Chapter 4
Moonlight sliced through the arched stone windows, slanting dramatically across the antique tile floor of Frederick Konig’s luxurious library.
He sipped his wine and gazed out the window at the cypress trees bending in the night breeze. He gazed at his own reflection in the window glass, the gleam of his bald head, the light caught in the crystal wine glass while workmen shuffled behind him, carefully setting down the long wooden box in front of the ancient stone fireplace. The box was rather like a rough coffin, but too large and long for any human form.
A single wall sconce provided the only illumination, aside from the candle on his dinner table. Konig disliked artificial light.
His employees, Russo, Naimo, and Vilardi—evidently all too lazy to haul the box up themselves—waited at attention, along with the knuckle-dragging laborers they’d subcontracted to do the heavy lifting. Meaning more witnesses, more complications, more risks. Fucking idiots. Their sloppiness infuriated him.
No point in scolding them now, though. Considering.
It irritated him that the delivery had arrived a full half-hour earlier than the appointed time, interrupting an excellent meal of grilled pork sausages, sautéed wild greens, and roasted potatoes. The food would be stone cold by the time he got back to it.
Russo waved the laborers away. “Wait outside with the truck,” he directed brusquely in Italian. “We’ll be down soon.”
The two stolid, muscular men in canvas coveralls marched out of the room, leaving only himself and the three hired thugs who’d worked for him on and off for years. This job would be their crowning achievement. The last job they performed for him.
By necessity.
Konig waited for the heavy footsteps to fade away before turning to face them. He crossed his thick arms over his barrel chest and stared down at them, letting the silence grow until all three men looked visibly intimidated.
“I take it you have a strategy to dispose of those two?” Konig asked finally.
“Yes, of course,” Russo said. “As soon as we leave here tonight. Their truck is hacked. We’ll follow with my car and make sure that they’ll be going too fast for the switchbacks. They’ll break through the guardrail and fall twenty-five meters. We’ll verify their deaths before we go. You’ll hear about the accident on the local news tomorrow.”
Konig nodded. “And the installation at the Palazzo? Everything is in place?”
“Yes, sir. There is a slight change in plans there, though, as you will see in the documents we brought. Signor Folti decided to move the unveiling ceremony to the Sala dell’Annunziata, on the second floor. He was going to use the downstairs hall with the Neptune frescoes, but when he found out that the Cardinal and the Archbishop are both attending, he decided that sacred images would be more appropriate.”
Konig let out a derisive snort. The frescoes of the Annunciation in the upstairs hall were dull and insipid compared to the magnificent Sala downstairs, where images of the ancient sea god Neptune ruled.
Still, the Sala dell’Annunziata had its own distinct advantages, now that he thought of it. On the second floor. Fewer exits. Everyone crowded more tightly together. Nowhere to run.
Maximum concentration of damage. It was all good.
How like his old business partner Gianfranco Folti to be so fucking prim. The man was embarrassed by the stunning artwork on the walls of his very own Renaissance palazzo. Anyone with half a brain would prefer the frescoes depicting the muscular, dripping Neptune with bare-breasted sea nymphs hanging all over him.
“I take it Captain Lella accepted your employment credentials?” he asked.
Russo’s lips curled unpleasantly at the mention of Gianfranco Folti’s head of security. “Absolutely,” he said. “Not a single question during the interview. Or after it.”
“Good. And you’ve worked there how long now? Eight months?”
“Almost nine. By the way, the reengineered cell phone you gave me worked like magic. As soon as I pulsed the frequency, Lella stopped talking and just looked blank for a few seconds. Then he shook himself out of it, and hired us on the spot. Just like you said he would.”
All according to plan. Still, Konig disliked the avid look on Russo’s face. Russo had deeply enjoyed the experience of brain-fucking Lella.
It was to be expected that activating the command implants in Lella’s skull plate would be amusing for a natural bully. But Russo had liked it too much for Konig’s taste. The man’s enthusiasm was obscene.
Besides, they were not partners. Konig did not share with dogs and pigs.
All three men now knew far too much about what had really happened to Gianfranco Folti’s head of security, Captain Lella. His apparent “kidnapping” by VIRIS, a hitherto unknown band of extremist terrorists. His horrific torture and captivity in northern Africa, documented in harrowing videos that had been posted online.
It had been an expensive, elaborate, incredibly complicated piece of multimedia theater, but he’d ultimately pulled it off. The gruesome torture had been real enough for Lella, poor bastard, but that unfortunate detail had been absolutely necessary to make the plan work.
All the men who’d playacted as VIRIS fighters were dead now. So were the mercenary soldiers sent to “rescue” Lella when the team of rogue neurosurgeons were done with him. They’d incorporated command implants into his skull plate, a relic of a previous injury. The plate did double duty as a cover for the implants, which rendered Lella completely vulnerable to suggestion when the command frequency was activated.
Konig’s plan had worked perfectly so far. During Lella’s lengthy and exhaustive medical treatment after his rescue, no doctor or technician had ever detected the implants.
That skull plate was the catalyst. It had given Konig an idea years ago, after meeting Lella at a dinner party not long after the discovery of the Cross of Orazio and the beginning of the excavation. A tantalizing seed of an idea that had grown into something magnificent.
But Russo and his cohorts knew the details. And they were stupid enough to blab or boast. To earn points, to get laid. An unacceptable risk.
“The only problem now is Morelli,” Russo went on. “He’s been a real pain in the ass. Lella called him in a few weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to use the command frequency at all ever since he showed up. Morelli knows Lella from back in their military days. They served for years together. He’d notice any sudden change in Lella’s behavior.”
“Hmm,” Konig said, his voice chilly. “Then it’s just as well Morelli’s presence is making you cautious. The command frequency is not a toy for you to play with.”
“Of course not, sir.” Russo sounded put upon.
Konig strode over to the dining table and took three crystal wine glasses, prepared carefully beforehand, off a tray. He set them on the table and poured a little wine into each one.
“So far, so good. Let’s toast to tomorrow’s big enterprise.” He topped off his own glass. “For luck, gentlemen. Just a few swallows, since you’re all still on the job tonight.”
Russo, Naimo, and Vilardi exchanged swift glances, but they approached the table readily enough. They raised their glasses when he did and gulped down the contents.
He saw from their faces that the excellence of the wine was lost on them. Pigs.
“One more thing,” he said. “I need to confirm that the surveillance system in the new locale is functioning. Russo, you show it to me.” He turned to Naimo and Vilardi. “You two wait outside.”
“Yes, sir.” The younger men clumped out.
Russo set down his empty glass and slid a silver laptop out of its case and onto the table, opening it. When the screen came to life he pulled up a file with a tap.
“This is a live feed from the Sala dell’Annunziata,” he said. “Four different camera angles.”
The hall was dim at this hour o
f the night. Just a few lights were trained upon the towering golden cross, presented dramatically against a semicircle of matte black panels. It was striking, glowing in the dark, seemingly by some mysterious inner light of its own. It looked utterly authentic.
“And here are hard copies of the guest list, approved by Lella, as you requested,” Russo said, putting a stack of stapled papers on the dining room table. “The asterisked ones arrive in Rome tomorrow for the unveiling of the cross and the formal dinner. The rest are already here, attending the conference. We’ve confirmed all the hotel check-ins. Every name on that list should be in attendance tomorrow evening.”
Konig swiftly ran his eye over the names, noting the heads of several big banks and numerous CEOs of huge multinational corporations. Some of them he knew personally, but he wouldn’t mourn any of them, male or female.
The list was exactly what he had hoped for. Charming, cultured Gianfranco always did have a knack for kissing the right asses, whatever else could be said of him.
Konig regretted only one thing. The unveiling ceremony had been tacked onto Gianfranco’s renowned global economic conference for which cutthroat venture capitalists and brilliant financiers vied every year to speak. Their loss would be a true waste. Konig hated waste.
But for great rewards, great sacrifice was required. It was a natural law.
Konig studied the long box by the fireplace for a moment, and moved his gaze back to Russo’s thick, expressionless face. “You’re sure no one witnessed the switch?”
“Absolutely sure, sir. It took place before dawn, at an abandoned warehouse outside of Benevento. Nothing but potato fields for miles around. No one saw us. Naimo and Vilardi and I drove the fake cross to the Palazzo Bellocchio. The men downstairs were the only witnesses. I just need the vest for Lella, and we’re all set.”
Konig opened a white box on the table and lifted out what appeared to be a bulletproof vest. Thicker than a normal one. Heavier. Designed according to the exact dimensions of Lella’s stocky torso.
It occurred to him that he should be feeling excitement by now. Soon he would be one of the wealthiest man in the world. A terrorist attack that killed so many CEOs and gods of international finance at once would trigger a fast, hard fall in volatile global markets—and he was perfectly placed take full advantage of that violent shift. He would make tens of millions within minutes. Hundreds of millions as time went on.
But the Cross of Orazio, so rare and precious, was the one thing that he could not bear to sacrifice for this plan. So he’d salvaged the cross for himself. His secret prize.
He should have a pleasant buzz of anticipation, at the very least. But he felt nothing like that. Just a dull, dead flatness.
Konig placed the vest back into the box and shoved it toward Russo, feeling obscurely cheated. “Take it,” he said curtly. “Final payments will be wired into your accounts tomorrow, if all goes well. Your new identities are ready?”
“Yes, but if you—”
“I never wish to see or hear from you again,” Konig said.
“Of course, sir. As stipulated in the contract.”
“Get out, then. We’re done here.”
Russo hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want another detonator?” he asked. “What if there’s an issue with the signal? Or Lella’s implants malfunction? I’m thinking we should have a backup plan in place.”
Konig stared at him. “The equipment was designed and installed by geniuses. You field-tested the implants yourself.”
“Yes, sir.” Russo looked down, cowed.
Konig kept staring until the man reluctantly lifted his eyes again.
“Lella himself must push that detonator button,” Konig said. “The whole world has to see him do it. Streaming live, on multiple cameras. An insane act of senseless violence provides a ready-made narrative that everyone understands. In this scenario, none of us will be investigated. The stakes are very high, yes. So are the rewards.”
“Ah…yes, but—”
“There can be no backup plan, Russo. This is the only plan.”
“Of course,” Russo said stiffly. “I just thought that it would be wise to have…ah…an alternative.”
“Leave the thinking to people who are better at it,” Konig told him. “And bon voyage, wherever you’re going. For God’s sake, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
Russo’s mouth tightened. He picked up the box with Lella’s vest and turned toward the door.
“Wait,” Konig said, as Russo put his hand on the door handle.
Russo stopped without turning his head. “Yes?”
“Open that box for me.” Konig gestured imperiously at the crate by the fireplace.
Russo didn’t move, clearly tempted to tell his employer to go fuck himself. And he would have, but for the millions to be deposited into his bank account the next day.
Russo set down the box that held Lella’s vest. A crowbar had been conveniently placed on top of the long wooden crate. Russo took it and wrenched the lid up at each corner of the box. He then put down the crowbar with a dull clank before resting the lid on the floor.
He waited silently to be dismissed, mouth set, eyes averted. Sullen bastard.
Konig nodded. Russo picked up the vest and walked out.
The door clicked shut behind him. Thank God, that was the last he would see of those thugs. He would time things tomorrow so that all three men would be killed in the blast. If by chance any of them escaped, the nanoparticles they’d just swallowed in the wine would make them traceable for twenty-four hours, possibly longer. More than enough time to have them shot, stabbed, or clubbed to death in some back alley, no matter where on earth they went.
Loose ends, neatly trimmed. Snip, snip.
Unlucky bastards, but they’d served their purpose. It almost made him speculate about the dark legends that hovered around Orazio’s cross. Some said it was cursed by Orazio’s sister Maria Cristina, who had dabbled in black magic, or so the story went.
Pure nonsense, of course. The world was governed by facts, rules, observable physical laws. He who mastered those laws, such as himself, mastered the world.
He went to the box and pawed at the shredded plastic packing material.
The true, authentic Cross of Orazio blazed up at him, bright even in the dim light, its exquisite carvings richly gilded and bejeweled. In pristine condition, as if it had just been created. When the earthquake and subsequent landslide had buried Orazio’s palazzo, the chapel that housed the cross had somehow remained intact, sealed shut by a torrent of earth that had solidified over five centuries. The cross had been completely protected from the elements, extreme temperatures, thieves, and the ravages of time.
Such a beautiful thing. He’d salvaged it, and he deserved it for all this trouble. After tomorrow, the Sala dell’Annunziata would be closed forever, its grandeur shattered, the blood of the dead forever staining its blackened walls. And the supposedly priceless shining cross would be broken into a thousand pieces.
Everyone but him would consider the cross gone forever.
It was a huge gamble, but he’d always been cold-blooded about risk. The counterfeit alone had cost a fortune. The switch had been tricky to coordinate, with all the hoopla and press about the rediscovered cross. And the meticulously handcrafted fake had been a huge undertaking, years in the making. He’d been forced to personally make follow-up arrangements for the multiple artisans who had worked on it.
All of them gone now. Russo and the others had seen to it. The artisans had been handpicked for their personal profiles. Old men, skilled in techniques now forgotten by later generations. Some embittered, some half-crazy, all of them lonely. Childless widowers, every one. No grown children or grandchildren to ask questions.
All dead. Natural causes. Strokes, heart attacks, falls, car accidents.
Or Maria Cristina
di Coronna’s curse.
He smiled as he stroked the carving of Herod’s throne. His fingertip brushed the gems that studded Herod’s garment. It was all coming together. All the hard work, the meticulous planning, the staggering expense. But it was going to be worth it.
Tomorrow’s event would send economic shock waves around the world. And if the markets behaved as he knew they would, those shock waves would flood his anonymous overseas accounts with money.
Like a tidal wave.
Chapter 5
Caro shook herself awake, heart pounding in terror, and stared around, disoriented. Like she did every morning.
Just a dream. It was her usual nightmare: violence, explosions, breaking glass, shrieks, blood sprayed across white plaster dust. Fallen bodies with empty eye sockets, streaming tears of blood. No nightmare was complete without that detail.
And that in her dream, she was always stuck in place, unable to run.
At least it was a dream, not a waking vision. Those bloody, empty-eye stress flashbacks were exhausting, like horror movie jump scares. Since the wedding, they’d tapered off. She hadn’t had one in weeks. That was a victory.
She stretched out and let her breathing ease as she gazed out the window. Willing her heart to slow down. Through the window she could see red roof tiles, window boxes full of flowers, and a chunk of brilliantly blue sky. She rested her eyes on that spot of blue, letting the ugly images fade.
That was past. This was now. She still struggled to convince herself it was real. That Noah was real.
It really was improbable. That she should be lolling in bed after hours of amazing sex with a gorgeous man with whom she was absolutely crazy in love. In Rome, for God’s sake.
Her overwhelmed mind would not accept this as reality. It felt like a wishful hallucination. It would pass, and when it did, she would be well and truly fucked.
The terror and deprivation of last year had stained her mind. Months of relentless fear while she ran desperately from Mark Olund. The horrific things she’d seen and endured might never fade, particularly with her anomalous visual quirks. Her ability to visualize so vividly sometimes caused her memories to take on real physical form right before her eyes. It freaked people out if she didn’t keep her reaction tightly under wraps. Which was tricky, when the really ugly memories took her by surprise.
Light Me Up Page 4