The banging of the chair stopped as Braco Zec pointed his gun at the young woman tied to it. ‘Cut that out,’ he said in fluent Italian. ‘I told you, do what we say and you’ll live.’ He dragged the chair and its gagged occupant away from the wall, then returned to the small apartment’s living room. Six other black-clad men and their equipment occupied most of the space, but he pushed through them to the window, peeling back his dark balaclava to reveal a weather-worn face, hair shaved down to a grey stubble. Deep creases across his forehead showed that he had witnessed - and endured - far more than most men of his thirty-four years.
The mercenaries had taken over the apartment that afternoon, Zec tricking the woman into letting them in by claiming to be delivering a parcel. She had been selected during the operation’s exacting planning phase, being the only single occupant of any of the suitable top floor apartments on the narrow Via degli Alfani. Considering what was across the street, it was perhaps inevitable that she was an aspiring artist.
He looked out at the eighteenth-century buildings: the museum complex containing the Galleria dell’Accademia. One of Florence’s top tourist attractions - and home to one of the world’s most famous pieces of art.
Their target.
Zec’s phone rang. Fernandez. ‘Yes?’
‘We’re here. Let us in.’
The Bosnian craned his neck for a better look at the street below. Two figures passed under a streetlight, approaching briskly. Fernandez and the Indian woman. The creases in Zec’s forehead deepened. To him, Dagdu’s presence was almost insulting, a sign that their employer didn’t trust them to carry out the job without supervision. Weren’t all their previous successes, including stealing a set of Chinese terracotta warriors out of their museum in Xi’an, and removing one of Islam’s holiest relics from Mecca itself, enough to prove their prowess? And Interpol was no nearer to catching them now than after their first ‘commission’ eight months earlier. Fernandez’s inside knowledge of how the police worked, how they thought, kept them several steps ahead.
He suppressed his annoyance - she
But there were no such problems. The soft clump of boots outside, then a single sharp rap on the door. Zec opened it, and Fernandez and his companion entered.
The Spaniard shared a brief smile of greeting with his second in command. ‘Anything to report?’
‘You’ve made the evening news,’ Zec told him. ‘The fire’s spreading - they’re calling in fire trucks from every surrounding town. And,’ he added meaningfully, ‘helicopters.’
‘Excellent.’ Fernandez dialled a number on his phone. ‘Status?’
‘Air traffic control has our flightplan,’ said the voice at the other end of the line. ‘We’re ready.’
‘Then go.’ He disconnected. ‘Where’s the roof access?’ Zec pointed at a skylight. ‘Okay, let’s get into position.’ He moved to address the rest of the team.
Madirakshi, behind him, looked into the bedroom. ‘What is this?’ she snapped on seeing the prisoner.
‘She won’t be a problem,’ said Zec. ‘She hasn’t seen our faces.’
Madirakshi’s expression was as fixed as her artificial eye. ‘No witnesses.’ She stepped into the bedroom. The bound woman, facing away from the door, twisted against her restraints, making panicked noises. She didn’t need to understand English to recognise the dangerous tone of the new arrival’s voice.
‘If you shoot her, the neighbours might hear,’ Fernandez warned.
‘I don’t need a gun.’ She stopped directly behind the other woman, whose muffled cries became more desperate.
‘Leave her,’ said Zec, coming into the room. ‘I promised she would live if she caused no trouble.’
Madirakshi ignored him. She placed her fingers against her right eye socket and pressed. There was a soft sucking sound, and with a faint plop something dropped into her waiting palm.
Her glass eye, glistening wetly.
Zec had seen many horrific things in his life, but the casual way the woman removed the prosthetic still produced a small shudder of revulsion. Disgust then turned to confusion as she took hold of the eye with both hands and twisted it. There was a click, and it split into two hemispherical halves. What was she doing?
The answer came as she drew her hands apart. Coiled inside the eye was a length of fine steel wire. By the time Zec realised it was a garrotte, Madirakshi had looped it round the defenceless young woman’s throat and pulled it tight.
‘No!’ Zec gasped, but Fernandez put a firm hand on his shoulder to pull him back. The Italian woman couldn’t even cry out, her airway crushed by the razor-sharp wire. She convulsed against the ropes. The chair thumped on the floor; Madirakshi pulled harder, sawing the wire through skin and flesh. Blood flowed down the woman’s neck. Her fingers clenched and clawed . . . then relaxed. One last bump, and the chair fell still.
Madirakshi unwound the garrotte and turned. For the first time, Zec saw her face as it really was, a sunken hole with the eyelids gaping like a tiny mouth where her right eye should have been. Another revolted shudder, accompanied by anger. ‘You didn’t have to do that!’ he said.
‘No witnesses,’ the Indian repeated. She took out a cloth and ran it down the length of the blood-coated wire. The garrotte clean, she re-coiled it, then fastened the two halves of the eye back into a single sphere.
‘We do,’ said Fernandez before Zec could respond. He leaned closer to his lieutenant, adding in a low voice, ‘I think perhaps having a baby has made you go a little soft, Braco. If this is going to be a problem . . .’
‘No problem,’ said Zec stiffly. ‘But I promised her—’
‘Never make promises you might not be able to keep,’ Fernandez told him, before clicking his fingers. The men in the living room looked round as one, ready for action.
Ten minutes later, all eight mercenaries were on the apartment’s sloping roof.
Fernandez peered over the edge. Below, Madirakshi left the building. Relieved to be rid of her at last, he backed up and faced his team. ‘Ready?’
The responses were all in the affirmative. Each man was now armed, compact MP5K sub-machine guns fitted with laser sights and suppressors slung on their backs. Other pieces of gear were attached to the harnesses they wore; not mere equipment webbing, but parachute-style straps able to support their bodyweight, and more.
The Spaniard looked at his watch. Five minutes to get everyone across to the roof of the Galleria dell’ Accademia, another five to eliminate the guards and secure the room containing their target, five more to prepare it - and themselves - for extraction . . .
Fifteen minutes to carry out the most audacious robbery in history.
He gestured to one of his men, Franco, who had already secured one end of a line inside the open skylight. At the other end was a barbed metal spear, currently loaded into a custom-built, gas-powered launcher.
Franco had already selected his target, a squat brick ventilation blockhouse poking up from the Galleria’s roof like a periscope. He tilted up the launcher. Fernandez watched him closely. This was a ‘wildcard moment’, the biggest risk in any operation. If the brickwork was too weak to take the weight, if someone heard the noise of launch or clang of impact and looked up at the wrong moment . . .
At least they could minimise the chances of the last. Franco raised a thumb. Another man, Sklar, held up a string of firecrackers, lit the fuse - and flung them down the street.
There was a small square at the Galleria’s southwestern corner. The fireworks landed at its edge. People jumped at the string of little explosions. Once the initial fright passed, some onlookers were annoyed, others amused by the display . . . but they were all looking at the ground.
‘Now,’ said Fernandez.
Franco pulled the trigger. There was a flat thud as compressed nitrogen gas blasted the spear across the street - and a sharp clang as the spearhead pierced the blockhouse.
All eyes below were still on the firecrackers.
Franco put down the launcher and tugged on the line, gingerly at first, then harder. The spear held. He pulled a lever on the launcher’s side to engage a winch mechanism and quickly drew the line taut.
