The mother, in her flip flops and bikini top, dragged the little boy, ice cream cup in hand, out the door past Jess.
“…breaking news…” Jess glanced at Giovanni and turned up the radio’s volume. “…Islamic Caliphate forces from Iraq have taken the Golan Heights after flooding through Syria, and have now invaded Israel with fierce fighting in the West Bank. Egypt is amassing forces in the Sinai, saying that the Israeli occupation of Gaza…”
“Scusi, signora,” said a gruff voice.
The two security guards, in matching black suits and aviator sunglasses, stepped around the mother and her boy. Giovanni stood and fired off an excited question in Italian.
“…the Israelis are now fighting a war on three fronts as the United States has withdrawn its representatives from last-minute peace negotiations. Israel is threatening use of nuclear…”
“What’s happening?” Jess got up.
“They found him.”
One of the security guards held up his phone. On the screen was an image of someone opening a door, trash bags in hand. Pork pie hat, mole on his left cheek. It was Enzo. “Si, all'indirizzo.”
“He’s at the address Nico gave us,” confirmed Giovanni. “They’ve rented an apartment across the street we can do surveillance from.”
“…Dr. Menzinger of the Swiss astronomical society is now saying that Nomad is not months away, but may be entering the inner solar system in under a week. NASA has refused to comment…”
Giovanni reached down to turn the radio off.
“Let’s go.” Jess stooped to grab the duffel bag, but one of the security men held up a hand and took it for her.
She shrugged and followed them through the lengthening line of people outside the pizzeria. She checked her cell phone. Still no messages.
By now her father should be at the castle.
27
SOUTHERN ALPS, SWITZERLAND
PAST THE FORMED-metal guardrail, the hulking shoulders of snow-capped Alps stretched into the distance under a brilliant sky. The highway coiled down the slope behind them like a snake, clinging to the cliffs, sliding through the trees into the bottom of the valley where a lake glistened. Cool wind blew through Ben’s hair as he hung his head out of the passenger side window of the car, breathing deep the mountain air.
It was a beautiful view.
Or would be if they weren’t inching along.
When he planned this, the route seemed simple: down the Rhine into Switzerland, cross the Alps, then down into Italy. Simple because there was only one road through central Switzerland and into Italy—through the Gotthard Pass.
Simple.
Unless the Gotthard Pass was jammed.
Actually, there were two routes that paralleled each other. There was a surface road through the Gotthard Pass itself, but at nearly two miles in altitude, it was often impassible from snowfall. To create a year-round route from Zurich to Milan, the Swiss had constructed the Gotthard tunnel, the third longest in the world at over ten miles in length.
Problem was, a vehicle fire closed the tunnel, at least that was what Roger found out when they stopped at a service station. It was what caused the massive traffic jams. Instead of waiting for the tunnel—a modern highway that cut through and under the heart of the Alps—to be cleared, they opted instead to take the surface road high into the mountains.
That might have been a mistake.
This small mountain road was never designed to handle this kind of traffic. If the tunnel were open, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Busy, but not a problem. With this volume of people trying to get into the mountains at once, it was like a hundred-mile-long parking lot.
“What’s our distance from Basel now?”
Roger exhaled loudly. “One hundred and eighty-two klicks.”
A hundred and eighty two kilometers in twenty-seven hours. That was how long they’d been stuck in traffic. Ben did a quick mental calculation. Just over four miles per hour. A fast walk. They could have walked here.
Twenty-seven hours.
When the angel Gabriel, at the Pearly Gates, asked Ben what he did with the last hours of his life, he might be answering: I was stuck in traffic. He checked the clock again.
Forty-four hours to Nomad.
He looked into the sky. Serene. So blue it seemed to go on forever.
Ben leaned forward to get his laptop out of his bag by his right foot. Something he didn’t recognize was in there, so he pulled it out.
“Hey, that’s my cellphone,” Roger said, grabbing it from Ben. “I have two of them,” he explained, “that’s my international.”
Ben glanced down. He’d looked in the wrong bag. His was by his left foot.
“Sorry. Want me to put it back in?” Not that a cellphone was doing them any good. Ben looked at the device now in Roger’s hand. It didn’t look like any cellphone he’d ever seen. It was fat, at least two inches thick. He tried to take it from Roger, but Roger leaned over to put it back himself.