1
‘Stop! I heard something.’
Instantly both figures froze into immobility beside the wall. They could almost have been twins, though they were unrelated, both slimly built men of a little below average height, wearing black close-fitting clothing and dark-coloured climbing shoes. Even their hair was black, and they had the typically swarthy complexion of people who live around the Mediterranean.
Neither man had begun his working life as a professional thief. They had both worked as members of an acrobatic troupe in a travelling circus, honing their climbing skills to a high degree of perfection. But after retiring they’d quickly acquired a reputation in certain circles in Italy: these men could be relied upon to get into the most heavily protected of buildings, complete the job they had been hired to do, and keep their mouths shut afterwards.
And that was precisely why they were then in the midst of the Vatican City, carrying out perhaps the most dangerous commission they had ever been given.
For a minute, the men remained immobile, two dark and silent shadows against the light-coloured stone of the wall, listening intently. Then Stefan took a half step closer to his companion and murmured in his ear.
‘What did you hear?’
‘It sounded like a stone falling, something like that. Are you sure there are only two guards on duty tonight?’
‘That’s what we’ve been told: one two-man patrol, nothing more; and they should be a long way from where we are right now. I’ve checked the patrol route, and the gardens are not a high priority.’
‘I hope you’re right. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. Let’s go.’
Dragan grinned at him, his teeth a white slash in the darkness. Then he opened the black fabric rucksack at his feet, extracted a metal grappling hook, the points and shaft coated in thick rubber to muffle any noise, and seized the rope about two feet from the end where it was attached to the hook. He whirled the hook in a circle half a dozen times, then released it. Both men watched critically as the hook sailed up into the air and then vanished over the top of the wall. There was a muffled clunk as the hook came to rest somewhere out of sight.
Cautiously, Dragan reeled it in, pulling the rope towards him and down the wall hand over fist. Suddenly the rope went taut, and he took a step backwards and peered up towards the top of the wall.
‘I think I can see it,’ he whispered. ‘Just check it out, will you?’
Stefan reached into his pocket and took out a small but powerful torch, black tape placed in a criss-cross pattern over the lens to cut down the amount of light that would be emitted. When he switched it on the narrow beam clearly showed two of the four hooks jutting out over the top of the wall.
‘That looks secure to me,’ he said quietly. ‘Do you want to go first?’
‘Yes.’
Dragan picked up his rucksack, closed the flap and slung it over his shoulders. Then he seized the rope with both hands and climbed up it with as little difficulty as if he’d been ascending a flight of stairs. At the top of the wall, he paused for a moment to check the positioning of the grappling hook, then gestured for his companion to join him.
Moments later, both men were in position, sitting astride the wall as they repositioned the hook so that they could descend into the gardens that stretched out before them. Once they were down at ground level again, this time on the inside, Dragan flicked the rope expertly to dislodge it. The rope represented their escape route, and they dare not leave it in position in case the roving patrol passed by the wall and noticed it dangling there. As soon as the hook fell to the ground, he picked it up, coiled the rope and replaced it in his rucksack.
‘That was the easy bit,’ he said. ‘Now we have to do a bit of proper climbing.’
Neither man had set foot inside the Vatican before, but they moved with unerring certainty. Both of them had spent the previous two weeks studying detailed plans of the Holy See, and they now knew their way around with as much familiarity as if they’d been regular visitors.
Their objective was the Apostolic Library, located off the Belvedere Courtyard underneath the Apostolic Palace, the Pope’s official residence. The library had been founded in 1420 by Pope Nicholas V with an initial endowment of some nine thousand books, but was later incorporated into the Vatican Museum and by 1965 it contained more than a quarter of a million volumes.
The two men couldn’t enter the building at ground level — that would be impossible to do undetected — so they would be taking a very different route to get inside. The Stradone dei Giardini runs along the side of the Belvedere Courtyard, between the line of linked buildings and the gardens to the west, and that would be where they would make their entrance. A couple of minutes later the two men stopped near the Fountain of the Sacrament to make absolutely sure they were unobserved before they crossed over to the side of the building.
‘I don’t see or hear anything.’
‘Neither do I. Let’s go.’
The two dark shapes, deeper black shadows in the blackness of the night, flitted silently across the roadway, then crouched down beside the wall of the building, again checking in all directions. The next few minutes would be the most crucial of the entire operation, and if they were spotted neither man was in any doubt about what would happen to them.
‘Still clear,’ Stefan said.
Dragan nodded, and then both men took a step back and stared upwards at the vertical wall that formed one side of the building. Ten feet away from where they were standing, a water pipe ran all the way down the wall from the gutters at the edge of the roof high above them. The pipe was in excellent condition — the Vatican, as one of the richest organizations in the world, didn’t stint on the maintenance costs of its buildings — and within seconds the dark shape of one of the two men, a coil of rope looped around his shoulders, was already a dozen feet off the ground and climbing swiftly up towards the roof.
They didn’t need to climb all the way up. Near the top of the building, a balcony beckoned, though it was a few metres from where the water pipe ran down the wall. But just below the balcony was a narrow ledge, barely wide enough for a human foot, and that would provide the means of access they needed.
When he got almost opposite the balcony, about thirty feet above the ground, Dragan stopped to catch his breath — he wasn’t as young, or as fit, as he used to be — locking his hands around the back of the water pipe while his climbing shoes rested on one of the junctions. Then he stretched out his right foot, the thin sole allowing him to test his foothold on the ledge before he trusted it with his full weight.
It felt solid, and after a couple of seconds he released his grip on the pipe and flattened himself against the wall as he began edging his way along the ledge. When he neared the balcony, he reached up, stretching as high as he could go, until his hand closed around the carved stone that formed the top of the wall around it. He took a firm grip, then pulled himself up and onto the balcony itself.
Moments later, he lowered the climbing rope he’d been carrying and waited while his companion attached their two rucksacks to the end of it. Then he hauled it up to the balcony and waited a couple of minutes for Stefan to follow in his footsteps and climb up the pipe.
At the back of the balcony was a set of double doors flanked by two windows, all of which were locked, a fact that surprised neither man. They had expected no less, but glass is fragile, and once they were satisfied that the roving patrol they’d been told about was nowhere in sight, the curved end of a crowbar swiftly disposed of one of the panes of glass in the door, and within a minute both men were standing inside the building, the door closed again behind them.