Page 64 of Hot Soldier's Rescue

He followed her gingerly up the front steps, glad she couldn’t see him grimace as every step jarred his shoulder. She pushed on one of the tall, carved doors and it swung open slowly. The interior of the church was dimly lit, and a few flickering offering candles burned low on an iron stand just inside the door. Pews that would seat perhaps five hundred people stretched toward the front of the church.

“Hello!” he called out. No answer.

“Hola!” Elise called out in Spanish. “It’s me. Sister Elise.”

Still no response. His stomach felt like lead. Grandma and the kids had to be here. He was at the end of his strength and couldn’t go gallivanting across Mercado looking for them. He walked cautiously toward the altar with Elise on his heels. Was there a secret hidey-hole under the altar here, too?

They got to the front and Elise lifted the white linen table skirt. He pointed his high-intensity flashlight at the stone floor but spotted no seams to indicate there might be a trapdoor. Elise looked close to tears.

“We’ll find them,” he murmured. “This is a big building. Maybe they’re hiding somewhere else.”

She nodded and took a wobbly breath, gesturing toward a small door at the back of the nave.

“Let me go first,” he told her quietly. He stood to one side of the portal and threw it open, spinning into the space fast. He nearly fainted from the pain that slammed into him and blinked through the whirling darkness. Movement off to his left. He swung his weapon toward it, struggling to focus.

He jerked the weapon up and away from the fast moving object as it barreled into him, shouting, “Drago! I knew you’d come for us!”

Gasping with pain, Ted used his good arm to catch Emanuel as the little boy flung himself against him.

A sob to his right had him swinging toward the new threat, but it was only Elise catching up Mia in a hug against her.

“I knew you would come,” Grandma announced from the darkness somewhere on the other side of a large office.

Ted spotted the elderly woman as she emerged from behind the desk, moving slowly. “Are you all right?” he asked her in concern.

“I am not as young as I once was. Running across a big city was a little much for these old bones.”

Ted grunted. “I know the feeling.”

“We leave now, yes?” she asked.

Elise answered, “There’s a curfew. We have to stay here till morning—”

A male voice spoke from behind them and Ted forced his body, through sheer force of will, to turn. He set Emanuel down and pushed the boy behind him, hissing as he used his bad arm to protect the child.

“Not necessary,” the man said. “We can go now, if you like.”

A man in a black, short-sleeved shirt and white priest’s collar was striding down the central aisle toward them.

“And you are?” Ted asked cautiously, his weapon trained, albeit shakily, on the man.

“I am Padre Jorge del Potro. A little bird named Hathaway called me a little while ago. He told me there might be a flock of lambs in need of assistance in my church.”

Ted exhaled in relief.

The priest continued, smiling. “The little birdie suggested I call my church superiors. I did so, and they told me these children are under the Holy Roman See’s special protection.”

Emanuel poked his head out from behind Ted. “God loves little children and watches us specially.”

“That he does, child. I am told that in a few minutes, travel documents for all of you will be faxed to me. The Papal Nunciate itself is sending them, apparently. I am told a Father Ambrose in New York City has been very busy the past few days.”

Ted glanced over at Elise questioningly, and she smiled back at him. That must be the priest she’d mentioned before. The one who’d sent her here to get Mia and Emanuel. The one he would like to strangle for putting her in such danger…right after he thanked the guy profusely for putting Elise into his path so they could meet.

The fax machine on the desk behind Grandma beeped, and sheets of paper began to spit out of it.

The priest moved across the room to gather up the documents. And that was the last thing Ted saw as his legs gave out from under him and the world went black.

Chapter Fourteen

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