Underground, roughly centred beneath the picturesque three-tiered fountain that stood at the centre of the small piazza two storeys above, Emil’s men received their order.
‘Positions,’ the foreman said softly to another member of his crew, who went and whispered the same to others gathered in the dark subterranean space.
The foreman turned to the two men behind him.
‘The call just came in,’ he said to Ridolfo. The ugly man nodded, then swivelled to face André. They had one job left to do, and it had to be done now.
And it had to be done right. For an instant Ridolfo was worried whether his friend might cause them to fail again, but he shook away the worry.
Even André wouldn’t be able to miss a man at point-blank range.
Once Ridolfo and André had scuttled through the side tunnel his men had dug over the past months, connected to the legitimate access corridor that led to the surface, the foreman turned back to his men. They were, one by one, moving to the positions determined beforehand for each of them.
Efficiently, they each reached down to small packs stashed in those spots and extracted goggles, earplugs and breathers. Soon, the faces of each were covered, their ears protected, and they were ready.
He pulled on his own mask, excited for this moment. They had worked so hard for so many months. Etching through concrete, then through metal with layer after layer of acid applied with rollers. What was left of the wall they needed to get through was only a few centimetres thick, and had been brittled.
The small explosion would make quick work of it.
Ensuring his earplugs were snugly in, the foreman reached down and picked up the firing trigger. He unspooled the remaining wire as he walked to his protective position and awaited the final go.
The various tunnels and hollowed-out work areas dug over the past months provided access to the site from the eastern side – exactly the opposite of the vertical access corridor that ran from its west edge up to the surface by three flights of steep metal stairs. At the top of them was the guard station, with its three-inch steel security door surfaced and painted on its exterior side to match the brickwork of the buildings surrounding it.
Two plainclothes members of the Swiss Guard were always at post in the station, just inside the door. They operated on six-hour shifts, twenty-four hours a day. They were highly trained, diligent and devoted to their charge.
But one fact, Ridolfo knew, was the most pertinent for him. They were always looking in the other direction.
The steel security door was normally the only access point to what was below. The Guardsmen monitored cameras that scanned the piazza outside, the streets nearby, even the air above. The aim was to keep anyone, everyone, out.
Because it wasn’t possible for anyone to be inside.
The thought brought particular satisfaction to Ridolfo as he and André silently crested the final steps, wearing specially soled shoes which had been chosen in order to render them soundless on the metal stairs.
The two guards were at the posts, watching their monitors. Facing the other way.
Ridolfo lifted his right hand and held the tip of the barrel mere centimetres from the back of one guard’s head. To his left, André did the same with the other. Two friends, about to be bound together in an act that would change both their lives forever.
The simultaneous firing of their Glocks resonated like cannon fire in the enclosed space.
The guards had no chance to respond. The monitors in front of them were painted red with their blood, and their bodies slouched to the floor.