The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [8]
The pedestal slid off the shock absorbers and ground noisily across the floor. Everyone pushed harder to keep it in a straight line as the lines tightened. They had to get the sculpture directly under the hole before they could escape. The cables scraped on the edge of the ruined dome, glass fragments and pieces of broken masonry raining down.
The Skycrane rose, the statue jerking up and swinging half a metre before the edge of the base crunched against the marble. Fernandez waved angrily at the winch operator. Even minor damage to the statue would affect their payment.
The winchman got the message. The statue lifted again, more gently. Another two metres to go before it was in position. The men kept pushing, guiding it. One and a half, one . . .
The plinth thumped down on the broken floor, grinding glass to powder beneath it. Fernandez saw that the cables were more or less dead centre of the circular hole. ‘Hook up!’ he shouted.
Each man attached his harness to the D-rings. Once they were all secure, Fernandez gave another signal to the winchman.
The engine noise rose to a scream as the helicopter climbed.
Another jolt as the statue left the floor - this time for good. Fernandez and his team were lifted with it. The noise and downwash from the Skycrane were horrific, but if everything went to plan they wouldn’t have to endure it for long . . .
More power. The statue began to twist in the wind as it rose. Fernandez had expected that; there was no way to prevent it. All he could do was hope it didn’t get out of control.
Four metres up, five, the ascent getting faster. The Galleria spun around them - and then they cleared the roof. They were out!
He scanned the city as they continued to climb, the Skycrane lethargically tipping into forward flight and turning northwards. Strobe lights flicked through the streets leading to the museum. The police. Fernandez smiled. They were too late.
There was one police vehicle that concerned him, though. Off to the southwest, he saw a pattern of pulsing lights in the sky. Another helicopter.
Heading towards them.
As he’d expected, it had been called in to provide aerial support for the cops responding to the car bombs - but the Skycrane’s deviation from its course and the alarms at the Galleria dell’ Accademia had caused someone to put two and two together and realise that the explosions were, like the forest fire, just a diversion.
The Skycrane picked up speed, Florence rolling past below. Not quickly enough. The police chopper would rapidly catch up with the lumbering Sikorsky - and for the plan to succeed, the next stage had to be carried out without witnesses.
Fernandez looked ahead, eyes narrowed against the blasting wind. The city’s northern edge was not far away, twinkling lights abruptly replaced by the blackness of woods and fields as the landscape rose into the hills. No roads; only an aircraft could pursue them.
But he had planned for that. Another member of his team was positioned on a rooftop at the city’s periphery, directly beneath the Skycrane’s course.
The Sikorsky and its strange cargo swept over the urban boundary. The police chopper was gaining fast. Glaring blue-white light pinned the Skycrane from behind as the other aircraft’s spotlight flicked on, playing over the green fuselage before tilting down to turn the suspended statue a dazzling white.
The police helicopter closed in—
And suddenly dropped out of the sky in a sheet of flame, spiralling down to smash explosively into the woods beyond the city.
Fernandez’s man on the ground had been armed with a Russian SA-18 anti-aircraft missile, the shoulder-fired weapon homing in on the helicopter’s exhaust and detonating over a kilogram of high explosive on impact.
The Spaniard smiled. The Italian air force would now be called in to hunt down the helicopter - which was exactly what he wanted them to do. Because a few minutes from now, he and his men would be putting as much distance between themselves and the Skycrane as possible.
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