The Lost Relic Read Online Free PDF Page B

aggression.
    The big guy just smiled, and then quite casually came out with a string of obscenities so appalling and confrontational that Beppe reeled as if he’d been slapped. That was when the argument kicked off in earnest, insults flying back and forth as Beppe and his companions squared up to the pickup guys, toe to toe in the middle of the road.
    The three were so taken up with yelling and threatening, prodding and shoving that they’d forgotten all about the black Audi Q7 that had been following them. Too preoccupied to notice that, like the Nissan pickup, it had two men up front and three sitting calmly in the back. And none of them noticed when the Audi’s front doors opened quietly.
    The driver of the Audi was Spartak Gourko. Sitting next to him in the passenger seat was Anatoly Shikov. Gourko’s hair was freshly razed to his scalp in a severe buzz-cut. While Anatoly liked to look stylish, Gourko didn’t make the effort. There was little point, not with the disfigurement of the mass of scar tissue that extended down the left side of his face from temple to jaw. An old fragmentation grenade wound from the first Chechen War, it twisted his mouth and brow into a permanent scowl that made him look even more pissed off than he nearly always was.
    Anatoly was pleased with his little scheme so far. It was a lot more inventive than his father’s. The idea of getting one of their Italian associates to call up pretending to order more materials for the art gallery grounds had occurred to him on the flight. Naturally, the Italians were under the impression that the whole thing was his father’s idea, so nobody questioned anything.
    And this way was going to be so much more fun.
    OK, so the old man might be a little pissed off at him for altering one or two minor details of the plan – but as long as he got what he wanted in the end, what did it really matter? Ends and means, and all that. Wasn’t like his father hadn’t done some crazy shit himself, back in the day when he was coming up. Anatoly was well versed in the legend of the hardest son of a bitch who’d ever walked the earth. He only wanted to measure up, that was all. And have fun doing it.
    Anatoly smiled quietly to himself as he climbed out of the car and he and Gourko walked unnoticed up behind the arguing Italians. He nodded to the pickup driver. The big guy’s name was Rocco Massi, and he was one of their main contacts over here. Anatoly wasn’t exactly sure, but he thought Massi’s boss was a friend of his old man’s. The rest of the Italian crew were called Bellomo, Garrone, Scagnetti and Caracciolo. Anatoly couldn’t remember which was which. He trusted them well enough, though not as much as his own guys. Gourko of course, then Rykov, Petrovich, Turchin. Only Petrovich knew much Italian. Rykov seemed not to speak anything at all. But Anatoly hadn’t picked them for their communication skills. They were the hardest, meanest, nastiest bunch of motherfuckers you could find anywhere in Russia. Apart from the old man, naturally.
    Anatoly’s hand darted inside his jacket and came out with an automatic pistol fitted with a long sound suppressor. Without pausing a beat, he raised the gun at arm’s length and blew off the back of Beppe’s head at point-blank range.
    In the open air, the sound of the silenced gunshot was like a muffled handclap.
    Beppe went straight down on his face.
    Before Mauro and Carmine could react, Spartak Gourko had reached for the pistol holstered under his jacket and Rocco Massi had produced an identical weapon from behind the hip of his jeans. Gourko’s bullet took Carmine between the eyes; Mauro got one in the chest. Carmine was dead instantly and his body slumped across Beppe’s, their blood intermingling on the road.
    Mauro didn’t die right away. Groaning in agony, he tried to crawl back towards the Mercedes, as if somehow there was some hope of getting in and escaping. Rocco Massi was about to finish off Mauro with