Midnight Angels (40 page)

“What do you think?” Edwards asked.

“I think Kate is as much your daughter as she is Frank’s and Andrea’s,” MacNamera said. “And knowing that, I am free of worry. You should be as well.”

“I have never worried about her skill,” Edwards said.

“So what concerns you, then?”

“The letting go,” Edwards said. “I’ll be losing both Kate and the Society in one fell swoop. Up to now, those have been my anchors, nurturing both, taking pride in watching them grow and develop, and now neither of the two will need me. My mission will be complete. I’ll be irrelevant.”

“Would you prefer to trade places with me?” MacNamera asked with a harsh laugh.

Edwards turned and looked over at his friend of many decades. “No,” he said. “But I do hate the thought of losing you. In our line of work, it’s not often we find friends.”

MacNamera turned away from Edwards. “In that case,” he finally said, “the Raven may have bitten off a bigger bite than even he can swallow—two desperate men and a young woman out to claim her destiny. That’s a powerful force to push back against.”

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Edwards said.

He released the brake, shifted gears, and eased the car back out onto the streets.

CHAPTER
18

T
HEIR BACKS TO A CLOSED STALL ON THE PONTE VECCHIO, KATE
and Marco gazed up at the windows of the Vasari Corridor, the dim light of early dawn about to break.

“I hope Rumore’s informant was correct,” Marco said. “On the surface, it doesn’t make sense. Why would the Raven choose this place to do battle?”

“In a way, it makes perfect sense,” Kate said. “There are multiple escape routes here—the Pitti Palace on one end, Palazzo Vecchio on the other, the church of San Felicita in the middle. Besides, the corridor itself is lined with nothing but windows. No matter what occurs inside, the Raven knows he will have to make his way
outside
, and this affords him the best routes.”

“But what about all the security?” Marco said. “He might be able to get away from us, but how does he escape the guards?”

Kate looked at him and smiled. “We did it, and we had no idea what we were doing,” she said. “Besides, there won’t be as much security as you would normally expect to find. Rumore is having the place cleared, except for a handful of selected officers.”

“Why would he go and do something that foolish?” Marco said.

“He didn’t share his reasons with me,” Kate said, “but I’m sure one of them had to do with the issue of trust. The Raven has countless people on his payroll, so it would make sense that any number of them might be security guards.”

“A bit ironic, isn’t it, that our adventure might end where it began?” Marco said. “Had we not found the Angels, this would be just another
wonderful morning in Florence, and the only people walking those halls would be tourists, guides, and guards—and not a single one of them would be at risk.”

“This day has been coming for decades,” Kate said, “back to when I was a little girl. If it wasn’t the Angels, it would have been some other unexpected discovery that set the events in motion. No matter what, though, it was going to happen.”

“Do you think it’s worth it, in the end?” Marco asked. “You could lose quite a bit here today if it turns against us, people you care about and who have been a close part of your life for years. All for sculptures whose existence Michelangelo himself never even bothered to acknowledge.”

Kate turned away from him and gazed down the street leading away from the Ponte Vecchio, the morning chill not yet burned off by the arriving sun, the nearby Arno making itself heard.

“It was worth it for my parents,” she said in a barely audible voice, “and it is worth it for Professor Edwards and for every member of the Society. The same holds true for the Raven and his group. And yes, it is worth it for me. It is who I am. It is who I’m choosing to be. I think that’s what Rumore was, in his own direct fashion, trying to tell you back at the restaurant. You are the only one here today who hasn’t chosen this.”

“I’m here because of my concern for you,” Marco said. “I value the discovery that we made together, but forgive me, despite its artistic merit and financial value, I don’t see the point in having to kill someone in order to secure the works. Does it truly matter to the outside world if the Angels belong to the Society or the Immortals or to some private individual who paid a king’s ransom for them? Who possesses them should be of no importance. I think even Michelangelo himself would agree with that. I doubt very much he would have encouraged murder, even if it were in the name of art, especially his own.”

“It matters to me,” Kate said, her words lit, her feelings bruised by his remarks. “It has never been about possessing any of the works the Society has discovered. In fact, the opposite is what has always held true and will continue to be the one rule that guides us. It is not just about keeping the works alive but also allowing those works to be kept by the very people or place for which they were intended.”

“I didn’t mean to anger you,” Marco said. “I guess it’s more my nerves talking than me. It’s changed me, meeting you and setting out on this
path, pretty much following your tracks. For the better, I think. I always seemed to live in fear, not wanting to draw attention to myself, preferring to leave things as I found them, often the last to get involved in any sort of activity that had the slightest chance to have a light shine its way. And I still lack the courage it takes to tackle such challenges, certainly to the degree you do or to the level of Rumore. I guess what I’m trying to tell you is I’m afraid. Not just for myself, but for both of us.”

Kate leaned closer to Marco. “I’m afraid, too,” she said quietly. “That’s why I’m so glad you’re with me. I know you will be there to protect me. Remember, it’s always the brave ones who show the most fear.”

“Then I’m the bravest man in the world,” Marco whispered back.

She moved her head away from his neck, gazed into his eyes, then reached up and kissed him.

CHAPTER
19

E
DWARDS WALKED DOWN THE STEPS OF THE FIRST PORTION OF
the empty Vasari Corridor, his footsteps silenced by thick carpeting, small drops of blood dripping down his fingers from his shoulder wound. His path was bordered by large portraits of dukes and duchesses now centuries deceased, relatives of the rich Medici bloodline or benefactors of the arts. There were 1,200 such portraits in all, covering the more than one mile long corridor, each kept dust free and away from the potential damage of direct sunlight. Every fifteen feet or so a small circular window overlooked the streets below, each one designed by Michelangelo himself on assignment from the Medici family. He was told to make the windows so it would be easier to look out than to look in. In place of a railing, a thick rope ran through a series of iron handles, serving as a guide down the massive corridor, broken up every quarter mile by a locked prison gate, opened four times a day by a guard. A security camera rigged in the top left-hand corner of each room backed up the human surveillance.

The ceilings were high and solid, the width of the hall about a dozen feet, the walls made of stone. The corridor began at the Palazzo Pitti, passed over the church of San Felicita, then crossed the entire length of the Ponte Vecchio, which, at the time it was built in 1565, had been a marketplace that sold fresh slaughtered pigs. At its farthest point north the corridor spread out to the right across a threshold that ran along the Uffizi, where a small bridge allowed access to the Palazzo Vecchio. There was one large window overlooking the Arno. Then there was the quirky detail toward the end of the corridor: One of the walls was not as thick as the others. This wall, flat and smooth, bordered the bedroom of a Renaissance
family not eager to move their home to accommodate Giorgio Vasari’s vision. So Vasari, not one to waste time, built around their home.

On the surface, the Vasari Corridor was one of the safest and most secure locations in Florence.

“It’s magnificent, is it not?” the Raven asked. He was standing several feet away from Edwards in the middle of the stairwell, arms folded across his chest. “The artwork leaves a bit to be desired, I admit, but the structure itself is stunning.”

“The paintings are originals,” Edwards said, turning to gaze up at one of them—an austere-looking woman with dark hair pulled rigidly away from her face, and eyes the shape of almonds. “They would still net you a nice profit on the black market.”

“It would take a dozen such corridors lined with thousands of ghastly faces to fetch the price I seek,” the Raven said.

“Then I suggest you go in search of them, because the Midnight Angels will never belong to you.”

“Not even if I agree to spare your life?” the Raven asked. “Or hers?”

Edwards shook his head and moved closer to the Raven. “It ends here and now,” he said.

“And I will have the pleasure to witness it,” MacNamera said. He was standing a half-dozen steps above them, the ever-present cigarette hanging from his lower lip.

The Raven lowered his head. A small smile creased his face, his eyes on Edwards. “And here I trusted you would be all alone,” he said. “How very foolish of me, wouldn’t you say?”

“How ‘alone’ was our friend David?” Edwards asked MacNamera.

“Two of his men were in the lower portion of the corridor,” MacNamera said, “and a third was hidden in the passageway over by the Uffizi. They are no longer Immortals.”

“You always thought yourself better at this game,” Edwards said to the Raven, “and, in many respects, you were right. But with such an accomplishment there comes a price, and yours is to never be trusted.”

The Raven held his smile as he glared at Edwards. “Your instincts are on the mark, which is probably why Frank and Andrea chose you over me. That was their error. True, you did make the group large, rich, powerful. But I would have made it all that and more. I would have made sure
the Society was feared. Were I in your place and had my hands on such a rare discovery, no one would have dared threaten to take it from me.”

“The thing about words, David,” Edwards said, “is they never guarantee a result. You are no closer to the Angels now than you were before their discovery. You’ve gained nothing and have lost much—the streets of Florence are littered with the bodies of your men.”

The Raven leaned closer to Edwards and widened his smile. “None of those poor souls mean anything to me,” he whispered. “I am not a general who cares about his troops. But I believe you are.”

He spun away from Edwards, crouched down on one knee, pulled a gun from a side holster and aimed it at MacNamera. He fired off three rounds, finding his mark with two of them. The force of the bullets caused MacNamera’s arms to flail out, and he landed faceup with a muted thud on the carpeted steps, the unlit cigarette now resting across his still and bloodstained chest.

Edwards grabbed the Raven from behind, the weapon tumbling to the ground, and the two men slid together down a number of steps. Edwards struggled to get a grip on the Raven, hampered by his shoulder wound and the damage to his leg. The Raven rained hard punches on his shoulder and chest, further weakening his hold. A knee to the groin and a sharp hook to the stomach allowed the Raven to maneuver away from Edwards and get up to a kneeling position. As he reached for the discarded gun, Edwards caught him from behind and wrapped his good arm around his neck, bracing a knee against the center of his back, the Raven gasping for air, the gun still out of reach.

An elbow thrown by the Raven then landed square in Edwards’s stomach and forced him to loosen his grip. It allowed the Raven to push Edwards up against a wall, the professor’s wounded shoulder taking the full brunt of the hit, causing him to gag for air.

On his knees, his wounded arm dangling by his side, Edwards’s face was a mask of welts and emerging bruises, his vision clouded by the blood splattered across his nose and eyes. The Raven stood up, grabbed the thick white rope that served as a railing, and wrapped it in a U-shape around the professor’s neck. He stood above him now, working at full strength, pushing down on Edwards with his right knee wedged into the small of his back, lifting the rope upward, straining to drain him of air.

The Raven used the wall to enforce his back and stretched the rope with the full force of his upper body, Edwards futilely tugging at the rope, eyes closed, desperately trying to get back on his feet. “Where is your beloved Society now?” the Raven shrieked. “Where are they when their leader is most in need?”

Edwards reached up and scratched at the Raven’s face, the desperate movement of his fingers digging deep into flesh and causing thin rivers of blood to flow down the other man’s right cheek.

“And where is your successor?” the Raven continued, ignoring the pain, tugging the rope even harder, eager to draw out a last painful breath from the mouth of his longest living enemy. “Where is the young woman you gave up so much to raise? Why is she not here to see this? Smart enough to uncover a master work, but not clever enough to deduce where we would meet?”

The Raven could feel the life before him slipping away, and gave the rope one final, vicious tug before releasing it. He leaned against the blood-smeared wall, watching the professor crumble to the floor, his head resting on one step, his body curled on another. “Perhaps she simply didn’t care enough,” he whispered. “Perhaps indeed she is mine after all.”

The Raven looked down at the body of Professor Richard Dylan Edwards, head of the Vittoria Society, for a few quiet moments. Then he stepped around him and slowly made his way down the steps of the Vasari Corridor.

CHAPTER
20