The girl’s eyes opened just a little wider as she saw Ben. The man seemed to tense, sensing a new presence in the room. He turned.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ People tended to revert to their native tongue in moments of surprise. The Russian.
Ben raised the empty Steyr. He took a step closer. ‘Have you forgotten our conversation? I thought we agreed you weren’t going to harm anyone else.’
The Russian blinked. ‘It’s you,’ he said, switching from Russian to English. He spoke it with an American accent. Too many Hollywood movies.
‘Get away from her,’ Ben said, motioning with the gun. ‘I haven’t touched her. See for yourself.’
‘Get away from her.’
The Russian stepped away from the girl, but he kept hold of the knife. The teenager immediately covered herself with the tatters of her dress and curled up tight on the chaise longue, making small sounds and shuddering as though she’d been thrown in icy water.
‘Who are you?’ the man asked, with what sounded like genuine curiosity.
‘My name’s Ben Hope.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m just a tourist,’ Ben said. ‘Came to see some art.’
‘Looks like I picked the wrong gallery.’
‘Looks that way to me, too,’ Ben said, and took another step.
The Russian chuckled. For a man with a machine gun aimed directly at his face, he was a little too composed. ‘You are from England.’
‘I don’t live there any more. And you’re Ukrainian,’ Ben said.
‘Excellent guess. My name is Anatoly Shikov.’ He said it as though it should mean something to Ben. It didn’t, but just the fact that the Russian had told him meant a lot. It meant he was confident Ben wasn’t leaving the room alive. The guy had some kind of angle – what it was, Ben didn’t know yet.
‘I think you should lose the knife, Anatoly,’ Ben said. ‘Things will go better for you that way. Then you can take me to where you’re keeping the hostages. It’s time to give this up.’
Anatoly’s blue eyes twinkled with a glacier light. ‘I disagree. I think you should drop the gun. I think you would have shot me by now. I think I am the only one armed here, yes?’ He waggled the knife loosely in his hand, then pointed the tip of the blade at Ben.
Ben shrugged and tossed away the Steyr. ‘Someone’s going to get hurt, Anatoly, and it’s not going to be me.’
‘Let us find out.’
In the next split second, Ben’s eyes darted to the knife. It was a strange-looking weapon, with a large nub on the top of its hilt that wasn’t a bayonet-fixing lug. The Russian was holding it oddly in his hand, and the way he was pointing it . . .
Almost as if it were a gun . . .
There was a sharp crack and something blurred through the air towards Ben. At the same instant he realised what the weapon was, he was ducking out of the way. Fast, but not quite fast enough to avoid the hurtling blade. It ripped through the left shoulder of his T-shirt, slicing the flesh on its way past before embedding itself with a judder in a bookcase behind him.
Ben had heard of the infamous Spetsnaz ballistic knife, but he’d never seen one in action before. That strange nub was a release catch for the blade, which was propelled faster than a crossbow bolt by the powerful spring inside the hilt. Combat dagger meets flick-knife meets harpoon gun. Very KGB. Very effective. He touched his left shoulder and his fingers came away thick with blood. No pain yet, just a burning tightness. The pain would come, though.
‘Handy little toy,’ Ben said. ‘You should practise more with it.’
Anatoly tossed away the empty hilt and backed off several steps, moving round in a curve towards the fireplace. Groping behind him, he grabbed hold of a heavy cast iron poker and swung it wildly as Ben closed in fast. Ben stepped out of the range of the blow, felt the humming
Anatoly saw the lump of marble flying towards him and tried to bat it out of the way like a baseball player. The world’s thinnest bat against the world’s heaviest ball. The poker hummed through the air and connected with nothing. The chunk of marble caught him on the cheekbone with a solid crunch. He dropped the poker and looked dazed for just an instant, then staggered back across the room with blood pouring from the ragged gash below his eye.
‘I told you not to harm these people,’ Ben said. He picked up the poker. ‘You should have listened to me.’
Anatoly staggered across the room to the bookcase in which the Spetsnaz blade had embedded itself. He twisted and ripped it out of the wood. His eyes were filled with maniacal hatred. He screamed and came running at Ben like a wild man, holding the blade high.
He was three metres away when Ben brought the poker down hard and fast and let go. It sailed like an iron spear, and Anatoly ran right into it. Their combined momentum drove it deep into his brain. He went down on his back as if hit by a cannonball and lay still. He was still clutching the blade and his eyes remained fixed on Ben’s, but there was no life in them any more.
Ben could feel the warm wetness of the blood running down his shoulder, making his T-shirt stick to him. A trickle went down his arm and dripped from his elbow. He turned to the girl, went over to the chaise longue where she was still curled up tight, shaking, staring at nothing. He felt her brow. Clammy and cold. She was going into shock.
He was about to say something reassuring, when he heard the front door of the Academia Giordani burst in.
The dark blue Land Rovers with the white tops and the red stripes down the side and CARABINIERI in big white letters across the doors had rolled silently up the drive to the Academia Giordani and were clustered outside the front entrance. The assault team, clad in back paramilitary gear, helmets and goggles, took down the front door with a battering ram and stormed inside. In seconds, the entrance foyer and hallway were swarming with armed cops.
Spartak Gourko had burst through the gallery the moment he heard the crash of the front door. At the same instant, Rocco Massi emerged from the passage that led towards the fire escape. Neither of them hesitated. As the police stormed into the hall waving their submachine guns and riot shotguns, Massi and Gourko opened up on them. The crossfire was wild and devastating. Five, eight, ten cops went down before the return fire drove Massi and Gourko together back down the glass walkway. Panes shattered around them as they sprinted back to the gallery. ‘Anatoly?’ Gourko roared at the Italian. Massi shook his head, as if to say ‘I haven’t seen him’.
A dozen Carabinieri gave chase. Their commander’s eyes opened wide behind his assault goggles when he saw the displays of artwork. His department would have hell to pay if a single canvas was ruined by a stray bullet.
Massi and Gourko didn’t share his concern. As the Carabinieri emerged into the open gallery space, they were waiting for them. Gourko levelled his AR-15 and let off a long burst at the invading cops that took down one man and sent the rest scurrying for cover. Three display cabinets exploded into spinning fragments. Tatters of canvas
