Page 14

Donatello nodded, then returned to scanning the road. Stationed on a small cutout off of Via Esterna Chiunzi, the two-lane blacktop snaking through the mountains to the Amalfi coast, they’d picked a specific bit of terrain for the hit.

For the most part, the road from Rome to the Amalfi coast was a straight shot, but once it began to wind out of the mountains, it was a spaghetti mess of switchbacks, the lane a sheer cliff on one side and a wall of granite on the other, the turns causing all traffic to slow down to safely navigate the terrain. And also giving his hit team the ability to kill the target before another car appeared.

This would be the first attack executed by the Turtles, but it needed to be blamed on others. Namely, Keta’ib Hezbollah. To that end, they’d decided to use the same method that the Mossad employed in Iran, where they’d hunted the nuclear scientists one by one.

Over the last decade, Iran had endured a spate of their scientists being assassinated, the last killing happening in 2020 against the head of the entire nuclear program. Most were done with a magnetic mine slapped on the scientist’s vehicle on the way to work. In the congested traffic of Tehran or other cities, it was a way to attack that allowed an instant getaway. Slap on the bomb, and immediately ride away.

The Turtles had decided to do the same for this hit. Not because they had no other way to get the man, but precisely to send a signal. A magnetic mine attached to the vehicle to disable it, then a couple of well-placed rounds to seal the deal. Once that was accomplished, they’d throw a note into the car, letting the world know that Keta’ib Hezbollah was on the hunt even here.

Their target was Geoffrey Combine, the United States ambassador to the Holy See.

A political appointee, he posed no real threat to anyone, but his position was a valuable signal that the Turtles wanted to send out to the world: Keta’ib Hezbollah’s reach was global, and they were on a killing spree as revenge against Christiandom’s sanctions and targeted attacks. Obviously controlled and funded by Iran, the West needed to harshly confront the theocratic state. In so doing, confront Islam writ large.

When Garrett had come up with the idea nearly a year ago it was much grander in scope, involving not only Iran but actors from the Sunni states in the Persian Gulf. Since that time, Israel had signed peace deals with multiple Sunni states, to include Bahrain, the UAE,and Sudan. Saudi Arabia was probably not too far behind, restricting his plan to Iran itself, but he still thought it would work.

The United States was constantly rattling sabers against the mullahs, and Israel certainly had no love for the state. All he had to do was get a big enough spark going that they would retaliate. Garrett hoped to show that the attacks were in retaliation for the killing of the Qods Force commander General Qasem Soleimani, and the murders would continue unabated unless action was taken. Only by confronting Iran—with Islam in the crosshairs—would the killings stop. And in so doing fulfill the prophecy of the Bible for the second coming of Christ.

In his heart, Michelangelo wondered if Garrett understood the levers he was pulling, but fully believed in the mission he was executing. In his own country, he had seen the cleavage of religion unleash a spasm of violence unseen since World War II. In Syria, he had seen the cleavage turn medieval, and because of it, he’d become convinced—like the other Turtles—that the only way to achieve true peace on earth was to eradicate Muslim influence on the world stage. And that would only come by fulfilling the prophecies of the Bible.

In his mind, Christianity alone had shown a level tolerance that facilitated goodwill the world over, unlike Islam. They had done nothing but slaughter, even against their own people. Their false god had brought only pain and misery to the world, and the way to combat it was the return of the one true God’s son.

After what he’d seen in Syria, he believed that to the core of his being. If he’d been forced to face the truth of Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs who had horrifically massacred the Muslims in his homeland, he would have come up with a reason why that was just. The facts no longer mattered. Only his faith did.

He didn’t hate Muslims per se, but he fully believed they were bringing about the collapse of civilized society. One only had to look at the atrocities in Syria to see that. Burning a Jordanian pilot alive? Who does that? In his mind, not a Christian, that’s for sure. He was too young to have lived through the atrocities of the battery factory in Srebrenica, where upwards of eight thousand Muslims were slaughtered solely because of their religion, running through the woods like rabbits as the Christians hunted them down one by one, burying them in mass graves. Even if he had known, he would have found a way to justify it. There was only one right way, and it was to be found in the Bible.

He, and the rest of the Turtles, believed wholeheartedly in the end-of-days prophecy that the Bible dictated. In order to end the suffering around the world, the second coming of Christ needed to happen, and he believed the only way that would occur was by building the third temple on the Dome of the Rock in the heart of Jerusalem. But that couldn’t happen because the Islamic Waqf of Jordan controlled the territory. After Israel seized Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, many in Christendom thought the final Bible prophecies were coming true, but the government of Israel allowed the Islamic Waqf to maintain control of the most sacred sites, refusing to allow the building of the temple on what was now a religious icon for the Muslim faith.

That needed to change. If a temple was to be built, Israel needed to assume control of the area, and the only way to do that was to force a confrontation that both religions clearly wanted, but heretofore had been afraid to wage. A push was needed to force the issue.

And so he was stationed on a small cutout for a highway that looked like a spaghetti noodle draped on the earth, waiting on the arrival of a poor political appointee from North Carolina, solely to kill him.

Raph said, “I’m behind him, and he’s driving slow. Taking his time.”

“Roger all. We’re ready. Give us a time hack at thirty seconds.”

The spit of gravel they were on was still in the mountains, right before the highway began dropping to the valley and coast below. Full of switchbacks, it held incredible views, and as such was frequently traveled for them alone, but it was also the perfect place for the magnetic mine. They could cut him off from all other traffic simply because of the winding nature of the road.

Michelangelo saw three cars pass by his position, all driving slowly because of the serpentine nature of the blacktop. He heard, “Thirty seconds,” and started the motorcycle.

He saw an Alfa Romeo Spider convertible pass his location, a man driving with a woman in the passenger seat. Right behind it was a Vespa scooter trying mightily to keep up. The scooter pulled into the cutout, and Mikey saw Raph flipping up the visor on his helmet. Mikey nodded and pulled out into the lane. The scooter followed, now driving much slower to clog any traffic that appeared behind them.

Mikey caught up to the convertible around a blind curve, now right behind it. He waited until they crested another switchback, then goosed the engine, pulling abreast of the car.

The man behind the wheel looked at him in confusion, wondering why he was trying to pass on a section of road that was potentially suicidal. But Michelangelo wasn’t trying to pass. He slowed next to the rear axle and behind him, Donnie pulled a strip of paper off from the top of his pipe like he was loading a new toner cartridge in a laser printer, flicked the rocker switch one more level, then slapped the magnetic mine right above the rear tire. Mikey laid off the gas and let the car continue forward.

Mikey saw the next hairpin turn growing closer, the four-foot rock wall along the side the only protection from falling into the valley below. The mine should go off before the turn, forcing the target to the side of the road.

Inexplicably, the Alfa Romeo sped up, racing wildly into the turn too fast by far. Mikey saw the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror, staring at him with fear on his face.

Not good. Not good.

The driver powered into the turn like he was auditioning for a movie, the car skidding through the curve with the rear end breaking contact with the pavement. And then the mine went off, shattering the rear axle just as the vehicle began to straighten out. The rear end of the vehicle bounced against the sheer rock wall of the mountain, then the vehicle ricocheted to the small barrier protecting the drivers from the drop below. Mikey saw the driver’s face, a look of terror, his mouth screaming, just as it hit the wall sideways. It flipped over the stone and turned upside down, the woman flung out of the vehicle in midair, the man held in place by his seat belt and the steering wheel.

Mikey went through the curve and pulled over next to the shattered brick of the wall. He ripped off his helmet, looking at the burning wreckage far below, seeing the woman’s body broken open on a ledge halfway down.

He shook his head and said, “What the fuck. What do we do now?”

Donnie said, “Get the hell out of here.”