Dante's Key

by G. L. Baron

  He settled down in his seat and looked out of the window while a flagpole of smoke rose solitary in the clearing, a foretaste of the moment when he would see that man again: Nigel Sforza.

  After escaping from the convention centre, he had inquired about him; he was an Interpol agent hot on his heels for two stupid murders.

  The worst thing, though, was that the inspector had not just forced him to flee without the bag, but that instead of consigning it to the police, had kept it for himself. Moreover, Sforza had not reported back to his superiors and had literally disappeared.

  The Japanese did not know exactly what the inspector had found out about it. The fact that the man had disappeared into thin air did not leave much doubt about his reliability.

  When all seemed lost, however, a stroke of luck had come unexpectedly: Sforza had rented a car equipped with a satellite GPS and had driven towards the central part of the island. A small cheque to the rental company had been enough to track him down.

  Now Tanaka was there, flying over a glacier, ready to rewrite the end of that poor script.

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ declared the pilot.

  91

  White rose, February 6th. 3:50 p.m.

  ‘Here we are!’ exclaimed Eklöf from inside the excavation. He was standing on a large slab of black basalt, at the point where the soil had been removed. In the area closest to the amphitheatre’s ridge, a dark chasm was visible, opened by moving the rocks one by one; it was shaped like a great eye and was large enough to allow a person to get inside comfortably.

  Cassini and the Bull, next to the Finn, all wearing harnesses and protective speleologist helmets, were ready to let themselves down into the opening.

  ‘Come on then, let’s go down,’ commanded the Knights of Malta’s emissary, rubbing his gloves on his trousers. Then he stared at the professor, looking for signs of excitement. But he saw none; his face was a mask of fear. ‘It’s the moment of the truth.’

  ‘The rocks may be friable,’ Holmar Bjarnason warned them from above, looking at the black hole in the ground.

  ‘We talked about this,’ snapped the Bull. ‘It’s just a few metres down. It takes less time to do it than to say it.’

  The geologist nodded, unconvinced. ‘Be careful. This area is very dangerous, it’s more than likely there are other cracks or cavities not detected by the ground-penetrating radar…’

  Meanwhile, a rope ladder was fixed to the excavation’s supports and was thrown inside the opening. There was no echo, which confirmed the fact that it had to be a fairly small room, no more than two metres high.

  The first one down was a hesitant Manuel Cassini. This kind of activity was not for him. He had never had to deal with similar situations. One thing was reflecting on Dante’s triplets, sitting calmly at a table, another was being in the field – moreover, with four soldiers pointing assault rifles at him.

  As he descended the steps of the rope ladder, being careful not to lean on the sharp spikes of rock, he wondered what would happen in the next few minutes. If they found the treasure, what would happen? Would they kill them all and run away with the Grail?

  ‘What do you see?’ asked the Bull, ready to descend into the opening.

  Cassini took a few more steps, his movements uncertain, and with a sweat that – despite the cold – clouded his view.

  The light on his helmet illuminated a completely black wall with a trickle of water running down it.

  Step-by-step, he reached the lowest point. He put a boot on something solid that seemed stable and let go of the ladder, always supported by the emergency rope. When his foot slipped on the wet rock, Cassini felt himself falling into space.

  He tried to hold on to the ladder and then to the safety support rope, but could not. He tumbled backward on the sloping terrain, trying to maintain his balance, but after a few uncertain steps, he ended with his back against a block of basalt.

  He let out a gasp of pain and moments later found himself sitting, with his backside immersed in water and his helmet resting against a frozen wall.

  ‘What’s happened?’ asked the Bull, who had begun to descend and had heard the professor’s cry.

  Cassini did not answer, but by then the South American was in the cave. Despite his muscular mass, he was very agile.

  He turned slowly, the lamp on his helmet illuminating the chamber. The room was actually very small and damp, the ceiling lower on one side and uneven on the other. On the left was a wall of stone where they could see some wet ledges. In the lower part a small rivulet of water flowed by, about fifty centimetres wide.

  ‘Did you find anything?’ he whispered, illuminating him with the torch.

  The professor was sitting three metres away from him looking around, his lamp waving like a bull’s-eye. ‘See for yourself.’

  *

  Nigel Sforza was lying in the snow with a machine gun pointed at him.

  ‘Kill him!’ ordered someone over the radio.

  The mercenary paused, not convinced. That moment of hesitation allowed the inspector to kick him in the lower parts.

  The man staggered and stiffened. But he did not move an inch.

  With a thrust of the back, Sforza tried to jump up, moving to one side and pulling the barrel of the machine gun towards the ground. He tried to yank it away with one hand holding the viewfinder and with the cartridge clip held by the other hand. The operation lasted only a split second, but was enough to get what he wanted.

  The mercenary, perhaps in pain from the blow previously suffered, stumbled in the snow and –not knowing how – found himself lying face-down.

  Sforza jumped on him, trying to immobilize his arms with his knees. He pushed his head in the snow with his hands, pressing with all the strength in his body.

  But his advantage lasted just for a second. The man was stronger and fitter than the inspector; he rolled over, unseating Sforza who ended up on his back again.

  The soldier jumped to his feet – dazed as if he had put his head under water – and glowered back at him. He inhaled and pulled the trigger, purple with rage for having been hit.

  But nothing happened. The M4 did not fire.

  Astonished, the mercenary stared firstly at the rifle and then at Sforza. The inspector smiled, he had his gun in one hand and the cartridge clip in other.

  *

  ‘See for yourself,’ whispered Cassini, illuminating the area in front of him with the light on his helmet.

  The Bull looked around. There was nothing artificial about the room. It was little more than a cave, more or less regular in shape, but without any obvious human intervention.

  ‘There’s nothing here!’ he observed, nervously flicking the light in all directions.

  He moved a few steps and scoured all the basaltic ridges. There were no other cuts or other holes, or at least nothing visible. ‘There must be another opening.’

  Cassini did not answer, but after a few seconds he began to laugh. A nervous laugh, which then turned into coarse laughter. He was wrong. Again.

  The Bull spun round like a top.

  Not convinced, he went around the cave once more. In a few steps he finished examining all the rocky walls.

  ‘I made a mistake!’ sighed Cassini, shaking his head. ‘This time I made a big mistake.’

  ‘It’s not possible, there must be something…’ continued the Bull. The more he turned, brandishing the lamp in vain, the more he felt relieved. There was nothing to find. Exactly what he had hoped for. If the papyri actually existed, they were not in that cave.

  Suddenly he brightened. The plans to have to kill all the expedition members were dissolved in an instant. Just like the dark thoughts that had haunted his mind for days.

  ‘I was wrong again,’ Cassini repeated, grabbing hold of the support rope and then leaning on the wall to pull himself up.

  The Bull moved towards him and stared at him in silence. The professor asked him if he would shoot him there, on the spot. But, instead, nothing of
the kind happened. The giant helped him get up and gave him a friendly pat on the back. ‘Let’s go, it’s awfully wet down here,’ he said in a faint voice.

  Cassini was dumbfounded. In the white light of his torch, the man seemed to be made of wax, but he saw a smile in his face he could not explain.

  The South American steadied the professor and led him to the ladder. He pulled twice on the lifeline, the signal for his men. When the rope began to be pulled up, he helped him catch hold of it. Within moments, both emerged into the blinding daylight.

  The mercenaries on the excavation edge had questioning expressions on their faces.

  ‘So?’ they seemed to be asking.

  The Bull took off the harness in silence and then looked up, shading the sun with his hand. ‘It’s all over, we’re leaving!’ he yelled in his guttural voice. ‘Our professor was wrong. Luckily.’

  Cassini stared grimly. He was in a daze, his head spinning. A whirlwind of emotions swept through him, but the significance of the words just spoken by the man who had taken them hostage was immediately clear.

  ‘Luckily,’ he had said.

  In other circumstances, perhaps he would have justified himself somehow; he would have made it clear that it was not his fault. But he did not. He said nothing, and judging by the behaviour of the Bull, it was the best thing to do.

  He merely raised his head in search of Julia. When he caught her eye, she smiled. And he felt better immediately, without even understanding why.

  Then a radio crackled. ‘It’s base camp. There is a problem,’ said one of the mercenaries with his radio in his hand. He went down a few steps on the steep terrain and handed it to the Bull.

  ‘What else now?’ he growled, grabbing the walkie-talkie.

  ‘A helicopter has just flown past,’ said the mercenary who had been guarding the camp over the radio. ‘Flying very low.’

  The Bull did not answer immediately. He stared at the radio and then turned to face the excavation. Then he smiled to himself, shaking his head. ‘Okay. We have nothing else to do here,’ he concluded walking alone towards his car. ‘The cavalry is on its way. I’m taking off before they arrest us all. I suggest you do the same.’

  92

  White rose, February 6th. 4:05 p.m.

  Sforza ran with his head down across the snow.

  After immobilizing and gagging the mercenary who had attacked him, he decided he had to reach the excavation point. He did not know exactly what to do, but he was certain that remaining in the same place was too dangerous; sooner or later, those who had given the order to kill him, would have asked the soldier he had neutralized for an explanation.

  As he advanced cautiously, sheltering behind the ridges of lava scattered over the expanse, he reflected; not only had he been very lucky but also very clever. Being able to remove the cartridge clip from a machine gun was not an easy task – especially without being caught. He had been very fast, faster than he himself would have believed possible.

  As soon as the man had pointed the gun at him, ready to fire, Sforza had shown him the clip. With a stupid smile on his face he had stood up and – threatening him with the gun – made him kneel. Then he had pulled out of his pocket a pair of handcuffs and forced him to put them on. He had completed the job, sticking a handkerchief in his mouth and tightening his scarf around his head.

  Thirty seconds later he moved towards the excavator, which was now about fifty metres away from him. The only thing he could make out clearly from his position was the mechanical arm. He crouched behind a rock and tried to study the situation.

  Lower than ground level there were at least a dozen men – some armed, some with faces masked by fear.

  Looking up, he could see on the left of the excavation site, next to a boulder with the vague shape of a box, other hostages standing still.

  And then he heard something unusual.

  He turned his head, looking towards the road and the noise seemed sharper, like a big bumblebee flying in his direction. Suddenly, over a cloudy front coming from the north, he spotted a shimmering dot flying at full speed towards him: a helicopter.

  After a few moments, the aircraft slowed down. It did not take him long to understand that it had stopped more or less above the spot where he had left the car, a few hundred metres from there.

  He pulled the small z-Nav binoculars out of his jacket and looked at the aircraft: it was white-and-blue and looked like a single engine. It had begun to turn round and seemed to be flying even lower. The right door opened at that moment.

  *

  The pilot of the Agusta Westland AW119 spotted Sforza’s rented pick-up on the edge of the caldera, amongst snowy rocks.

  To the north they could see boulders as big as cars, and in the immediate vicinity, a flat expanse of ice, along which the car, had probably arrived.

  The helicopter came down lower, wheeling round and trying to maintain a stable position.

  The snow on the ground began to rise and swirl.

  The door of the helicopter slid open and a breath of cold air invaded the cockpit. A special rope was lowered and one of the four men began to descend towards the ground.

  Tanaka put on his sunglasses and prepared to follow him. ‘There’s some movement over there. Go and see,’ he shouted to the pilot when he had grasped the rope between his fingers.

  The man nodded and gestured “okay” with his hand. He then saw a white car moving away from the excavation area and another identical vehicle, stationary with the doors opened.

  A moment later, the Japanese pulled the cable and began to descend, clinging with all his strength to the rope.

  Meanwhile, the young man who had preceded him was on the ground and was trying to hold the end to facilitate the descent.

  The helicopter did not move for a few seconds, as if suspended. Despite the strong blast, Tanaka had no difficulty getting to the ground.

  When his boots touched the ice, he gestured with his hands, and the AW119 rose.

  The Toyota Land Cruiser was parked with the engine running, one hundred and fifty metres west of the White Rose.

  The mercenary leader, not having heard from one of his men had come back to look for him. He found him, hand-cuffed, at the foot of a snow-covered ridge.

  While he and two companions came up to free him, the helicopter headed towards them.

  ‘Do not move!’ ordered a voice from the megaphone, a few moments later.

  ‘Are you ready?’ the mercenary leader cried in anguish, shouldering the M4.

  The Agusta Westland had begun to hover over them, and the roar of the engine, combined with the movement of air, had not allowed him to hear the answer.

  He stepped backwards, pointing his machine gun towards the belly of the helicopter.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he repeated, turning for a fraction of a second.

  Two colleagues were helping the mercenary stunned by Sforza. They lifted him bodily and approached the Toyota.

  ‘Do not take another step,’ the voice over the megaphone commanded. ‘Put down your weapons.’

  But the mercenaries did not obey him. The wounded man was placed on the back seat and the others followed. Not a second had passed before the car reversed and – in a squeal of tyres – sped off.

  And at that point, something happened that none of them had anticipated. A burst of gunfire coming from the AW119 swooped in front of the vehicle, missing it but lifting shards of ice from the earth, hitting the windshield.

  The driver veered suddenly into a sort of zig-zag in an attempt to dodge bullets. A moment later, a row of holes tore the hood of the car in two.

  But it was not enough to stop it. The Toyota was now launched at full speed towards the main road, where another car was waiting for them.

  The helicopter spun around, leaned in and began to follow, firing with its machine gun.

  *

  Hidetoshi Tanaka, next to Sforza’s pick-up, saw the bag with the Geosync logo just as the first shots sounded in the
air.

  He had walked around the vehicle, checking several times before breaking the window. In the front seat residues of food and a cup of coffee were visible. There was no sign of the device that the inspector had taken away from Reykjavik.

  Then, between the front seat and the rear, he had spotted the Geosync logo and recognized it: it was the bag that Prince Ibrahim had brought to the Harpa, the day before.

  Tanaka nodded to his colleague – who had come down before him – to move, and drew his Walther. He pulled the trigger and fired three shots at close range. The Toyota’s window disintegrated, and the shattered pieces of glass flew inside.

  Soon after, with the enthusiasm of a starving man before a wedding feast, he opened the door and took the bag. He put it on the ice – shielding his eyes with his hand to block out the sun – and opened it.

  For a moment he stood still, studying the apparently-empty bag, then he put his hand in it and pulled out a piece of paper folded into four parts.

  This is just the appetizer. The OCST are already in my possession, but you’ll have them once the mission is accomplished.

  Tanaka swore to himself, furious. The roar of the helicopter and machine guns was getting closer.

  ‘Have we got what we came for?’ the young man who had come down with him from the helicopter shouted. He was holding a Heckler & Koch mp7 machine gun in his hands and backed away in small steps towards the car.

  The helicopter, meanwhile, was approaching their position spraying the air with bullets.

  The young man turned to Tanaka.

  The Japanese was kneeling on the ice, a piece of paper held tightly in his hands. Suddenly he jumped up, leaving the bag on the ground. He lowered his glasses and seemed to scan the horizon. ‘Over there,’ he murmured, pointing to the excavator bucket a short distance away.