The Geneva Deception

There was no sign of a signature, but Tom took that as further proof of the painting’s probable authenticity. As far as he knew, Caravaggio had only ever signed one painting, The Beheading of the Baptist, where he had marked an M for Merisi, his family name, in the blood spilling from John the Baptist’s neck.

‘Is it close?’ Tom asked.

‘Close enough,’ the priest replied, Tom detecting an Italian accent.

‘I need to see it.’

‘Is that the money?’

‘Twenty million dollars,’ he confirmed, tapping the case nearest to him with his foot. ‘Unmarked, non-sequential bills, as requested.’

‘Bene, bene.’ The priest nodded. ‘Good.’ There was an anxious edge to the man’s voice that surprised Tom. For a pro he seemed a little tense, although twenty million was enough to make most people tighten up.

‘I need to see the painting first,’ Tom reminded him.

‘Of course,’ the priest said. ‘You have a car?’

‘The painting’s not here?’

‘It’s not far. Where’s your car?’

‘The money’s going nowhere until I see the painting,’ Tom warned him.

‘Don’t worry,’ the priest immediately reassured him. ‘We have a deal, see -’ He reached for Tom’s hand and shook it energetically. ‘You have the money, I have the painting, we have a deal, yes?’

‘We have a deal,’ Tom agreed.

‘You want this painting, yes?’

‘As much as you want the money,’ Tom answered with a puzzled smile. It was a strange question to ask. Why else would he be there? ‘My car’s in the garage.’

‘It has been a long time. You will be the first, the first in many years to see it.’ His eyes flicked over Tom’s shoulder as he spoke and then back again. ‘It is beautiful, still beautiful, despite everything it has been through.’

Tom felt his stomach tightening. Something wasn’t right. First a hint of nervousness. Now an abrupt shift from urgency to an almost languid calm as if…as if he was trying to waste time so that somewhere else …

A shot rang out, its whiplash crack cutting through the casino’s raucous din. Tom staggered back, the world suddenly slowing, as if someone was holding the movie projector to stop the reel from turning - the individual frames crawling across the screen; a roulette ball, frozen in midflight; the soundtrack stretched into a low, slurring moan as words folded into each other.

Then, almost immediately, everything sprang forward, only sharper, louder and faster than before, as if time was overcompensating as it tried to catch up with itself. The ball landed, the winner cheered. But their celebration was drowned out by a terrified scream, one voice triggering another and that one two more until, like a flock of migrating birds wheeling through a darkening sky, a sustained, shrieking lament filled the air.

Tom glanced instinctively to his left. Jennifer was lying on the floor. Her blouse was blotted poppy red.

FIFTEEN

Institute for Religious Works,

Via della Statzione Vaticana, Rome

18th March - 8.08 a.m.

As the six men opposite him bowed their heads, Antonio Santos picked up his spoon and studied the hallmarks. To the left he recognised the symbol of the Papal State, and next to it the initials NL - Lorenzini Nicola, an Italian silversmith active in the mid eighteenth century, if he wasn’t mistaken.

‘Nos miseri homines et egeni, pro cibis quos nobis ad corporis subsidium benigne es largitus, tibi Deus omnipotens, Pater cælestis, gratias reverenter agimus ...’ Archbishop Ancelotti intoned grace, his voice rising and falling as if he was reciting some mediaeval incantation. Turning the spoon over, Santos smiled at the way its polished surface distorted his reflection.

‘Simul obsecrantes, ut iis sobries, modeste, atque grate utamur. Per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.’

‘Amen,’ Santos agreed enthusiastically, carefully returning the spoon to its proper place before anyone had opened their eyes.

Ancelotti looked up and nodded at the two young priests standing near the door to serve breakfast. He was wearing a black simar with amaranth-red piping and buttons together with a purple fascia and zuchetto. A large gold pectoral cross dangled from his neck. The other five men sitting either side of him were similarly dressed, although, as cardinals, their buttons, sashes and skull-caps were scarlet.

‘Thank you for coming, Antonio,’ Ancelotti said, motioning with his finger to indicate that he wanted one, two, three spoonfuls of sugar. ‘I apologise for the short notice.’

‘Not at all, Your Grace,’ Santos said with a generous shrug, holding his hand over his coffee as one of the priests went to add cream. ‘I apologise for being late. The Carabinieri seem to have closed off half the city.’

‘Nothing too serious, I hope,’ Ancelotti enquired, brushing his hands together over his plate to dust some crumbs from his fingers.

‘My driver told me that they’ve found a body in the Pantheon,’ Cardinal Simoes volunteered, pushing his gold-rimmed glasses back up his nose.

‘Dear, dear,’ Ancelotti tutted, licking some jam from his thumb with a loud sucking noise. ‘We live in such wicked times. Jam?’

‘No, thank you.’ Santos gave a tight smile. ‘I don’t eat breakfast.’

‘You should, you should,’ Ancelotti admonished him. ‘Most important meal of the day. Now, does everyone have what they need?’

Seeing that they did, he waved at the two priests to retire to the outer room, then turned back to face Santos.

‘I believe you know everyone here?’

He nodded. Cardinals Villot, Neuman, Simoes, Pisani and Carter. The Oversight Commission of the Istituto per le Opere di Religione. The Vatican Bank.

‘Your eminences,’ he said, bowing his head. Their murmured greetings were muffled by fresh croissants.

‘Antonio, we asked you here today in our capacity as the largest shareholder in the Banco Rosalia,’ Ancelotti began, sipping his coffee.

‘Largest and most important shareholder,’ Santos added generously. ‘We are, after all, working to help finance God’s work.’

‘Ah yes, God’s work.’ Ancelotti clasped his hands together as if in prayer, pressing them against his lips. ‘Which is, as I’m sure you understand, why we need to be especially vigilant.’

‘I’m not sure I do understand, Your Grace,’ Santos said with a frown, placing his cup back down on the table. ‘Vigilant for what?’

‘For anything that could harm the reputation of the Catholic Church, of course.’

‘I hope you are not suggesting that -’

‘Of course not, Antonio, of course not,’ Ancelotti reassured him warmly, ‘But after what happened before…well, we have to go through the motions, be seen to be asking the right questions.’

He was referring, Santos knew, to the huge scandal that had engulfed the Vatican Bank in the 1980s, when it had been implicated in laundering billions of dollars of mafia drug money. It was partly in response to this that the Oversight Commission had been set up in the first place.

‘I fail to see how…’

‘Your year-end accounts are almost a month overdue,’ Cardinal Villot said in an accusing tone.

‘As I’ve already explained to Archbishop Ancelotti, there are a number of small, purely technical matters that the auditors have…’

‘We’ve also heard your liquidity position’s deteriorated,’ Cardinal Carter added, his voice equally sharp.

‘Not to mention the provisions on your real estate portfolio,’ Cardinal Neuman chimed.

Santos took a deep breath. So much for casting the money lenders out of the temple, he thought ruefully. Instead, armed with an MBA and a bible, the Oversight Commission seemed to be setting up shop right next to them.

‘A number of banks have withdrawn their funding lines, yes, but that’s to be expected with the squeeze that the whole market is feeling. We still have more than enough headroom, given our deposit and capital base. As for our real estate book, we’ve seen a slight uptick in bad debts like everyone else, but the provisions we took last year should be more than …’

‘I think what we’re suggesting is that a short, sharp financial review would help allay our concerns, in light of the extreme volatility of the markets and the rather bleak economic outlook,’ Ancelotti said in a gentle tone.

‘What sort of a financial review?’

‘We’d probably start with a quick canter through your latest management accounts, bank statements and ALCO reports,’ Ancelotti said breezily. ‘We have a small team of accountants we like to use for this sort of thing. They’ll be in and out in a few weeks. You won’t even notice they’re there.’

A pause. It wasn’t as if he had any choice.

‘When would you like them to start?’

‘Is the day after tomorrow too soon?’ Ancelotti asked with a casual shrug, although Santos noticed that the archbishop’s eyes were locked on to his, as if to gauge his reaction.

‘Of course not,’ Santos replied with a confident smile. ‘That gives me enough time to brief the team so that we can make sure that we have a room set aside and all the documentation prepared.’

‘Excellent, excellent.’ Ancelotti stood up to signal that the meeting was over and leant across the table to shake his hand. ‘I knew you’d understand. By the way, I’m hosting a Mozart recital in Santa Sabina next month. You should come.’

‘It would be my pleasure, Your Grace,’ Santos smiled. ‘Please forward on the details. Your Eminences…’

A few minutes later he was down on the street in the rain, angrily loosening his collar as he flicked a tin open and pushed one, then two pieces of liquorice into his mouth. Then he reached for his phone.

‘We’re fucked,’ he barked into it the moment it was answered. ‘Ancelotti and his performing monkeys want to audit the bank…I don’t know what they know, but they must know something, and even if they don’t, it won’t take more than a few days for them to figure everything out…I need to bail. How much would I have if I liquidated everything?…No, not the property. Just whatever I can get out in cash by the end of the week …Is that it?’ He swore angrily, earning himself a disapproving look from two nuns walking past. ‘That’s not enough,’ he continued in an angry whisper. ‘That’s not even halfway to being enough…Hold on, I’ve got another call.’ He switched lines, ‘Pronto?’

‘It’s done,’ a voice rasped.

‘Are you sure?’ Santos stepped out of the rain and sheltered inside a doorway.

‘It’s done,’ the voice repeated. The line went dead.

Smiling, Santos went to switch back to the first caller before pausing, a thought occurring to him. He helped himself to some more liquorice as the idea slowly took shape. It had only ever been part of the set-up, but why not? Why the hell not? The trick was getting to it, but if he could…the Serbians would take it off his hands. They were always in the market for that sort of thing.

‘Spare some change?’

A beggar wearing a filthy army surplus overcoat, his face masked by a spade-like beard studded with raindrops, was holding a creased McDonald’s cup up to him. Santos glanced up and down the street behind him. It was empty. With a flick of his wrist he knocked the cup into the air, the few, pathetic coins it contained scattering across the pavement. The beggar dropped moaning to his knees, his blackened fingernails scrabbling in the gutter.

‘Spare you some change?’ Santos spat. ‘I’m the one who needs a handout.’

SIXTEEN

Amalfi Casino and Hotel Resort

18th March - 12.08 a.m.

Kicking their stools out from under them, people began to run, half-drunk cocktails collapsing to the floor and neatly stacked piles of chips swooning on to the baize as gamblers clambered over each other like calves trying to escape a branding pen.

Tom fought his way across to Jennifer’s side, Ortiz only a few feet behind him. She was still alive, thank God, her eyes wide with shock, but still alive. He ripped her blouse open, saw the blood frothing from under her left breast.

‘It’s okay,’ Tom reassured her, leaning close so she could hear him. She nodded, lifted her head as if to speak, then fell back.

‘Where’s she hit?’ Ortiz fell on to his knees next to him as the fire alarm sounded.

‘Get an ambulance here,’ Tom shouted back over the noise, ripping his jacket off and folding it into a makeshift pillow. ‘Press down -’ He grabbed Ortiz’s hand and jammed it hard against the wound, then leant across and snatched his Beretta out from under his arm.

‘Where the hell are you going?’ Ortiz called after him.

‘To find the shooter.’

He leapt up on to the roulette table, knowing from the location of her wound and the direction she’d been facing that the gunman must have been positioned somewhere ahead of her. Scanning the floor, he suddenly noticed an unexpected shimmer of glass under the stampeding crowd’s feet. He glanced instinctively up at the ceiling and saw that a single mirrored panel was missing from its reflective surface, the empty black square as obvious as a decaying tooth in an otherwise perfect smile.

‘He’s in the ceiling void,’ Tom breathed.

He leapt down and grabbed a passing security guard who seemed more intent on saving himself than in stewarding anyone else to the exit.

‘The observation deck,’ Tom shouted. ‘How do I get up there?’

The guard paused, momentarily transfixed by the gun gripped in Tom’s left hand, then pointed unsteadily at a set of double doors on the other side of the floor.

‘Through there,’ he stuttered.

Snatching the guard’s security pass off his belt, Tom fought his way through to the doors he had indicated and swiped them open. He found himself in a long white service corridor lit by overhead strip lighting and lined on both sides by a series of identical red doors. Cowering under the fire alarm’s strident and persistent echo, a steady stream of people were half walking, half running towards him - casino staff ordered to evacuate the building, judging from their identical red Mao jackets and the confusion etched on to their faces.

Tom walked against the flow, scanning for a pair of shoes, or a uniform, or a face that didn’t quite fit. Ahead of him, about two thirds of the way down the corridor, a door opened and a man wearing a baseball cap stepped out. Tom noticed him immediately. It was his studied calmness that gave him away. His calmness and the detached, almost curious expression on his face, as if he was taking part in some bizarre sociological experiment that he couldn’t quite relate to.

He seemed to notice Tom at almost the same time because, grimacing, he turned and retreated back inside, locking the door behind him. Tom sprinted down the corridor after him, tried the handle and then stepped back and pumped four shots into the locks. With a firm kick, the door splintered open.

Carefully covering the angles above him, Tom made his way up the stairs into the shadows of the observation deck, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. He felt the shooter before he saw him, the metal walkways shuddering under his heavy step as he sprinted along the gantries away from him. Tom took aim and fired three times, then twice more, a couple of the bullets sparking brightly where they struck the steel supports. But the man barely broke his stride, turning sharply to his left and then to his right.

Tom set off after him, trying to guess where he’d turned, so that he wouldn’t end up stranded in a different section of the deck. Up ahead the gunman paused and then in an instant was over the side of the gantry and dangling down over the suspended ceiling below. Tom again took aim, and fired twice, this time catching him in his shoulder. With a pained yell he let go, crashing through the mirrored ceiling and vanishing from sight.

Tom sprinted across to the same point and then lowered himself down as far as he could before letting go and dropping through the hole on to a blackjack table scattered with chips and fresh blood.

‘Where did he go?’ Tom asked the dealer, who was staring up at him open-mouthed.

The man pointed dumbly towards the exit. Tom looked up and saw the gunman almost at the door, his jacket burst open at the shoulder where the bullet had passed through him. Tom again pulled the trigger, the bullet skimming the man’s head and shattering a slot machine deliberately positioned to tempt people into one final roll of the dice before heading outside. Next to it a bearded man in a ‘Remember Pearl Harbor’ baseball cap carried on playing, gazing at the wheels as if he hated them.

Tom leapt down and followed the gunman outside, determined not to lose him. But rather than melt away into the panicked crowd that had swamped the forecourt, the man seemed to be waiting for him, backpack hitched over one arm. For an instant, no longer, they stood about twenty feet apart, their eyes locked, the swollen human flow parting around them like a river around two rocks. The gunman, clutching his shoulder, studied Tom with a detached curiosity; Tom, his gun raised, finger tested the trigger spring’s resistance. But before he could take the shot, a powerful hand gripped his arm and pulled him back.

‘Not here, for Chrissake,’ Stokes yelled. ‘Are you fucking crazy? You’ll hit someone.’

Tom angrily shook him off, took aim and fired. The gun clicked, empty. With a wink, the killer turned and dived into the frothing sea of people.

In an instant, he was gone.

SEVENTEEN

18th March - 12.23 a.m.

‘Where’s the backup? They need to set up a perimeter,’ Tom ordered angrily.

‘It’s a little late for that,’ Stokes shrugged helplessly at the untamed mob that had already spilled out on to the Strip, bringing the traffic to a standstill as they surged across the road, trying to get as far away from the Amalfi as they could.

Tom glared resentfully at the crowd, wanting Stokes to be wrong but knowing he wasn’t. What made it worse was that the gunman had played him. He’d seen Tom was carrying a Beretta, counted the shots until he’d known it was empty, then waited for him. Taunted him.

With a violent jolt, Tom’s thoughts snapped back to Jennifer.

‘How is she?’

‘The paramedics are with her now,’ Stokes reassured him, before lowering his gaze. ‘She’s lost a lot of blood.’

‘Where is she?’

‘They’re taking her up on to the roof for a medevac to UMC.’

‘Get me up there,’ Tom barked.

They ran back into the casino and, using the card Tom had taken from the security guard, rode up to the top floor.

‘What happened to the priest?’ Tom asked as the levels pinged past.

‘We lost him too,’ Stokes admitted. ‘Soon as everyone started running, he vanished. The money’s safe, though.’

‘You think I give a shit about the money?’ Tom hissed.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.