The Dante Conspiracy (16 page)

Massimo glanced at his watch.

‘But the Palazzo is closed,’ he said. ‘How did you get in?’

The man they’d now identified as Stefan smiled without humour.

‘We walked in through the main door,’ he said, ‘once we were
certain all the visitors had left, and then we closed and locked it behind us, because
we didn’t want to be disturbed. Unfortunately, two members of your staff decided
not to do what we told them, and so we made them take early – and permanent – retirement,
but the others who saw sense are locked up in a small storeroom, without their mobile
phones. So as I said, nobody will disturb us.’

Perini’s mind was racing as he tried to figure the angles, but
at that moment he could see no way out. He and Lombardi already knew that the two
men pointing pistols at them had tortured and killed Professor Bertorelli, and also,
most probably, Paolo
Bardolino
, who had just been an innocent
bystander.
So two or three other deaths, even the deaths of two
police officers, probably wouldn’t bother them at all.

‘And now,’ Stefan said, ‘I’d feel much more comfortable if the
only people in this room carrying weapons were my associates, so you’ – he pointed
at Perini – ‘open your jacket, take your pistol from its holster with your left
hand, place it on the floor and then kick it away from you.’

Perini stared at him, but didn’t move.

Stefan sighed and shook his head.

‘I know how you’re trained, and how you’re told never, under
any circumstances, to relinquish your personal weapon, so I can offer you a choice.
Either you surrender your pistol right now, or you can keep it on your corpse, because
I’ll ask Marco to shoot you. Up to you, but I’m not a patient man so make up your
mind quickly.’

There was absolutely no choice. Alive but disarmed, Perini could
possibly still do something about the situation. Dead, he would be right out of
options.

‘OK, OK,’ he said, opened up his jacket, reached awkwardly for
his police-issue Beretta with his left hand, keenly aware that the muzzle of the
pistol held by the man right in front of him – presumably Marco – was aimed directly
at his midriff, and lowered the weapon to the floor. Then he kicked it with his
right foot, but across the width of the gallery rather than towards the three men.
That way, it would be out of reach of everyone.

Stefan narrowed his eyes at that, but switched his attention
to Lombardi.

‘Unless you want to be a hero, I suggest you do the same,’ he
said.

‘Do it, Cesare,’ Perini said. ‘We might still be able to walk
away from this.’

His face radiating the anger and frustration he was feeling,
Lombardi replicated Perini’s action, including the direction he kicked his Beretta.

The moment he did so, there was an almost palpable easing of
the tension in the gallery and, at a command from Stefan, his two men lowered their
weapons to point at the floor.

‘Now what?’
Perini snapped.

‘Now,’ Stefan said, sounding almost surprised at the question,
‘you finish what you came here to do: find the manuscript of the
Divina
Commedia
, and be quick about it. I haven’t
got all night.’

Reluctantly, Perini and his companions turned their attention
back to the chest. Massimo lifted the lid and they peered inside it, but without
inspiration striking immediately.

‘Talk to me,’ Stefan said. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’

‘We found “
Gaetani’s
bane” in a hidden
compartment in the lid of the chest,’ Perini explained, ‘and according to the text
of the verses, that was apparently above the manuscript. So it makes sense to us
that the relic might be hidden in the sides or the base of the chest, because that
would be below the lid, the literal meaning. But we can’t see any sign of a second
hidden space.’

‘Why don’t you rip off the lid and break up the rest?’ Stefan
suggested. ‘That would do the trick.’

Massimo looked scandalized at the suggestion.

‘We can’t do that. This is a valuable antique.’

‘Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,’ Stefan said, his voice
cold and threatening. ‘All I’m interested in is that manuscript. I don’t care if
you have to destroy every other exhibit in this place to find it. Now get a move
on.’

Lombardi was crouched beside the chest, and looked up as Stefan
finished speaking.

‘I think there’s a difference in height between the inside and
the outside,’ he said, ‘and more than just the thickness of the wood.’

Lombardi ran his fingers around the outside of the base, trying
to detect a button or catch that would release the cover, assuming his guess was
right.

Massimo looked at his watch before stretching out his hand into
the chest, the movement taking him closer to Perini. As he did so, he whispered
something to the detective, just loud enough for him and Lombardi to hear.

‘What did you just say?’ Stefan demanded.

‘He said,’ Perini replied for him, ‘that he hopes you’ll let
us go if we find this relic.’

Stefan smiled.

‘Hope is a wonderful thing,’ he said, ‘and I suppose I might
let you go. Or I might not. I haven’t decided yet.’

There was a click from behind Perini, and he swung round to see
Lombardi tugging on a panel of wood on one of the narrow sides of the chest. It
was about five centimetres deep and ran across the whole width of the side.

‘It was held in by two catches,’ he explained, ‘one at either
side. There’s basically a false bottom in the chest. Pass me those gloves,’ he said
to Massimo, who immediately handed them to the detective.

It seemed as if everyone in the room held their breath as Lombardi
slowly extracted a flat parcel wrapped in cracked leather from the inside of the
compartment.

And then Massimo looked again at his watch and nodded to Perini.

‘Five seconds,’ he muttered.

In so much of life, timing is everything.

Seven seconds later, every light in the gallery went out.

Chapter 30

Instantly, Lombardi stood up, his right arm a blur as he threw
his switchblade knife directly towards where the closest of the two men – Marco
– was standing. Then he dived to one side, towards their discarded Berettas.

Perini reacted at the same moment, launching himself across the
floor towards the pistols he and Lombardi had been forced to surrender. But even
as he did so, the other two men fired, the flat cracks of their suppressed weapons
sounding deceptively harmless in the echoing gallery.

Perini’s clutching fingers found one of the pistols. He clicked
off the safety catch and fired two shots, a double tap, aiming at the faint illumination
he’d seen when the other men fired.

The bark of the
unsilenced
Beretta
was a double assault on the eardrums, and he was rewarded by a single cry of pain
or maybe shock.

Perini rolled sideways further, and his knee hit a sharp angular
object. He reached down, seized the second pistol and slid it back across the tiled
floor towards Lombardi, a dim shape he’d seen in the muzzle flashes.

‘Your weapon, Cesare,’ he called out, then fired twice more,
the brief muzzle flashes again providing him with a glimpse of the opposition, and
hopefully allowing Lombardi to see the second pistol.

About three metres behind Perini, Lombardi groped for the weapon,
found it and immediately aimed it down the gallery. He fired once, blind, using
the split second flare of light to locate the opposition,
then
fired twice more, aimed shots at one of the men, now crouching down beside an exhibit
to present a smaller target.

Another two rounds were fired from one of the silenced weapons,
and both detectives fired shots in reply. There was the sound of breaking glass,
a heavy thud, and then there was silence.

Perini had a small torch in his pocket – he always carried one,
just in case he ever needed a personal source of light at a crime scene – and he
held it at arm’s length with his left hand and switched it on. Then he immediately
turned it off again and dodged to his right, firing his Beretta twice as he did
so.

Lombardi fired at almost the same moment, the four shots sounding
almost like three, because in the torchlight both detectives had seen one man still
standing, his weapon aimed towards them.

Silence again.

Once more, Perini risked using the torch, and this time he left
it on, because it looked like it was all over. He played the beam over the men who’d
surprised them in the gallery, all three of whom were now lying on the floor.

‘Can you get some lights on, Rudolf?’ he asked. ‘Over-ride the
automatic timer?’

He swung the beam of his torch round to where the director lay
flat on his stomach, behind the wooden chest, his arms around his head.

Slowly and cautiously Massimo climbed to his feet, and nodded.

‘Shine the light over here,’ he instructed, walking slowly towards
the far end of the gallery, where a flat grey panel was set into one wall. He pulled
it open, and a moment later the main lights in the gallery came back to life.

The man who they believed was named Marco lay flat on his back
where he’d fallen, a surprised look on his face and with Lombardi’s switchblade
sticking out of his chest. The tip of the blade had obviously ruptured his heart.

‘You told me you were a good shot, Cesare,’ Perini said, ‘but
I didn’t realize you could throw a knife as well.’

‘A misspent youth,’ Lombardi replied.

The second gunman had been hit by a number of bullets and was
clearly
dead,
his pistol lying beside him, but Stefan was
still alive, just. One slug had hit his left thigh, bringing him down, beside a
glass display case which had shattered as another bullet hit it, and he’d taken
another round in his shoulder. He’d dropped his pistol, a small Walther, and the
trail of blood on the tiled floor showed that he’d been trying to crawl over to
retrieve it.

Perini kicked the weapon out of reach and looked down at the
wounded man.

‘You admit those two men were responsible for killing Professor
Bertorelli?’ he asked, his voice calm and measured.

Stefan nodded.

‘And for the other man, the one unfortunate
enough to have purchased the house in Florence once owned by Dante Alighieri?’

Again Stefan nodded.

‘Now get me to a hospital,’ he snarled, his teeth clenching in
pain.

‘Then I think we can call those two cases closed, Cesare?’ Perini
suggested.

Lombardi nodded.

‘And no loose ends,’ the sergeant said, took a couple of steps
back and fired a single round through Stefan’s chest, ending the man’s suffering
forever. Then he slid the man’s Walther back towards him, using the toe of his shoe
to position it close to his right hand.

‘What are you doing?’ Massimo demanded. ‘Shouldn’t we be calling
the police?’

‘We are the police,’ Perini replied, ‘and this place will be
swarming soon enough. Somebody is bound to have heard those shots. So what we need
to do is get our stories straight.’

‘What do you want me to say?’ Massimo asked.

‘Just tell the truth, or nearly the truth,’ Perini instructed
him, ‘but don’t mention the manuscript when you’re questioned. We’re going to say
that we believed that a gang of thieves might be targeting the Palazzo
Pitti
and we visited you to explain our fears. The people on
the entrance will be able to confirm that. While we were here in this gallery, these
three men burst in, guns waving. There was a fire-fight, but we managed to overpower
them when the automatic timer switched off the lights. And that, by the way, was
quick thinking on your part. Knowing that the place was suddenly going to be plunged
into darkness was the only weapon we had right then. Just don’t say that Cesare
here executed the ringleader, because that obviously wouldn’t look good on the police
report. As far as we’re concerned, he was reaching for his pistol and we killed
him in self-defence.’

‘And just think how much money we’ve saved Florence by not having
a trial,’ Lombardi said. ‘Now, let’s take a look at what was in the false bottom
of that chest.’

He lifted up the leather-wrapped parcel from the floor where
he’d dropped it minutes – and three lifetimes – earlier and placed it on a nearby
shelf.

‘Allow me, please,’ Massimo said, pulling on the pair of gloves
and stepping forward.

Carefully, he
unwrapped
the leather
and all three bent forward to take a closer look at what had been hidden in the
chest for over half a millennium.

It didn’t look very impressive. A piece of parchment with the
single word
Commedia
written in large
letters in the centre, the ink faded and darkened with age, and below that a somewhat
flowery signature that they could just about make out:
Durante
degli
Alighieri
.

‘That was Dante’s full name,’ Massimo explained, then lifted
off the parchment.

Below were sheets of paper, unbound, with the word
Inferno
in large letters at the top of the
first page. Below that were a number of lines of text, written in Italian. The first
two groups of three lines read, in what looked like the same handwriting as they’d
already seen on the cover:

Nel
mezzo
del
cammin
di nostra vita

mi
ritrovai
per
una
selva
oscura

ché
la
diritta
via era
smarrita
.

Ahi
quanto
a
dir
qual
era è
cosa
dura