The Dante Conspiracy (9 page)
But two of the shadows endured, moving with clear purpose through
the ancient streets.
Neither man knew the city well. Both had been recruited from
the Rome underworld, precisely because their temporary employer had not wanted to
use faces
who
might be known to the police of Florence.
The downside was the lack of local knowledge, but a hand-drawn map, supplemented
by a mapping application on the smartphone carried by one of the men ensured that
they knew exactly where they were going.
They came to a halt at the end of an unlit street in one of the
oldest parts of the city, and both men peered at the excessively bright screen of
the mobile phone.
‘That’s it,’ Bruno said, pointing down the street and slipping
the phone into his pocket to extinguish the glare. ‘That house on the right.’
The map and phone application were silent confirmation of what
they already knew. Late that afternoon, they had walked down the street to carry
out a brief reconnoitre of the area and, more importantly, to take a surreptitious
look at the locks on the house doors and the overall layout of the property, so
that they could decide on the most appropriate method of entry. It didn’t look as
if getting inside would prove to be too difficult. The main door of the property
opened onto the street, and they had immediately discounted that because even in
the early hours of the morning, it would simply be too exposed.
But on the right-hand side of the property was a small courtyard
accessed through an old wooden door which opened onto a narrow alley between that
house and the adjoining property, a door that almost looked as if it had been there
since the house was built. In the bright sunlight that afternoon, they’d looked
at the warped and twisted old grey wood and each had mentally placed a tick in the
appropriate box. Even if they were unlucky enough to find that the doors bolted
on the inside, neither man had any doubt that judicious pressure from a crowbar
would be enough to force it open. And beyond that they had seen the side door of
the property, which they would be able to work on out of sight of the prying eyes
of anyone passing in the street. That was the obvious, and in fact the only practical,
way of getting inside the property.
Both men checked that they were unobserved before they did anything
else and then, their actions swift and well-
practised,
they each extracted a small semiautomatic pistol from the rear waistbands of their
trousers. Arrigo was carrying a Walther, and Bruno a Beretta, and each was fitted
with a suppressor which would reduce the sound of a shot to little more than a flat
slap. Unlike the disposable revolvers they’d been armed with when they broke into
Dante’s cenotaph, these pistols were their own personal weapons of choice, selected
because both men recognized that silence might be important, and you can’t silence
a revolver.
The suppressors greatly increased the overall size and bulk of
the weapons, making them clumsy to manoeuvre, but the ability to fire them without
immediately alerting everybody in the neighbourhood was far more important a consideration.
They each knew that their magazines were fully loaded, not only because they’d prepared
the weapons themselves, but also simply by the feel of the pistols, fully-loaded
magazine greatly increasing the overall weight. Working purely by feel, each man
pulled back on the slide of his weapon to chamber a round and then set the safety
catch. Gentle pressure with the thumb would release the safety catch and the weapon
could then be fired immediately.
They both hoped that they wouldn’t need to use the pistols, but
they had no idea who or what might be waiting for them inside the property, and
they weren’t prepared to take the risk that the occupants might be armed without
being able to shoot back.
They tucked their weapons out of sight, again checked that nobody
was visible on the street,
then
walked slowly and cautiously
down the right-hand side of the street towards their objective, the unlit bulk of
the old house beginning to loom above them. When they reached the property, they
made a final check of the street and then, completely soundlessly, walked down the
alley. While Bruno stood with his back to the wall of the courtyard, his hand resting
on the butt of his pistol, ready to react immediately should anybody approach, Arrigo
pulled a crowbar out of a long pocket sewn into the right-hand leg of his jeans.
He inserted the point of the tool between the old door and the frame and gave a
single firm push. There was a sharp crack as the wood splintered and gave way, and
then the door swung open.
Seconds later, both men stepped into the courtyard, pushed the
door firmly closed behind them, and crossed over to the side door of the house.
This was obviously old and solid, but unlike the door which had
given access to the small courtyard, the lock was new, and that was good news because
modern lock-picking tools are designed to pick modern locks. Sometimes, getting
the tumblers to turn in a lock dating back a century or two, using a modern twirl
or L-wrench could be extremely difficult. In fact, this door was secured only by
a Yale-type lock, the easiest of all to get through, and which surrendered in a
matter of moments to a lock pick gun wielded by Arrigo. Getting to the other side
of locked doors was one of his specialities.
Almost immediately, the door swung open with the faintest of
creaks from the hinges.
‘So far, so good.
Let’s hope our man
is right, and the place is deserted,’ Arrigo muttered.
‘We’ll find out soon enough, I guess,’ Bruno replied, and led
the way into the musty and echoing darkness which lay beyond the door.
Both men were carrying small but powerful torches in their pockets,
the size of the lenses reduced to little more than a pinhole by the application
of layers of insulating tape to reduce the amount of light that they would emit.
But before they turned them on, both men stood for a few moments just inside the
room, the door closed and locked behind them, listening for any sounds that would
indicate the presence of somebody inside the building. They also glanced all around
them to see if any light was entering the room from the outside, which could mean
it would be too risky for them to use their torches at all. They saw and heard nothing,
and after a few moments Bruno clicked on his torch, but kept the beam pointing straight
downwards, towards the floor.
The dim light revealed that they were standing in an old-fashioned
kitchen, which was not entirely a surprise in a house of that age, and confirmed
that although the room had two windows, heavy curtains were draped over both, meaning
there was no danger of the torchlight being seen outside the house.
There was an odd odour about the place, but not an unpleasant
smell. In fact, it reminded Bruno of a church, although in his line of work attending
religious services was something he did extremely infrequently.
‘Smells like a museum, or maybe a cathedral,’ Arrigo murmured,
confirming his companion’s impression.
‘It is old, that’s for sure. It won’t be in here,’ his companion
added, ‘if it’s in the house at all. We need to look for a display case, or maybe
a library or a study, that kind of thing, maybe even a safe.’
‘If the Russian is right, it might not be that easy. Don’t forget,
he said it might be hidden inside something else, and whoever owns this house now
might have no idea that it’s here at all.’
‘I know. I never thought it would be easy, so we’d better get
started. The first thing we do is check the bedrooms, make sure there’s nobody here
to disturb us. Then we start looking.’
The two men climbed the stairs that ran up the centre of the
property as quietly as they could, which wasn’t easy because almost every tread
creaked alarmingly. The stairs were a complex and eccentric design, with a number
of half and quarter landings, each of which emitted even more noise when they put
their weight on it. The only good thing was that the house as a whole released creaks
and cracks intermittently, as the old timbers settled after the heat of the day,
so the sound of their stealthy approach was to some extent disguised.
They found four bedrooms in the house, three of them unoccupied
and two of them largely empty of furniture. Outside the last door on that floor
– the only one which had been closed – they paused for a few moments and just listened.
From inside the room came the rhythmic sound of snoring, and they knew they had
to take care of the occupant before they did anything else.
The elderly man in the bed never had a chance. The two intruders
pulled on black balaclavas to hide their faces, then opened the door, stepped inside
the room and strode quickly across to the bed. Bruno took out his pistol and rested
the barrel against the man’s forehead, an action which immediately woke him up.
But before he had a chance to speak or cry out, Arrigo slapped a gloved hand across
his mouth, silencing him. In a little over two minutes he was gagged, his wrists
tied behind his back and his ankles strapped together using plastic cable ties,
effectively unbreakable.
Finding somebody in the house was actually a bonus, because it
meant they could turn on the lights as they carried out their search without necessarily
arousing the suspicions of any of the occupants of the neighbouring properties,
or anybody walking down the street. Lights burning after midnight in an unoccupied
house would always attract attention, very obviously, but in a property that was
known to be occupied nobody would take the slightest notice.
Watched by the frightened eyes of the owner of the property,
the two men swiftly and efficiently searched the bedroom, but found nothing of any
interest. Then they snapped off the light and walked out onto the landing.
‘I’ll check the next floor up,’ Bruno said, ‘so you look downstairs.
Call out if you find anything.’
But before they could separate and go their different ways, they
heard the unmistakable sound of a door opening and closing somewhere on the ground
floor.
Somebody else was in the house with them.
‘Maybe it’s his wife,’ Arrigo suggested, his voice a barely audible
whisper.
‘His wife?
The guy in the bed is seventy-five
if he’s a day, and it’s nearly three in the morning,’ Bruno replied, equally quietly.
‘Why would his wife be coming in at this time? I mean, what is she?
A geriatric hooker?
No, I don’t know who that is downstairs,
but I know what it is – it’s trouble.’
For perhaps half a minute the two men stood side-by-side on the
landing, peering down into the darkness of the stairwell, listening intently. They
heard stealthy footsteps, and a brief murmur of conversation.
‘There must be at least two of them,’ Bruno whispered.
‘Police?’
‘Definitely not.
They’d have knocked
on the door or maybe kicked it open and then shouted their way up the stairs. Maybe
we’re not the only ones looking for this thing.’
Bruno glanced round. It wasn’t completely dark on the landing,
thin shafts of moonlight serving to cast a dim glow at one end. It was too late
to risk moving very far, because of the danger of being heard on the creaking floorboards
as the unidentified intruders approached. And he was keenly aware that if the men
below had also entered through the kitchen, they would certainly have seen the damage
to the courtyard door and would probably be expecting to find somebody already in
the house.
He gestured to a large wooden chest which stood at one end of
the landing, and pointed at Arrigo, who turned, nodded, and then moved quietly across
and ducked down behind it. Bruno looked around, but there was no other cover he
could use. He would have to get inside one of the bedrooms, which wasn’t ideal,
because he would then be trapped inside the room with no other way out, but there
was no other choice. If he tried climbing the stairs to the next level of the old
house, he was quite sure that they’d hear him.
On the other hand, if the men downstairs knew they were already
inside the property, what did it matter?
Bruno made an instant decision, and ran up the dozen or so stairs
which led to the third floor of the house, making no attempt to be quiet.
It was almost the last thing he ever did. As he reached the landing
directly above, he heard two distinct thudding sounds from below, and wood splinters
whipped past his face. Whoever the intruders were, they were armed with silenced
pistols and were obviously quite happy to shoot first and ask questions later. In
the dim moonlight, he could clearly see the bullet hole which had clipped the edge
of one of the wooden staircase treads.
While he’d been climbing the staircase, they’d known exactly
where he was, which is why they’d risked firing the two shots. But that situation
no longer applied. Now Bruno had the advantage of the high ground, and the intruders
were going to have to climb up the stairs to get to him.
And they wouldn’t know where his partner was. In fact, they very
probably didn’t know they were facing more than one man. With any luck, he and Arrigo
could cut them down in the crossfire.
Bruno gave a theatrical groan, and deliberately slumped down
on the wooden boards of the upper landing, trying to give the impression that at
least one of the two bullets had found its mark. Then he stood up and moved over
to one side, to a position which offered him a reasonable view down to the first
landing. That was where the two intruders would have to appear at some point, and
once they did, he had no doubt at
all of the
outcome.