The Lost Relic. Scott Mariani

happened? You’re covered in wine.’

      ‘Just an accident. Not a big deal. It’ll dry.’

      She shook her head. ‘You should go and wash it out before it stains. There are toilets in the foyer but you’ll find a bathroom upstairs, on the first floor.’ She wrinkled her nose at the stain. ‘Really, I think you should. It’s a nice shirt.’

      Ben was about to explain that a spot on his shirt didn’t bother him in the least – but he relented, thinking he didn’t want to be soaked in alcohol and smelling like a brewery when he went to find a hotel later. He excused himself and made his way back out through the glass corridor.

      Anatoly Shikov was perfectly calm as he led the way into the building. Spartak Gourko followed close behind him, then Rocco Massi, both clutching their bulky AR-15 rifles. Rykov was the last man in, and locked the door behind him.

      The entrance foyer was deserted now that all the guests had been shown inside the exhibition, which disappointed Anatoly. He’d been anticipating the squeals of terror from the women at the desk as eight masked and heavily armed men suddenly burst in to blow their cosy little world apart. He’d wanted to see the fear in their eyes, knowing that they were in his power.

      It didn’t matter. The fun would begin soon enough. Anatoly did a final check of his machine pistol, and then turned to his guys. ‘Let’s get started,’ he said in Russian.

      Ben soon found the bathroom near the first floor landing, at the end of a shadowy passage. The door was ajar. He walked in to find an elderly gentleman he recognised as the husband of the woman in the blue dress, stooped over the marble sink. The old fellow’s walking stick was propped up against the surface next to him as he washed down a handful of pills with a glass of water. Ben apologised for interrupting him, but the elderly man smiled and replied that he was just leaving. ‘Il mio cuore,’ he said, showing Ben the tube of heart pills. ‘The doctor says I have to take these every couple of hours, or I’ll die pretty soon. Then again, what does he know? Maybe I’ll outlive the bastard.’

      The elderly man introduced himself as Marcello Peruzzi. They exchanged brief small-talk about the exhibition. ‘My wife doesn’t think much of it,’ Marcello said ruefully. ‘But then she always hates everything. Married fifty-two years,’ he added, and Ben wasn’t quite sure whether he meant it with pride or bitterness. With a wave of his hand, Marcello turned towards the door and started making his wobbly way back towards the stairs. Ben asked him if he needed any help, but Marcello assured him he could manage fine, thanks.

      The bathroom was large and plush, with French windows leading out onto its own little balcony with a view of the grounds. Once he was alone, Ben went over to the sink and stripped off his wine-stained shirt. The TYRELL Genetic Replicants T-shirt under it was only slightly wet, and he decided it didn’t need washing.

      He had the shirt bundled under the hot tap and was rubbing the dark red stain out of the material when he heard the first gunshots blasting out from somewhere down below.

      And then came the screams.

       Chapter Thirteen

      Ben froze. It took him less than a second to process what he was hearing.

      The sound was unmistakable, one he’d heard many times in the past. It was the harsh snorting rip of 9mm submachine gun fire, and it was coming from the direction of the gallery wing. Two sustained bursts. Then another. More screams. Pandemonium cutting loose among the exhibition guests.

      He wrenched open the bathroom door as he heard more shots reverberate through the building. He glanced left, then right.

      Marcello Peruzzi, the elderly man he’d encountered a moment earlier in the bathroom, had made it as far as the top of the stairs when the shooting started. He was standing there paralysed with shock, a frail hand gripping the banister rail.

      He wasn’t alone. As Ben watched, a pair of men came sprinting up the stairs. From the black ski-masks and the stubby Steyr machine pistols in their fists he guessed they didn’t have invites to the exhibition either.

      One of them slung his weapon behind his back and grabbed Marcello Peruzzi roughly by the arm while the other jabbed the muzzle of his gun at his head. ‘Downstairs with the others, grandpa,’ he snarled in Italian.

      Marcello struggled weakly, protesting, and tried to lash out with his walking stick. The gunman clubbed him hard across the face with the butt of his weapon, twice, beating him down to his knees. He collapsed onto his belly and the second guy let go of his arm as he began convulsing.

      Watching the scene in horror from the shadows of the passage, Ben remembered the heart pills.

      The masked men stared down at Marcello as he folded up in agony on the carpet. ‘He’s having an attack,’ one of them said.

      ‘Fuck him, he’s dead anyway.’ The man pointing the gun casually placed the muzzle against Marcello’s neck and touched off the trigger. A deafening triple-shot burst crackled out across the landing and up the passage. The 9mm bullets ripped into Marcello’s body and his distressed heart stopped for ever.

      Ben recoiled into the bathroom, unseen, and turned the lock.

      Down below, Anatoly and the rest of his team had rounded up the crowd of exhibition guests. The gallery was filled with shouts of rage and frightened screams and the blast of fully-automatic fire as the intruders let off bursts into the ceiling. It was a technique intended for one purpose only – to strike terror into their victims and reduce them into a state of complete helplessness – and it was very effective. The thirty-five or so guests gave no resistance, allowing themselves to be herded like sheep across the gallery, their shoes crunching on the broken glass from shattered overhead lighting. It took under half a minute to shove everyone into the corner of the side room and make them huddle on the floor across from the refreshments table. The white-haired woman in the blue dress was looking around desperately for her husband and wailing loudly in panic. Rocco yelled at her to shut up, and when she kept on wailing Anatoly grabbed a half-finished bottle of Chianti from the refreshments table, took a long swig out of it and then hurled it at her. The base of the bottle caught her across the forehead and she fell back with a gasp. Another woman and the bearded guy in the sandals caught her as she keeled over.

      ‘How dare you!’ the bearded guy shouted. ‘This is an outrage!’

      Gourko delivered a kick to his stomach that folded him double before slamming a knee into his face. He collapsed, wheezing, blood pouring out of his busted nose into his beard.

      Gourko laughed.

      The Robert Redford type in the Valentino blazer glowered at him, but did nothing. Crouching among the other hostages, Count De Crescenzo exchanged looks of horrified disbelief with his business partners Corsini and Silvestri. The bearded guy huddled into the arms of the woman he was with. The woman in the blue dress was slumped against the wall in shock, blood running from the cut on her forehead.

      ‘Am I going to get any shit from you fuckers?’ Anatoly screamed in Russian at the cringing assembly. ‘Am I?’ He didn’t care that they wouldn’t understand him. They’d understand this. He aimed his machine pistol at the table and let off a rattling blast that smashed bottles and plates into flying pieces. ‘Am I?’ he screamed again. Wine and food spilled onto the floor. The hostages cowered in terror.

      Gianni Strada was pale and shaking as he clung to his mother. The boy was holding her so tightly that it hurt. Donatella struggled to contain her own panic as the armed men strode up and down the room. The one who frightened her the most was this maniac with the blond ponytail sticking out from under his mask. Was that Russian he was talking? Sounded like it to her. What was happening? How could this be happening? Was no alarm being raised?

      Gianni suddenly let out a strange, high-pitched keening sound that dissolved into racking sobs. He clung to her even tighter, grasping handfuls of her hair. She could feel his tears wet against