by James Becker
“Why?”
“You might not know how the institutional police mind works, but I do. I’ve had dealings with them before, close up and personal. If a couple of your local rozzers walked in here now and saw these two men lying on the floor, they would be whisked straight off to a hospital and we would be arrested for possession of firearms and assault. Probably,” Mallory went on, pointing at Giacomo, “for causing actual or grievous bodily harm in his case. The fact that he actually triggered the antitheft device on the book safe himself would be deemed to be irrelevant. We both knew what would happen when he stuck the letter opener into the slot, and in the mind of a policeman that would be just the same as if we’d sat on him and then hammered nails into his hands.”
“But they were going to kill us,” Robin protested.
“That’s true, but also irrelevant. The law these days invariably favors the perpetrator, not the victim.”
“What about the guns?”
“That was why I stopped you touching the second pistol with your bare hands. If you had handled it, which a fingerprint comparison would show, how could you then prove that one of these two Italians brought it here? Even if you did your best to wipe it clean, there could still be partial prints on it that would incriminate you. And possession of a pistol in this allegedly free country, I should remind you, invariably results in a mandatory prison sentence.”
Robin nodded slowly.
“I see what you mean,” she said. “So, what do we do?”
Mallory stood up.
“We leave,” he replied, “but we have to time this right, and we will definitely be calling the cops.”
He stepped out of the office and checked that the door of the apartment, which had been closed when the four of them entered, was locked. It was, the catch on the Yale lock having clicked into place. Then he walked back to the desk, pulled on the second pair of cotton gloves he’d been wearing earlier, picked up the pistol that Robin had removed from underneath the desk, and ejected the magazine. Using his thumb, he stripped all the nine-millimeter cartridges out of it, the gleaming brass ammunition forming a small pile on the desk, and replaced the magazine in the butt of the weapon. Then he pulled back the slide and an additional cartridge, which had been in the chamber of the pistol and ready to fire, spun out of the breech.
“It’s not a very big pistol,” Robin said, “but that’s a lot of bullets.”
Mallory glanced at the model number etched into the slide of the weapon.
“I’ve never seen one of these before,” he said, “but I have fired the odd automatic before, thanks to a friend of mine down at the Royal Navy Base at Culdrose. This is a Beretta, an Italian weapon, and according to this the model is a PX4 Storm in nine millimeter. The magazine holds fifteen rounds and there was another one in the chamber, so that’s sixteen in total. The fact that the weapon was ready to fire is another reason why I think these two men probably intended to kill both of us, and quite apart from being a really uncomfortable thought, that does raise a bunch of other questions.”
Mallory slid the second pistol, the one he had already handled, into his jacket pocket, together with one of the suppressors, the two fully loaded spare magazines, and all but three of the ejected cartridges.
“You’re taking that with you?” Robin said, more as a statement than a question.
Mallory nodded.
“There’s a lot about this situation that really worries me,” he replied, “and I think that having a weapon we can use is a really good idea, just in case anybody decides to start shooting at us.”
“So, what about the other pistol?” Robin asked. “What are you going to do with that?”
“I’m going to put it back in his pocket along with the suppressor,” Mallory said, pointing at the second unconscious Italian, “and the magazine and these three cartridges in Giacomo’s jacket. When the cops arrive, that will more or less guarantee that both these men end up in the slammer. There’ll probably be a bit of head scratching over why one man has the weapon and the other one has the magazine and ammunition, but I don’t think either of them will be back out on the streets for quite a while.”
“But who are they?” Robin asked again, watching closely as Mallory did exactly what he’d described.
“I don’t know.” Mallory sat down again, reached across the desk, and picked up one of the two wallets they’d taken from the pockets of the unconscious men. “Perhaps there’s something in here that might give us a clue,” he added.
His touch was clumsy inside the cotton gloves, and he fumbled as he extracted the contents, which proved to be somewhat sparse and largely unhelpful. There were two currency sections at the back of the wallet, one containing exactly one thousand euros, and the other precisely two thousand pounds sterling, both consisting of crisp new high-value notes. There were no credit cards, driving licenses, business cards, passports, or anything that conveyed the slightest indication of the actual identity of the man lying on the floor.
“I’ll make you a prediction,” Mallory said. “I’ll bet that the second wallet contains exactly the same amount of cash, even the same denomination of notes, as this one.”
“And that means what, exactly?”
Mallory didn’t reply for a moment but stretched out his hand again and opened the second wallet, to reveal the same amount of cash, exactly as he had expected.
“It means,” he said then, “that these two men have been given the same weapons, money, and equipment, and no identification documents.” He pointed at the two mobile phones sitting on the desk, took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and carefully wiped the one that he had touched with his bare hands. “They’ve even got identical phones. Whoever they are, it was obviously intended to be a deniable operation, with no link between these men and the organization or government that’s employing them.”
“Government?” Robin asked, the pitch of her voice rising sharply in alarm. “You think some government sent them?”
“Probably not, but I do know it’s standard practice to make sure agents sent on sensitive operations carry nothing to identify them, just in case they get caught. If nothing else, that muddies the waters so that there can never be actual proof that they are employed by any particular country or government. It’s called a deniable operation.”
Mallory took out his own wallet and slid all the cash into it, then carefully wiped both of the wallets he’d emptied to remove any trace of his fingerprints and tossed them back onto the desk.
“You’re stealing that cash?”
“Damn right I am. They won’t be needing it where they’re going, and we can certainly use it.”
Robin nodded.
“Fair point,” she said, “as long as you split it fifty-fifty with me. Now, how do we get out of here without whoever it is in the SUV seeing us? Bearing in mind that the only way down to street level is to use the spiral staircase, where we’ll be clearly in view.”
“Timing is everything,” Mallory said, standing up, “and we need to go now, before the bad guy in the Range Rover starts to wonder why his friends are taking so long to retrieve what they came to collect and to dispose of us.”
He picked up the book safe, taking care not to touch any of the coagulating blood on the leather cover, cleaned the blade of the letter opener, and then slid the steel point into the slot. He waited for the click that would show the lid was unlatched, opened the book safe to remove the parchment, and then quickly reset the mechanism. He cleaned the cover, shifting as much of the blood as he could, using most of a packet of tissues that Robin produced from her handbag.
“The safest place for the parchment is back in this, I think,” he said, “and then you should probably put it in your safe. I don’t think we want to be carrying it round with us.”
He picked up the parchment and replaced it in the medieval book safe, then pressed the lid closed. Robin
carried it over to her safe, placed it inside at the back of one of the shelves, and then locked the door.
Mallory looked at the two Italians again, but both men were still unconscious. He had no idea how long that happy state of affairs was likely to last, but he knew the clock was ticking. He took a last glance around at the office, making sure that neither of them had missed anything, then nodded to Robin.
“Now we can call the cops,” he said. “But we don’t have to tell them anything. Well, only one thing, just in case the man or men in the SUV are also carrying weapons. I’ll handle that. As soon as I’ve got through, you scream. Then I’ll leave the phone off the hook for a few seconds so they’ll know exactly where to come. Okay?”
Robin nodded.
“I’ll do my best,” she said, “but I’m not really much of a screamer.”
“Oddly enough, I didn’t think you were,” Mallory replied.
He lifted the receiver from the phone on the desk and laid it down. Then he dialed triple nine, and as soon as he heard the call connecting he pointed his finger at Robin, who obliged with a piercing screech. Then Mallory took over, muffling and changing his voice by the simple expedient of partially covering his mouth with his left hand.
“Oh my God,” he yelled. “He’s got a gun! He’s holding a pistol!”
He thumped and banged the desk quite violently, and slammed one of the chairs into it. They could both hear the tinny sound of the emergency operator’s responses from the earpiece of the telephone handset, but then Mallory ended the call.
“Are you sure that was long enough?” Robin asked. “For them to locate where the call was coming from, I mean?”
“It should be, yes. Establishing the location is the first thing they do, and if they think there’s a woman in danger—and that was a pretty convincing scream, thank you—and especially if there’s a chance of firearms being involved, they’ll be here in minutes.”
“So your plan is?”
“We wait until we hear the sounds of the sirens, because they’re bound to have their blues and twos working. We’ll hear them coming at the same time as the guys in the SUV, and as soon as we do we leg it out of here and down the staircase. Then along the alleyway to the main street, and then we just walk away. The opposition will probably see us, especially if they switch on their headlights, but unless they get out of the car and follow us on foot, we’ll be long gone before they can drive around to the main street and intercept us. And they might not be so keen to leave their vehicle if they know a police car is going to be arriving within a matter of seconds.”
“And if they do decide to risk it and chase after us down the alleyway?” Robin asked. “What then?”
“We can probably outrun them, but even if we can’t I’ve got a whole pocketful of nine-millimeter reasons why they should keep their distance.”
And then there was no more time for talking, because both of them simultaneously heard the distant but quite unmistakable sound of a siren, the atonic wailing noise almost immediately getting louder.
“Quicker than I thought,” Mallory said. “That sounds like our cue to get out of here.”
He picked up his computer bag, looped the strap over his shoulder, and led the way to the door of the apartment. He listened for a few seconds, concentrating on the noise of the approaching siren, then nodded: it sounded as if the police car was only a matter of a few hundred yards away.
Mallory turned the handle of the Yale lock and pulled the door open wide, the noise of the police siren immediately virtually doubling in intensity.
And for a moment, he just stood there, realizing that there was a third possible course of action that could be taken by the opposition that he had never even considered. In the same instant, he realized another fundamental truth: that in a dangerous situation having a weapon tucked away in a pocket and largely inaccessible was exactly the same as having no weapon at all.
Because standing right in front of him, a pistol held loosely in his right hand, was another black-haired and heavily built man wearing a dark suit.
18
Dartmouth, Devon
It was difficult to know who was the more surprised—Mallory or the unidentified stranger—but perhaps predictably it was Robin who reacted first and fastest.
As the man outside the door raised his right arm to aim the pistol, she stepped forward to put herself in front of Mallory.
A half smile appeared for the briefest of instants on the man’s face as he watched the diminutive dark-haired girl approach him. Perhaps he was wondering who she was, but it didn’t look as if he perceived her as any kind of threat.
A split second later, he realized his mistake.
Robin stretched out her left hand, the fingers and thumb open, settled it apparently quite gently on his right forearm and slid the web of her hand down to his wrist, as if she wanted to simply force the aim of his pistol away from her. But that was only a part of her attack strategy.
Moving with sudden speed, she ducked down under his arm and swiveled so that her back was toward him. And then she pulled down with both hands on his right arm, her movements fluid and well practiced. Her back acted as a fulcrum, and the stranger, who weighed at least twice as much as she did, sailed apparently effortlessly over her to land flat on his back, his breath forced explosively out of his lungs. But she didn’t let go of his right arm, and as he tumbled onto his back, she braced herself and tugged, instantly dislocating his shoulder.
The man took a sudden intake of breath, and almost immediately released it in a howl of pain.
Robin twisted his wrist sharply, and the pistol fell from his grasp to clatter against the top step of the spiral staircase. She took two steps forward and kicked out, flicking the weapon off the step and sending it tumbling into the darkness below. She knelt beside the man and applied pressure to his neck, rendering him unconscious, and quickly used a couple more cable ties to lash his wrists and ankles together. As a final refinement, she used another cable tie to secure the arm that she hadn’t dislocated to the lowest part of the steel rail that ran along the edge of the balcony.
Then she turned back to look at Mallory, as the headlights of an approaching vehicle washed briefly over the scene, the flashing blue lights on its roof bar leaving them in no doubt about its identity.
“Now we really must go,” she said, and immediately began descending the staircase, holding on to the metal rail and taking the steps two at a time.
Before he followed her, Mallory bent down, checked the man’s pockets, and took out exactly what he had expected to find—a spare magazine for an automatic pistol and a wallet stuffed with crisp new notes—then stepped over the recumbent figure lying on the external landing and quickly descended the staircase.
At the bottom, they turned toward the main street and ran down the alleyway, only stopping when they emerged at the other end, because a couple running would attract too much attention. But they walked as quickly as they could, side by side, heading away from Robin’s shop.
* * *
On the street behind them, the interior light of a second Range Rover illuminated briefly as the doors opened and two men climbed out. At the same moment, the big engine of the SUV rumbled into life, and the vehicle moved slowly away from the curb and down the street, well ahead of the approaching police car.
One of the two men on foot ran quickly down the alleyway, taking exactly the same route away from the scene as Mallory and Robin were following, but perhaps nearly a hundred yards behind them. At the end of the alleyway, he turned right and continued running, looking ahead through the evening gloom until he was sure that he had identified his quarry. Then he slowed to a brisk walk, fast enough to catch up with them.
His instructions were quite clear: the girl was expendable, but the man Jessop had to be taken alive so that they could recover the relic. But “alive” didn’t mean undamaged, and
as he ran, closing the distance, he pulled his Beretta pistol from his pocket and screwed on the suppressor. As soon as he got close enough, he’d take down the woman and stop the man, maybe by shooting him in the leg. Then he could grab the relic, if he had it in his pocket, or drag him into the car and make him tell them exactly where it was. Either way, it would be the endgame.
* * *
Toscanelli climbed swiftly up the spiral staircase and walked into the apartment. He stared at the scene that confronted him in the office with an expression of disbelief on his face, then walked the couple of steps to the desk, closed the lid on the laptop computer—Robin’s machine—sitting there, and unplugged the power adapter, which he slid into his pocket.
Taking the computer was only the first of the actions he knew he had to take, and which had been made clear to him back in Rome. He looked down at both the unconscious men, reached into his other pocket to remove his Beretta pistol, took out the suppressor, which he attached to the end of the barrel, then walked across to the first man, Giacomo.
“You stupid, stupid man,” he said in Italian, crouching down to look at the injuries to the man’s hands. “What happened in here?” he wondered, because he had no idea what could have caused the damage he was seeing.
He knew Giacomo would need medical attention, and quickly, and leaving him there was a risk Toscanelli knew he simply couldn’t take. He stood up, slipped off the safety catch on the Beretta, and fired a single shot through the man’s head. The report of the pistol sounded like a dull wet thud.
He walked over to the second man and shook his shoulder, trying to revive him. The man moaned softly, but was clearly still unconscious. Toscanelli listened for a moment. The noise of the siren had died away, and he could see from the flashing lights outside that the police car had come to a stop. That probably meant the occupants were already on their way over to the building, so he had no time to lose, and certainly no time to wait for his companion to recover his senses.
