He glimpsed Allen and the girl dashing out a side door into the night.

There was a long three seconds before Father Paul could catch his breath again. He groaned into a sitting position, then scanned the kitchen floor and saw a small, delicate teacup turned upside down. He’d stepped square on top of it, and instead of crushing the thing into dust, he’d slid across the floor on it, as if it had been an ice skate. His back ached in several places.

A bearded man in denim rushed into the kitchen, screaming, “Damn Papist!” He leveled a shotgun at the priest. The shotgun blast shook the room as Father Paul rolled to the side. Buckshot scored the cabinets behind him.

Father Paul flattened to his belly, swung the H &K, one-handed, out in front of him and squeezed off two quick bursts. A slug smacked into the attacker’s shin, sprayed blood. He screamed, high-pitched and ragged, then collapsed on top of himself, the shotgun sliding out of reach.

“Oh, fucking shit. You shot my leg off. My fucking leg!” He writhed, tried to reach down and staunch the blood flow.

The priest lurched to his feet, went to the door, and looked outside. No sign of Cabbot or the girl.

“Damn.”

He heard somebody come in behind him. He spun quickly, bringing the machine gun to bear.

“It’s me.” Finnegan held up his hands. “The rest of the house is secure. Three more Society fanatics. They’ve been terminated.”

“Vatican scum!” said the bleeding man on the floor.

“Put a sock in it, boyo. We’ll get to you in a minute.”

“Fuck you!”

“Did you get Cabbot?” Finnegan asked.

Father Paul sighed. “I missed him.”

“He’s out of your reach now,” said the bearded man. “Kill me and ten more will rise to take my place.”

“Then I suppose we’d better patch you up and keep you alive,” Father Paul said. “I’d hate to have ten of you cluttering up the place. Plus it’s damn difficult to interrogate you if you’re dead.”

“Tough shit, priest. You won’t get anything out of me.” He dipped a thumb and forefinger into his shirt pocket, came out with a pill, prepared to put it in his mouth.

“Suicide pill!” shouted Finnegan.

Father Paul and the big Irishman dove on the wounded man, grabbed his wrist as he strained to get the pill into his mouth.

“You can’t stop me, you bastards!”

“No, you don’t.” Finnegan engulfed the man’s fist with his own hammy hand and squeezed. The fingers popped open, and Finnegan grabbed the pill. “Got it.”

“This is taking too long,” Father Paul said. The local authorities would soon respond to the commotion. He touched his throat microphone. “Gather up the strays and meet back at the ranch. One minute.”

“Hold on a second.” Finnegan held the blue pill close to his eyes. “This is an Aleve.”

“No, it’s not,” the fanatic said.

“The hell it isn’t. I take them for my knees. It’s an Aleve with the writing scratched off.”

“It’s a suicide pill. We’ve sworn not to be taken alive.”

Finnegan grabbed the fanatic’s face, squeezed until his mouth popped open, then shoved the pill inside. The fanatic squirmed, tried to spit it out, but the Irishman clapped a hand over his mouth. “Swallow it.”

The fanatic swallowed it, and Finnegan removed his hand.

“You son of a bitch!” the fanatic shouted. “You’ve poisoned me.”

“It’s not poison, idiot. It’ll probably make your leg feel better.”

“That’s enough,” Father Paul said. “Finnegan, throw him over your shoulder. We’ll fix his leg in the van. Let’s move.”

Somehow Father Paul would have to find the Cabbot boy. He was out there roaming Prague by night without the faintest notion of what was about to happen to him.

A my held his hand tight, pulling him along so fast that Allen almost tripped and fell flat on his face a dozen times. The ra-ta-ta-tat of distant machine-gun fire still followed them. Her blond braids streamed behind her. Allen huffed and went red in the face, a large quantity of pilsner sloshing in his stomach.

“I’ve got to stop,” Allen said.

“Not yet. Keep running.”

They ran through the residential area to a small park at the foot of a hill. Allen jerked his hand away from hers and threw himself on the first park bench they passed.

“Got to… stop, okay?” He gasped for breath. “I’m going to… puke.”

She took his hand in both of hers and tried to pull him off the bench. “Come on! We can rest later. We’ve got to get under cover.”

“Just one minute. I’m not kidding. I’m going to spew beer all over this fucking bench.”

She sat next to him, put her hand on his forehead. Her palm was soft and cool. She smelled like cinnamon.

Both their heads jerked up at the sound of the sirens.

They saw the lights washing through the street a split second before the two police cars came into view, driving fast. Amy threw her arms around Allen and kissed him hard as the police cars sped past.

“What was that for?” A faint strawberry flavor lingered in his mouth from the kiss.

“Haven’t you ever seen them do that in the movies?” she asked. “A man and woman trying to look inconspicuous when the cops go by?”

“I don’t think it was necessary. They were probably too worried about the gunfight to care about a couple of people sitting on a park bench,” Allen said. “Not that I minded.”

She stood, grabbed his hand again. “Come on.”

They headed for a narrow path on the other side of the park bench. It led uphill.

Allen groaned. “Can’t we escape downhill?”

“We don’t have to run,” Amy said. “Just keep moving.”

The narrow path zigzagged uphill and joined a wider path. It was steep enough going to wind Allen after five minutes. He got sweaty, puffed for air. The path led into a road, which they took to the top of the hill. A blocky gray building sat at the top.

“This is Zizkov Hill, isn’t it?” Allen recalled the description in The Rogue’s Guide. “The Monument.”

“The National Monument, yes. We’re approaching it from the back.”

It looked like a big, squat concrete bunker. They circled around the side, then ducked into a breezeway that ran through the middle of the structure. The whole place was lit poorly by scattered streetlights. Amy stopped in front of a large, dark set of wood doors chained together with a thick brass padlock. She fished into her shirt and brought out a small key on a string, then unlocked the padlock and opened one of the doors just wide enough for both of them to slip inside. She closed it again, padlocked it on the inside.

The room was bare, gray stone, with a single Soviet-looking lightbulb sticking out of a utilitarian fixture. A gray block humped up from the center of the floor-the tomb of the unknown soldier, which The Rogue’s Guide said was now empty. There was nothing else in the chamber, and Allen was forced to wonder what they were doing here.

Amy reached around the side of the tomb, depressed a small square of stone. The tomb rumbled; the squeal and clink of chains, the hum of machinery. The top of the tomb slid halfway back. Allen stepped forward, looked inside.

A metal ladder descended into a tunnel below.

“We can lie low down here,” Amy said. “Follow me.”

She swung her leg over and into the tomb, went down the ladder.

Allen hesitated, then followed.

The bottom of the ladder let them off in an old service tunnel, where water pipes and other conduits ran along the floor and ceiling. The stone tunnel was barely four feet wide and less than six feet tall, again lit by low-watt bare bulbs every twenty feet. Allen had to bow his head slightly as he followed Amy.

Abruptly they came upon a man-sized hole in the side of the tunnel. They ducked inside.

The chamber, a large area full of pipes and valves, stretched ten feet high. The room was obviously some sort of central crossroads for all the plumbing and electrical wiring for the Monument and other buildings on the hill.