Separation (7 page)

During the nine-hour flight over on a specially
chartered six-seat airplane courtesy of the FBI, Overton gave them
the lowdown. “From what Intelligence and your geek friends in New
York said, we figure the main group of transgenics is under the
Vatican.”

By “geek friends” he meant Jason and Maze.
Although he casually tossed off the term and probably meant it as a
joke, it came across as being shallow, snotty and self-righteous.
Harry wondered how much field experience he’d had and asked him. It
surprised him in a pleasant way when the chubby man actually
blushed.

“Uh, this is my first mission. If it makes
you feel any better, I graduated top of my class at Quantico.”

Anastasia flashed a smile and her sarcasm
sliced the air. “Great, we get a rookie. Do you know what you’re in
for?”

Overton’s face twisted and a belligerent tone
entered his voice. “I have a pretty good idea. I studied the case
files.”

His response got a laugh from her, although
this wasn’t a time for humor. What they were more than likely to
walk into was an ambush. If it didn’t come from the transgenics, it
would come from the citizens on patrol... and they wouldn’t be
carrying pillows. “Then I’d suggest, Agent Overton, you study a bit
more and let us do the tracking,” Harry supplied. “You’ll be safer
that way.”

Anastasia giggled as a bright shade of
scarlet suffused Overton’s face. “Fine,” he finally said. “I’ll
listen for your input.”

As if to cover up his social faux pas, he
noisily cleared his throat and excused himself to go and talk to
the pilot. Leonardo twisted around in his seat. “That man... he is
a friend?”

“Sort of,” replied Anastasia.

“I think he no unnerstan’ what to do.”

Harry had to admit, the little dude had
managed to figure things out pretty fast. “We’ll protect you. Don’t
worry.”

He received no answer save a short and
somewhat sad snuffling sound. Initially, he’d had the hope their
newest addition to the transgenic fold would be a bit more active,
but Leo, like Istvan, seemed to be the passive type and did not
volunteer any additional information. He merely curled up in his
seat and remained silent.

A few seconds later, Overton came back with
three pills in his hands. “We’ll need to track your whereabouts.
These are for you. They’re—”

“Transponders,” answered Harry. He recognized
the shape, as he and Anastasia had taken them before. Swallowed,
they lay in the gut and could transmit a person’s location from
anywhere in the world for approximately seventy-two hours.

He took one and swallowed it. Anastasia did
the same. Leo took his and downed it without asking any questions.
He then promptly went to sleep. Overton observed him, and nodding
his head, produced a small computer from his briefcase. “Take
this,” he said. “It’s linked to your geek buddies in New
York...”

“Call them geeks one more time,” Harry
interrupted, and now he felt truly annoyed at this man’s attitude,
“and you can fly outside. We’re all on the same page, as you Fed
boys like to say.”

“Or overfed, as I say,” Anastasia put in with
a straight face. “Don’t try the routine with us. We’ve already had
it once, and from a better person than you.”

Point made, she gazed at him, her features
composed, but her eyes radiated anger, and the other man’s face
turned scarlet once again. “Sorry, you have my apologies.”

“Better, that’s better.”

In a smooth motion, Harry took the computer,
booted it up, and Overton gave him the password. He typed in
Jason, you there,
then waited.

A few seconds later, the reply came back.
Hey, have some pasta for me while you’re in Italy. Your signal
is coming through fine. Maze has got you pegged about five hours
from Rome.

Overton glanced at the computer and confirmed
the arrival time. “We’ll be met by a member of the Rome police
department. His name is Lieutenant Corelli. Apparently, he’s got
some pull with the transgenic crowd. He didn’t say how, but we’ve
been in touch with him for a couple of weeks.”

It seemed like a plan. Harry logged off after
telling his friend he’d contact him once they landed, and got
settled. Anastasia linked her arm with his, and he closed his
eyes...

“Hey, we’re here.”

Harry blinked at the sound of his wife’s
voice. The airplane had stopped. Gazing outside the window, he saw
the interior of what seemed to be an airplane hangar. “We got in a
few minutes ago,” she said. “Overton’s talking to Corelli.”

She then shook Leo awake and he came to,
blinking at the sudden influx of harsh artificial light from the
outside.

Stretching and feeling his strength and
alertness return, Harry arose and followed her out of the plane,
with Leo tagging along after them. Their new handler was in the
process of talking to a tall, heavily built man with a pencil-thin
mustache. He appeared to be in his forties.

Overton turned around and said, “Guys, this
is Lieutenant Mario Corelli of the Rome Police. He’ll be in charge
of leading us to where Leo said he was.”

Everyone offered greetings, and Leo
immediately broke into rapid-fire Italian as if grateful to have
someone to talk to in his native language. Corelli didn’t seem to
be surprised in the least, and the two had a conversation for about
five minutes before the lieutenant put up his hand for silence.

Having done so, he turned to Harry. “Leonardo
has told me what happened,” he said in flawless English with only
the faintest trace of an accent. “I have an idea of where this
place is. We must search there. Since it is night now, we shall
leave immediately. I have a truck waiting.”

Anastasia asked, “What about backup? We might
run into some people who aren’t too happy to see us, if you know
what I mean.”

“If you are inferring there are others like
you,” Corelli said, “I have two men with me and they are
armed—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I’m talking about
others like you—humans. From what I read online, the regular people
here aren’t too happy about our existence.”

A grim look quickly flashed across Corelli’s
face. He hemmed and hawed, finally admitting there had been
trouble. “Our citizenry is not overly accepting, this much is true,
and I am one of the few people able to see both sides. That is why
we are going now. It is dark, and the time is half past the hour of
eleven. If we go now, there is less chance of being seen and
encountering trouble.”

His explanation made sense. Corelli gestured
with his arm and they exited the hangar, where a black van waited,
its engine idling. Opening the back door, they saw two men wearing
dark blue police uniforms sitting inside, holding machine guns. To
their credit, they didn’t recoil, and their expressions remained
impassive. He spoke to them and they nodded. “You will be safe with
us,” he said.

Harry and crew piled in and Corelli took the
wheel, with Overton sitting in the passenger seat. They moved out
and drove steadily through the silent streets out onto the highway,
and within an hour, the city gave way to country. Leo periodically
sniffed the air and seemed calm enough, but suddenly he got
agitated and started to scratch the metal walls as if trying to
escape. “We are here,” he whispered. “I smell... blood.”

One of the policemen banged on the window and
yelled something. Immediately, Corelli hauled the vehicle over to
the side of the road and stopped. The policemen opened the back
door and gestured for everyone to exit.

“This is place,” Leo said. “I remember
farmhouse near here.”

Gazing around, Harry took in the simplicity
of the countryside. Tall stalks of wheat waved in the warm evening
breeze, and the air smelled clean... for the most part. At the same
time, though, a faint whiff of blood came through to his
nostrils... fresh blood. He unslung the computer and quickly sent a
message to Jason.
We’re in the countryside, about an hour away
from Rome. Are you following us?

A reply came back from Jason within thirty
seconds.
We’ve got you. Stay safe, okay?

Will do.

Harry logged off and turned to Leo. “Lead the
way.”

The area was silent, but something in the air
besides the scent of blood caused every hair on the nape of Harry’s
neck to stand up. Anastasia remained by his side, sniffing the air
as they went along, and Leo meekly followed behind, muttering
something in nervous, rapid-fire Italian. Corelli and his men took
point, weapons at the ready.

Abruptly, Leo scampered in front of everyone
and pointed at a farmhouse. “There, it is there.”

He said something to Corelli, and in turn,
the lieutenant ordered his men to move ahead with caution. As they
approached the structure, nothing impeded their way, but Leo
dropped to the ground and started sniffing around. “They were
here,” he said.

“Who was?” That came from Anastasia. “Are you
talking about people like us?”

“No, they are other ones.”

Harry immediately got a bad feeling. Death
squads... he’d read about them, and now it seemed as though the old
pulp fiction ideas were true. A click off to his right startled
him. It was the bolt of a weapon being thrown. “Get down!”

Grabbing Anastasia around the waist, he
pulled her down with him and covered her with his body. In turn,
she grabbed Leo and the three of them hugged each other along with
the earth. A second later, machine gun fire erupted out of the
darkness.

Corelli and his men weren’t so lucky. They
had been mowed down like wheat before a scythe, and fell without
being able to get off one shot. Overton pulled his pistol out and
returned fire, but a second later a loud crack sounded. The agent
spun around and fell to the ground clutching his left shoulder.
“Damn it,” he cried, “they were waiting for us!”

Gee, you think so?
Harry fought down
the impulse to toss off a snotty reply, but now wasn’t the time or
place. “Are you badly hurt?”

“They winged my shoulder. I’ll make it.”

“Do we have any options?”

“You surrender,” a voice called out from the
darkness.

Six figures emerged from the night carrying
machine guns and holding flashlights. The yellow beams cast an
eerie glow upon the ground and illuminated the dead bodies. The
smell of blood in the air didn’t help matters either, and Harry
wondered if these men were open to discussion. “I don’t suppose you
could speak to them,” he whispered to his wife. “You speak Italian,
don’t you?”

“I just know some greetings.”

Greetings wouldn’t help in this situation,
and neither would the excuse of having lost their way.

Judging from the way they’d acted, these
visitors weren’t into friendliness. Dressed in simple clothes, they
were young, lean, and nasty looking. “You are Americans, yes?”

Looking around, Harry got no answers, so he
took the lead. “We’re American.”

“From your accent, I think so,” one man said
and spat on the ground. Clad in a ragged shirt and torn pants, he
had a number of tattoos, all of them skulls, on his fingers as well
as on the surface of his hands. A large and livid scar stood out in
the beams the flashlights cast. It ran from the right side of his
hairline down to the center of his jaw, as if he’d lost a knife
fight of the worst kind.

“Oh, you see my scar,” he said, nodding. “I
get this from one of the animals who come to our country. He was
not Italian. He clawed me. But I got him first.” A note of triumph
rang in his voice. “He is dead now, and I live.”

“Not all foreigners are out to hurt you,”
Harry observed and fell silent when the man waved off his
objection.

“He tried very hard to hurt me,” the man
responded angrily and pointed once more to his disfigurement.
“Foreigners, it is foreigners who come here to spoil our country.
We are the people of this country. We will rid this place of your
pestilence.”

Struggling up to one knee and then to his
feet, Overton announced, “I should tell you, I’m with the FBI.
You’re all under arrest.”

That had to be the stupidest line of all
time, thought Harry, and the tattooed leader seemed to agree with
his thought as he let out a gale of laughter. “You have no
jurisdiction here. If you are with them, then you are also
dead.”

So much for discussion, and they seem so
proud of what they’ve done.
These men were nothing but
murderous thugs. However, they were armed and he wasn’t. Hand to
hand he could take them, but he wasn’t bulletproof. “We’re not here
to fight,” Harry said. “We’re here to find a friend and take him
back to America.”

God that sounded like the lamest line he’d
ever uttered. We need our friend. We will leave here. We come in
peace. All the clichés from the books and movies whirled in his
mind, and why couldn’t he think of anything original?

It didn’t seem to matter too much to the man.
With a sneer, he glanced at his companions and they nodded. He then
swiveled his head around, the sneer still in place. “Yes, you will
lead us to your friends. We will wipe them out, too. Italy is for
Italians, not for freaks and monsters.”

With a quick movement, he reached over to
snatch the bag from Harry’s shoulder. Examining the contents, he
nodded. “You are foreigners, but you have quality merchandise. We
can use this.”

“
Scusi.”

That came from Leo, and in a surprise move,
he walked out in front with his paws up, speaking softly in his
native language. Even in the dim light, the man’s face looked
surprised, and after a moment’s hesitation he answered in an almost
civil tone.

Seconds later, he signaled for his men to put
down their weapons. “What are you doing?” whispered Harry, confused
by the sudden turn of events.