The Sacred Vault

by Andy McDermott

  The Sacred Vault

  ANDY MCDERMOTT

  headline

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 2010 Andy McDermott

  The right of Andy McDermott to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organisations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 7343 7

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  For my family and friends

  Prologue

  Italy

  It was a cold, crisp mid-November evening, but Giancarlo Mistretta’s mind was already on Christmas as he guided his tanker along the winding road through the Casentinesi forest. His apartment would play host to the celebrations this year; twenty-three people to cater for, maybe twenty-four if his sister’s newest baby arrived earlier than expected . . .

  He pushed his plans aside as a tight turn appeared in the headlights. Slowing the truck to a near crawl, he checked his watch. Slightly ahead of schedule - there was still one more gas station to supply before he could return to the depot, but he would be back home in Florence before seven. Then maybe he and Leany could advance their plan for a baby of their own . . .

  He guided the tanker round the corner - then braked. A charcoal-grey BMW was slewed across the road, one wheel in the ditch. A woman in a dark suit waved for him to stop.

  Giancarlo suppressed a sigh. The BMW was blocking his way. So much for getting home early. Still, he wouldn’t be setting much of an example for any future little Giancarlos if he didn’t help a lady in distress.

  He stopped, taking a closer look at the woman. Long, glossy black hair, and dark skin - Indian, perhaps? Probably in her late twenties, and quite attractive, in a businesslike way. He could almost hear Leany reprimanding him for that, but married or not, he still had eyes, didn’t he?

  The woman walked towards the truck. Giancarlo climbed out to meet her. ‘Hi,’ he called. ‘Looks like you could use some help.’

  She looked briefly into the woods as she advanced. Giancarlo noticed that her features were marred; only her left eye had moved, the right staring fixedly at him. The pale line of a scar ran from forehead to cheek over the socket. A glass eye.

  He glanced at the BMW. ‘Are you stuck? I can give you a—’

  She whipped out a silenced handgun and shot him three times in the face.

  Giancarlo’s lifeless body slumped to the tarmac. A man stepped out of the darkness of the woods. Tall, muscular and dressed entirely in black, Urbano Fernandez regarded the corpse with an expression of mock apology. ‘Poor fellow,’ he said. The language was English, but the accent was smoothly Spanish. ‘Never any pleasantries with you, are there?’ he went on as the woman holstered the gun.

  ‘A waste of time,’ said Madirakshi Dagdu coldly. As the unfortunate Giancarlo had guessed, she was Indian, her accent thick and stilted - English was a language in which she had only recently needed proficiency. She indicated the truck driver’s body. ‘Dispose of that.’

  Fernandez snapped a sarcastic salute. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He pulled on a pair of black leather gloves, pausing to brush his pencil moustache with his fingertips before dragging the corpse into the undergrowth. ‘You didn’t have to be here at all. We don’t need to be, what’s the word? Nursemaided.’

  He knew full well what the word was, but took a certain amusement from her frown of deep concentration as she tried to translate it. ‘This operation is more expensive than the others,’ she said once the meaning had come to her. ‘My employers want to be sure their money is being used well.’

  ‘It will be worth every dollar,’ said Fernandez, dumping the body. There was no point concealing it - the area would be crawling with people soon enough. He went to the tanker. ‘Now, go. Meet me down the road.’

  Madirakshi returned to the BMW without a word. Fernandez watched her, thinking it was a shame such an attractive figure was wasted on an ugly personality, then moved to the valves on the tanker’s side as the car reversed out of the shallow ditch.

  Even after delivering most of the day’s supplies, the tanker still contained over two thousand litres of petrol. The Spaniard turned the wheel above one of the gaping stainless steel nozzles. Fuel gushed out. He winced at the sharp smell, backing away to avoid being splashed as he opened the valve wider. The gush became a geyser, spraying into the woods.

  He climbed into the cab. The engine was still running, so he released the brake and depressed the heavy clutch to put the truck into gear, slowly following the BMW as it sped away.

  Petrol spewed over Giancarlo Mistretta’s corpse as the tanker rumbled into the night.

  Half a kilometre down the road, Fernandez saw the waiting BMW’s headlights. He pulled over, then hurried to the car.

  Madirakshi’s only greeting was a cold look. Fernandez ignored it. After tonight, there was only one more job planned, which might not even be necessary if his employers were persuasive enough - and then he would be rid of them and all the freaks in their entourage.

  Even before he had fastened his seat belt, the BMW surged past the tanker, heading back up the road. A smeared pool of blood marked where the driver had been shot; Madirakshi stopped level with it.

  Fernandez lowered his window. He took a Zippo lighter from a pocket, and with a single practised move flicked it open and lit it. A moment to regard his reflection in the polished metal, then he tossed the lighter into the trees.

  Even before it hit the ground, the results were explosive. The highly flammable vapour rising from the pool of petrol ignited, a fireball boiling upwards into the trees and setting them alight. Giancarlo’s fuel-soaked body was consumed by the inferno as easily as the branches. A thick trail of f
lames raced away down the road.

  Fernandez shielded his face from the heat with one gloved hand. ‘Time we left. Quickly.’

  Madirakshi needed no further prompting. The BMW roared away. Fernandez looked back as the car reached the corner - to see a huge explosion rip through the forest half a kilometre behind as the tanker blew up, a seething mushroom cloud of blazing orange and yellow rising into the night sky as flaming fuel rained down around it. A moment later, the blast reached him, an earthshaking thump followed by a thunderous roar of air being pulled in to feed the conflagration.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Fernandez. ‘Now for stage two.’

  The BMW raced through the darkened forest, heading for the city of Florence as the trees behind it turned into a wall of fire.

  The banging of the chair stopped as Braco Zec pointed his gun at the young woman tied to it. ‘Cut that out,’ he said in fluent Italian. ‘I told you, do what we say and you’ll live.’ He dragged the chair and its gagged occupant away from the wall, then returned to the small apartment’s living room. Six other black-clad men and their equipment occupied most of the space, but he pushed through them to the window, peeling back his dark balaclava to reveal a weather-worn face, hair shaved down to a grey stubble. Deep creases across his forehead showed that he had witnessed - and endured - far more than most men of his thirty-four years.

  The mercenaries had taken over the apartment that afternoon, Zec tricking the woman into letting them in by claiming to be delivering a parcel. She had been selected during the operation’s exacting planning phase, being the only single occupant of any of the suitable top floor apartments on the narrow Via degli Alfani. Considering what was across the street, it was perhaps inevitable that she was an aspiring artist.

  He looked out at the eighteenth-century buildings: the museum complex containing the Galleria dell’Accademia. One of Florence’s top tourist attractions - and home to one of the world’s most famous pieces of art.

  Their target.

  Zec’s phone rang. Fernandez. ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’re here. Let us in.’

  The Bosnian craned his neck for a better look at the street below. Two figures passed under a streetlight, approaching briskly. Fernandez and the Indian woman. The creases in Zec’s forehead deepened. To him, Dagdu’s presence was almost insulting, a sign that their employer didn’t trust them to carry out the job without supervision. Weren’t all their previous successes, including stealing a set of Chinese terracotta warriors out of their museum in Xi’an, and removing one of Islam’s holiest relics from Mecca itself, enough to prove their prowess? And Interpol was no nearer to catching them now than after their first ‘commission’ eight months earlier. Fernandez’s inside knowledge of how the police worked, how they thought, kept them several steps ahead.

  He suppressed his annoyance - she was their paymaster’s representative, after all - and went back to the hall as the entry buzzer rasped. He pushed the button, then waited with slight anxiety for them to climb the stairs. If any of the other residents chose that moment to leave their apartment, and saw their faces . . .

  But there were no such problems. The soft clump of boots outside, then a single sharp rap on the door. Zec opened it, and Fernandez and his companion entered.

  The Spaniard shared a brief smile of greeting with his second in command. ‘Anything to report?’

  ‘You’ve made the evening news,’ Zec told him. ‘The fire’s spreading - they’re calling in fire trucks from every surrounding town. And,’ he added meaningfully, ‘helicopters.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Fernandez dialled a number on his phone. ‘Status?’

  ‘Air traffic control has our flightplan,’ said the voice at the other end of the line. ‘We’re ready.’

  ‘Then go.’ He disconnected. ‘Where’s the roof access?’ Zec pointed at a skylight. ‘Okay, let’s get into position.’ He moved to address the rest of the team.

  Madirakshi, behind him, looked into the bedroom. ‘What is this?’ she snapped on seeing the prisoner.

  ‘She won’t be a problem,’ said Zec. ‘She hasn’t seen our faces.’

  Madirakshi’s expression was as fixed as her artificial eye. ‘No witnesses.’ She stepped into the bedroom. The bound woman, facing away from the door, twisted against her restraints, making panicked noises. She didn’t need to understand English to recognise the dangerous tone of the new arrival’s voice.

  ‘If you shoot her, the neighbours might hear,’ Fernandez warned.

  ‘I don’t need a gun.’ She stopped directly behind the other woman, whose muffled cries became more desperate.

  ‘Leave her,’ said Zec, coming into the room. ‘I promised she would live if she caused no trouble.’

  Madirakshi ignored him. She placed her fingers against her right eye socket and pressed. There was a soft sucking sound, and with a faint plop something dropped into her waiting palm.

  Her glass eye, glistening wetly.

  Zec had seen many horrific things in his life, but the casual way the woman removed the prosthetic still produced a small shudder of revulsion. Disgust then turned to confusion as she took hold of the eye with both hands and twisted it. There was a click, and it split into two hemispherical halves. What was she doing?

  The answer came as she drew her hands apart. Coiled inside the eye was a length of fine steel wire. By the time Zec realised it was a garrotte, Madirakshi had looped it round the defenceless young woman’s throat and pulled it tight.

  ‘No!’ Zec gasped, but Fernandez put a firm hand on his shoulder to pull him back. The Italian woman couldn’t even cry out, her airway crushed by the razor-sharp wire. She convulsed against the ropes. The chair thumped on the floor; Madirakshi pulled harder, sawing the wire through skin and flesh. Blood flowed down the woman’s neck. Her fingers clenched and clawed . . . then relaxed. One last bump, and the chair fell still.

  Madirakshi unwound the garrotte and turned. For the first time, Zec saw her face as it really was, a sunken hole with the eyelids gaping like a tiny mouth where her right eye should have been. Another revolted shudder, accompanied by anger. ‘You didn’t have to do that!’ he said.

  ‘No witnesses,’ the Indian repeated. She took out a cloth and ran it down the length of the blood-coated wire. The garrotte clean, she re-coiled it, then fastened the two halves of the eye back into a single sphere. Snick. Another practised move, and with a small but unsettling noise of suction the prosthetic was returned to its home. ‘Now. You have a job to do.’

  ‘We do,’ said Fernandez before Zec could respond. He leaned closer to his lieutenant, adding in a low voice, ‘I think perhaps having a baby has made you go a little soft, Braco. If this is going to be a problem . . .’

  ‘No problem,’ said Zec stiffly. ‘But I promised her—’

  ‘Never make promises you might not be able to keep,’ Fernandez told him, before clicking his fingers. The men in the living room looked round as one, ready for action.

  Ten minutes later, all eight mercenaries were on the apartment’s sloping roof.

  Fernandez peered over the edge. Below, Madirakshi left the building. Relieved to be rid of her at last, he backed up and faced his team. ‘Ready?’

  The responses were all in the affirmative. Each man was now armed, compact MP5K sub-machine guns fitted with laser sights and suppressors slung on their backs. Other pieces of gear were attached to the harnesses they wore; not mere equipment webbing, but parachute-style straps able to support their bodyweight, and more.

  The Spaniard looked at his watch. Five minutes to get everyone across to the roof of the Galleria dell’ Accademia, another five to eliminate the guards and secure the room containing their target, five more to prepare it - and themselves - for extraction . . .

  Fifteen minutes to carry out the most audacious robbery in history.

  He gestured to one of his men, Franco, who had already secured one end of a line inside the open skylight. At the other end was a barbed metal spear, currently loaded into
a custom-built, gas-powered launcher.

  Franco had already selected his target, a squat brick ventilation blockhouse poking up from the Galleria’s roof like a periscope. He tilted up the launcher. Fernandez watched him closely. This was a ‘wildcard moment’, the biggest risk in any operation. If the brickwork was too weak to take the weight, if someone heard the noise of launch or clang of impact and looked up at the wrong moment . . .

  At least they could minimise the chances of the last. Franco raised a thumb. Another man, Sklar, held up a string of firecrackers, lit the fuse - and flung them down the street.

  There was a small square at the Galleria’s southwestern corner. The fireworks landed at its edge. People jumped at the string of little explosions. Once the initial fright passed, some onlookers were annoyed, others amused by the display . . . but they were all looking at the ground.

  ‘Now,’ said Fernandez.

  Franco pulled the trigger. There was a flat thud as compressed nitrogen gas blasted the spear across the street - and a sharp clang as the spearhead pierced the blockhouse.

  All eyes below were still on the firecrackers.

  Franco put down the launcher and tugged on the line, gingerly at first, then harder. The spear held. He pulled a lever on the launcher’s side to engage a winch mechanism and quickly drew the line taut.

  Fernandez gestured to a third man, Kristoff - the smallest and lightest member of the team. The German gave the line a tug of his own to reassure himself that it would hold, then clipped his harness to it and carefully lowered himself off the roof.

  The others held their breaths. If the spear came loose, it was all over.

  Suspended below the line, Kristoff pulled himself across the street. The cable shuddered, but held firm. Fernandez didn’t take his eyes off the spear. The crackle of fireworks had stopped, and now he could hear the crunch of broken bricks shifting against each other . . .