Ben was walking fast down a corridor when he turned on the radio handset and dialled it back to the frequency the gunmen had been using. He heard the harsh voice crackle out of the speaker.
The red plastic rocker switch on the side of the radio was the press and talk button. Ben thumbed it and said, ‘Uh, I’m afraid Antonio and Bruno won’t be joining us. They’re kind of tied up at the moment.’
Stunned silence.
‘I want to talk to the Russian,’ Ben said. ‘Now.’
There was another moment’s silence, then another voice rasped out of the radio. Speaking Italian, but with a heavy accent. The Russian. ‘Who the fuck is this?’
Ben’s Russian wasn’t as fluent as his Italian, but good enough to get his point over. ‘If you’re here to steal artwork, it’s my guess you’re interested in doing business. Correct? Over.’
Pause. ‘Go on,’ the voice rasped.
‘I have a business offer for you,’ Ben said. ‘Here are the terms. The police are on their way. You and your men put down your weapons and surrender to me immediately, and you have my word that eventually you’ll live to be a free man. Not for a couple of decades, maybe, but eventually. And I hear the food’s very good in Italian prisons. Over.’
The pause was longer this time. ‘Interesting. What if I decide to take my chances?’
‘Harm any more of those people down there, and today is the last day of your life.’
‘I see. You must be one of those one-man armies, that right? You’re gonna kick my ass, and the asses of all my friends down here? All on your own.’
‘Scagnetti and Bellomo didn’t take much.’
‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with. I think you’re the one who should surrender to me. I’d like to meet you.’
‘Maybe you will.’
‘Maybe I’ll just go on shooting hostages until you turn yourself in.’
‘Then I’ll withdraw my offer. You and all your men die.’
‘That’s a bold statement.’
‘It’s a promise,’ Ben said. ‘The offer is on the table. Think about it.’ He turned off the radio.
Anatoly tossed away the radio with a snort. He’d forgotten all about Pietro De Crescenzo, who was still cringing in his chair, shaking badly and expecting a bullet at any moment.
‘Who is this bastard?’ Rocco Massi said.
‘How the hell should I know who he is?’
Spartak Gourko had walked into the office, cradling his rifle in his arms. He barely glanced down at the bodies of the woman and the two dead men, or the blood that was pooling all over the floor.
‘He called the Carabinieri?’ Rocco said.
‘Fuck the police,’ Anatoly said, and Gourko let out a short laugh.
‘We should get out of here,’ Rocco said.
Anatoly snatched the Goya. ‘Come with me,’ he muttered, and burst out of the office. The others followed as he strode into the side room where Rykov, Turchin and Garrone were guarding the rest of the hostages. The guests were all much more subdued now, just a quiet sobbing from the young boy as his mother rocked him gently in her arms. A few faces peered up in fear as Anatoly walked in. He stuffed the Goya into its tailor-made case. It fitted perfectly, lying snug against the padding. He zipped it shut, then motioned to Rykov and Turchin. ‘Ilya, Vitaliy, some bastard is loose upstairs and thinks he’s John Wayne. Get him for me.’
‘He could be anywhere in the building,’ Rocco said. ‘You’ve got what you came for. Now let’s go.’
Anatoly gave him a long, hard stare. ‘You too. Get up there now. And you,’ he snapped at Garrone. The four men swapped glances, then headed for the gallery exit.
Now it was just Anatoly and Spartak Gourko left in the room. The fear among the hostages had intensified palpably.
‘Spartak, you stay here and make sure these pieces of shit keep still,’ Anatoly said. ‘Give me your knife.’
Gourko drew the weapon from his belt and tossed it to him. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I came to Italy to have some fun and that’s what I’m going to do.’ Anatoly marched over to the hostages. The teenage girl he’d admired earlier was sitting with her parents, watching his every move and not daring to make a sound. He reached out, grabbed her arm. Her face creased in terror and she whimpered.
‘Let’s find somewhere nice and private we can get better acquainted,’ he said, dragging her to her feet. The girl’s mother began to howl and tried desperately to hang on to her daughter. Gourko knocked her back with a hard stamping kick to the chest, and aimed his gun at her father with a look that said, ‘Go on, make my day.’ The other hostages were silent, apart from Donatella who stared at the two Russians and muttered something under her breath.
‘Maybe when I’m done with this bitch I’ll come back for that one,’ Anatoly chuckled. Gourko’s lips twitched into a faint smile. Anatoly hauled the girl away from the others and dragged her, screaming and writhing, towards the gallery.
While Massi and Garrone headed up a backstairs that doubled as a fire escape, Rykov and Turchin stalked the main stairs to the first floor. On the landing was the body of the old guy who’d died there earlier, his blood soaked into a wide area of carpet. They stepped over him as though he were roadkill and made their way through the maze of corridors. Every door they came to, they kicked open, ready to blast anything the other side of it. They found storage spaces, lecture rooms, classrooms. All empty.
Pushing through a set of fire doors, they came to a short flight of steps and then to what looked like a ceramics department with a couple of large workshops flanking the corridor. One of them had display units filled with clay pots and vases, and long benches covered in materials and tools. The other room contained a row of heavy-duty iron kilns, like gigantic ovens with sturdy deadlocks to seal their doors tightly shut and thick layers of insulating material to protect the wall and nearby surfaces. Fat metal flues disappeared into the heat-discoloured wall.
The Russians took a brief glance around the workshop, just long enough to ascertain that the guy they were looking for wasn’t hiding under a table or in a cupboard. Satisfied, they were just about to turn to leave when they heard the soft voice behind them.
‘Hey.’
The Russians spun around.
Ben had often wondered if you could improvise a silencer out of an empty plastic bottle. He’d never quite got around to experimenting, until now. The litre Pepsi bottle had been left in a waste bin, and he’d used some Sellotape he’d found to fix it to the muzzle of the Steyr. From the doorway of the workshop, he aimed down at the floor and let off a short flurry of muffled shots, sweeping left to right. The two men dropped their weapons and crumpled to the floor, shouting out in agony, clutching their feet.
Ben ripped the burst remains of the Pepsi bottle from his Steyr as he walked over to them. ‘That’s not bad, is
