The Seventh Commandment

by Tom Fox

  And Angelina decided to obey.

  Without saying a word, she simply turned towards the entrance, raced inside and began to run down the stairs.

  Ben’s horror at the sight of Angelina running into the vault’s entrance was immediate. If there had ever been an order he was willing to heed, it was the one to stay put and out of the way.

  ‘Angelina, stop!’ he shouted, but he knew the words were in vain even as they came from his mouth. ‘What are you doing?’

  She didn’t answer, and didn’t slow. And somehow, it didn’t come as a surprise to Ben that his own feet were beginning to move as his next words fell from his lips. ‘Oh, hell.’ He drew together his strength – and followed.

  Not wanting to be left entirely alone on the piazza, Thomás was in motion an instant later, following Ben into the vault.

  Ahead of them, Angelina had already descended a second flight of stairs and was rounding a final corner when a man in black, barely visible in the darkness, shot out of a concealed space in front of her. He swivelled deftly on his feet, and before Angelina could register anything else, the barrel of his gun was held at the level of her face. He was close enough for her to see his eyes on the other end of the weapon.

  His helmet! her thoughts barked. Helmet! It was the only fact she needed in order to react.

  ‘Stop!’ she shouted. ‘It’s me! I’m with you!’

  The Swiss Guardsman dressed in his Special Activities Teams kit didn’t lower his gun, but registered her words and held back from firing.

  Then, behind her, two more bodies became visible in his range of sight. Ben and Thomás descended in a flurry from the steps above.

  ‘It’s us,’ Ben corrected, his breath heavy, ‘all three of us.’

  Despite the gun still held at her face, Angelina turned around at the sound of his voice. She smiled, surprisingly happy to see him, and even the sight of Thomás’s young features encouraged her.

  When she turned back again, the Guardsman had been replaced by the commanding figure of Hans Heinrich.

  ‘What the hell are you doing down here?’ he shouted. ‘I told you all to stay put!’

  The opportunity to defend their infraction of his rules was, however, cut short by a barrage of small-arms fire that suddenly boomed through the access corridor.

  Heinrich’s men were in action without needing any additional command, their weapons levelled and brilliant flashes of light marking the explosions of return fire unleashed at targets Angelina couldn’t yet see.

  The sound of exploding stone, though, was one she knew well. Centimetres from her head, a bullet slammed into the rock wall and blew it apart. Shards of stone ricocheted into her face, and Angelina could feel blood start to pour from a dozen tiny wounds in her cheek.

  ‘You’re exposed!’ Heinrich cried out, reaching out towards her and her friends. ‘Quick, down, and over here!’

  He motioned towards a control box on the far side of the landing at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’ll cover you, just get your asses over there and behind that, all three of you!’

  None of them argued. Crouching as low as they could, Angelina, Ben and Thomás dodged across the small open landing as Heinrich fired a barrage of bullets into the space beyond.

  Seconds later, they were protected – as much as they could be – behind a large metal electronics control box, as the gun battle between Heinrich’s men and Emil’s played itself out around them.

  Beyond the box, as she peered around its edges, was a sight Angelina Calla never in her life thought she would see.

  The enormous door of the Vatican Bullion Vault stood open in the centre of the subterranean chamber that had been excavated for it a few years after the conclusion of World War Two. The vault itself was a massive concrete cube, built up right to the edges of the purpose-dug chamber, and its opened door revealing that its thick concrete exterior was only the external of a three-layer construction that made for more than a metre of solid wall on all sides, most of it metal.

  Inside, the vault shone with a radiant sparkle of more gold and silver than Angelina had ever seen.

  The light that illuminated it came from the far side of the vault, which was also open. There was no door there, Angelina realised as she looked at the scene more closely through the gunfire. It was an immense hole, obviously blown through the encasement by brute force. Beyond it, another excavated landing, more rugged than this.

  Angelina sprang back as a bullet slammed into the other side of the control box that was her only shield. Another flew into the stone wall above them, and Angelina, Ben and Thomás were showered in a rain of dust and debris.

  The gunfire sounded everywhere, reports echoing over the top of each other, the noise deafening.

  Until one noise rose above it.

  ‘ENOUGH!’

  The voice took advantage of a hesitation in the firing and boomed out with feral strength. ‘ENOUGH!’ it thundered again.

  As if controlled by the command, the firing ceased. The echoes wore away, an eerie silence replacing them.

  It took Angelina a few seconds to muster her courage, but she leaned sideways and tilted past the edge of the control box, looking again towards the vault.

  On its far side, a bank of men had their slew of firearms aimed in her direction. On her side of the space, Heinrich’s men had theirs raised back. Face to face, barrel to barrel, across an expanse interrupted by the tunnel-like structure of the vault in its centre.

  From the midst of the men on the far side, a single figure emerged. He stood among his weaponised companions, wearing a suit though covered by a protective bulletproof vest – the only one on his side of the vault that was. As if he’d been prepared for anything, at least for himself.

  Angelina heard Ben flinch, his breath drawing in sharply over his teeth as he leaned out behind her and took in the same scene.

  The identity of the man was clear to her from the headshot she’d seen in Heinrich’s office.

  ‘We seem to be at something of an impasse,’ Emil Durré announced, his voice tense but controlled. He directed his sardonic expression towards Heinrich, who was crouched in the midst of his men. Recognising he was being addressed, the Major rose slightly, signalling his troops to keep low and cover him.

  Emil had identified the man in charge.

  ‘I think we both know,’ he continued, ‘that there are only a few ways this can end.’

  Angelina was shocked by the man’s confidence. It was true that he had a sizeable group of men around him, all armed and clearly willing to kill, but Emil Durré was standing with more than a dozen Swiss Guard elites pointing guns at his head, and yet he spoke with an almost preternatural calm.

  Preternatural. Was it that thought that caused her to take notice of Thomás, huddled at her left?

  He was still crouched down, his back to the metal control box, knees in front of his chest, rocking on his ankles and muttering.

  For the briefest instant, his behaviour distracted Angelina from the drama playing itself out a few metres away.

  Because, she realised, Thomás wasn’t muttering. He was whispering a single phrase, over and over again.

  ‘The prophecies aren’t over yet. The prophecies aren’t over yet. The prophecies aren’t over yet.’

  It was at precisely that moment that the world began to shake.

  89

  The Vatican Bullion Vault

  The shaking began as a rumble, but in a heartbeat became something more. Deep underground, massed beneath three storeys of stone, concrete, tarmac and the buildings of the city above, everyone in the vault chamber felt a sudden, new terror as the earth unleashed its own violence to overtake their own.

  The movement was erratic, thrashing. Emil lost his footing and toppled on to the man next to him, and behind her Angelina could feel Ben’s crouch give way as his body fell against hers. She reached forward to grab the control box for support, but as the earth itself shook and vibrated, there was nothing that felt stable. Be
neath her feet the ground moved one way, above her it moved another.

  Cement, stone and dirt burst their way through the crumbling support structure above the chamber, and started to fall down on them all in thumps and crashes. The vault itself, already weakened by the chemical treatments and explosives Emil’s men had used to infiltrate it, not to mention the massive hole they’d blown through one of its sides, could no longer withstand the earthquake’s violent vibrations. It split across a seam that ran ceiling to floor, the force of the moving earth tearing apart the ‘indestructible’ treasury of human wealth.

  Unsure, at first, what was happening, men on both sides of the splitting vault squeezed down on their triggers, gunfire spraying into an air already filled with falling debris. But at some point survival instincts overtake command instructions even in the most well-trained of people, and as the world bellowed and collapsed around them, both Heinrich’s men and Emil’s simply reached after something, anything, to support them.

  The shaking went on for what seemed an impossibly long time, but then, as swiftly as it came, it ceased.

  The room went from explosive noise to dead silence in an instant, punctuated only by the intermittent thud and clunk of stones dropping from above.

  That, and just to her left, the dust-covered frame of Thomás, still huddled, eyes pinched closed in terror, but whose lips were still moving.

  ‘And then the earth shall quake,’ he whispered, quoting from the prophecies that had so transfixed him. He repeated the phrase over and over again.

  ‘The earth shall quake. The earth shall quake.’

  And the lull came to an end.

  With a thunderous boom louder than anything a storm could produce, the earth lurched into motion again – a singular jolt that knocked over half the men still standing.

  As its sound faded, it was replaced by another as the earth between the opposing groups trembled, then simply fell away.

  An enormous sinkhole had been opened up by the quake, and as its upper surface gave way, the flooring of the vault tore from its moorings and ripped itself from the walls.

  With a sickening slowness, a chasm emerged beneath the vault, growing deeper and deeper. What little of the flooring hadn’t already fallen in, now slanted at straining angles, the remaining contents of the vault sliding off their shelves and falling with golden shimmers into the emerging darkness below.

  ‘Grab what we’ve got!’ Emil’s voice suddenly boomed out again. ‘Everything you can, and get out of here!’

  Whatever the scenarios for victory might have been before, all that was left now was to survive, and to make it out with whatever they’d already extracted and got to a distance far enough away that it wasn’t being pulled down into the massive hole.

  Emil’s men scrambled into motion, grabbing bags and packs while trying to keep their weapons trained on Heinrich’s team across the chasm. But the ground still rumbled, the flooring lurching into unexpected motion, the danger unpredictable and violent.

  It was a danger one man didn’t adapt to quickly enough.

  A heavy bag in one hand and his Glock in the other, his balance faltered as a new vibration shook the earth. He spread his feet on instinct, trying to adapt, but the ground beneath him angled too steeply. The weight of the gold in his hand pulled him towards the hole in the earth, and even after he released his grasp and let the bag go, gravity had already pulled him too far off his footing. The only way his body was going was down, and as he reached the ledge the speed of his descent increased as his scream began.

  ‘Ridolfo!’ another man cried out, reaching forth a hand to try to grab him by the pack on his back, but the man’s tumble couldn’t be stopped. He cried out as his footing met open air, his eyes growing wide on a disfigured face as the inevitability of what was coming registered. A second later, he fell over the edge of what had formerly been the vault’s floor, his scream fading as he disappeared into the darkness.

  The man who had tried to save him remained rooted to his spot, one arm angled around a beam to support himself while his other was still reached out in the failed effort at rescue.

  As other men grabbed what they could and fled in retreat, this man stayed motionless, his eyes on the spot where his friend had fallen out of his sight.

  And then they turned with fury to face across the vault.

  Angelina recognised his face.

  90

  André felt an emotion within him he’d rarely experienced in his life. In front of him, so close that his fingertips had brushed against the man’s pack as he’d reached out for him, Ridolfo had simply slipped away. His one true friend. A man he’d known for years, with whom he’d been partnered for almost as long. The one man who was always at his side, and who never would be again.

  The pain of genuine loss emerged from somewhere deep within him, a recess André didn’t know was there, and tore its way through all his senses. His fingers trembled, his sight blurred. He could taste the emotion on the buds of his tongue and smell the rage through his flared nostrils. He could still hear Ridolfo’s cry, though in reality it had already faded to silence, as if it would forever remain in his ears.

  In that stark, unexpected instant, André’s whole world changed.

  They – he and Ridolfo – had been fighting for his father before. For the vision his father had, for a future filled with extravagance and ease. They’d worked side by side for a cause, selfish though it may have been. Now he, alone, felt that cause evaporate – not from his grasp, but from his desire. His father and the rest of the team were evacuating enough wealth from the crumbling room to see them all set for life, but all at once the thought lost its appeal to André. He wasn’t interested. Not any more. Not without his friend.

  His blurring eyes telegraphed all his rage and anguish across the pit at the centre of the vault. They fell on Heinrich and his men. His arm was still outstretched, though now it had become an extended finger, pointing. Accusing.

  ‘You!’ he shouted, his voice tortured, at no one in particular and at everyone in general – everyone opposite him who represented the source and cause of his loss. ‘You did this!’

  And his eyes were transformed into an unspoken threat.

  Angelina recognised André from her perch at the edge of the control box. His voice was unfamiliar and his face was contorted in emotion, but the features were unmistakable. The man had high, well-defined cheekbones. Artfully arched eyebrows. A sturdy jawline. Magazine good looks.

  He was the one Heinrich had identified as André Durré, and he was one of the men who had tried to kill her. Twice.

  It didn’t take Angelina long to sort out that the man who’d fallen to his death had been his partner and, through the rage that loss was evoking in him, a close friend to André. He’d been the second man who’d chased after her.

  As she watched, the furious man slowly reached his free arm to his back while his other remained held outward in accusation. She knew a gun would appear from behind his belt before the gesture was complete.

  Angelina couldn’t escape the sudden thought that her part in this whole affair was running full circle. It had begun with this man firing a gun at her as she stared down at the river. Now, a gun in his hand again, he was in a position to bring it to an end.

  As the small Glock 25 appeared from behind his son’s back, Emil saw the immediate future in vivid detail. Ridolfo was gone, and André was overcome – a fact that surprised Emil only in its extremity of emotion. His son had always been too thick to make a host of friends on his own. Thrusting the two of them together had provided André with his only close friendship in years, and all at once it had been taken away from him, with an emotional impact André wasn’t prepared to handle.

  His son was going to take matters into his own hands, and it was going to end badly. Emil saw the scene unfold in his head: André would fire, likely at whichever Swiss Guardsman was closest. He’d fire, and they would all fire back. In under a second the vault would fill with a new r
ain of bullets, and with protective cover reduced by the crumbling of the room, the chances of any of Emil’s men making it out alive were slim.

  The whole scene played out in his mind in an instant, and Emil knew he had to prevent it becoming reality.

  He took two massive steps forward, arms outstretched for balance on the sloping floor, then used one to gently push down André’s gun.

  ‘It’s not worth it, son,’ he said flatly. ‘We have plenty.’ The riches were the point of this, after all. The whole reason they’d committed themselves to his visionary project. ‘We’ll live a good life. You’ll never have to work another day.’

  Spittle shot from André’s lips as he answered. ‘It doesn’t matter, any of that.’ An enraged sob burst its way out of his throat. ‘I had a friend!’

  ‘Stop this,’ his father insisted, disgusted by the overt emotion. ‘Accept the hits you have to take, André. This is over. It’s time for us to go.’

  The tension in the room had brought everyone else to silence. A dozen guns were trained on André, but none of Heinrich’s men wanted to open fire and initiate another wave of the battle they’d had before. They were more exposed now, too. There was no way a renewed assault ended well for anyone.

  Emil’s hand continued to press down on André’s arm, his eyes pleading for him to obey. His son’s breath came in rapid bursts.

  Then, to everyone’s utter surprise, Thomás burst upright from his huddle behind the electrical box. All the timidity that Angelina had witnessed in him before was gone. The young man was a vision of power and determination, his eyes red – from the dust in the air or from some interior possession Angelina could not tell. He bolted over her and marched to the front of Heinrich’s men, standing at full height less than a metre from the edge that broke abruptly into the sinkhole.

  ‘Nothing is over!’ he shouted, his voice like thunder. In a gesture that strangely mimicked André’s accusing posture of a moment before, Thomás held out an arm and pointed an accusing finger squarely at Emil. ‘Not for you!’ he spat.