The Sacred Vault

the winchman.

The engine noise rose to a scream as the helicopter climbed.

Another jolt as the statue left the floor - this time for good. Fernandez and his team were lifted with it. The noise and downwash from the Skycrane were horrific, but if everything went to plan they wouldn’t have to endure it for long . . .

More power. The statue began to twist in the wind as it rose. Fernandez had expected that; there was no way to prevent it. All he could do was hope it didn’t get out of control.

Four metres up, five, the ascent getting faster. The Galleria spun around them - and then they cleared the roof. They were out!

He scanned the city as they continued to climb, the Skycrane lethargically tipping into forward flight and turning northwards. Strobe lights flicked through the streets leading to the museum. The police. Fernandez smiled. They were too late.

There was one police vehicle that concerned him, though. Off to the southwest, he saw a pattern of pulsing lights in the sky. Another helicopter.

Heading towards them.

As he’d expected, it had been called in to provide aerial support for the cops responding to the car bombs - but the Skycrane’s deviation from its course and the alarms at the Galleria dell’ Accademia had caused someone to put two and two together and realise that the explosions were, like the forest fire, just a diversion.

The Skycrane picked up speed, Florence rolling past below. Not quickly enough. The police chopper would rapidly catch up with the lumbering Sikorsky - and for the plan to succeed, the next stage had to be carried out without witnesses.

Fernandez looked ahead, eyes narrowed against the blasting wind. The city’s northern edge was not far away, twinkling lights abruptly replaced by the blackness of woods and fields as the landscape rose into the hills. No roads; only an aircraft could pursue them.

But he had planned for that. Another member of his team was positioned on a rooftop at the city’s periphery, directly beneath the Skycrane’s course.

The Sikorsky and its strange cargo swept over the urban boundary. The police chopper was gaining fast. Glaring blue-white light pinned the Skycrane from behind as the other aircraft’s spotlight flicked on, playing over the green fuselage before tilting down to turn the suspended statue a dazzling white.

The police helicopter closed in—

And suddenly dropped out of the sky in a sheet of flame, spiralling down to smash explosively into the woods beyond the city.

Fernandez’s man on the ground had been armed with a Russian SA-18 anti-aircraft missile, the shoulder-fired weapon homing in on the helicopter’s exhaust and detonating over a kilogram of high explosive on impact.

The Spaniard smiled. The Italian air force would now be called in to hunt down the helicopter - which was exactly what he wanted them to do. Because a few minutes from now, he and his men would be putting as much distance between themselves and the Skycrane as possible.

More dark forests below as the Sikorsky descended and slowed. They were nearing their destination: an isolated road winding through the hills. He spotted a red light flashing amongst the trees. The last team member, waiting with the truck.

Treetops thrashed in the helicopter’s downdraught as it hovered, the statue swinging pendulously for several worrying moments before settling down. The truck’s trailer was directly beneath it - a standard twelve-metre container, with an open top. A metal frame of a very specific shape had been welded to its floor and covered with thick foam padding. Beside the trailer, a large object was hidden beneath a tarpaulin.

‘Okay, drop!’ yelled Fernandez, pulling out a clip on his harness. His support line uncoiled and fell away. He quickly rappelled into the truck, the other men following. The moment their boots hit metal, they detached the lines and stood beneath the statue. Fernandez switched on a lamp to give the winchman a clear view, then joined the others.

The statue’s base was about three metres above the container’s top, slowly turning. Fernandez signalled for it to be lowered. The winch whined, cables shuddering as the statue descended. The men warily reached up. An agonising moment as the pedestal’s corner clipped the container’s edge, steel bending with a screech, then it slipped inside.

Hands gripping the base, eight men strained in unison to turn David in a particular direction as the great figure continued its steady descent. Fernandez gestured for the winchman to slow. The men pushed harder, the statue still at an angle. Less than half a metre. Another push—

The base lined up against a length of metal pole at the end of the frame. Fernandez waved his hands. The winchman responded - and the statue landed with a bang that shook the entire container.

But the Skycrane’s job wasn’t done. The container was less than two and a half metres tall, the statue standing high above its top. The men moved to each side of the framework as the Sikorsky slowly moved forwards. The cables pulled tight again, dragging the statue after the aircraft - but the bar across the container’s floor stopped it.

Like a footballer tripped by a sliding tackle, David began to fall.

In slow motion. The cables and the harness took the strain. Little by little, the giant was lowered towards the waiting frame, each section of which was shaped to support a specific part of the statue’s body. Lower. Fernandez held his breath. David’s sneer now seemed directed at him personally, daring him to have miscalculated . . .

He hadn’t. The statue touched down, the foam compressing, steel creaking - but holding.

‘Secure it!’ he barked. Three of the men lashed the statue down, the others detaching the cables. Fernandez hurried to the container’s open end and jumped out. The Skycrane increased height slightly and edged sideways, hooks banging on the corrugated metal. Inside the container, the team hauled on ropes hanging over its side - pulling up the tarpaulin so the open roof could be covered.

As the grubby blue tarp moved, it revealed the object lying on the ground. The sight almost made Fernandez laugh out loud at its sheer audacity, even though he had thought of it in the first place.

A replica of David.

It was crude, only nine-tenths life size, made of fibreglass where strength was needed, chicken wire and papier mache and cardboard elsewhere. At close range it looked like a joke, a refugee from a school craft fair. But nobody would see it at close range. All they would see was what they had been told to expect: a priceless national treasure suspended from a helicopter.

He and the truck driver secured the hooks to the harness round the duplicate’s chest, then Fernandez signalled to the Skycrane. The helicopter’s engines shrilled as it increased power, pulling the imitation statue upright, then turning away once its new cargo was clear of the truck.

Fernandez watched the helicopter go. That was the final stage of the plan: the ultimate decoy. The pilot would take the Sikorsky up to ten thousand feet, heading northeast, then lock the controls to put it into a slow but steady descent - and he and the winchman would bail out, parachuting down. When military aircraft intercepted the helicopter, they would be unable to take any action for fear of damaging the statue, leaving them impotently following until it eventually smashed down in the hills some fifty kilometres away . . . by which time the real statue would be safely on its way to its new owner.

He laughed, unable to hold in his delight any longer. They had done it! He really was the greatest thief in history. One more job, and the team would receive the rest of their hundred million dollar payment - with half of it going to its leader and mastermind. And the final robbery, in San Francisco, would be a piece of cake in comparison to what they had just achieved.

The tarp roof was secure, the rear doors closed. Still smiling, Fernandez climbed into the cab and signalled the driver to head off into the darkness.

1

New York City:

Three Weeks Later