The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [9]
Treetops thrashed in the helicopter’s downdraught as it hovered, the statue swinging pendulously for several worrying moments before settling down. The truck’s trailer was directly beneath it - a standard twelve-metre container, with an open top. A metal frame of a very specific shape had been welded to its floor and covered with thick foam padding. Beside the trailer, a large object was hidden beneath a tarpaulin.
‘Okay, drop!’ yelled Fernandez, pulling out a clip on his harness. His support line uncoiled and fell away. He quickly rappelled into the truck, the other men following. The moment their boots hit metal, they detached the lines and stood beneath the statue. Fernandez switched on a lamp to give the winchman a clear view, then joined the others.
The statue’s base was about three metres above the container’s top, slowly turning. Fernandez signalled for it to be lowered. The winch whined, cables shuddering as the statue descended. The men warily reached up. An agonising moment as the pedestal’s corner clipped the container’s edge, steel bending with a screech, then it slipped inside.
Hands gripping the base, eight men strained in unison to turn David in a particular direction as the great figure continued its steady descent. Fernandez gestured for the winchman to slow. The men pushed harder, the statue still at an angle. Less than half a metre. Another push—
The base lined up against a length of metal pole at the end of the frame. Fernandez waved his hands. The winchman responded - and the statue landed with a bang that shook the entire container.
But the Skycrane’s job wasn’t done. The container was less than two and a half metres tall, the statue standing high above its top. The men moved to each side of the framework as the Sikorsky slowly moved forwards. The cables pulled tight again, dragging the statue after the aircraft - but the bar across the container’s floor stopped it.
Like a footballer tripped by a sliding tackle, David began to fall.
In slow motion. The cables and the harness took the strain. Little by little, the giant was lowered towards the waiting frame, each section of which was shaped to support a specific part of the statue’s body. Lower. Fernandez held his breath. David’s sneer now seemed directed at him personally, daring him to have miscalculated . . .
He hadn’t. The statue touched down, the foam compressing, steel creaking - but holding.
‘Secure it!’ he barked. Three of the men lashed the statue down, the others detaching the cables. Fernandez hurried to the container’s open end and jumped out. The Skycrane increased height slightly and edged sideways, hooks banging on the corrugated metal. Inside the container, the team hauled on ropes hanging over its side - pulling up the tarpaulin so the open roof could be covered.
As the grubby blue tarp moved, it revealed the object lying on the ground. The sight almost made Fernandez laugh out loud at its sheer audacity, even though he had thought of it in the first place.
A replica of David.
It was crude, only nine-tenths life size, made of fibreglass where strength was needed, chicken wire and papier mâché and cardboard elsewhere. At close range it looked like a joke, a refugee from a school craft fair. But nobody would see it at close range. All they would see was what they had been told to expect: a priceless national treasure suspended from a helicopter.
He and the truck driver secured the hooks to the harness round the duplicate’s chest, then Fernandez signalled to the Skycrane. The helicopter’s engines shrilled as it increased power, pulling the imitation statue upright, then turning away once its new cargo was clear of the truck.
Fernandez watched the helicopter go. That was the final stage of the plan: the ultimate decoy. The pilot would take the Sikorsky up to ten thousand feet, heading northeast,