Free The Geneva Deception by James Twining Page B

euro’s inexorable climb over the past few months already filtering through the gates.
    ‘Damn these peasants,’ Gallo muttered, leaning on his horn, until a guard appeared and let them through.
    They lurched forward, the gravel spitting out from under their tyres as they shot round to the far side of the fountain.
    ‘First floor,’ Allegra called as she jumped out and headed through the arched entrance, not pausing on this occasion to admire the monumental Bernini staircase that led up to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, the museum that now occupied this former papal residence.
    ‘Police,’ Gallo called, waving his badge at the astonished museum staff as they burst through the entrance and bypassed the queue waiting patiently at the ticket desk.
    Allegra sprinted through first one room, then another, her eyes skipping over the paintings, not entirely sure where it was, but knowing it was here somewhere. Filippo Lippi, Piero de Cosimo…no, not here. Next room. Tintoretto, Bronzino…still nothing. Carry on through. Guercino …
    ‘There,’ she called triumphantly, pointing at the wall.
    ‘Ammàzza!’ Gallo swore, stepping past her for a closer look.
    The large painting showed a bearded man being decapitated by a woman, a sword in her right hand, his hair firmly gripped in her left. He wasnaked, his face contorted into an inhuman scream, his body convulsed by pain, the blood spurting on to a white sheet. Next to the woman stood an old woman, her wrinkled face hungrily absorbing the man’s death, her hands gripping the hem of her mistress’s dress to keep it clear of the blood.
    Gallo held the photograph of the Pantheon crime scene up next to it. There was no question it had been staged to mirror the painting’s composition.
    ‘It’s the same.’
    ‘ Judith and Holofernes ,’ Allegra said slowly. ‘It was only when I saw the photos that I made the connection.’
    ‘And Ricci?’
    ‘ The Crucifixion of Saint Peter in the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo,’ she confirmed. ‘That’s what links your two murders, Colonel. The killers are re-enacting scenes from Caravaggio paintings.’

FOURTEEN
    Amalfi Casino and Hotel Resort, Las Vegas
    17th March - 11.56 p.m.
    Tom had insisted on getting down on to the floor early, guessing that whoever had been sent to meet him would already be in position and that it would help if it looked as though he was keen to do the deal. More importantly, it gave them a chance to see the money, to see that this was for real. It was at Tom’s feet now - twenty million in cash, neatly packed into two aluminium suitcases.
    Twenty million dollars.
    There was a time, perhaps, when he might have considered…But those days were behind him now, although you wouldn’t have guessed it from the obvious reluctance with which Stokes had entrusted the cases to him, and his pointed reminder that they were electronically tagged. Then again, maybe Tom was nałve to haveexpected anything else. All Stokes had to go on was his file, and that told its own, damning story.
    He looked around the blinking, cavernous floor to get his bearings, momentarily disoriented by the tumbrel-clatter of the roulette wheels, the dealers’ barked instructions and the machines’ remorseless chuckling. The place was packed. If Vegas was suffering from the economic slowdown that the press had been so gleefully reporting for the past few months, then it was hiding it well. Either that or it was still in denial.
    He spotted Jennifer at the bar to his left, nursing a coke. Ortiz, meanwhile, was to his right, pretending to play video poker and losing badly. Stokes, he knew, was in the back with the casino’s head of security, watching the screens and coordinating the other agents who had been posted around him. In front of him was a roulette table, the animated abandon with which a noticeably younger crowd were merrily flinging chips on to the baize contrasting with the silent, mesmerised application of