The Lost Relic

Chapter Twenty-Two

The dark blue Land Rovers with the white tops and the red stripes down the side and CARABINIERI in big white letters across the doors had rolled silently up the drive to the Academia Giordani and were clustered outside the front entrance. The assault team, clad in back paramilitary gear, helmets and goggles, took down the front door with a battering ram and stormed inside. In seconds, the entrance foyer and hallway were swarming with armed cops.

Spartak Gourko had burst through the gallery the moment he heard the crash of the front door. At the same instant, Rocco Massi emerged from the passage that led towards the fire escape. Neither of them hesitated. As the police stormed into the hall waving their submachine guns and riot shotguns, Massi and Gourko opened up on them. The crossfire was wild and devastating. Five, eight, ten cops went down before the return fire drove Massi and Gourko together back down the glass walkway. Panes shattered around them as they sprinted back to the gallery. ‘Anatoly?’ Gourko roared at the Italian. Massi shook his head, as if to say ‘I haven’t seen him’.

A dozen Carabinieri gave chase. Their commander’s eyes opened wide behind his assault goggles when he saw the displays of artwork. His department would have hell to pay if a single canvas was ruined by a stray bullet.

Massi and Gourko didn’t share his concern. As the Carabinieri emerged into the open gallery space, they were waiting for them. Gourko levelled his AR-15 and let off a long burst at the invading cops that took down one man and sent the rest scurrying for cover. Three display cabinets exploded into spinning fragments. Tatters of canvas that had once been a Picasso worth eight million euros floated down through the gunsmoke.

In the side room, the hostages were yelling and screaming in panic. Donatella clutched Gianni tightly to her, covering his eyes. Another deafening exchange of shots, and they could see the two masked gunmen retreating towards them just beyond the doorway.

One of the hostages saw his chance. Until now, the Robert Redford lookalike in the Valentino blazer had said and done nothing. Now he crept to his feet, eyes glued to the gunmen’s backs.

‘No,’ Donatella said. ‘Don’t do it.’

Pietro De Crescenzo tugged at the man’s sleeve. ‘Get down,’ he implored. ‘You’ll get us all killed, you fool.’

The guy wasn’t listening. He snatched his arm away from De Crescenzo’s grip and before they could stop him he was across the room and had attacked Gourko from behind, grasping for his gun and trying to wrest it from his hands.

Gourko was twice as strong and twice as fast. He’d once held off an entire squad of Chechen guerrillas, armed with nothing more than a sharpened entrenching tool, for five hours until reinforcements arrived. This guy wasn’t going to cause him much trouble. He tore the man’s hands from his weapon and sent him flying with a head-butt that drove his teeth into his throat. The guy screamed and started crawling back towards the other hostages, as if he thought he could hide among them. Crazy with rage, Gourko rushed after him into the side room with his AR-15 down at the hip, pulled the trigger and held it back. More than twenty rounds of high-velocity rifle bullets ripped the room apart, drowning out the screams of the hostages. He didn’t stop firing until the magazine was empty.

By then, the screams of the hostages had been silenced.

Spartak Gourko gazed dispassionately at the carnage inside the room, then turned away. Spotting the padded case containing the Goya picture, he snatched it up and slung it over his shoulder. When he ran back out into the gallery he saw the place was being overrun with cops. Massi was pinned down by gunfire. Gourko spat. Raised his AR-15 and let rip with the underbarrel 40mm grenade.

The explosion shook the room and blew out most of the windows. Glass rained down like an ice storm from the ceiling. Where the Carabinieri had been gaining ground a moment earlier, a lake of fire washed over scattered bodies. Burning cops staggered and fell. A shattered Rembrandt turned a blazing cartwheel across the floor.

Gourko and Massi dashed through the smoke and leaped out of the smashed windows and into the grounds, running like crazy. They vaulted over a low wall, and then were rapidly disappearing across the lawns towards the woodland in the distance.