told you. And then, you follow the last of Odoardo’s group. Two seconds after they’ve crossed the open area. Keep that oaf on the objective, do you understand?”

  “I understand-enough to hate the task already.”

  “My sympathies.” Louder: “Odoardo, stand ready. The bomb will be thrown in one, two, THREE…”

  Half-blind in the darkness of the staircase, Cardinal Luke Wadding tried to control how rapidly he was breathing. Even back in Ireland, sought by English bounty hunters, he’d never been as close to being murdered as this. To keep his teeth from chattering, he muttered at Hastings’ broad back: “Where does this passage lead?”

  “There are two exits,” the lieutenant explained. “The first comes out behind a wall-hanging in the hallway of the north wing, just beyond the stone wall of the kitchen. The other goes down into the kitchen’s basement.”

  “What? There’s no outside exit?”

  Hastings’ dim outline shrugged. “They never finished that part of the escape route. You can see, on the west wall, where they obviously planned to run a tunnel out into the back. But it’s almost solid rock there.”