The Dante Conspiracy

CHAPTER 19



The slam of the side door of the house echoed through the ancient building, but for some five minutes neither man moved; they just lay where they were, breathing shallowly and listening intently. Finally, Bruno spoke.

‘You’re closer than me,’ he said, his voice little more than a whisper. ‘Can you hear anything?’

‘Nothing now,’ Arrigo replied, just as quietly. ‘After the shots I heard two men talking quietly together down there, then footsteps - it sounded like two sets - crossing the floor downstairs, and then the door slammed. I think they’ve gone.’

Bruno gave a short laugh.

‘They might have left the house, but I’ll bet any money you like they’ll be waiting for us outside.’

‘Yeah. Well there are two of them and two of us, and both of us are armed. We should be able to shoot our way out of here, if it comes to it. Which it probably will. So what do we do now?’

‘We do what we came for.’

Bruno stood up, looked around the landing where he’d taken refuge, checking the walls near the doors. In moments, he saw what he was expecting to find: three old-fashioned electric light switches, which he guessed – and hoped – controlled the lights on the two flights of stairs and the hall below, on the ground floor.

‘Light,’ he said shortly, then clicked the lowest of the three switches.

A small chandelier flared into life at the very bottom of the staircase, brilliantly illuminating that part of the ground floor and casting dark wavering shadows into the upper areas of the stairwell.

‘Can you see anything?’ Bruno asked.

‘Nothing. It all looks clear to me.’

‘Right. Stay where you are and cover me while I go down there to check it out.’

Cautiously, Bruno began walking steadily and quietly down the stairs, his pistol held firmly in his right hand, the barrel pointing down. He was alert for any movement, moving the pistol from side to side so that he could cover every location from which one of the opposition could possibly fire at him.

But he saw and heard nothing, all the way down.

‘It’s clear,’ he said, when he finally stepped off the staircase and looked all around the hall. ‘Come down here and cover me while I check the rest of the ground floor.’

Five minutes later, they’d inspected every room on the ground floor and were quite satisfied that they were alone in the property, apart from the elderly man, presumably the owner, still tied up in his bedroom upstairs. And to ensure it stayed that way, they spent several minutes piling up furniture behind both of the outside doors of the property, firmly jamming a chair under the handle of each door and then positioning others behind it. It would still be possible for somebody to force their way inside, but they certainly wouldn’t be able to do it quietly, and that was good enough for them.

‘Right,’ Bruno said, checking both doors one last time. ‘That’ll do. Now let’s see if we can find this thing. We’ll start at the top and work our way down.’