He pushed his plans aside as a tight turn appeared in the headlights. Slowing the truck to a near crawl, he checked his watch. Slightly ahead of schedule - there was still one more gas station to supply before he could return to the depot, but he would be back home in Florence before seven. Then maybe he and Leany could advance their plan for a baby of their own . . .

He guided the tanker round the corner - then braked. A charcoal-grey BMW was slewed across the road, one wheel in the ditch. A woman in a dark suit waved for him to stop.

Giancarlo suppressed a sigh. The BMW was blocking his way. So much for getting home early. Still, he wouldn’t be setting much of an example for any future little Giancarlos if he didn’t help a lady in distress.

He stopped, taking a closer look at the woman. Long, glossy black hair, and dark skin - Indian, perhaps? Probably in her late twenties, and quite attractive, in a businesslike way. He could almost hear Leany reprimanding him for that, but married or not, he still had eyes, didn’t he?

The woman walked towards the truck. Giancarlo climbed out to meet her. ‘Hi,’ he called. ‘Looks like you could use some help.’

She looked briefly into the woods as she advanced. Giancarlo noticed that her features were marred; only her left eye had moved, the right staring fixedly at him. The pale line of a scar ran from forehead to cheek over the socket. A glass eye.

He glanced at the BMW. ‘Are you stuck? I can give you a—’

She whipped out a silenced handgun and shot him three times in the face.

Giancarlo’s lifeless body slumped to the tarmac. A man stepped out of the darkness of the woods. Tall, muscular and dressed entirely in black, Urbano Fernandez regarded the corpse with an expression of mock apology. ‘Poor fellow,’ he said. The language was English, but the accent was smoothly Spanish. ‘Never any pleasantries with you, are there?’ he went on as the woman holstered the gun.

‘A waste of time,’ said Madirakshi Dagdu coldly. As the unfortunate Giancarlo had guessed, she was Indian, her accent thick and stilted - English was a language in which she had only recently needed proficiency. She indicated the truck driver’s body. ‘Dispose of that.’

Fernandez snapped a sarcastic salute. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He pulled on a pair of black leather gloves, pausing to brush his pencil moustache with his fingertips before dragging the corpse into the undergrowth. ‘You didn’t have to be here at all. We don’t need to be, what’s the word? Nursemaided.’

He knew full well what the word was, but took a certain amusement from her frown of deep concentration as she tried to translate it. ‘This operation is more expensive than the others,’ she said once the meaning had come to her. ‘My employers want to be sure their money is being used well.’

‘It will be worth every dollar,’ said Fernandez, dumping the body. There was no point concealing it - the area would be crawling with people soon enough. He went to the tanker. ‘Now, go. Meet me down the road.’

Madirakshi returned to the BMW without a word. Fernandez watched her, thinking it was a shame such an attractive figure was wasted on an ugly personality, then moved to the valves on the tanker’s side as the car reversed out of the shallow ditch.

Even after delivering most of the day’s supplies, the tanker still contained over two thousand litres of petrol. The Spaniard turned the wheel above one of the gaping stainless steel nozzles. Fuel gushed out. He winced at the sharp smell, backing away to avoid being splashed as he opened the valve wider. The gush became a geyser, spraying into the woods.

He climbed into the cab. The engine was still running, so he released the brake and depressed the heavy clutch to put the truck into gear, slowly following the BMW as it sped away.

Petrol spewed over Giancarlo Mistretta’s corpse as the tanker rumbled into the night.

Madirakshi’s only greeting was a cold look. Fernandez ignored it. After tonight, there was only one more job planned, which might not even be necessary if his employers were persuasive enough - and then he would be rid of them and all the freaks in their entourage.

Even before he had fastened his seat belt, the BMW surged past the tanker, heading back up the road. A smeared pool of blood marked where the driver had been shot; Madirakshi stopped level with it.

Fernandez lowered his window. He took a Zippo lighter from a pocket, and with a single practised move flicked it open and lit it. A moment to regard his reflection in the polished metal, then he tossed the lighter into the trees.

Even before it hit the ground, the results were explosive. The highly flammable vapour rising from the pool of petrol ignited, a fireball boiling upwards into the trees and setting them alight. Giancarlo’s fuel-soaked body was consumed by the inferno as easily as the branches. A thick trail of flames raced away down the road.

Fernandez shielded his face from the heat with one gloved hand. ‘Time we left. Quickly.’

Madirakshi needed no further prompting. The BMW roared away. Fernandez looked back as the car reached the corner - to see a huge explosion rip through the forest half a kilometre behind as the tanker blew up, a seething mushroom cloud of blazing orange and yellow rising into the night sky as flaming fuel rained down around it. A moment later, the blast reached him, an earthshaking thump followed by a thunderous roar of air being pulled in to feed the conflagration.

‘Perfect,’ said Fernandez. ‘Now for stage two.’

The BMW raced through the darkened forest, heading for the city of Florence as the trees behind it turned into a wall of fire.

The mercenaries had taken over the apartment that afternoon, Zec tricking the woman into letting them in by claiming to be delivering a parcel. She had been selected during the operation’s exacting planning phase, being the only single occupant of any of the suitable top floor apartments on the narrow Via degli Alfani. Considering what was across the street, it was perhaps inevitable that she was an aspiring artist.

He looked out at the eighteenth-century buildings: the museum complex containing the Galleria dell’Accademia. One of Florence’s top tourist attractions - and home to one of the world’s most famous pieces of art.

Their target.

Zec’s phone rang. Fernandez. ‘Yes?’

‘We’re here. Let us in.’

The Bosnian craned his neck for a better look at the street below. Two figures passed under a streetlight, approaching briskly. Fernandez and the Indian woman. The creases in Zec’s forehead deepened. To him, Dagdu’s presence was almost insulting, a sign that their employer didn’t trust them to carry out the job without supervision. Weren’t all their previous successes, including stealing a set of Chinese terracotta warriors out of their museum in Xi’an, and removing one of Islam’s holiest relics from Mecca itself, enough to prove their prowess? And Interpol was no nearer to catching them now than after their first ‘commission’ eight months earlier. Fernandez’s inside knowledge of how the police worked, how they thought, kept them several steps ahead.

He suppressed his annoyance - she was their paymaster’s representative, after all - and went back to the hall as the entry buzzer rasped. He pushed the button, then waited with slight anxiety for them to climb the stairs. If any of the other residents chose that moment to leave their apartment, and saw their faces . . .

But there were no such problems. The soft clump of boots outside, then a single sharp rap on the door. Zec opened it, and Fernandez and his companion entered.

The Spaniard shared a brief smile of greeting with his second in command. ‘Anything to report?’

‘You’ve made the evening news,’ Zec told him. ‘The fire’s spreading - they’re calling in fire trucks from every surrounding town. And,’ he added meaningfully, ‘helicopters.’

‘Excellent.’ Fernandez dialled a number on his phone. ‘Status?’

‘Air traffic control has our flightplan,’ said the voice at the other end of the line. ‘We’re ready.’

‘Then go.’ He disconnected. ‘Where’s the roof access?’ Zec pointed at a skylight. ‘Okay, let’s get into position.’ He moved to address the rest of the team.

Madirakshi, behind him, looked into the bedroom. ‘What is this?’ she snapped on seeing the prisoner.

‘She won’t be a problem,’ said Zec. ‘She hasn’t seen our faces.’

Madirakshi’s expression was as fixed as her artificial eye. ‘No witnesses.’ She stepped into the bedroom. The bound woman, facing away from the door, twisted against her restraints, making panicked noises. She didn’t need to understand English to recognise the dangerous tone of the new arrival’s voice.

‘If you shoot her, the neighbours might hear,’ Fernandez warned.

‘I don’t need a gun.’ She stopped directly behind the other woman, whose muffled cries became more desperate.

‘Leave her,’ said Zec, coming into the room. ‘I promised she would live if she caused no trouble.’

Madirakshi ignored him. She placed her fingers against her right eye socket and pressed. There was a soft sucking sound, and with a faint plop something dropped into her waiting palm.

Her glass eye, glistening wetly.

Zec had seen many horrific things in his life, but the casual way the woman removed the prosthetic still produced a small shudder of revulsion. Disgust then turned to confusion as she took hold of the eye with both hands and twisted it. There was a click, and it split into two hemispherical halves. What was she doing?

The answer came as she drew her hands apart. Coiled inside the eye was a length of fine steel wire. By the time Zec realised it was a garrotte, Madirakshi had looped it round the defenceless young woman’s throat and pulled it tight.

‘No!’ Zec gasped, but Fernandez put a firm hand on his shoulder to pull him back. The Italian woman couldn’t even cry out, her airway crushed by the razor-sharp wire. She convulsed against the ropes. The chair thumped on the floor; Madirakshi pulled harder, sawing the wire through skin and flesh. Blood flowed down the woman’s neck. Her fingers clenched and clawed . . . then relaxed. One last bump, and the chair fell still.

Madirakshi unwound the garrotte and turned. For the first time, Zec saw her face as it really was, a sunken hole with the eyelids gaping like a tiny mouth where her right eye should have been. Another revolted shudder, accompanied by anger. ‘You didn’t have to do that!’ he said.

‘No witnesses,’ the Indian repeated. She took out a cloth and ran it down the length of the blood-coated wire. The garrotte clean, she re-coiled it, then fastened the two halves of the eye back into a single sphere. Snick. Another practised move, and with a small but unsettling noise of suction the prosthetic was returned to its home. ‘Now. You have a job to do.’

‘We do,’ said Fernandez before Zec could respond. He leaned closer to his lieutenant, adding in a low voice, ‘I think perhaps having a baby has made you go a little soft, Braco. If this is going to be a problem . . .’

‘No problem,’ said Zec stiffly. ‘But I promised her—’

‘Never make promises you might not be able to keep,’ Fernandez told him, before clicking his fingers. The men in the living room looked round as one, ready for action.

Fernandez peered over the edge. Below, Madirakshi left the building. Relieved to be rid of her at last, he backed up and faced his team. ‘Ready?’

The responses were all in the affirmative. Each man was now armed, compact MP5K sub-machine guns fitted with laser sights and suppressors slung on their backs. Other pieces of gear were attached to the harnesses they wore; not mere equipment webbing, but parachute-style straps able to support their bodyweight, and more.

The Spaniard looked at his watch. Five minutes to get everyone across to the roof of the Galleria dell’ Accademia, another five to eliminate the guards and secure the room containing their target, five more to prepare it - and themselves - for extraction . . .

Fifteen minutes to carry out the most audacious robbery in history.

He gestured to one of his men, Franco, who had already secured one end of a line inside the open skylight. At the other end was a barbed metal spear, currently loaded into a custom-built, gas-powered launcher.

Franco had already selected his target, a squat brick ventilation blockhouse poking up from the Galleria’s roof like a periscope. He tilted up the launcher. Fernandez watched him closely. This was a ‘wildcard moment’, the biggest risk in any operation. If the brickwork was too weak to take the weight, if someone heard the noise of launch or clang of impact and looked up at the wrong moment . . .

At least they could minimise the chances of the last. Franco raised a thumb. Another man, Sklar, held up a string of firecrackers, lit the fuse - and flung them down the street.

There was a small square at the Galleria’s southwestern corner. The fireworks landed at its edge. People jumped at the string of little explosions. Once the initial fright passed, some onlookers were annoyed, others amused by the display . . . but they were all looking at the ground.

‘Now,’ said Fernandez.

Franco pulled the trigger. There was a flat thud as compressed nitrogen gas blasted the spear across the street - and a sharp clang as the spearhead pierced the blockhouse.

All eyes below were still on the firecrackers.

Franco put down the launcher and tugged on the line, gingerly at first, then harder. The spear held. He pulled a lever on the launcher’s side to engage a winch mechanism and quickly drew the line taut.

Fernandez gestured to a third man, Kristoff - the smallest and lightest member of the team. The German gave the line a tug of his own to reassure himself that it would hold, then clipped his harness to it and carefully lowered himself off the roof.

The others held their breaths. If the spear came loose, it was all over.

Suspended below the line, Kristoff pulled himself across the street. The cable shuddered, but held firm. Fernandez didn’t take his eyes off the spear. The crackle of fireworks had stopped, and now he could hear the crunch of broken bricks shifting against each other . . .

Kristoff reached the Galleria’s roof.

Mass exhalation. Fernandez realised he was sweating despite the cold. Kristoff detached himself from the line, then secured it around the blockhouse.

Thumbs up.

Fernandez hooked himself to the cable and pulled himself across, followed in rapid succession by the others. He checked his watch as the last man reached the Galleria. They had made it with thirty seconds to spare.

Now for the next stage.

He took out his phone and entered another number. He didn’t lift it to his ear as he pushed the final button, though. He was listening for something else.

Each car contained half a kilogram of C-4 explosive, wired to a detonator triggered by a mobile phone. The phones had been cloned; each shared the same number, ringing simultaneously.

An electrical impulse passed through the detonator—

By the time the booms reached the Galleria dell’ Accademia eight seconds later, the men on the roof were already moving towards their next objectives.

They raced across the rooftops, splitting into four groups of two men each. Zec and Franco comprised one team, reaching their destination first as the others continued past.

The pair dropped on to a section of flat roof where large humming air conditioning units kept the museum’s internal temperature constant. There was a small window just below the eaves of the abutting, slightly taller building. Zec shone a penlight inside. An office, as expected. A glance below the frame revealed a thin electrical cable. The window was rigged with an alarm.

He took a black box from his harness, uncoiling wires and digging a sharp-toothed crocodile clip deeply into the cable to bite the copper wire within. A second clip was affixed on the other side of the window. He pushed a button on the box. A green light came on.

Franco took out a pair of wirecutters and with a single snip severed the cable between the clips.

The light stayed green.

Zec touched his throat-mike to key it. ‘We’re in.’

The Galleria dell’ Accademia is not an especially large museum, so the nightwatch usually consists only of six men. Despite the cultural value of the exhibits to the Italian people, this seemingly small staff is not an issue: any kind of alarm would normally result in a rapid police response.

But on this night, the police had other concerns.

Two guards entered one of the upper floor galleries. Familiarity had turned the art treasures into mundane furniture, the monotony of patrolling the halls punctuated only by check-ins with the security office. So the unexpected crackle of one man’s walkie-talkie got their attention; the next check wasn’t due for twenty minutes. ‘What’s up?’

‘Probably nothing,’ came the static-laden reply. ‘But Hall Three has gone dark. Can you look?’

‘No problem,’ said the guard, giving his companion a wry look. That passed as excitement in their job: checking for faulty light bulbs.

They made their way to a short flight of steps. It was immediately clear there was something wrong with the lights in Hall III, only darkness visible beyond the entrance. One guard took a torch from his belt, and they advanced into the gallery.

Nothing seemed out of place in the torch beam. The second man shrugged, turning to try the light switches—

A pair of eyes seemed to float in the blackness before him.

Before he could make a sound, he was hit in the heart by two bullets from Zec’s MP5K, the suppressor muting the noise of the shots to nothing more than sharp tchacks. His partner whirled - and a gloved hand clamped over his mouth, Franco’s black-bladed combat knife stabbing deep into his throat.

Both bodies were hauled into the shadows. Zec pulled up his balaclava and took the dead guard’s walkie-talkie. ‘Something’s buzzing,’ he said in Italian, the radio’s low fidelity disguising his voice. ‘The camera might have shorted out. Can you check the system?’

‘I’ll run a diagnostic. Hold on.’

Zec dropped the walkie-talkie. The computer would spend the next thirty seconds checking the various cameras and alarms around the building, eventually coming to the conclusion that the camera in Hall III was malfunctioning - unsurprising, since he had shot it.

But while the computer was busy, the security systems would be down.

He keyed the throat-mike. ‘Two down. Go.’

He and his team had reconnoitred the Galleria multiple times over the past month, and he knew exactly where he had entered the building - the upper level of the main stairwell. Right now, another team was also entering on the ground floor.

This part of the mission was a hunt - and a race against time. Find the remaining guards . . . and kill them before they could raise the alarm.

Fernandez knew where two of them would be - the security control room. He and Sklar hurried down the staircase. The position of the remaining two guards was another wildcard, which was why he had chosen entry points that would let his team spread out as quickly as possible. Speed and surprise were everything - it only took one guard to push a panic button . . .

They reached the ground floor. Fifteen seconds before the cameras came back online. Sklar hared off into the main entrance hall. Fernandez, meanwhile, shoved through a door marked Privato and threaded his way along a narrow corridor.

Another door. Five seconds left. He raised his gun and kicked it open.

The guard seated in front of the security monitors looked round in surprise—

Tchack. Tchack. Tchack. The guard crashed off his chair, arms spasming in reflexive response to the three bullets that had just slammed into his skull, splattering blood across the blank monitor screens.

Shit! Where was the other man?

The diagnostic ended, and the monitors came back to life. He spotted one of his men in the Sale Bizantine, another in the Sale Fiorentine. Where were the guards?

There - in the Salone del Colosso. Sklar would be closest to them—

Both guards fell, thrashing in their noiseless death throes as a burst from Sklar’s silenced MP5K cut them down. Confirmation came through his earpiece: ‘Two down.’

Just one man left - but where?

The answer was almost comical in its obviousness. Fernandez rushed out of the control room and headed back up the passage to another door marked WC.

He opened it. A small tiled room, two stalls, one closed . . .

The rapid tchacks from the gun were louder in here, echoing in the confined space. The stall’s wooden door splintered, a startled gasp coming from behind it - along with clanks of shattering porcelain and the dull thud of lead entering flesh. A trickle of water ran out from beneath the door, pinkish rivulets spreading through it.

Six guards dealt with.

Fernandez hurried back into the museum proper, turning left in the entrance hall and looking down the length of the gallery to see his target at the far end.

Michelangelo’s David.

Possibly the most famous sculpture in the world, the Renaissance masterpiece towered above its viewers, over five metres tall even without its pedestal. During the day, illuminated mainly by light coming through the glass dome in the ceiling, the marble statue was a soft off-white, almost blending into the blandly painted walls of the semicircular chamber in which it stood. But at night, side-lit and with its surroundings in shadow, the naked figure stood out starkly, appearing almost threatening, a faint sneer of disdain visible on the young future king’s lips as he prepared to face Goliath in combat.

To Fernandez, the image seemed appropriate. After all, he was the David who defeated the Goliath of the world’s combined law enforcement agencies . . .

You haven’t done it yet, he warned himself as he marched towards the statue, passing more of Michelangelo’s sculptures along the way. Three of his men were already waiting at David’s feet, and he heard footsteps behind - Zec and Franco. As for the last two team members . . .

He looked up at the dome, catching a glimpse of movement outside. They were right where they should be. Everything was on schedule.

‘You know what to do,’ he announced as he reached the statue. ‘Let’s make history.’

‘Or take history,’ said Zec. The two men grinned, then everyone moved into action.

One man ran to a control panel on one wall. It was protected by a locked metal cover, but a moment’s effort with a crowbar took care of that. The others went to the statue itself. Kristoff and Franco climbed on to the plinth, their heads only coming to David’s mid-thigh. They took out coiled straps, wider and much thicker than their own harnesses, and carefully secured them round the statue’s legs.

Once they were in place, Kristoff took out another coil and, keeping hold of the buckle at one end, tossed it upwards. It arced over the statue’s shoulder, dropping down on the other side like a streamer. Another man caught the coil and passed it back between David’s legs to Franco, who ran it through the buckle, connected it to the leg strap and pulled it tight. The process was repeated with a second strap over the other shoulder.

Kristoff quickly used the straps to scale the stone figure’s chest, hanging on with one hand as more straps were thrown to him. Fernandez looked on as his plan literally took shape before his eyes. The growing web was much like the harnesses he and his men were wearing, designed to spread out the weight of the body over as great an area as possible when it was lifted.

In the case of David, that weight was over six tons - plus the pedestal. But that had been planned for.

The Spaniard gestured to the man at the control panel. He pushed a button. A hydraulic rumble came from the floor.

Very slowly, the statue began to rise.

At considerable expense, the Galleria had recently installed a system to protect David from vibrations, whether in the form of earthquakes, city traffic or even the constant footsteps of visitors. Powerful shock absorbers under the pedestal shielded it from tremors - but also allowed it to be elevated for those rare occasions when the statue had to be moved. At full height, there was just enough space for a forklift’s blades to slip beneath the base.

That was all the space Fernandez needed.

Zec and the other man at the statue pushed more straps, thicker still and bearing heavy-duty metal D-rings, under the base. Once that was done, they fastened them over the pedestal, then began to secure the harness to them.

Fernandez took out his phone again, dialling the first number he had called earlier. The answer was heavily obscured by noise. ‘We’re less than two minutes out - but ATC’s issued an alert about us being off course.’

‘We’re almost ready,’ said Fernandez. ‘Just follow the plan.’ He disconnected, hearing knocking from the dome. One of the two figures outside gave him a thumbs up.

Zec rounded the statue. ‘All set. I just hope the harness holds.’

‘It’ll hold,’ Fernandez assured him. He raised his voice. ‘Move back!’ Everyone cleared the area beneath the dome.

The men on the roof had also retreated, one of them pushing a button on a control box—

The explosive charges they had placed round the dome detonated as one.

Glass panels shattered into a billion fragments, the severed steel framework plunging down into the gallery and smashing the marble floor. The horrendous noise echoed through the museum’s halls - followed by the piercing shriek of sirens as vibration sensors throughout the building were triggered.

The police would be on their way. But with attention diverted by the forest fire to the east and the car bombings to the southwest, their response time would be slowed, their numbers reduced.

And Fernandez and his men would be gone.

The two men who had planted the explosives were already rappelling into the museum as the others quickly cleared wreckage out of the way. Even over the alarms the Spaniard could hear another sound, a thudding bass pounding getting louder and louder . . .

The breeze blowing in through the hole was magnified a hundredfold as a helicopter surged into view overhead, the beat of its rotor blades shaking the air. The massive aircraft was a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane, the machine’s name revealing its purpose: to lift extremely heavy objects.

Like Michelangelo’s David.

Cables dropped from the helicopter, heavy hooks on their ends clanging on the cracked marble. Fernandez and his men each took one line and pulled it to the statue. Six cables were attached to the D-rings on the base, while Kristoff and Franco scaled the pedestal again and hooked their lines to the webbing around the great carved figure itself.

Fernandez moved back beneath the hole and looked up. The Skycrane had been painted dark green to match the livery of the Italian Forest Service’s fire-fighting S-64s, its radio transceiver hacked to give air traffic control the identification number of one of the real choppers. But where the Italian aircraft had giant water tanks beneath the long dragonfly spine of their fuselages, this had just a bottomless mockup, thin aluminium concealing a powerful winch.

A wave from Fernandez, and the winch began to draw up the cables.

The men took positions on each side of the statue, hands pressed against the pedestal. The cables pulled tight, the straps creaking as they took the strain. Fernandez watched the marble figure closely, hoping his calculations were right. If the harness didn’t protect David from the worst stresses of the lift, this would get very messy . . .

The pedestal slid off the shock absorbers and ground noisily across the floor. Everyone pushed harder to keep it in a straight line as the lines tightened. They had to get the sculpture directly under the hole before they could escape. The cables scraped on the edge of the ruined dome, glass fragments and pieces of broken masonry raining down.

The Skycrane rose, the statue jerking up and swinging half a metre before the edge of the base crunched against the marble. Fernandez waved angrily at the winch operator. Even minor damage to the statue would affect their payment.

The winchman got the message. The statue lifted again, more gently. Another two metres to go before it was in position. The men kept pushing, guiding it. One and a half, one . . .

The plinth thumped down on the broken floor, grinding glass to powder beneath it. Fernandez saw that the cables were more or less dead centre of the circular hole. ‘Hook up!’ he shouted.

Each man attached his harness to the D-rings. Once they were all secure, Fernandez gave another signal to the winchman.

The engine noise rose to a scream as the helicopter climbed.

Another jolt as the statue left the floor - this time for good. Fernandez and his team were lifted with it. The noise and downwash from the Skycrane were horrific, but if everything went to plan they wouldn’t have to endure it for long . . .

More power. The statue began to twist in the wind as it rose. Fernandez had expected that; there was no way to prevent it. All he could do was hope it didn’t get out of control.

Four metres up, five, the ascent getting faster. The Galleria spun around them - and then they cleared the roof. They were out!

He scanned the city as they continued to climb, the Skycrane lethargically tipping into forward flight and turning northwards. Strobe lights flicked through the streets leading to the museum. The police. Fernandez smiled. They were too late.

There was one police vehicle that concerned him, though. Off to the southwest, he saw a pattern of pulsing lights in the sky. Another helicopter.

Heading towards them.

As he’d expected, it had been called in to provide aerial support for the cops responding to the car bombs - but the Skycrane’s deviation from its course and the alarms at the Galleria dell’ Accademia had caused someone to put two and two together and realise that the explosions were, like the forest fire, just a diversion.

The Skycrane picked up speed, Florence rolling past below. Not quickly enough. The police chopper would rapidly catch up with the lumbering Sikorsky - and for the plan to succeed, the next stage had to be carried out without witnesses.

Fernandez looked ahead, eyes narrowed against the blasting wind. The city’s northern edge was not far away, twinkling lights abruptly replaced by the blackness of woods and fields as the landscape rose into the hills. No roads; only an aircraft could pursue them.

But he had planned for that. Another member of his team was positioned on a rooftop at the city’s periphery, directly beneath the Skycrane’s course.

The Sikorsky and its strange cargo swept over the urban boundary. The police chopper was gaining fast. Glaring blue-white light pinned the Skycrane from behind as the other aircraft’s spotlight flicked on, playing over the green fuselage before tilting down to turn the suspended statue a dazzling white.

The police helicopter closed in—

And suddenly dropped out of the sky in a sheet of flame, spiralling down to smash explosively into the woods beyond the city.

Fernandez’s man on the ground had been armed with a Russian SA-18 anti-aircraft missile, the shoulder-fired weapon homing in on the helicopter’s exhaust and detonating over a kilogram of high explosive on impact.

The Spaniard smiled. The Italian air force would now be called in to hunt down the helicopter - which was exactly what he wanted them to do. Because a few minutes from now, he and his men would be putting as much distance between themselves and the Skycrane as possible.

More dark forests below as the Sikorsky descended and slowed. They were nearing their destination: an isolated road winding through the hills. He spotted a red light flashing amongst the trees. The last team member, waiting with the truck.

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, then lock the controls to put it into a slow but steady descent - and he and the winchman would bail out, parachuting down. When military aircraft intercepted the helicopter, they would be unable to take any action for fear of damaging the statue, leaving them impotently following until it eventually smashed down in the hills some fifty kilometres away . . . by which time the real statue would be safely on its way to its new owner.

He laughed, unable to hold in his delight any longer. They had done it! He really was the greatest thief in history. One more job, and the team would receive the rest of their hundred million dollar payment - with half of it going to its leader and mastermind. And the final robbery, in San Francisco, would be a piece of cake in comparison to what they had just achieved.

The tarp roof was secure, the rear doors closed. Still smiling, Fernandez climbed into the cab and signalled the driver to head off into the darkness.