Chase Baker and the Da Vinci Divinity (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book 6) by Vincent Zandri Page B

girl.”
    “How did you know I kept a diary?”
    “Wild guess. Let’s just call it a
girl thing.”
    I hear rummaging coming from Andrea’s
side of the room, and then, “Is this what we want?”
    In her hand is a small,
leather-bound book attached to a leather lanyard so that the user could carry
it around his neck, thus freeing his hands.
    I go to her.
    “Open it,” I say, “carefully.”
    She opens the cover to reveal a
book written in Italian with the same mirror writing only da Vinci would have
been capable of. But it’s not the writing I’m concerned about right now. I’m
more interested in the sketches.
    “Look for a map,” I command.
    She flips a few more pages until
she comes upon a map that bears the backward, but easily translated, word Vinci in its center. Off to the south is Firenze, and to the right is a shaded area,
perhaps indicating forest.
    “What’s that?” Andrea says after a
beat, her index finger pointing to a place in the forest that’s been circled—a
miniature, barely discernible sketching of Vitruvian Man inside its center.
There’s a backward word penciled over the miniature Vitruvian Man.
    attorG
    “What’s that?” she says
    “Grotta,” I announce, a smile
forming on my face.
    “That means cave in Italian, am I
right, Chase?”
    “Girlfriend,” I say, packing the
notebook into my satchel, “I think we’ve discovered the legendary Book of Truths .”
I can feel the smile burning into my face. “Now let’s get the hell out of here,
before we discover more assholes who want to kill us.”
    It’s precisely what we would do,
too, except the concrete door slams closed and the overhead lights go out.

 
17
     

     
     
    Andrea flicks on the Maglite while drawing her weapon. I pull
out my .45, thumb off the safety.
    “Who’s there?” I shout. Then, to
Andrea, “Give me the lamp.”
    She hands it to me. I shine it against
the door. No one there.
    Then, footsteps behind me. I turn,
shoot. The bullet ricochets against the wall.
    “Get down!” I shout.
    Andrea screams as the overhead
lights turn back on. Standing only a few feet before me, Dr. Belli is holding
Andrea in a choke hold, a dagger that must be at least five hundred years old
pressed against her neck. Her eyes are wide, not blinking. Belli is breathing
hard, his face red, forehead sweating under that scraggly Beatles haircut.
    “I’ll take my sketchbook back, Mr.
Baker,” he declares.
    “Or, let me guess,” I retort with a
roll of my eyes. “The girl gets it, right?”
    I raise my gun, plant a bead on his
forehead.
    “Don’t test me.” He’s pressing the
knife hard enough against her neck to break the skin. A normal woman might beg
for mercy or even pass out. Andrea swallows the pain, stoically, bravely, while
a tear of blood runs down her neck.
    “The book, Mr. Baker.”
    “Shoot him, Chase,” Andrea orders. “Shoot
the son of bitch. Don’t worry about me. Shoot him. Go find the cave. Save the
damned world.”
    It’s possible I could get a shot
off, and even connect with him. But I can’t take the chance that in his dying
breath he’ll run that blade across her throat.
    Thumbing the hammer back to its
safety position, I lower the pistol.
    Belli grins.
    “Too bad, she’s got to die anyway,”
he says, gripping a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back, exposing her
neck.
    I’m raising the pistol barrel back
up when an arrow plows through his eyeball and out the back of his skull.

 
18
     

     
     
    Belli doesn’t know what’s hit him. All he knows is he’s dropped
the knife and released his grip on Andrea. She steps away from him as he
staggers one step forward, then one step back, and then one more to the side.
    “Doomed to the immortal,” he says,
before collapsing onto his own bloody footprint.
    I go to him, lower myself onto one
knee. Blood streams from the corners of his mouth and out his nostrils. I can
tell he’s trying to