At Emil’s instruction, his men were packing his longed-for prize into thick vinyl bags that had been precisely chosen both for their sturdiness and for holding almost exactly the quantity of gold bullion bricks that a single strong man could realistically manoeuvre on his own. The density of gold meant the bags were small, but could be stacked neatly as bricks on the carts they would use to remove them from the site.
The carts themselves were also custom-designed creations that Yiannis had crafted for the incursion. They were two-layer units of reinforced steel, allowing them to support the weight of two dozen bricked-bags of bullion each, and the wheels were oversized to what appeared an almost comical degree – but one which made it possible to roll in and out of the vault over the rough edging of the blasted hole in its side. The shaping of charges to ensure the bottom of that hole ran flush to the floor had been precise. The carts moved easily over the unusual terrain.
Emil was thrilled with everything he saw. He couldn’t, of course, shake the tension that had jolted through his nerves since the moment the sky had gone dark over St Peter’s, but hell, he’d take a freak accident that worked in his favour any time. It didn’t matter, at the end of the day. No, screw it, it actually made things better. Within minutes he and his men would be out of here, with more wealth than the entire troop of them could ever spend in their collective lifetimes, and the whole city would still be staring up at the clouds.
Maybe God was smiling on him, after all. The thought brought a smile to Emil’s lips. The divine favour of heaven, showering grace upon his brilliance and granting him success.
It would be a pleasant thought, if Emil Durré believed in any of that crap. As it was, and as the whole affair had made eminently clear, he was perfectly capable of taking what he wanted, all on his own.
The motorcade of Swiss Guard vehicles swept into the piazza and halted in positions that all pointed towards an innocuous section of brick wall that only they knew was the false-facade entrance to the bullion vault beneath. At Heinrich’s instruction, their sirens had been muted and lights switched off as they neared, which had made the final seconds of their drive eerily black and silent. But the instant they were in position, doors flew open in unison and men started to pour out on to the square.
The three Special Activities Teams emerged in full incursion kit. Bullet-resistant vests shielded their torsos and slender, visored helmets covered their heads. They were armed with SIG 552s and MP7s, all with laser sights and enlarged magazines, and within their helmets night-vision capabilities allowed them to move in the blackness as if it were the brightness of day. They also allowed their microphoned communications to be carried out in such low tones that they spoke in what outwardly was complete silence.
Angelina emerged from the sedan after Ben, Heinrich having already rushed over to one of the SUVs to get a suit for himself.
‘There’s nothing there,’ Angelina whispered to Ben as she saw the whole entourage of men moving towards a section of brickwork on one of the buildings that surrounded the piazza.
‘You can’t open a door you don’t see,’ Ben whispered back, and then Angelina watched as a metal wand was waved by one of the Guardsmen over the wall. It looked like the kind of handheld metal detector used for body searches in airports, but this one wasn’t searching for metal. It was beaming an encrypted access code to a receiver embedded deep within the wall. The instant the signal was received and decoded, the wall began to move. Angelina watched in wonder as a door-sized section of brickwork protruded out from the edifice more than an arm’s length, then swivelled silently open. At its new angle, she could see that only the exterior surface was brick. Behind, the door was solid metal.
‘The control room is just inside,’ Ben whispered, but Angelina was already walking towards the opened door.
She was four metres away when she heard Heinrich question a man at his side, ‘What do you mean, there was no response chirp from the guards inside?’
Angelina felt dread lump concretely into her stomach. She didn’t know the details, but his demeanour made it clear that Major Heinrich had expected the electronic beacon would not only open the door but also notify the guards posted inside, alerting them to new entrants and drawing some sort of verification.
That none was coming put everyone on edge.
A second later, they saw why.
It took Angelina’s eyes a few seconds longer to see the corpses of the fallen Guardsmen inside the entrance than it did the teams equipped with night-vision helmets. By the time her brain had made sense of the sight – two slumped bodies surrounded by congealing pools of their own blood, heads reduced to masses of gore and scalp – Heinrich was already shouting.
‘Full incursion! Go now!’
The Special Activities Teams rushed through the entrance and bounded down the metal stairway that led to the vault.
Though his men had felt no need to work in perfect silence, both the awe of their take and the strenuous physical effort required to move so much heavy bullion had kept Emil’s teams operating in a natural, efficient quiet.
Which made the sudden thumping of boots on metal staircases boom like thunder through the subterranean space.
When, three seconds after it began, the boom was superseded by the explosion of gunfire, the blood iced in Emil’s veins.
With all the confusion already present over the mystery of what had taken place above ground, it took Emil’s mind fractionally longer than usual to cope with the new questions that burst into it. How could anyone have found them? How could anyone have got inside? Ridolfo and André had executed the two guards at the top of the stairs, and the external door was sealed. The only other way in or out of the vault was through the tunnel Emil’s own men had dug – but these noises were coming from its other side.
The thoughts wrestled and battled in his brain for a few seconds before the only available conclusion smacked at him like a fist. He had been found out, despite all his best efforts.
His fury was overwhelming.
Another round of gunfire from the access shaft on the far side of the vault.
Emil spun on his men. Like him, they’d frozen in place the moment the noise had sliced through the silence, bullion and bags in hand.
‘Pick up your fucking guns!’ he shouted to everyone on his left, and to those on his right, ‘Get everything out of here!’ The carts were already heavy. They weren’t full, but it was still more than enough wealth to luxuriate a lifetime for all of them.
He turned back to his other men, now scrambling after their weapons.
‘Shoot on sight,’ he commanded. ‘Shoot everyone. Anyone. Just keep them away.’