The Dante Conspiracy by Tom Kasey Page A

church, although in his line of work attending
religious services was something he did extremely infrequently.
    ‘Smells like a museum, or maybe a cathedral,’ Arrigo murmured,
confirming his companion’s impression.
    ‘It is old, that’s for sure. It won’t be in here,’ his companion
added, ‘if it’s in the house at all. We need to look for a display case, or maybe
a library or a study, that kind of thing, maybe even a safe.’
    ‘If the Russian is right, it might not be that easy. Don’t forget,
he said it might be hidden inside something else, and whoever owns this house now
might have no idea that it’s here at all.’
    ‘I know. I never thought it would be easy, so we’d better get
started. The first thing we do is check the bedrooms, make sure there’s nobody here
to disturb us. Then we start looking.’
    The two men climbed the stairs that ran up the centre of the
property as quietly as they could, which wasn’t easy because almost every tread
creaked alarmingly. The stairs were a complex and eccentric design, with a number
of half and quarter landings, each of which emitted even more noise when they put
their weight on it. The only good thing was that the house as a whole released creaks
and cracks intermittently, as the old timbers settled after the heat of the day,
so the sound of their stealthy approach was to some extent disguised.
    They found four bedrooms in the house, three of them unoccupied
and two of them largely empty of furniture. Outside the last door on that floor
– the only one which had been closed – they paused for a few moments and just listened.
From inside the room came the rhythmic sound of snoring, and they knew they had
to take care of the occupant before they did anything else.
    The elderly man in the bed never had a chance. The two intruders
pulled on black balaclavas to hide their faces, then opened the door, stepped inside
the room and strode quickly across to the bed. Bruno took out his pistol and rested
the barrel against the man’s forehead, an action which immediately woke him up.
But before he had a chance to speak or cry out, Arrigo slapped a gloved hand across
his mouth, silencing him. In a little over two minutes he was gagged, his wrists
tied behind his back and his ankles strapped together using plastic cable ties,
effectively unbreakable.
    Finding somebody in the house was actually a bonus, because it
meant they could turn on the lights as they carried out their search without necessarily
arousing the suspicions of any of the occupants of the neighbouring properties,
or anybody walking down the street. Lights burning after midnight in an unoccupied
house would always attract attention, very obviously, but in a property that was
known to be occupied nobody would take the slightest notice.
    Watched by the frightened eyes of the owner of the property,
the two men swiftly and efficiently searched the bedroom, but found nothing of any
interest. Then they snapped off the light and walked out onto the landing.
    ‘I’ll check the next floor up,’ Bruno said, ‘so you look downstairs.
Call out if you find anything.’
    But before they could separate and go their different ways, they
heard the unmistakable sound of a door opening and closing somewhere on the ground
floor.
    Somebody else was in the house with them.

 

 

 
    Chapter 16

 
    ‘Maybe it’s his wife,’ Arrigo suggested, his voice a barely audible
whisper.
    ‘His wife? The guy in the bed is seventy-five
if he’s a day, and it’s nearly three in the morning,’ Bruno replied, equally quietly.
‘Why would his wife be coming in at this time? I mean, what is she? A geriatric hooker? No, I don’t know who that is downstairs,
but I know what it is – it’s trouble.’
    For perhaps half a minute the two men stood side-by-side on the
landing, peering down into the darkness of the stairwell, listening intently. They
heard stealthy footsteps, and a brief murmur of conversation.
    ‘There must be at